Unseen Academicals

he managed to achieve the effect of cubed. ‘Hah, he’s got that one right!’ he roared.
    Glenda sighed inwardly. The man was strong, but his muscles were melting into fat. She knew his knees hurt. She knew he got out of breath rather quickly these days and in the presence of something he couldn’t bully, punch or kick, Mr Stollop was entirely at a loss. Down by his sides his hands flexed and unflexed themselves as they tried to do his thinking for him.
    ‘What’s this all about?’
    ‘I don’t know, Mister Stollop.’
    He shifted his weight. ‘Er, would it be about that Dimmer boy that got himself hurt today, d’you think?’
    Could be anyone, thought Glenda as cold dread blossomed. It’s not as though it doesn’t happen every week. It doesn’t have to be either of them. It will be, of course, I know it, but I don’t know it, can’t possibly know it, and if I repeat that long enough it might all never have happened.
    Got himself hurt, thought Glenda in the roar of panic. That quite likely means he happened to be standing in the wrong place in the wrong strip, which is tantamount to a self-inflicted wound. He got himself killed.
    ‘My lads came in and said it was out in the street. That’s what they just heard. He got killed, that’s what they heard.’
    ‘They didn’t see anything?’
    ‘That’s right, they didn’t see a thing.’
    ‘But they were doing a lot of listening?’
    That one went over Stollop’s head without even bothering to climb.
    ‘And it was a Dimmer boy?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They heard he died, but you know how those Dimwell buggers lie.’
    ‘Where are your boys now?’
    For a moment the old man’s eyes blazed. ‘They’re stoppin’ indoors or I’ll thrash ’em. You get some nasty gangs out when something like that’s been happening.’
    ‘One less now, then,’ said Glenda.
    Stollop’s face was painted in pigments of misery and dread. ‘They’re not bad boys, you know. Not at heart. People pick on them.’
    Yes, down at the Watch House, she said to herself, where people say, ‘That’s them! The big ones! I’d know them anywhere!’
    She left him shaking his head and ran down the road. The troll would never expect to get a fare up here and there was no sense in hanging around and getting covered in paint. She might just about be able to catch up with it on its way down town. After a minute or two she realized that someone was following her. Chasing her in the gloom. If only she’d remembered to bring the knife. She stepped into a patch of deeper shadow and, as the knife-wielding maniac drew level, stepped out and shouted, ‘Stop following me!’
    Juliet gave a little scream. ‘They’ve got Trev,’ she sobbed, as Glenda held her. ‘I know they have!’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Glenda. ‘There’s fighting all the time after a big match. No sense in getting too worried.’
    ‘So why were you running?’ said Juliet sharply. And there was no answer to that.

    The bledlow nodded him through the staff door with a grunt and he headed straight away for the vats. A couple of the lads were dribbling in their meticulous and very slow way, but there was no sign of Nutt until Trev risked his sanity and nasal passages by checking the communal sleeping area, where he found Nutt sleeping on his bedroll, clutching his stomach. It was an extremely large stomach. Given the usual neat shape of Nutt, it made him look a little like a snake that had swallowed an extremely large goat. The curious face of the Igor and his worried voice came back to him. He looked down beside the bedroll and saw a small piece of piecrust and some crumbs. It smelled like a very good pie. In fact, he could think of only one person who could ever make a pie quite so beguiling. Whatever it was that had been filling Trev, the invisible illumination that had made him almost dance here from the Watch House, drained out through his feet.
    He headed through the stone corridors to the Night Kitchen. Any optimism he might have retained was dashed one hope at a time by the trail of pie crumbs, but the illumination rose again as he saw Juliet and, oh yes, Glenda, standing in what was left of the Night Kitchen, which was a mess of torn-open cupboards and pieces of piecrust.
    ‘Oh, Mister Trevor Likely,’ said Glenda, folding her arms. ‘Just one question: who ate all the pies?’
    The illumination swelled until it filled Trev with a kind of silvery light. It had been three nights since he had