Unseen Academicals

tried to shake the thought out of her head. ‘And she was right, of course! Hard work never hurt anybody!’ And she tried to unthink the treacherous thought: except her . Pies, she thought. You can rely on pies. Pies don’t give you grief.
    ‘I fink that Trev likes me,’ Juliet muttered. ‘He don’t give me funny looks like the other boys. He looks like a little puppy.’
    ‘You want to watch out for that look, my girl.’
    ‘I fink I luvim, Glendy.’
    Wild boar, thought Glenda, and apricots. There’s some left in the cool room. And we’ve got mutton pies with a choice of tracklements…always popular. So…pork pies, I think, and there’s some decent oysters in the pump room, so they’ll do for the wet pie. I’ll do Sea Pie and the anchovies look good, so there’s always room for a Stargazey or two, even though I feel sorry for the little fishes, but right now I’ll bake some blind pastries so that—‘What did you say?’
    ‘I luvim.’
    ‘You can’t!’
    ‘He saved my life!’
    ‘That’s no basis for a relationship! A polite thank you would have sufficed!’
    ‘I’ve got a feelin’ about him!’
    ‘That’s just silly!’
    ‘Well? Silly’s not bad, is it?’
    ‘Now you listen to me, young—Oh, hello, Mister Ottomy.’
    It is in the way of the Ottomies all around the worlds to look as if they have been built out of the worst parts of two men and to be annoyingly hushen-footed on thick red rubber soles, all the better to peep and pry. And they always assume that a free cup of tea is theirs by right.
    ‘What a day, miss, what a day! Were you at the match?’ he enquired, glancing from Glenda to Juliet.
    ‘Been cleaning the ovens,’ said Glenda briskly.
    ‘Yes, today didn’t happen,’ Juliet added, and giggled. Glenda hated giggling.
    Ottomy looked around slowly and without embarrassment, noting the absence of dirt, discarded gloves, cloths—
    ‘And we’ve only just finished getting everything all neat and tidy,’ Glenda snarled. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mister Ottomy? And then you can tell us all about the game.’
    It has been said that crowds are stupid, but mostly they are simply confused, since as an eyewitness the average person is as reliable as a meringue lifejacket. It became obvious, as Ottomy went on, that nobody had any clear idea about anything other than that some bloke threw a goal from halfway down the street, and even then only maybe.
    ‘But, funny thing,’ Ottomy went on, as Glenda metaphorically let out a breath, ‘while we was in the Shove, I could’ve sworn I saw your lovely assistant here chatting to a lad in the Dimmer strip…’
    ‘No law against that!’ Glenda said. ‘Anyway, she was here, cleaning the ovens.’ It was clumsy, but she hated people like him, who lived for the exercise of third-hand authority and loved every little bit of power they could grab. He’d seen more than he’d told her, that was certain, and wanted her to wriggle. And out of the corner of her mind, she could feel him looking at their coats. Their wet coats.
    ‘I thought you didn’t go to the football, Mister Ottomy?’
    ‘Ah, well, there you have it. The pointies wanted to go and watch a game, and me and Mister Nobbs had to go with them in case they got breathed on by ordinary people. Blimey, you wouldn’t believe it! Tutting and complaining and taking notes, like they owned the street. They’re up to something, you mark my words.’
    Glenda didn’t like the word ‘pointies’, although it was a good description. Coming from Ottomy, though, it was an invitation to greasy conspiracy. But however you baked it, wizards were nobs, people who mattered, the movers and the shakers: and when people like that got interested in the doings of people who by definition did not matter, little people were about to be shaken, and shook.
    ‘Vetinari doesn’t like football,’ she said.
    ‘Well, o’course, they’re all in it together,’ said Ottomy, tapping his nose. This caused a small lump of dried matter to shoot from his other nostril into his tea. Glenda had a brief struggle with her conscience over whether to point this out, but won.
    ‘I thought you should know this, on account of how people up in the Sisters look up to you,’ said Ottomy. ‘I remember your mum. She was a saint, that woman. Always had a helping hand for everyone.’ Yes, and didn’t they grab, said Glenda to herself. She was lucky to die with all her fingers.
    Ottomy drained his mug and