The Last Continent

is a deckchair, sir. So being sat on is a perfectly normal activity for him, I suppose.”
    “We must find a cure, Stibbons. This is too strange—”
    “Coo-ee, gentlemen!”
    There was activity in front of the window. It centered around a vision in pink, although admittedly the sort of vision associated with the more erratic kind of hallucinogen.
    In theory there is no dignified way for a lady of a certain age to climb through a window, but nevertheless this one was attempting it. In fact she moved with more than dignity, which is something that is given away free with kings and bishops; what she had was respectability, which is homemade out of cast iron. However, at some point she would have to show a bit of ankle, and she was wedged awkwardly on the sill while trying to prevent this from happening.
    The Senior Wrangler coughed. If he had been wearing a tie he would have straightened it.
    “Ah,” said Ridcully. “The inestimable Mrs. Whitlow. Someone go and give her a hand, Stibbons.”
    “I’ll help,” said the Senior Wrangler, just a little faster than he meant. *
    The University’s housekeeper turned and spoke to someone unseen beyond the window and then turned back, her shouting-at-subordinates expression briefly visible before it was eclipsed by her much sunnier talking-to-wizards one.
    The Chair of Indefinite Studies had once upset the Senior Wrangler by saying that the housekeeper had a face full of chins, but there was a glossiness about her that put some people in mind of a candle that had been kept in the warm for too long. There wasn’t anything approaching a straight line anywhere on Mrs. Whitlow, until she found that something hadn’t been dusted properly, when you could use her lips as a ruler.
    Most of the Faculty walked in dread of her. She had strange powers that they couldn’t quite get a grip on, like the ability to get the beds made and the windows washed. A wizard who could wield a staff crackling with power against dreadful monsters from some ghastly region was nevertheless quite capable of picking up a feather duster by the wrong end and seriously injuring himself with it. At Mrs. Whitlow’s whim people’s clothes got washed and socks got darned. * If anyone annoyed her, they found their study spring-cleaned more often than was good for them, and since to a wizard his room is as personal an item as his trouser pockets this was a terrible vengeance.
    “Ai just thought you gentlemen would like a morning snack,” she said, as the wizards helped her down. “So Ai took the liberty of getting the gels to put together a cold collation. Ai’ll just go and fetch it…”
    The Archchancellor stood up hastily. “Well done, Mrs. Whitlow.”
    “Er…a morning snack?” said the Senior Wrangler. “It looks like mid-afternoon to me…” His tone made it clear that if Mrs. Whitlow wanted it to be the morning, he wasn’t going to cause any trouble.
    “Speed of light crossing the Disc,” said Ponder. “We are close to the Rim, I’m sure. I’m trying to remember how you tell the time by looking at the sun.”
    “I should leave it for a while,” said the Senior Wrangler, squinting under his hand. “It’s too bright to see the numbers at the moment.”
    Ridcully nodded happily. “I’m sure we could all do with a snack,” he said. “Something suitable for the beach, perhaps.”
    “Cold pork and mustard,” said the Dean, waking up.
    “Possibly some beer,” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “And have we got any of those pies, you know, the ones with the egg inside them?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Although I must say I’ve always thought that it was rather cruel to the chicken—”
    There was a soft little sound, very similar to the one you get, aged around seven, when you stick your finger in your mouth and flick it out again quickly and think it is incredibly funny.
    Ponder turned his head, dreading the sight he was about to see.
    Mrs. Whitlow had a tray of cutlery in one hand and was prodding ineffectually at the air with the stick that she held in the other.
    “Ai only moved it to get things through,” she said. “Now Ai can’t seem to quate find where the silly thing is supposed to go.”
    Where there had been a dark rectangle opening into the geographer’s dingy study, there was now only waving palms and sunlit sand. Strictly speaking, it could be said to be an improvement. It depended on your point of view.

Rincewind surfaced, gasping for breath. He’d