'Grandad Lezek? How can he be gone again? He's dead!'
'Your… er… other grandfather…?' said the raven.
'I haven't got—'
Images rose from the mud at the bottom of her mind. Something about a horse… and there was a room full of whispers. And a bathtub, that seemed to fit in somewhere. And fields of wheat came into it, too.
'This is what happens when people try to educate their children,' said the raven, 'instead of telling them things.'
'I thought my other grandad was also… dead,' said Susan.
'The rat says you've got to come with him. It's very important.'
The image of Miss Butts rose like a Valkyrie in Susan's mind. This was
'Oh, no,' said Susan. 'It must be midnight already. And we've got a geography exam tomorrow.'
The raven opened its beak in astonishment.
'You can't be saying that,' it said.
'You really expect me to take instructions from a… a bony rat and a talking raven? I'm going back!'
'No, you're not,' said the raven. 'No-one with any blood in them'd go back now. You'd never find things out if you went back now. You'd just get educated.'
'But I haven't got
'Oh,
'How—'
'You'll have to find out, won't you?'
SQUEAK.
The raven jumped up and down excitedly.
'Can I tell her? Can I tell her?' it squawked. It swivelled its eyes towards Susan.
'Your grandfather,' it said, 'is… (dah dah dah
SQUEAK!
'She's got to know some time,' said the raven.
'Deaf? My grandfather is deaf?' said Susan. 'You've got me out here in the middle of the night to talk about
'I didn't say deaf, I said your grandfather is… (dah dah dah
SQUEAK!
'All
Susan backed away while the two of them argued.
Then she grasped the skirts of her nightdress and ran, out of the yard and across the damp lawns. The window was still open. She managed, by standing on the sill of the one below, to grab the ledge and heave herself up and into the dormitory. She got into bed and pulled the blankets over her head…
After a while she realized that this was an unintelligent reaction. But she left them where they were, anyway.
She dreamed of horses and coaches and a clock without hands.
'D'you think we could have handled that better?'
SQUEAK?' Dah dah dah
'How did you expect me to put it. 'Your grandfather is Death?' Just like that? Where's the sense of occasion? Humans like drama.'
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats pointed out.
'Rats is different.'
SQUEAK.
'I reckon I ought to call it a night,' said the raven. 'Ravens are not generally nocturnal, you know.' It scratched at its bill with a foot. 'Do you just do rats, or mice and hamsters and weasels and stuff like that as well?'
SQUEAK.
'Gerbils? How about gerbils?'
SQUEAK.
'Fancy that. I never knew that. Death of Gerbils, too? Amazing how you can catch up with them on those treadmills—'
SQUEAK.
'Please yourself.'
There are the people of the day, and the creature's of the night.
And it's important to remember that the creatures of the night aren't simply the people of the day staying up late because they think that makes them cool and interesting. It takes a lot more than heavy mascara and a pale complexion to cross the divide.
Heredity can help, of course.
The raven had grown up in the forever-crumbling, ivy-clad Tower of Art, overlooking Unseen University in far Ankh-Morpork. Ravens are naturally intelligent birds, and magical leakage, which has a tendency to exaggerate things, had done the rest.
It didn't have a name. Animals don't normally bother with them.
The wizard who thought he owned him called him Quoth, but that was only because he didn't have a sense of humour and, like most people without a sense of humour, prided himself on the sense of humour he hadn't, in fact, got.
The raven flew back to the wizard's house, skimmed in through the open window, and took up his roost on the skull.
'Poor kid,' he said.
'That's destiny for you,' said the skull.
'I don't blame her for trying to be normal. Considering.'
'Yes,' said the skull. 'Quit while you're a head, that's what I say.'
The owner of a grain silo in Ankh-Morpork was having a bit of a crackdown. The Death of Rats could hear the distant yapping of the terriers. It was going to be a busy night.
It would be too hard to describe the Death of Rats' thought-processes, or even be certain that he had any. He had a feeling that he shouldn't have involved the raven, but humans set a great store by words.
Rats don't think very far ahead, except in general terms. In general terms, he was very, very worried. He hadn't expected education.
Susan got through the next morning without having to go nonexistent. Geography consisted of the flora of the Sto Plains[3], chief exports of the Sto Plains [4] and the fauna of the Sto Plains[5]. Once you mastered the common denominator, it was straightforward. The gels had to colour in a map. This involved a lot of green. Lunch was Dead Man's Fingers and Eyeball Pudding, a healthy ballast for the afternoon's occupation, which was Sport.
This was the province of Iron Lily, who was rumoured to shave and lift weights with her teeth, and whose shouts of encouragement as she thundered up and down the touchline tended towards the nature of 'Get some ball, you bunch of soft nellies!'
Miss Butts and Miss Delcross kept their windows closed on games afternoon. Miss Butts ferociously read logic and Miss Delcross, in her idea of a toga, practised eurhythmics in the gym.
Susan surprised people by being good at sport. Some sport, anyway. Hockey, lacrosse and rounders, certainly. Any game that involved putting a stick of some sort in her hands and asking her to swing it, definitely. The sight of Susan advancing towards goal with a calculating look made any goalie lose all faith in her protective padding and throw herself flat as the ball flashed past at waist height, making a humming noise.
It was only evidence of the general stupidity of the rest of humanity, Susan considered, that although she was manifestly one of the best players in the school she never got picked for teams. Even fat girls with spots got picked before her. It was so infuriatingly unreasonable, and she could never understand why.
