'What's that?'

     'She said she gets given the names every week.'

     'What, of the children where going to lose teeth?'

     'Yes. Names and addresses,' said Susan, flicking through the pages.

     'That doesn't sound very likely.'

     `Pardon  me, but are you the God of Hangovers? Oh,  look here's Twyla's tooth last month.'  She smiled at the  neat  grey writing.  'She practically hammered it out because she needed the half-dollar.'

     'Do you like children?' said the oh god.

     She  gave him a look. 'Not raw,' she said. `Other people's are OK. Hold on ...'

     She flicked some pages back and forth.

     'There's  just  blank  days,' she  said. 'Look, the last few days,  all unticked. No  names.  But if you go back a  week or  two,  look  they're all properly marked off  and the money added up at the bottom  of the page, see? And ... this can't be right, can it?'

     There were only five names entered on the first unticked night, for the previous week. Most children instinctively knew when to push their  luck and only the greedy or dentally improvident called  out  the Tooth Fairy  around Hogswatch.

     'Read the names,' said Susan.

     'William Wittles, a.k.a. Willy (home), Tosser (school),

     2nd flr bck bdrm, 68 Kicklebury Street;

     Sophie Langtree, a.k.a. Daddy's Princess, attic bdrm,

     5 The Hippo;

     The Hon. Jeffrey Bibbleton, a.k.a. Trouble in Trousers

     (home), Foureyes (school), 1st fir bck, Scrote

     Manor, Park Lane...'

     He stopped. 'I say, this is a bit intrusive, isn't it?'

     ' It's a whole new world,' said Susan. 'You haven't got there yet. Keep going.'

     'Nuhakme  Icta, a.k.a.  Little Jewel, basement,  The  Laughing Falafel, Klatchistan Take-Away and All

     Nite Grocery, cnr. Soake and Dimwell;

     Reginald Lilywhite, a.k.a. Banjo, The Park Lane Bully,

     Have You Seen This Man? , The Goose Gate

     Grabber, The Nap Hill Lurker, Rm 17, YMPA.

     'YMPA?'

     'It's what we generally call the Young-Men's-Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth-Association,' said  Susan.

'Does that  sound to you  like  someone who'd expect  a  visit  from a tooth fairy?'

     'No.'

     'Me  neither.  He  sounds like someone  who'd  expect  a visit from the Watch.'

     Susan looked  around. It really  was a crummy room, the sort rented  by someone who probably took  it never intending to  stay Iong, the sort  where walking across the floor  in the middle of the night would be accompanied by the crack of cockroaches in a death flamenco. It was amazing how many people  spent their whole fives in  places where  they never intended to stay.

     Cheap, narrow bed, crumbling plaster, tiny window

     She opened the window and fished around below the ledge, and felt satisfied when her questing fingers dosed on a piece of string which was attached to an oilcloth bag. She hauled it in.

     'What's that?' said the oh god, as she opened it on the table.

     'Oh, you see  them a lot,' said Susan, taking out some packages wrapped in  second-hand  waxed  paper.   'You  live  alone,  mice  and  roaches  eat everything, there's nowhere to store food - but outside the window it's cold and safe. More or  less  safe. It's an old  trick.  Now ...  look  at  this. Leathery bacon, a green loaf and a bit of cheese you could shave. She hasn't been back home for some time, believe me.'

     'Oh dear. What now?'

     'Where would she  take the teeth?' said Susan, to the  world in general but mainly to herself. 'What the hell does the Tooth Fairy do with ...'

     There was a knock at the door. Susan opened it.

     Outside  was a small  bald man in a long brown coat. He was  holding  a clipboard and blinked nervously at the sight of her.

     'Er...' he began.

     'Can I help you?' said Susan.

     'Er, I saw the light, see. I thought Violet was in,'  said the little man. He twiddled the pencil  that was attached to his clipboard by a piece of string. 'Only she's a bit behind  with the teeth and  there's a bit of money owing  and Ernie's cart ain't come back and it's got  to go in  my report and I come round in case ... in  case she was W  or something, it not being nice being alone and ill at Hogswatch ...'

     'She's not here,' said Susan.

     The man gave her a worried look and shook his head sadly.

     'There's  nearly  thirteen dollars  in  pillow money, see. I'll have to report it.'

     'Who to?'

     'It has to go higher  up,  see.  I just  hope it's not going to be like that business in Quirm where the girl started robbing houses. We never heard the end of that one ...'

     'Report to who?'

     'And there's the ladder and the pliers,' the man  went on, in a  litany against a world that  had no understanding of what it meant  to have to fill in an AF17 report in triplicate. 'How can  I keep track  of stocktaking if people  go  around taking stock?' He shook his head. 'I  dunno, they get the job, they think it's all nice sunny nights,  they get a bit of sharp weather and suddenly it's goodbye Charlie I'm off  to be a waitress in the warm. And then there's Emie.  I  know him. It's a nip  to keep out the cold, and  then another one  to keep it company,  and then a third in case the other two get lost ... It's all going to have to go down in my report, you know, and who's going to get the blame? M tell you ...'

     'It's  going  to  be  you,  isn't  it?'  said  Susan.  She  was  almost hypnotized. The man even had  a fringe of worried hair and a  small, worried moustache.  And the voice suggested exactly  that here was a man who, at the end of the world, would worry that it would be blamed on him.

     'That's right,' he said, but in a slightly grudging voice.  He  was not about to allow a bit of understanding to lighten his day. 'And the girls all go on about the job but I tell them they've got it easy,  it's just basic'ly ladder  work, they don't have to spend their evenings knee-deep in paper and making shortfalls good out of their own money, I might add ...'

     'You  employ the  tooth fairies?'  said Susan  quickly. The  oh god was still vertical but his eyes had glazed over.

     The  little  man preened slightly. 'Sort of,' he said. 'Basic'Iy I  run Bulk Collection and Despatch...'

     'Where to?'

     He stared at her. Sharp, direct questions weren't his forte.

     'I just sees to it they gets on the cart,' he mumbled. 'When they're on the cart and Ernie's signed the CV19 for 'em,  that's it done  and finished, only like I said he ain't turned up this week and ...'

     'A whole cart for a handful of teeth?'

     'Well, there's the food for the guards, and ...'

     'ere, who are you, anyway? What're you doing here?'

     Susan straightened up.  'I don't have  to put up  with this,'  she said sweetly, to no one in particular. She leaned forward again.

     WHAT CART ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE,  CHARLIE?' The oh god jolted away. The man m  the  brown coat shot backwards and splayed  against the  corridor wall as Susan advanced.

     'Comes Tuesdays,' he panted. "ere, what ...'

     ' AND WHERE DOES IT GO?'

     'Dunno! Like I said, when he's ...'

     'Signed  the  GV19 for them it's you done and finished,' said Susan, in her  normal  voice. 'Yes. You  said. What's Violet's  full  name?  She never mentioned it.'

     The man hesitated.

     ' I SAID...'

     'Violet Bottler!'

     'Thank you.'

     'An'  Emie's  gorn  too,' said  Charlie,  continuing  more  or less  on auto-pilot. 'I call that suspicious. I mean, he's got a wife and everything. Won't be the  first  man to get his head turned  by thirteen  dollars  and a pretty  ankle and, o'  course, no one thinks about muggins who  has to carry the can, I mean, supposing we was all to get it in our heads to run off with young wimmin?'