Unseen Academicals

plonked it on the table with a sigh. ‘Can’t stand around here all day, eh?’
    ‘Yes, I’m sure you’ve got lots of other places to stand.’
    Ottomy paused at the entrance arch, and turned to grin at Juliet.
    ‘A girl the spit and image of you, I’d swear it. With a Dimmer boy. Amazing. You must have one of those double gangers. Well, it’ll have to remain a mystery, as the man said when he found something that would have to remain a mystery. Toodle-oo—’
    He stopped dead rather than walk into the silvery knife that Glenda was holding in a not totally threatening way quite close to his throat. She had the satisfaction of seeing his Adam’s apple pop back up and down again like a sick yoyo.
    ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, lowering it. ‘I’ve always got a knife in my hand these days. We’ve been doing the pork. Very much like human flesh, pork, or so they say.’ She put her spare hand across his shoulders and said, ‘Probably not a good idea, spreading silly rumours, Mister Ottomy. You know how people can be so funny about that sort of thing. Nice of you to drop by and if you happen to be going past tomorrow I’ll see that you get a pie. Do excuse us. I have a lot of chopping up to do.’
    He left at speed. Glenda, her heart pounding, looked at Juliet; her mouth made a perfect O.
    ‘What? What?’
    ‘I fort you was goin’ to stab ’im!’
    ‘I just happened to be holding a knife. You are holding a knife. We hold knives. This is a kitchen.’
    ‘D’you fink he’s goin’ to tell?’
    ‘He doesn’t really know anything.’ Eight inches, she thought. That’s as big as you can make a pie without a dish. How many pies could I make out of a weasel like Ottomy? The big mincer would make it easy. Ribcages and skulls must be a problem, though. Probably better, on the whole, to stick to pork.
    But the thought blazed away at the back of her mind, never to become action but unfamiliar, exciting and oddly liberating.
    What were the wizards doing at the game? Making notes about what? A puzzle to think about.
    In the meantime, they were in a world of pies. Juliet could work quite well at repetitive jobs when she put her mind to it, and she had a meticulousness often found in people who were not very clever. Occasionally she sniffed, not a good thing when you are making pie filling. She was probably thinking about Trev, and pasting him, in her beautiful and not very overcrowded head, into one of those glittery dreams sold by Bu-bubble and other junk, where all you had to do to be famous was just ‘be yourself’. Ha! While Glenda had always known what she wanted. She worked long, poorly paid hours to get it, and here it was: her own kitchen, and power, more or less…over pies! A moment ago you were daydreaming of turning a man into pies!
    Why are you so angry all the time? What went wrong? I’ll tell you what went wrong! When you got there, there was no there there. You wanted to see Quirm from an open carriage while a nice young man drank champagne out of your slipper, but you never did, because they were a funny lot in Quirm, and you couldn’t trust the water, and how did that champagne thing work, anyway? Didn’t it drip out? What would happen if your toe trouble played up again…? So you never did. Never will.
    ‘I never said Trev’s a bad lad,’ she said aloud. ‘Not a gentleman, needs a slap to teach him manners and he takes life a good deal too easily, but he could make something of himself if he had reason to put his mind to it.’
    Juliet did not seem to be listening, but you never could tell.
    ‘It’s just the football. You’re on different sides. It won’t work,’ Glenda finished.
    ‘S’posing I went and supported the Dimmers?’
    A day ago that would have sounded like some kind of sacrilege; now it just presented a huge problem.
    ‘For a start, your dad wouldn’t speak to you ever again. Or your brothers.’
    ‘They don’t now, much, anyway, except to ask when their grub is goin’ to be ready. D’you know, today was the first time I ever saw the ball up close? And you know what? It weren’t worth it. Hey, and they’re goin’ to have a fashion show on at Shatta tomorrow. Why don’t we go?’
    ‘Never heard of it,’ Glenda snorted.
    ‘It’s a dwarf store.’
    ‘That sounds right. I can’t imagine humans naming anything like that. You’d be hostage to the first misprint.’
    ‘We could go. Might be fun.’ Juliet waved a tattered copy of Bu-bubble . ‘And