Hogfather

It reached the table and read the note. The Death of Rats thought he heard a groan.

The turnips were pocketed and so, to the Death of Rats' annoyance, was the pork pie. He was pretty sure it was meant to be eaten here, not taken away.

The figure scanned the dripping note for a moment, and then turned around and approached the mantelpiece. The Death of Rats pulled back slightly behind ‘Seafon's Greetings!’

A red-gloved hand took down a stocking. There was some creaking and rustling and it was replaced, looking a lot fatter — the larger box sticking out of the top had, just visible, the words ‘Victim Figures Not Included. 3-10 yrs’.

The Death of Rats couldn't see much of the donor of this munificence. The big red hood hid all the face, apart from a long white beard.

Finally, when the figure finished, it stood back and pulled a list out of its pocket. It held it up to the hood and appeared to be consulting it. It waved its other hand vaguely at the fireplace, the sooty footprints, the empty sherry glass and the stocking. Then it bent forward, as if reading some tiny print.

AH, YES, it said. ER… HO. HO. HO.

With that, it ducked down and entered the chimney. There was some scrabbling before its boots gained a purchase, and then it was gone.

The Death of Rats realized he'd begun to gnaw his little scythe's handle in sheer shock.

SQUEAK?

He landed in the ashes and swarmed up the sooty cave of the chimney. He emerged so fast that he shot out with his legs still scrabbling and landed in the snow on the roof.

There was a sledge hovering in the air by the gutter.

The red-hooded figure had just climbed in and appeared to be talking to someone invisible behind a pile of sacks.

HERE'S ANOTHER PORK PIE.

‘Any mustard?’ said the sacks. ‘They're a treat with mustard.’

IT DOES NOT APPEAR SO.

‘Oh, well. Pass it over anyway.’

IT LOOKS VERY BAD.

‘Nah, 's just where something's nibbled it—’

I MEAN THE SITUATION. MOST OF THE LETTERS… THEY DON'T REALLY BELIEVE. THEY PRETEND TO BELIEVE, JUST IN CASE [7]. I FEAR IT MAY BE TOO LATE. IT HAS SPREAD SO FAST AND BACK IN TIME, TOO.

‘Never say die, master. That's our motto, eh?’ said the sacks, apparently with their mouth full.

I CAN'T SAY IT'S EVER REALLY BEEN MINE.

‘I meant we're not going to be intimidated by the certain prospect of complete and utter failure, master.’

AREN'T WE? OH, GOOD. WELL, I SUPPOSE WE'D BETTER BE GOING. The figure picked up the reins. UP, GOUGER! UP, ROOTER! UP, TUSKER! UP, SNOUTER! GIDDYUP!

The four large boars harnessed to the sledge did not move.

WHY DOESN'T THAT WORK? said the figure in a puzzled, heavy voice.

‘Beats me, master,’ said the sacks.

IT WORKS ON HORSES.

‘You could try “Pig-hooey!”’

PIG-HOOEY. They waited. NO… DOESN'T SEEM TO REACH THEM.

There was some whispering.

REALLY? YOU THINK THAT WOULD WORK?

‘It'd bloody well work on me if I was a pig, master.’

VERY WELL, THEN.

The figure gathered up the reins again.

APPLE! SAUCE!

The pigs' legs blurred. Silver light flicked across them, and exploded outwards. They dwindled to a dot, and vanished.

SQUEAK?

The Death of Rats skipped across the snow, slid down a drainpipe and landed on the roof of a shed.

There was a raven perched there. It was staring disconsolately at something.

SQUEAK!

‘Look at that, willya?’ said the raven rhetorically. It waved a claw at a bird table in the garden below. ‘They hangs up half a bloody coconut, a lump of bacon rind, a handful of peanuts in a bit of wire and they think they're the gods' gift to the nat'ral world. Huh. Do I see eyeballs? Do I see entrails? I think not. Most intelligent bird in the temperate latitudes an' I gets the cold shoulder just because I can't hang upside down and go twit, twit. Look at robins, now. Stroppy little evil buggers, fight like demons, but all they got to do is go bob-bob-bobbing along and they can't move for breadcrumbs. Whereas me myself can recite poems and repeat many hum'rous phrases—’

SQUEAK!

‘Yes? What?’

The Death of Rats pointed at the roof and then the sky and jumped up and down excitedly. The raven swivelled one eye upwards.

‘Oh, yes. Him,’ he said. ‘Turns up at this time of year. Tends to be associated distantly with robins, which—’

SQUEAK! SQUEE IK IK IK! The Death of Rats pantomimed a figure landing in a grate and walking around a room. SQUEAK EEK IK IK, SQUEAK “HEEK HEEK HEEK”! IK IK SQUEAK!

‘Been overdoing the Hogswatch cheer, have you? Been rustling around in the brandy butter?’

SQUEAK?

The raven's eyes revolved.

‘Look, Death's Death. It's a full-time job right? It's not as though you can run, like, a window cleaning round on the side or nip round after work cutting people's lawns.’

SQUEAK!

‘Oh, please yourself.’

The raven crouched a little to allow the tiny figure to hop on to its back, and then lumbered into the air.

‘Of course, they can go mental, your occult types,’ it said, as it swooped over the moonlit garden. ‘Look at Old Man Trouble, for one—’

SQUEAK.

‘Oh, I'm not suggestin—’

Susan didn't like Biers but she went there anyway, when the pressure of being normal got too much. Biers, despite the smell and the drink and the company, had one important virtue. In Biers no one took any notice. Of anything. Hogswatch was traditionally supposed to be a time for families but the people who drank in Biers probably didn't have families; some of them looked as though they might have had litters, or clutches. Some of them looked as though they'd probably eaten their relatives, or at least someone's relatives.

Biers was where the undead drank. And when Igor the barman was asked for a Bloody Mary, he didn't mix a metaphor.

The regular customers didn't ask questions, and not only because some of them found anything above a growl hard to articulate. None of them was in the answers business. Everyone in Biers drank alone, even when they were in groups. Or packs.

Despite the decorations put up inexpertly by Igor the barman to show willing,[8] Biers was not a family place.

Family was a subject Susan liked to avoid.

Currently she was being aided in this by a gin and tonic. In Biers, unless you weren't choosy, it paid to order