Thud!

head it would wash everything away. Some days, he was sure he could hear its distant roar…
    Shouting incoherent thanks, he leapt down as the coach slowed, flailed to stay upright, and skidded into his driveway. The front door was already opening when he raced toward it, scattering gravel, and there was Willikins holding up The Book. Vimes grabbed it and pounded up the stairs as, down in the city, the clocks began to mark various approximations of the hour of six o’clock.
    Sybil had been adamant about not having a nursemaid. Vimes, for once, had been even more adamant that they got one, and a head cavern girl for the pedigree dragon pens outside. A body could only do so much, after all. He’d won. Purity, who seemed a decent type, had just finished settling Young Sam into his cot when Vimes staggered in. She gave him about one third of a curtsy before she caught his pained expression and remembered last week’s impromptu lecture on The Rights of Man, and then she hurried out. It was important that no one else was here. This moment in time was just for the Sams.
    Young Sam pulled himself up against the cot’s rails, and said “Da!” The world went soft.
    Vimes stroked his son’s hair. It was funny, really. He spent the day yelling and shouting and talking and bellowing…but here, in this quiet time smelling (thanks to Purity) of soap, he never knew what to say. He was tongue-tied in the presence of fourteen-month-old baby. All the things he thought of saying, like “Who’s Daddy’s little boy, then?” sounded horribly false, as though he’d got them from a book. There was nothing to say nor, in this soft pastel room, anything that needed to be said.
    There was a grunt from under the cot. Dribble the dragon was dozing there. Ancient, fireless, with ragged wings and no teeth, he clambered up the stairs every day and took up station under the cot. No one knew why. He made little whistling noises in his sleep.
    The happy silence enveloped Vimes, but it couldn’t last. There was The Reading Of The Picture Book to be undertaken. That was the meaning of six o’clock.
    It was the same book, every day. The pages of said book were rounded and soft where Young Sam had chewed them, but to one person in this nursery this was the book of books, the greatest story ever told. Vimes didn’t need to read it anymore. He knew it by heart.
    It was called “Where’s My Cow?”
    The un-identified complainant has lost their cow. That was the story, really.
    Page one started promisingly:
Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes baa!
It is a sheep!
No, that’s not my cow!
    Then the author began to get to grips with their material:
Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes naaaay!
It is a horse!
No, that’s not my cow!
    At this point, the author had reached an agony of creation and was writing from the racked depths of their soul.
Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes HRUUUGH!
It is a hippopotamus!
No, that’s not my cow!
    This was a good evening. Young Sam was already grinning widely and crowing along with the plot.
    Eventually, the cow would be found. It was that much of a page-turner. Of course, some suspense was lent by the fact that all other animals were presented in some way that could have confused a kitten who perhaps had been raised in a darkened room. The horse was standing in front of a hat stand, as they so often did, and the hippo was eating at a trough against which was an upturned pitchfork. Seen from the wrong direction, the tableau might look for just one second like a cow…
    Young Sam loved it, anyway. It must have been the most cuddled book in the world.
    Nevertheless, it bothered Vimes, even though he’d got really good at the noises and would go up against any man in his rendition of the HRUUUGH! But is this a book for a city kid? When would he ever hear these noises? In the city, the only sound those animals would make was “sizzle.” But the nursery was full of the conspiracy, with bah-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked.
    One evening, after a trying day, he’d tried the Vimes street version:
Where’s my daddy?
Is that my daddy?
He goes “Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!”
He is Foul Ol’ Ron!
No, that’s not my daddy!
    It had been going really well when Vimes heard a meaningful little cough from the doorway, wherein stood Sybil. Next day, Young Sam, with a child’s unerring instinct for this sort of thing, said “Buglit!” to Purity. And that,