Unseen Academicals

Trev and offered him a bag of hot pease.
    ‘Tough mate you got there,’ he said. ‘Some kind of troll, is he?’
    ‘Not troll. Goblin,’ said Trev, as the sounds of the strife drew nearer.
    ‘I thought they were little buggers—?’
    ‘This one isn’t,’ said Trev, wishing the man would go away.
    There was a sudden, localized silence. The kind of noise made by people who are holding their breath. He looked up and saw the ball, for the second time in the game.
    There was a core of ash wood in there somewhere, then a leather skin and finally dozens of layers of cloth for grip, and it was dropping with pinpoint inevitability towards the beautiful, dreamy head of Juliet. Trev dived at her without a moment’s thought, dragging her under the cart as the ball thumped on to the cobbles where She had been gracing the world with Her presence.
    Many things went through Trev’s mind as the ball hit the ground. She was in his arms, even if She was complaining about getting mud on her coat. He had probably saved Her life, which from a romantic point of view was money in the bank, and—oh, yes. Dimmer or Dolly, if one of the hardcore posses found out about this the next thing to go through his head would be a boot.
    She giggled.
    ‘Shush!’ he managed. ‘Not a good idea if you’d rather not know how you would look with that beautiful hair shaved off!’
    Trev peeped out from under the stall, and attracted no attention at all.
    This is because Nutt had picked up the ball and was turning it over and over in his hands with a frown on what was visible of, if you were kind, his face.
    ‘Is this all it is?’ he said to a bewildered Glenda. ‘A most inappropriate ending to a pleasant social gathering with interesting canapés! Where is this wretched thing supposed to be, then?’
    Glenda, hypnotized by the sight, pointed a wavering finger in the general direction of down the street.
    ‘There’s a big pole? Painted white…well, spattered with red at the bottom…’
    ‘Oh yes, I see it. Well, in that case, I’ll—Look, will you men please stop pushing?’ Nutt added to the crowd, who were craning to see.
    ‘But there’s no way you’ll ever get it there!’ Glenda yelled. ‘Just put it down and come away!’
    Trev heard a grunt from Nutt and absolute silence from the rest of the world. Oh, no, he thought. Really no. It must be more than, what, a hundred and fifty yards to that goal, and those things fly like a bucket. There is no way that he could—
    A distant pock broke the breathless silence, which healed itself instantly.
    Trev peered over a shoulder as the sixty-foot goal post gave up its battle with termites, rot, weather, gravity and Nutt, and fell into its own base in a cloud of dust. He was so astonished that he hardly noticed Juliet standing up next to him. *
    ‘Is that a kind of, like, sign?’ said Juliet, who believed in such things.
    At that moment, Trev believed in pointing a finger towards the other side of the street and shouting, ‘He went that way!’ and then hauling Juliet upright and butting Nutt in the stomach. ‘Let’s go!’ he added. He couldn’t do anything about Glenda, but that would not matter; while he held Juliet’s hand Glenda would follow him like a homing vulture. People were trying to run towards the hidden goal; others were making for the apparent location of the long-distance scorer. Trev pointed in a random direction and yelled, ‘He went down there! Big man with a black hat!’ Confusion always helped, when it wasn’t yours; when it was time for a hue and cry, make sure who was hue.
    They halted a few alleys away. There was still a commotion far off, but a city crowd is easier to get lost in than a forest.
    ‘Look, perhaps I should go back and apologize,’ Nutt began. ‘I could make a new pole quite easily.’
    ‘I hate to tell you this, Gobbo, but I think you might have upset the kind of people who don’t listen to apologies,’ said Trev. ‘Keep moving, everyone.’
    ‘Why might they be upset?’
    ‘Well, Mister Nutt, first, you are not supposed to score a goal when it is not your game, and anyway you are a watcher, not a player,’ said Glenda. ‘And second, a shot like that gets right up people’s noses. You could have killed someone!’
    ‘No, Miss Glenda, I assure you I could not. I deliberately aimed at the pole.’
    ‘So? That doesn’t mean you were sure to hit it!’
    ‘Er, I have to say it does, Miss Glenda,’ he mumbled.
    ‘How did you