Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

‘Who won?’

‘Dunno.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘When we left it was being decided on head wounds. Anyway, I went with Rotten Johnny, didn’t I.’

‘I thought you’d broken up with him.’

‘He bought me supper, didn’t ’e.’

‘You shouldn’t have gone. That’s not the sort of thing you should do.’

‘Like you know?’ said Juliet, who sometimes thought that questions were answers.

‘Just do the washing-up, will you?’ said Glenda. And I’ll have to do it again after you, she thought, as her best friend drifted over to the line of big stone sinks. Juliet didn’t exactly wash dishes, she gave them a light baptism. Wizards weren’t the type of people who noticed yesterday’s dried egg on the plate, but Mrs Whitlow could see it from two rooms away.

Glenda liked Juliet, she really did, although sometimes she wondered why. Of course, they’d grown up together, but it had always amazed her that Juliet, who was so beautiful that boys went nervous and occasionally fainted as she passed, could be so, well, dumb about everything. In fact it was Glenda who had grown up. She wasn’t sure about Juliet; sometimes it seemed to Glenda that she had done the growing up for both of them.

‘Look, you just have to scrub a bit, that’s all,’ she snapped after a few seconds of listless dipping, and took the brush out of Juliet’s perfect hand, and then, as the grease was sent down the drain, she thought: I’ve done it again. Actually, I’ve done it again again. How many times is that? I even used to play with her dolls for her!

Plate after plate sparkled under Glenda’s hands. Nothing cleans stubborn stains like suppressed anger.

Rotten Johnny, she thought. Ye gods, he smells of cat wee! He’s the only boy stupid enough to think he’s got a chance. Good grief, she’s got a figure like that and all she ever dates are total knobheads! What would she do without me?

After this brief excitement, the Night Kitchen settled into its routine and those who had been referred to as ‘the other girls’ got on with their familiar tasks. It has to be said that girlhood for most of them had ended a long time previously, but they were good workers and Glenda was proud of them. Mrs Hedges ran the cheeseboards like a champion. Mildred and Rachel, known officially on the payroll as the vegetable women, were good and reliable, and indeed it was Mildred who had come up with the famous recipe for beetroot and cream cheese sandwiches.

Everybody knew their job. Everybody did their job. The Night Kitchen was reliable and Glenda liked reliable.

She had a home to go to and made sure she went to it at least once a day, but the Night Kitchen was where she lived. It was her fortress.

Ponder Stibbons stared at the page in front of him. His mind filled up with nasty questions, the biggest and nastiest of which was simply: Is there any way at all in which people can make out that this is my fault? No. Good!

‘Er, there is one tradition here that regrettably we don’t appear to have honoured for some considerable time, Archchancellor,’ he said, managing to keep the concern out of his voice.

‘Well, does that matter?’ said Ridcully, stretching.

‘It is traditional, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder reproachfully. ‘Although I might go so far as to say that not observing it has now, alas, become the tradition.’

‘Well, that’s fine, isn’t it?’ said Ridcully. ‘If we can make a tradition of not observing another tradition, then that’s doubly traditional, eh? What’s the problem?’

‘It’s Archchancellor Preserved Bigger’s Bequest,’ said the Master of The Traditions. ‘The university does very well out of the Bigger estates. They were a very rich family.’

‘Hmm, yes. Name rings a faint bell. Decent of him. So?’

‘Er, I would have been happier had my predecessor paid a little more attention to some of the traditions,’ said Ponder, who believed in drip-feeding bad news.

‘Well, he was dead.’

‘Yes, of course. Perhaps, sir, we should, ahem, start a tradition of checking on the health of the Master of The Traditions?’

‘Oh, he was quite healthy,’ said the Archchancellor. ‘Just dead. Quite healthy for a dead man.’

‘He was a pile of dust, Archchancellor!’

‘That’s not the same as being ill, exactly,’ said Ridcully, who believed in never giving in. ‘Broadly speaking, it’s stable.’

Ponder said, ‘There is a condition attached to the bequest. It’s in the small print, sir.’

‘Oh, I never bother with small print, Stibbons!’

‘I do, sir. It says: “… and thys shall follow as long as the University shall enter a team in the game of foot-the-ball or Poore Boys’ Funne”.’

‘Porree boy’s funny?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

‘That’s ridiculous!’ said Ridcully.

‘Ridiculous or not, Archchancellor, that is the condition of the bequest.’

‘But we stopped taking part in that years ago,’ said Ridcully. ‘Mobs in the streets, kicking and punching and yelling… and they were the players! Mark you, the spectators were nearly as bad! There were hundreds of men in a team! A game could go on for days! That’s why it was stopped.’

‘Actually, it has never been stopped as such, Archchancellor,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘We stopped, yes, and so did the guilds. It was no longer a game for gentlemen.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said the Master of The Traditions, running a finger down the page, ‘such are the terms. There are all sorts of other conditions. Oh, dear. Oh, calamity. Oh, surely not… ’

His lips moved silently as he read on. The room craned as one neck.

‘Well, out with it, man!’ roared Ridcully.

‘I think I’d like to check a few things,’ said the Master of The Traditions. ‘I would not wish to worry you unduly.’ He glanced down. ‘Oh, hells’ bells!’

‘What are you talking about, man?’

‘Well, it looks as though—No, it would be unfair to spoil your evening, Archchancellor,’ Ponder protested. ‘I must be reading this wrongly. He surely can’t mean—Oh, good heavens… ’

‘In a nutshell, please, Stibbons,’ growled Ridcully. ‘I believe I am the Archchancellor of this university? I’m sure it says so on my door.’

‘Of course, Archchancellor, but it would be quite wrong of me to—’

‘I appreciate that you do not wish to spoil my evening, sir,’ said Ridcully. ‘But I would not hesitate to spoil your day tomorrow. With that in mind, what the hells are you talking about?’

‘Er, it would appear, Archchancellor, that, er… When was the last game we took part in, do you know?’

‘Anyone?’ said Ridcully to the room in general. A mumbled discussion produced a consensus on the theme of ‘Around twenty years, give or take.’

‘Give or take what, exactly?’ said Ponder, who hated this kind of thing.

‘Oh, you know. Something of that order. In the general vicinity of, so to speak. Round about then. You know.’

‘About?’ said Ponder. ‘Can we be more precise?’

‘Why?’

‘Because if the university hasn’t played in the Poor Boys’ Fun for a period of twenty years or more, the bequest reverts to any surviving relatives of Archchancellor Bigger.’

‘But it’s banned, man!’ the Archchancellor insisted.

‘Er, not as such. It’s common knowledge that Lord Vetinari doesn’t like it, but I understand that if the games are outside the city centre and confined to the back streets, the Watch turns a blind eye. Since I would imagine that the supporters and players easily outnumber the entire Watch payroll, I suppose it is better than having to turn a broken nose.’

‘That’s quite a neat turn of phrase there, Mister Stibbons,’ said Ridcully. ‘I’m quite surprised at you.’