‘What’s this all about?’

‘I don’t know, Mister Stollop.’

He shifted his weight. ‘Er, would it be about that Dimmer boy that got himselfhurt today, d’you think?’

Could be anyone, thought Glenda as cold dread blossomed. It’s not as though itdoesn’t happen every week. It doesn’t have to be either of them. It will be, ofcourse, I know it, but I don’t know it, can’t possibly know it, and if I repeatthat long enough it might all never have happened.

Got himself hurt, thought Glenda in the roar of panic. That quite likely meanshe happened to be standing in the wrong place in the wrong strip, which istantamount to a self-inflicted wound. He got himself killed.

‘My lads came in and said it was out in the street. That’s what they justheard. He got killed, that’s what they heard.’

‘They didn’t see anything?’

‘That’s right, they didn’t see a thing.’

‘But they were doing a lot of listening?’

That one went over Stollop’s head without even bothering to climb.

‘And it was a Dimmer boy?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They heard he died, but you know how those Dimwell buggerslie.’

‘Where are your boys now?’

For a moment the old man’s eyes blazed. ‘They’re stoppin’ indoors or I’llthrash ’em. You get some nasty gangs out when something like that’s beenhappening.’

‘One less now, then,’ said Glenda.

Stollop’s face was painted in pigments of misery and dread. ‘They’re not badboys, you know. Not at heart. People pick on them.’

Yes, down at the Watch House, she said to herself, where people say, ‘That’sthem! The big ones! I’d know them anywhere!’

She left him shaking his head and ran down the road. The troll would neverexpect to get a fare up here and there was no sense in hanging around andgetting covered in paint. She might just about be able to catch up with it onits way down town. After a minute or two she realized that someone wasfollowing her. Chasing her in the gloom. If only she’d remembered to bring theknife. She stepped into a patch of deeper shadow and, as the knife-wieldingmaniac drew level, stepped out and shouted, ‘Stop following me!’

Juliet gave a little scream. ‘They’ve got Trev,’ she sobbed, as Glenda heldher. ‘I know they have!’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Glenda. ‘There’s fighting all the time after a bigmatch. No sense in getting too worried.’

‘So why were you running?’ said Juliet sharply. And there was no answer tothat.

The bledlow nodded him through the staff door with a grunt and he headedstraight away for the vats. A couple of the lads were dribbling in theirmeticulous and very slow way, but there was no sign of Nutt until Trev riskedhis sanity and nasal passages by checking the communal sleeping area, where hefound Nutt sleeping on his bedroll, clutching his stomach. It was an extremelylarge stomach. Given the usual neat shape of Nutt, it made him look a littlelike a snake that had swallowed an extremely large goat. The curious face ofthe Igor and his worried voice came back to him. He looked down beside thebedroll and saw a small piece of piecrust and some crumbs. It smelled like avery good pie. In fact, he could think of only one person who could ever make apie quite so beguiling. Whatever it was that had been filling Trev, theinvisible illumination that had made him almost dance here from the WatchHouse, drained out through his feet.

He headed through the stone corridors to the Night Kitchen. Any optimism hemight have retained was dashed one hope at a time by the trail of pie crumbs,but the illumination rose again as he saw Juliet and, oh yes, Glenda, standingin what was left of the Night Kitchen, which was a mess of torn-open cupboardsand pieces of piecrust.

‘Oh, Mister Trevor Likely,’ said Glenda, folding her arms. ‘Just one question:who ate all the pies?’

The illumination swelled until it filled Trev with a kind of silvery light. Ithad been three nights since he had slept in an actual bed and it had not beenyour normal sort of day. He smiled broadly at nothing at all and was caught byJuliet as he hit the ground.

Trev woke up half an hour later, when Glenda brought him a cup of tea. ‘Ithought we’d better let you sleep,’ she said. ‘Juliet said you looked awful, soobviously she’s coming to her senses.’

‘He was dead,’ said Trev. ‘Dead as a doorknob, and then he wasn’t. What’s thatall about?’ He levered himself up and realized that he had been put to bed onone of the grubby bedrolls in the vats. Nutt was lying on the roll next to him.

‘All right,’ said Glenda. ‘If you can do it without lying, tell me.’ She satdown and watched the sleeping Nutt for a while as Trev tried to make sense ofthe previous evening. ‘What was in the sandwich again? The one the Igor gavehim?’

‘Tuna, spaghetti and jam. With sprinkles,’ said Trev, yawning.

‘Are you sure?’

‘It’s not the kinda thing you forget.’

‘What kind of jam?’ Glenda insisted.

‘Why ask?’

‘I’m thinking it might work with quince. Or chilli. Can’t see any place forsprinkles, though. They don’t make any sense.’

‘What? He’s an Igor. It doesn’t have to make sense!’

‘But he warned you about Nutt?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think he meant “lock up your pies”, do you? Are you gonna getinto trouble about the pies?’

‘No. I’ve got plenty more maturing in the cool room. They’re at their best whenmatured. You have to keep ahead of yourself, with pies.’

She looked down at Nutt and went on, ‘Are you really telling me he got allsmashed up by the Stollop boys and then walked out of the Lady Sibyl?’

‘He was as dead as a doorknob. Even old ’addock could spot that.’

This time they both stared at Nutt.

‘He’s alive now,’ said Glenda, as if it was an accusation.

‘Look,’ said Trev, ‘all I know about people who come from Uberwald is that someof them are vampires and some are werewolves. Well, I don’t think vampires aremuch interested in pies. And it was a full moon last week and he didn’t actodd; well, odder than normal.’

Glenda lowered her voice. ‘Maybe he’s a zombie—No, they don’t eat pies either.’She continued to stare at Nutt, but another part of her said, ‘There’s going tobe a banquet on Wednesday night. Lord Vetinari’s up to something with thewizards. It’s about the football, I’m sure of it.’

‘Well?’

‘For some plan, I expect. Something nasty. The wizards were at the game todaytaking notes! Don’t tell me that’s healthy. They want to shut down football,that’s what it is!’

‘Good!’

‘Trevor Likely, how can you say that! Your dad—’

‘Died because he was dumb,’ said Trev. ‘And don’t tell me it was the way hewould have wanted to go. No one would want to go like that.’

‘But he loved his football!’

‘So? What does that mean? The Stollop boys love their football. Andy Shankloves ’is football! And what does it mean? Not countin’ today, how often haveyou seen the ball in play? Hardly ever, I bet.’

‘Well, yes, but it’s not about the football.’

‘You’re saying that football is not about football?’

Glenda wished she’d had a proper education, or, failing that, any realeducation at all. But she was not going to back off now. ‘It’s the sharing,’she said. ‘It’s being part of the crowd. It’s chanting together. It’s all ofit. The whole thing.’

‘I believe, Miss Glenda,’ said Nutt from his mattress, ‘that the work you arelooking for is Trousenblert’s Der Selbst uberschritten durch das Ganze.’

They looked down at Nutt again, mouths open. He had opened his eyes andappeared to be staring at the ceiling. ‘It is the lonely soul trying to reachout to the shared soul of all humanity, and possibly much further. W. E. G.Goodnight’s translation of In Search of The Whole is marred, while quiteunderstandable, by the mistranslation of bewu?tseinsschwelle as “haircut”throughout.’