The Last Continent

comparatively; in fact, his mates had all, without discussion, taken one step backwards in the choreography of caution.
    “G’day!” he said nervously.
    Rincewind gave him a friendly wave, and it was only halfway through when he remembered that he was still holding the shears. Daggy hadn’t forgotten about them.
    “Er…we ain’t got five hundred squids till we get paid—”
    Rincewind wasn’t certain how to deal with this. “No worries,” he said. This covered most things.
    “…so if yew’re gonna be around…”
    “I just want to get to Bugarup as soon as possible,” said Rincewind.
    Daggy kept smiling but turned around and went into another huddle with the rest of the shearers. Then he turned back.
    “…maybe we could sell a few things…”
    “I’m not bothered about the money, actually,” said Rincewind loudly. “Just point me in the direction of Bugarup. No worries.”
    “Yew don’t want the money?”
    “No worries.”
    There was another huddle. Rincewind heard hissed comments of “Get him outta here right now .”
    Daggy turned back. “I got a horse you can have,” he said. “It’s worth a squid or two.”
    “No worries.”
    “And then you’ll be able to ride away…?”
    “She’ll be right. No worries.”
    It was an amazing phrase. It was practically magical all by itself. It just…made things better. A shark’s got your leg? No worries. You’ve been stung by a jellyfish? No worries! You’re dead? She’ll be right! No worries! Oddly enough, it seemed to work.
    “No worries,” he said again.
    “Got to be worth a squid or two, that horse,” Daggy said again. “Practically a bloody racehorse.”
    There was some sniggering from the crowd.
    “No worries?” said Rincewind.
    Daggy looked for a moment as if he was entertaining the suggestion that maybe the horse was worth more than five hundred squid, but Rincewind was still dreamily holding on to the shears and he thought better of it.
    “Get you to Bugarup in no time, that horse,” he said.
    “No worries.”
    A couple of minutes later it was obvious even to Rincewind’s inexperienced eye that while you could race this horse, it wouldn’t be sensible to race it against other horses. At least, ones that were alive. It was brown, stubby, mostly a thatch of mane, with hooves the size of soup bowls, and it had the shortest legs Rincewind had ever seen on anything with a saddle. The only way you could fall off would be to dig a hole in the ground first. It looked ideal. It was Rincewind’s kind of horse.
    “No worries,” he said. “Actually…one small worry.”
    He dropped the shears. The shearers took a step back.
    Rincewind went over to the corral and looked down at the ground, which was churned from the hoofprints of the sheep. Then he looked at the back of the shearing shed. For a moment he was sure there was the outline of a kangaroo…
    The shearers approached him cautiously as he banged on the sun-bleached planks, shouting, “I know you’re in there!”
    “Er, that’s what we call wood,” said Daggy. “Woo-od,” he added, for the hard-of-thinking. “Made into a wa-all.”
    “Did you see a kangaroo walk into this wall?” Rincewind demanded.
    “Not us, boss.”
    “It was a sheep at the time!” Rincewind added. “I mean, it’s normally a kangaroo but I’ll swear it turned into that sheep!”
    The shearers shuffled uneasily.
    “You’re not going to say anything about woolly jumpers, are you?” said one, almost timorously.
    “What? What’s knitwear got to do with it?”
    “That’s a mercy, anyway,” the small shearer mumbled.
    “You know, it’s been doing that all the time ,” said Rincewind. “I thought there was something wrong with that beer poster!”
    “Something wrong with the beer, too?”
    “I’m not putting up with any more kangaroo nonsense. I’m off home,” said Rincewind. “Where’s that horse?”
    It was standing where they’d left it. He waved a finger at it.
    “And no talking!” he said, as he swung his leg over it. This simply resulted in him standing over the horse.
    He was sure that somewhere under the overhanging mane something sniggered.
    “Yew got to kinda sag down,” said Daggy. “And then you kinda lift your legs kinda up.”
    Rincewind did so. It was like sitting on an armchair.
    “You sure this is a horse?”
    “Won it in a game of Two Up from a bloke from Goolalah,” said Daggy. “Got to be tough, coming from the mountains. They breeds ’em