Unseen Academicals

are no trouble to anybody, but we’re getting some weird ones now.’
    ‘That woman they put in the Watch last month, for one,’ said the old lady. ‘The weird one from out Ephebe way. Gust of wind caught her sunglasses and three people turned into stone.’
    ‘She was a Medusa,’ said Glenda, who had read about that in the Times . ‘The wizards managed to turn them back again, though.’
    ‘Well, what I’m saying is,’ started the man who had nothing against dwarfs, ‘we don’t mind anyone, so long as they mind their own business and don’t do any funny stuff.’
    This was the rhythm of the world to Glenda; she’d heard it so many times. But the feeling of the crowd was now very much against the Sisters. Sooner or later somebody was going to pick up a stone. ‘I’d get out of here now,’ she said, ‘get out and go back to the lady you work for. I should do that right now, if I were you.’
    ‘Awk! Awk!’ one of them screeched.
    But there were brains in those strange-shaped heads. And the three Sisters were clearly bright enough to want to keep them there and ran for it, hopping and leaping like herons until what seemed like cloaks turned out to be wings, which pounded on the air as they sought for height. There was a final scream of ‘Awk! Awk!’
    The driver of the horse bus coughed. ‘Well, if that’s all sorted out then I suggest you all get back on board, please, ladies and gentlemen. And whoever. And don’t forget your candles, mister.’
    Glenda helped Nutt on to a wooden seat. He was holding his toolbox tightly across his knees, as if it would offer some sort of protection. ‘Where were you trying to go?’ she said as the horses began to move.
    ‘Home,’ said Nutt.
    ‘Back to Her?’
    ‘She gave me worth,’ said Nutt. ‘I was nothing and she gave me worth.’
    ‘How can you say you were nothing?’ said Glenda. On the pair of seats in front of them, Trev and Juliet were whispering together.
    ‘I was nothing,’ said Nutt. ‘I knew nothing, I understood nothing, I had no understanding, I had no skill—’
    ‘But that doesn’t mean someone is worthless,’ said Glenda firmly.
    ‘It does,’ said Nutt. ‘But it does not mean they are bad. I was worthless. She showed me how to gain worth and now I have worth.’
    Glenda had a feeling they were working from two different dictionaries. ‘What does “worth” mean, Mister Nutt?’
    ‘It means that you leave the world better than when you found it,’ said Nutt.
    ‘Good point,’ said the lady with the macaroons. ‘There’s far too many people around the place who wouldn’t dream of doing a hand’s turn.’
    ‘All right, but what about people who’re blind, for example?’ This from the hardboiled-egg man, sitting on the other side of the bus.
    ‘I know a blind bloke in Sto Lat who runs a bar,’ said an elderly gentleman. ‘Knows where everything is and when you put your money on the counter he knows if it’s the right change just by listening. He does all right. It’s amazing, he can pick out a dud sixpence halfway across a noisy bar.’
    ‘I don’t think there are absolutes,’ said Nutt. ‘I think what Ladyship meant was that you do the best you can with what you have.’
    ‘Sounds like a sensible lady,’ said the man who had nothing against dwarfs.
    ‘She’s a vampire,’ said Glenda maliciously.
    ‘Nothing against vampires, just so long as they keep themselves to themselves,’ said the macaroon lady, who was now engaged in licking something revoltingly pink. ‘We’ve got one working down at the kosher butcher’s on our street, and she’s as nice as you like.’
    ‘I don’t think it’s about what you end up with,’ said the dwarf. ‘It’s about what you end up with compared with what you started with.’
    Glenda leaned back with a smile as attempts at philosophy bounced their way from seat to seat. She wasn’t at all certain about the whole thing, but Nutt was sitting there looking far less bedraggled and the rest of them were treating him as one of themselves.
    There were dim lights ahead in the darkness. Glenda slipped from her seat and went up ahead to the driver. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’
    ‘Another five minutes,’ said the driver.
    ‘Sorry about all that silly business with the lead pipe,’ she said.
    ‘Didn’t happen,’ said the man cheerfully. ‘Believe me, we get all sorts on the night bus. At least no one’s thrown up. Quite an interestin’ lad you’ve got back