Terry Pratchett: Unseen Academicals

Nutt’s face brightened. ‘Clever idea and of course it will work. Did she tell you to kick the ball out of the pitch?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Are we going to cheat?’ said Bledlow Nobbs.

‘No. We are going to stick to the rules. And the thing about sticking to the rules is that it’s sometimes better than cheating.’

Nobbs’s chance came soon enough, surprisingly with an obviously misdirected pass from Hoggett. Had Hoggett been standing very close when they had been talking? And had he just said ‘Go for it?’ It sounded very much like it. He kicked the ball straight towards the cheerleaders, where Glenda snatched it out of the air and pushed it into the folds of Mrs Whitlow’s skirt. ‘You haven’t seen this, ladies, you haven’t seen where it is and you’re not moving for anyone, okay?’

As the crowd booed and cheered, she pulled the tin can out of her bag and held it up in the air. ‘Ball lost!’ she yelled. ‘Substitute ball!’ and threw the can directly towards the bledlow, who was quick enough to flick it on to Nutt. Before any other player had moved, it landed with a little gloing! sound on the end of Trev Likely’s boot…

According to the editor of the Times: We have been assured that no magic was used on the day of the match and it is not my place to contradict the honourable faculty of Unseen University. All your correspondent will say is that Trevor Likely kicked the ‘ball’, against all probability, towards the Academicals’ goal, where he stood, apparently waiting for the stampede of the enraged United squad. What followed, your correspondent must declare, was not just a goal, but it was a punishment and it was a retribution. It was writing the name Likely, for the second time, in the annals of football history, as Trevor, famous son of a famous father, wiped the floor with United, wrung them out and did it all over again. Running. Dodging. Sometimes obligingly kicking the ‘ball’ directly towards a defender who then found it heading off in quite a different direction, which just happened to be where Likely was now. He taunted them. He played with them. He caused them to collide with one another as they both went for a ball that, inexplicably, was no longer where they were sure it had been. And it must have come as a relief to the more steady members of United when he relented and skipped the ‘ball’ over the head of their standby keeper, Micky Pulford (latterly of the Whopping Street Wanderers) and into the net, where it circled and then returned to land precisely on the tip of Likely’s boot. The silence…

… spread like warm butter. Glenda was sure she could hear distant birdsong or, possibly, the noise of worms under the turf, but definitely the sound from Dr Lawn’s impromptu field hospital, the sound of ‘Big Boy’ Barton chucking up again.

And then, where silence had reigned, sound poured like the gush of water from a broken dam. It was physical and it was complex. Here and there the spectators started chanting. All the chants of all the teams, united and harmonizing in one perfect moment.

Glenda watched in amazement as Juliet… It was like the fashion show all over again. She seemed to light up from the inside, bars of golden light floating away from the micromail. She started to run towards Trev, tearing off her beard, and, Glenda could see, gradually rising from the ground as though she was running up a stairway.

It was a strange and wonderful sight, and not even Charlie Barton, still throwing up, could detract from it.

‘ ’scuse me,’ said Mister Hoggett. ‘That was a goal, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, Mister Hoggett, I think it was,’ said the referee.

Hoggett was pushed out of the way by Andy Shank. ‘No! It went to one side! Are you bloody blind, or what? And it was a tin can.’

‘No, Mister Shank, it was not. Gentlemen, can you not see what’s happening in front of your faces? Look, everything that happened was perfectly legal under the rules of the game, rule 202, to be precise. It’s a fossil, but it is a rule, and I can assure you that no magic was used. But right now, gentlemen, can you not see the golden lady floating up in the air?’

‘Yeah, right, that’s just more weird kids’ stuff, just like that goal.’

‘This is football, Mister Shank, it’s all weird kids’ stuff.’

‘So the game is over,’ said Mr Hoggett.

‘Yes, Mister Hoggett, it is. Apart from, and I insist on drawing your attention to it, a beautiful golden lady floating over the pitch. Am I the only one seeing this?’

Hoggett glanced towards the rising Juliet. ‘Yeah, right, very pretty, but we’ve lost, have we?’

‘Yes, Mister Hoggett, you have clearly and emphatically lost.’

‘And, just to be precise,’ said Hoggett, ‘there are no more, like, rules, are there?’

‘No, Mister Hoggett, you are no longer subject to the rules of football.’

‘Thank you for that clarification, your worship, and may I also thank you on behalf of United for the way you handled the trying events of this afternoon.’

With this, he turned and punched Andy full in the face. Mister Hoggett was a mild man, but years of lifting a pig carcass in each hand meant that he had a punch that even Andy’s thick skin had to reckon with. Even so, after Andy had blinked a few times he managed to say, ‘You bastard.’

‘You lost us the game,’ said Hoggett. ‘We could have won fair and square, but you had to muck it up.’ And those around him felt able to murmur in support of the accusation.

‘Me? It wasn’t me! It was that bloody Trev Likely and his little orc chum. They was using magic. You can’t say that wasn’t magic.’

‘Just skill, I assure you,’ said the former Dean. ‘Amazing skill, certainly, but he is well known for his prowess with the tin can, which itself is a veritable icon of football.’

‘Where is that bloody Likely, anyway?’

Glenda, eyes fixed on the centre of the pitch, said in the voice of someone half hypnotized, ‘He’s rising up in the air as well.’

‘Look, you can’t tell me that’s not magic,’ Andy insisted.

‘No,’ said Glenda. ‘You know what, I think it’s religion. Can’t you hear?’

‘I can’t hear anything, dear, with all the noise from the crowd,’ said the former Dean.

‘Yes,’ said Glenda. ‘Listen to the crowd.’

He did. It was a roar, a great sky-filling roar, old and animal and coming up from the gods knew where, but inside it, travelling like a hidden message, he made out the words. They swam into focus, if indeed the ear could focus and if he was actually hearing them with his ears. They might have been coming through his bones… If the striker thinks he scores Or if the keeper cries in shame They understand not the crowd’s applause I make, and hear and earn again For I am the crowd and I am the ball I am the triumph and the blame I am the turf, the pies, the All Always and ever, I am the Game. It matters not who won or lost Nothing is the score you made Fame is a petal that curls in the frost But I will remember how you played.

And it stays there, Glenda thought, like sound in a banner. Everybody one part of it.

Juliet and Trev began to float down, hand in hand, turning gently until they landed lightly on the turf, still kissing. A sort of reality began to leak back into the arena, and there are some people who, even when hearing the voice of the nightingale, will say ‘What’s that bloody noise?’

‘Cheatin’ bastard,’ said Andy and launched himself directly at Trev, covering the ground at speed as the boy stood there with a very bemused but happy expression on his face. He did not notice the hell-bent Andy until a huge boot kicked him squarely in the groin, so hard that the eyes of all male watchers watered in sympathetic pain.