Making Money

Moist, if he’d had any mental picture at all, was expecting a cabinet. After all, that’s what it was called, yes? But what filled most of the impossible room was a tree, in the general shape of a venerable spreading oak. It was a tree in winter; there were no leaves. And then, when the mind had found a familiar, friendly simile, it had to come to terms with the fact that the tree was made of filing cabinets. They appeared to be wooden ones, but this didn’t help much.

High up in what had to be called the branches, wizards on broomsticks were engaged in who-knew-what. They looked like insects.

‘It is a bit of a shock when you see it for the first time, isn’t it?’ said a friendly voice.

Moist looked round at a young wizard, at least young by the standards of wizards, who had round spectacles, a clipboard, and the shiny sort of expression that says: I probably know more than you can possibly imagine but I am still reasonably happy to talk even to people like yourself.

‘You’re Ponder Stibbons, right?’ said Moist. ‘The only one who does any work in the university?’

Other wizards turned their heads at this, and Ponder went red. ‘That’s quite untrue! I just pull my weight, like any other member of the faculty,’ he said, but a slight tone to his voice suggested that perhaps the other faculty members had far too much weight and not enough pull. ‘I am in charge of the Cabinet Project, for my sins.’

‘Why? What did you do?’ said Moist, at sea in a world of sin. ‘Something worse?’

‘Er, volunteered to take it over,’ said Ponder. ‘And I have to say we have learned more in the last six months than in the past twenty-five years. The Cabinet is a truly amazing artefact.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘In the attic, tucked behind a collection of stuffed frogs. We think people gave up trying to make it work years ago. Of course, that was back in the dribbly candle era,’ said Ponder, earning a snort from the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘Modern technomancy is somewhat more useful.’

‘All right, then,’ said Moist, ‘what is it for?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘How does it work?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Where did it come from?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Well, that seems to be all,’ said Moist sarcastically. ‘Oh no, one last one: what is it? And let me tell you, I’m agog.’

‘That may be the wrong sort of question to ask,’ said Ponder, shaking his head. ‘Technically it appears to be a classic Bag of Holding but with n mouths, where n is the number of items in an eleven-dimensional universe which are not currently alive, not pink and can fit in a cubical drawer 14.14 inches on a side, divided by P.’

‘What’s P?’

‘That may be the wrong sort of question.’

‘When I was a little girl it was just a magic box,’ Adora Belle broke in, in a dreamy voice. ‘It was in a much smaller room and when it unfolded a few times there was a box with a golem’s foot in it.’

‘Ah, yes, in the third iteration,’ said Ponder. ‘They couldn’t get much further than that in those days. Now, of course, we’ve got controlled recursion and aim-driven folding that effectively reduces collateral boxing to 0.13 per cent, a twelvefold improvement in the last year alone!’

‘That’s great!’ said Moist, feeling that it was the least he could do.

‘Does Miss Dearheart want to see the item again?’ said Ponder, lowering his voice. Adora Belle still had a faraway look in her eyes.

‘I think so,’ said Moist. ‘She’s very big on golems.’

‘We were about to fold up for today in any case,’ said Ponder. ‘It won’t hurt to pick up the Foot on the way.’

He took a large megaphone from a bench and held it to his lips.

‘THE CABINET CLOSES IN THREE MINUTES, GENTLEMEN. ALL RESEARCHERS INSIDE THE SAFETY AREA NOW, PLEASE. BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!’

‘Be there or be square?’ said Moist, as Ponder lowered the megaphone.

‘Oh, a couple of years ago someone ignored the warning and, um, when the Cabinet folded up he temporarily became a curiosity.’

‘You mean he ended up inside a fourteen-inch cube?’ said Moist, horrified.

‘Mostly. Look, we really would be very happy if you didn’t tell anyone about the Cabinet, thank you. We know how to use it, we think, but it might not be the way it was intended to be used. We don’t know what it’s for, as you put it, or who built it or even if they are completely the wrong questions to ask. Nothing in it is bigger than about fourteen inches square, but we don’t know why this is or who it is who decides they are curious, or why, and we certainly don’t know why it contains nothing pink. It’s all very embarrassing. I’m sure you can keep a secret, Mr Lipwig?’

‘You’d be amazed.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘That’s the wrong kind of question.’

‘You do know something quite important about the Cabinet,’ said Adora Belle, apparently waking up. ‘You know it wasn’t built for or by a girl between the ages of four and, oh, eleven years old.’

‘How do we know that?’

‘No pink. Trust me. No girl in that age group would leave out pink.’