Hogfather

‘I believe she’s gone to her sister’s for the holiday,’ said the Bursar.

‘We certainly don’t have to take orders from any kind of housekeeper!’ said the Archchancellor. ‘To the laundry!’

The wizards surged out excitedly, leaving Susan, the oh god, the Verruca Gnome and the Hair Loss Fairy.

‘Tell me again who those people were,’ said the oh god.

‘Some of the cleverest men in the world,’ said Susan.

‘And I’m sober, am I?’

‘Clever isn’t the same as sensible,’ said Susan, ‘and they do say that if you wish to walk the path to wisdom then for your first step you must become as a small child.’

‘Do you think they’ve heard about the second step?’

Susan sighed. ‘Probably not, but sometimes they fall over it while they’re running around shouting.’

‘Ah.’ The oh god looked around. ‘Do you think they have any soft drinks here?’ he said.

The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step.

Where people go wrong is in ignoring all the thousands of other steps that come after it. They make the single step of deciding to become one with the universe, and for some reason forget to take the logical next step of living for seventy years on a mountain and a daily bowl of rice and yak-butter tea that would give it any kind of meaning. While evidence says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions,^{51} they’re probably all on first steps.

The Dean was always at his best at times like this. He led the way between the huge, ancient copper vats, prodding with his staff into dark corners and going ‘Hut! Hut!’ under his breath.

‘Why would it turn up here?’ whispered the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘Point of reality instability,’ said Ridcully, standing on tip-toe to look into a bleaching cauldron. ‘Every damn thing turns up here. You should know that by now.’

‘But why now?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

‘No talking!’ hissed the Dean, and leapt out into the next alleyway, staff held protectively in front of him.

‘Hah!’ he screamed, and then looked disappointed.

‘Er, how big would this sock-stealing thing be?’ said the Senior Wrangler.

‘Don’t know,’ said Ridcully. He peered behind a stack of washboards. ‘Come to think of it, I must’ve lost a ton of socks over the years.’

‘Me too,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘So … should we be looking in small places or very large places?’ the Senior Wrangler went on, in the voice of one whose train of thought has just entered a long dark tunnel.

‘Good point,’ said Ridcully. ‘Dean, why do you keep referring to sheds all the time?’

‘It’s “hut”, Mustrum,’ said the Dean. ‘It means … it means …’

‘Small wooden building?’ Ridcully suggested.

‘Well, sometimes, agreed, but other times … well, you just have to say “hut”.’

‘This sock creature … does it just steal them, or does it eat them?’ said the Senior Wrangler.

‘Valuable contribution, that man,’ said Ridcully, giving up on the Dean. ‘Right, pass the word along: no one is to look like a sock, understand?’

‘How can you—’ the Dean began, and stopped.

They all heard it.

… grnf, grnf, grnf …

It was a busy sound, the sound of something with a serious appetite to satisfy.

‘The Eater of Socks,’ moaned the Senior Wrangler, with his eyes shut.

‘How many tentacles would you expect it to have?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘I mean, roughly speaking?’

‘It’s a very large sort of noise, isn’t it?’ said the Bursar.

‘To the nearest dozen, say,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, edging backwards.

… grnf, grnf, grnf …

‘It’d probably tear our socks off as soon as look at us …’ wailed the Senior Wrangler.

‘Ah. So at least five or six tentacles, then, would you say?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘Seems to me it’s coming from one of the washing engines,’ said the Dean.

The engines were each two storeys high, and usually only used when the University’s population soared during term time. A huge treadmill connected to a couple of big bleached wooden paddles in each vat, which were heated via the fireboxes underneath. In full production the washing engines needed at least half a dozen people to manhandle the loads, maintain the fires and oil the scrubbing arms. Ridcully had seen them at work once, when it had looked like a picture of a very clean and hygienic Hell, the kind of place soap might go to when it died.

The Dean stopped by the door to the boiler area.

‘Something’s in here,’ he whispered. ‘Listen!’

… grnf …

‘It’s stopped! It knows we’re here!’ he hissed. ‘All right? Ready? Hut!’

‘No!’ squeaked the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘I’ll open the door and you be ready to stop it! One … two … three! Oh …’

The sleigh soared into the snowy sky.

ON THE WHOLE, I THINK THAT WENT VERY WELL, DON’T YOU?

‘Yes, master,’ said Albert.

I WAS RATHER PUZZLED BY THE LITTLE BOY IN THE CHAIN MAIL, THOUGH.

‘I think that was a Watchman, master.’

REALLY? WELL, HE WENT AWAY HAPPY, AND THAT’S THE MAIN THING.