Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

Mrs Carter opened the door to him and indicated the stairs with all the hearty welcome and hospitality that mothers extend to their sons’ no-good street friends. ‘He’s been ill,’ she announced, as if it were a matter of interest rather than concern.

This turned out to be an understatement. One of Carter’s eyes was a technicolor mess and there was a livid scar on his face. It took some time for Trev to find this out because Carter kept telling him to go away, but since the ramshackle door was held shut with a piece of string, the application of Trev’s shoulder had seen to that, at least.

Trev stared at the boy, who shrank back into his unspeakably dreadful bed as if he was expecting to be hit. He didn’t like Carter. No one liked Carter. It was impossible. Even Mrs Carter, who in theory at least should entertain some lukewarm affability to her son, didn’t like Carter. He was fundamentally unlikeable. It was a sad thing to have to say, but Carter, farting or otherwise, was a wonderful example of charisntma. He could be fine for a day or two and then some utterly stupid comment or off-key joke or entirely inappropriate action would break the spell. But Trev put up with him, seeing in him, perhaps, what Trev might have been had he not been, in fact, Trev. Maybe there was a bit of Carter the Farter in every bloke at some time in his life he had thought, but with Carter it wasn’t just a bit, it was everything.

‘What ’appened?’ Trev said.

‘Nuffin’.’

‘This is Trev. I know about nothin’ ’appenin’. You need to get to the hospital with that.’

‘It’s worse than it looks,’ Carter moaned.

Trev cracked. ‘Are you bloody stupid? That cut’s a quarter of an inch from your eye!’

‘It was my fault,’ Carter protested. ‘I upset Andy.’

‘Yeah, I can see where that’d have been your fault,’ Trev said.

‘Where were you last night?’ said Carter.

‘You wouldn’t believe me.’

‘Well, it was a bloody war, that’s what it was.’

‘I found it necessary to spend a little time down the Lat. There was fightin’, wasn’t there?’

‘The clubs ’ave signed up to this new football and some people ain’t ’appy.’

Trev said, ‘Andy?’ and looked at the livid, oozing scar again. Yep, that looked like Andy being unhappy.

It was hard to feel sorry for someone as basically unlikeable as Carter, but just because he had been born with Kick Me Up The Arse tattooed on to his soul was no reason for doing it. Not to Carter. That was like pulling wings off flies.

‘Not just Andy,’ said Carter. ‘There’s Tosher Atkinson and Jimmy the Spoon and Spanner.’

‘Spanner?’ said Trev.

‘And Mrs Atkinson.’

‘Mrs Atkinson?’

‘And Willy Piltdown, Harry Capstick and the Brisket Boys.’

‘Them? But we hate them. Andy hates them. They hate Andy. One foot on their turf and you get sent home in a sack!’

‘Well, you know what they say,’ said Carter. ‘My enemy’s enemy is my enemy.’

‘I think you got that wrong,’ said Trev. ‘But I know what you mean.’

Trev stared at nothing, utterly aghast. The subjects of that litany of names were Faces. Hugely influential in the world of the teams and, more importantly, among the supporters. They owned the Shove. Pepe had been right. Vetinari thought the captains were in charge and the captains were not in charge. The Shove was in charge and the Faces ran the Shove [18] One other reason that you could call them Faces was that crude drawings of them appeared on Watch posters, with hopeful messages asking people to let the Watch know if said person had been seen around and about. .

‘There’s going to be a team put together for tomorrow and they’ll try to get as many of them in as possible,’ Carter volunteered.

‘Yeah, I heard.’

‘They’re going to show Vetinari what they think of his new football.’

‘I didn’t hear the name of the Stollops there,’ Trev said.

‘I hear their dad’s got them doing choir practice every night,’ said Carter.

‘The captains did sign up,’ said Trev, ‘so it’ll look bad for them. But ’ow much do you think Andy and his little chums care ’bout that?’ He leaned forward. ‘Vetinari’s got the Watch, though, ’asn’t he? And you know about the Watch. Okay, so there’s some decent bastards among ’em when you get ’em by theirselves, but if it all goes wahoonie-shaped they’ve got big, big sticks and big, big trolls and they’ve not got to bother too much about who they hit because they’re the Watch, which means it’s all legal. And, if you get ’em really pissed off, they’ll add a charge of damaging their truncheons with your face. And talking of faces, exactly ’ow come you’re a quarter-inch away from being a candidate for a white stick?’

‘I told Andy I didn’t think it was a good idea,’ said Carter.

Trev couldn’t hide his surprise. Even that much bravery was alien to Carter. ‘Well, as it ’appens, it might be a blessin’ in disguise. You just stay here in bed and you won’t end up stuck between the Old Sam and Andy.’

He stopped because of a rustling noise.

Since Carter glued pages of his used magazines to the walls with flour-and-water paste, the attic was home to some quite well fed mice, and for some reason, one of them had just gnawed its way to freedom via the chest of last year’s Miss April, thus giving her a third nipple, which was, in fact, staring at Trev and wobbling. It was a sight to put anyone off their tea.

‘What’re you goin’ to do?’ said Carter.

‘Anything I can,’ said Trev.

‘You know Andy’s out to get you? You and that weird bloke.’

‘I’m not afraid of Andy,’ said Trev. As a statement, this was entirely true. He was not frightened of Andy. He was mortally terrified to his boots and back again, with a visceral fear that dripped off his ribs like melting snow.

‘Everyone’s afraid of Andy, Trev. If they’re smart,’ said Carter.

‘Hey, Fartmeister, I’m Trevor Likely!’

‘I think you’re goin’ to need a lot more than that.’

I am going to need a lot more than that, thought Trev, travelling at speed across the city. If even Pepe knew there was something on the boil, then surely the Old Sam would know too? Oops.

He sprinted quickly to the horse bus’s rear platform and landed in the road before the conductor was anywhere near. If they didn’t catch you on the bus then they couldn’t catch you at all, and while they were issued with those big shiny choppers to deter non-paying passengers, everyone knew that a) they were too scared to use them and b) the amount of trouble they would get into if they actually whacked a respectable member of society did not bear thinking of.

He darted through the alley into Cockbill Street, spotted another bus plodding its way in the right direction, jumped on to the running board and held on. He was lucky this time. The conductor gave him a look and then very carefully did not see him.

By the time he reached the big junction known as Five Ways, he had travelled almost the width of the city at an average speed faster than walking pace and had hardly had to run very far at all. A near perfect result for Trev Likely, who wouldn’t walk if he could ride.

And there, right in front of him, was the Hippo. It used to be a racetrack until all that was moved up to the far end of Ankh. Now, it was just a big space that every large town needs for markets, fairs, the occasional insurrection and, of course, the increasingly popular cart-tail sales, which were very fashionable with people who wanted to buy their property back.

It was full today, without even a stolen shovel to be seen. All over the field, people were kicking footballs about. Trevor relaxed a little. There were pointy hats in the distance and no one seemed to be doing any murder.