Unseen Academicals

  At this point, according to the editor of the Times:

  Seemingly nonplussed by the return of the wizards’ famous man of the forest, Shank essayed another attempt at the winning score, which was stopped one-handed by the Librarian and effortlessly thrown back into United’s turf. With everything to play for, it seemed to us that every man on the pitch was chasing the ball as if they were a pack of boys, scuffling in the gutter for the traditional tin can. However, Mr Nobbs, who we are assured is no relation, was able to make some space to give the unlucky Mr Likely another attempt at following in his father’s footsteps, which he failed to do by the width, from our estimation, of about half of one inch and the ball was snatched up by Big Boy Barton who then collapsed, choking, having stuffed, we understand, a considerable amount of pie into his face to keep his hands free.

  ‘It shouldn’t be like this,’ said Glenda, and the thought echoed back in her head: It shouldn’t be like this. ‘Trev has to win, it can’t go any other way.’ And her voice came back again; could you get echoes in your own head? They were going to lose, weren’t they? They were going to lose because Andy knew how to break the rules.

  The rules.

  I am the rules.

  She looked around, but apart from the doctor and his groaning or, in Ridcully’s case, cursing charges, there was no one near her apart from Juliet who was watching the game with her normal, faint smile.

  ‘Good heavens. All he needs is to get only one goal,’ said Glenda aloud.

  I am the goal, said the quiet voice from nowhere.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ said Glenda.

  ‘Wot?’ said Juliet. She turned and Glenda could see that she was crying. ‘Trev’s going to lose.’

  I am the ball.

  This time it had come from her pocket, and she pulled out Trev’s tin can.

  As Doctor Lawn gave a groan and hurried back up the pitch towards the choking Charlie (as the Times later put it), she followed him and caught up with Mr Nobbs. ‘If you ever want a cup of tea and a piece of cake again in your life, Mr Nobbs, you kick the ball towards me. You will know where I am, because I will be screaming and acting silly. Do what I say, okay?’

  Do what she says, okay? he heard her voice echo. ‘And what will you do, throw it back?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Glenda.

  ‘And what good is this going to do?’

  ‘It’s going to win you the match, that’s what. Can you remember rule 202?’

  She left him wondering and then hurried along to Mrs Whitlow and the cheerleaders who, right now, had nothing to cheer about. ‘I think we should give the boys a really good display at this time,’ she suggested. ‘Don’t you agree, Juliet?’

  Juliet, who had been dutifully following her said, ‘Yes, Glenda.’

  Yes, Glenda. And there it was again. One sentence. Two voices.

  Mrs Whitlow was not the sort of person who would take an instruction from the head of the Night Kitchen, but Glenda leaned forward and said, ‘It’s the Archchancellor’s special request.’

  The resurrection of Big Boy Barton was not an easy job and there were possibly fewer volunteers for putting their fingers down his throat than there had been for the Librarian. And his emptying and cleaning up took a little more time.

  As the referee summoned the teams back into position, Glenda arrived out of breath and handed him a piece of paper. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s the rules, sir, but you will see that I have put a ring around one of them.’

  He glanced at it, and said dismissively, ‘Looks like a lot of nonsense to me.’

  ‘It’s not, sir, not if you look at it a bit at a time, sir, it’s the rules, sir.’

  Archchancellor Henry shrugged and stuffed the paper into his pocket.

  For a moment, Bledlow Nobbs glanced at Glenda, defiantly out of place amongst the cheerleaders. Glenda was known to be generous to her friends and she made the best tea in the university. This wasn’t about football, this was about a hot mug of tea and possibly a doughnut. He leaned down to Nutt. ‘Glenda says I’ve got to remember rule 202,’ he said.

  Nutt’s face brightened. ‘Clever idea and of course it will work. Did she tell you to kick the ball out of the pitch?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Are we going to cheat?’ said Bledlow Nobbs.

  ‘No. We are going to stick to the rules. And the thing about sticking to the rules is that it’s sometimes better than cheating.’

  Nobbs’s chance came soon enough, surprisingly with an obviously misdirected pass from Hoggett. Had Hoggett been standing very close when they had been talking? And had he just said ‘Go for it?’ It sounded very much like it. He kicked the ball straight towards the cheerleaders, where Glenda snatched it out of the air and pushed it into the folds of Mrs Whitlow’s skirt. ‘You haven’t seen this, ladies, you haven’t seen where it is and you’re not moving for anyone, okay?’

  As the crowd booed and cheered, she pulled the tin can out of her bag and held it up in the air. ‘Ball lost!’ she yelled. ‘Substitute ball!’ and threw the can directly towards the bledlow, who was quick enough to flick it on to Nutt. Before any other player had moved, it landed with a little gloing! sound on the end of Trev Likely’s boot...

  According to the editor of the Times:

  We have been assured that no magic was used on the day of the match and it is not my place to contradict the honourable faculty of Unseen University. All your correspondent will say is that Trevor Likely kicked the ‘ball’, against all probability, towards the Academicals’ goal, where he stood, apparently waiting for the stampede of the enraged United squad. What followed, your correspondent must declare, was not just a goal, but it was a punishment and it was a retribution. It was writing the name Likely, for the second time, in the annals of football history, as Trevor, famous son of a famous father, wiped the floor with United, wrung them out and did it all over again. Running. Dodging. Sometimes obligingly kicking the ‘ball’ directly towards a defender who then found it heading off in quite a different direction, which just happened to be where Likely was now. He taunted them. He played with them. He caused them to collide with one another as they both went for a ball that, inexplicably, was no longer where they were sure it had been. And it must have come as a relief to the more steady members of United when he relented and skipped the ‘ball’ over the head of their standby keeper, Micky Pulford (latterly of the Whopping Street Wanderers) and into the net, where it circled and then returned to land precisely on the tip of Likely’s boot. The silence...

  . . . spread like warm butter. Glenda was sure she could hear distant birdsong or, possibly, the noise of worms under the turf, but definitely the sound from Dr Lawn’s impromptu field hospital, the sound of ‘Big Boy’ Barton chucking up again.

  And then, where silence had reigned, sound poured like the gush of water from a broken dam. It was physical and it was complex. Here and there the spectators started chanting. All the chants of all the teams, united and harmonizing in one perfect moment.

  Glenda watched in amazement as Juliet . . . It was like the fashion show all over again. She seemed to light up from the inside, bars of golden light floating away from the micromail. She started to run towards Trev, tearing off her beard, and, Glenda could see, gradually rising from the ground as though she was running up a stairway.

  It was a strange and wonderful sight, and not even Charlie Barton, still throwing up, could detract from it.

  ‘ ’scuse me,’ said Mister Hoggett. ‘That was a goal, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Hoggett, I think it was,’ said the referee.

  Hoggett was pushed out of the way by Andy Shank. ‘No! It went to one side! Are you bloody blind, or what? And it was a tin can.’

  ‘No, Mister Shank, it was not. Gentlemen, can you not see what’s happening in front of your faces? Look, everything that happened was perfectly legal under the rules of the game, rule 202, to be precise. It’s a fossil, but it is a rule, and I can assure you t
hat no magic was used. But right now, gentlemen, can you not see the golden lady floating up in the air?’

  ‘Yeah, right, that’s just more weird kids’ stuff, just like that goal.’

  ‘This is football, Mister Shank, it’s all weird kids’ stuff.’

  ‘So the game is over,’ said Mr Hoggett.

  ‘Yes, Mister Hoggett, it is. Apart from, and I insist on drawing your attention to it, a beautiful golden lady floating over the pitch. Am I the only one seeing this?’

  Hoggett glanced towards the rising Juliet. ‘Yeah, right, very pretty, but we’ve lost, have we?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Hoggett, you have clearly and emphatically lost.’

  ‘And, just to be precise,’ said Hoggett, ‘there are no more, like, rules, are there?’

  ‘No, Mister Hoggett, you are no longer subject to the rules of football.’

  ‘Thank you for that clarification, your worship, and may I also thank you on behalf of United for the way you handled the trying events of this afternoon.’

  With this, he turned and punched Andy full in the face. Mister Hoggett was a mild man, but years of lifting a pig carcass in each hand meant that he had a punch that even Andy’s thick skin had to reckon with. Even so, after Andy had blinked a few times he managed to say, ‘You bastard.’

  ‘You lost us the game,’ said Hoggett. ‘We could have won fair and square, but you had to muck it up.’ And those around him felt able to murmur in support of the accusation.

  ‘Me? It wasn’t me! It was that bloody Trev Likely and his little orc chum. They was using magic. You can’t say that wasn’t magic.’

  ‘Just skill, I assure you,’ said the former Dean. ‘Amazing skill, certainly, but he is well known for his prowess with the tin can, which itself is a veritable icon of football.’

  ‘Where is that bloody Likely, anyway?’

  Glenda, eyes fixed on the centre of the pitch, said in the voice of someone half hypnotized, ‘He’s rising up in the air as well.’

  ‘Look, you can’t tell me that’s not magic,’ Andy insisted.

  ‘No,’ said Glenda. ‘You know what, I think it’s religion. Can’t you hear?’

  ‘I can’t hear anything, dear, with all the noise from the crowd,’ said the former Dean.

  ‘Yes,’ said Glenda. ‘Listen to the crowd.’

  He did. It was a roar, a great sky-filling roar, old and animal and coming up from the gods knew where, but inside it, travelling like a hidden message, he made out the words. They swam into focus, if indeed the ear could focus and if he was actually hearing them with his ears. They might have been coming through his bones...

  If the striker thinks he scores

  Or if the keeper cries in shame

  They understand not the crowd’s applause

  I make, and hear and earn again

  For I am the crowd and I am the ball

  I am the triumph and the blame

  I am the turf, the pies, the All

  Always and ever, I am the Game.

  It matters not who won or lost

  Nothing is the score you made

  Fame is a petal that curls in the frost

  But I will remember how you played.

  And it stays there, Glenda thought, like sound in a banner. Everybody one part of it.

  Juliet and Trev began to float down, hand in hand, turning gently until they landed lightly on the turf, still kissing. A sort of reality began to leak back into the arena, and there are some people who, even when hearing the voice of the nightingale, will say ‘What’s that bloody noise?’

  ‘Cheatin’ bastard,’ said Andy and launched himself directly at Trev, covering the ground at speed as the boy stood there with a very bemused but happy expression on his face. He did not notice the hellbent Andy until a huge boot kicked him squarely in the groin, so hard that the eyes of all male watchers watered in sympathetic pain.

  For the second time in twenty-four hours, Trev felt the micromail sing as the thousands of links moved and just as quickly settled down again. It was as if a little breeze had blown up his pants. Apart from that, he hadn’t felt a thing.

  Andy, on the other hand, had. He was lying on the ground, bent double, making a sort of whistling noise through his teeth.

  Someone slapped Trev on the back. It was Pepe.

  ‘You did put my pants on, didn’t you? Well, obviously not my pants. You’d have to be suicidal to want to put my pants on. Anyway, I’ve come up with a name for the stuff: I’m going to call it Retribushium. Can’t ever say it will be an end to war, ’cos I can’t imagine anything putting an end to war, but it sends the force back the way it came. Didn’t chafe either, did it?’

  ‘No,’ said Trev, amazed.

  ‘Well, it did for him! My word, though, he’s a game one. That reminds me, I’ll need a picture of you in them.’

  Andy was rising slowly, elevating himself to the vertical almost by willpower alone. Pepe grinned, and somehow it seemed obvious to Trev that anyone who was going to get up and try any threats with Pepe grinning at him was more than suicidal.

  ‘Got a knife, have you, you little squirt?’ said Andy.

  ‘No, Andy,’ said Nutt behind him. ‘No more. The game is over. Fortune has favoured Unseen Academicals and I believe the traditional ending is to exchange shirts in an atmosphere of good fellowship.’

  ‘But not pants,’ said Pepe under his breath.

  ‘What do you know about that sort of thing?’ growled Andy. ‘You’re a bloody orc. I know all about you people. You can tear arms and legs off. You’re black magic. I’m not scared of you.’ He came at Nutt with commendable speed for a man in such pain.

  Nutt dodged. ‘I believe there is a peaceful solution to the obvious enmity between us.’

  ‘You what?!’

  Pepe and some of the footballers were closing in. Andy had not been making friends. Nutt waved them away.

  ‘I’m sure I could help you, Andy. Yes, you are right, I am an orc, but doesn’t an orc have eyes? Doesn’t an orc have ears? Doesn’t an orc have arms and legs?’

  ‘Yeah, at the moment,’ said Andy, and leaped.

  What happened next happened so fast that Trev didn’t see the middle of it. It started with Andy jumping and finished with him sitting on the ground with Nutt’s hands clamped around his head, claws out. ‘Let me see now,’ Nutt mused as the man struggled in vain. ‘Twisting the skull with enough force to snap the spine and spinal column should not present much difficulty since it is a non-rotating joint. And, of course, the ear holes and eye sockets allow for extra grip in the manner of a bowling ball,’ he added happily.

  There was a horrified hush as he continued. ‘Using the unit of measurement of force invented by Sir Rosewood Bunn, I should think that a mere 250 Bunns should do the trick. But, of course, and possibly surprisingly, it is the tearing of the skin, tendons and muscles that would present me with some difficulty. You are a young man and the tensile strength would be quite high. I imagine the skin alone would require a force of about a thousand Bunns.’

  Andy yelped as his head was gently twisted.

  ‘Oh, I say! Look here now!’ said Ridcully. ‘A joke is a joke and all that, but...’

  ‘From then on it gets rather messy,’ said Nutt. ‘Muscle would tear off the bones comparatively easily.’

  Andy gave another strangled yelp.

  ‘But taking it all in all, I would think a force of between three to five Kilobunns should do the trick.’ He paused. ‘Just my little joke, Andy. I know you like a laugh. I would also, I believe, be quite capable of putting one hand down your throat and pulling out your stomach.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ croaked Andy.

  And around the arena of the Hippo, the beast smelled blood. After all, it wasn’t just horse racing that had taken place in the Hippo over the centuries. The comparatively small amount of blood that had been shed today was nothing compared with the oceans of the centuries gone by, but the beast knew blood when it smelled it. The cheering and the
chanting now picked up, and the words grew louder and louder as people rose to their feet: Orc! Orc! Orc!

  Nutt stood impassively and then turned to the former Dean. ‘Could I please ask everyone else to leave? This may become messy.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ said Trev. ‘No way.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Nutt, ‘maybe just the ladies?’

  ‘Not likely,’ said Glenda.

  ‘In that case, would you please be so kind as to lend me your megaphone, referee, and I would be grateful if you would instruct some of the stronger players on the field to restrain Mister Shank who is, I believe, sadly not in his right mind.’

  Wordlessly it was handed over. Nutt took it as the storm of Orc! Orc! grew louder, walked a little way from the rest of the group and stood there impassively with his arms folded until the taunting stopped out of sheer lack of momentum. With every eye watching him, he raised the megaphone to his lips and said, ‘Gentlemen. Yes, indeed, I am an orc and will always be one. And may I say that it’s been a privilege to play here today and to see you all. But I do gather now that being an orc in this city may be seen as something of a problem to some of you.’ He paused. ‘So I would ask you to excuse me if I request that this matter be sorted out between us now.’

  There was laughter and some jeers from various parts of the ground, but also, it seemed to Glenda, the beast was calling upon itself for silence. In that pin-drop silence the thud of the megaphone hitting the ground could be heard in every corner. Then Nutt rolled up his sleeves and lowered his voice so that people had to strain to listen.

  He said, ‘Come on if you think you’re hard enough.’

  First there was shock and then the silence of disbelief and the whisper of every head turning to every other head and saying, ‘Did he really say that?’ and then someone high in the stands started to clap, at first slowly and then at an accelerating tempo, as it reached the crowd’s tipping point, when not clapping would be unthinkable. Ceasing to clap was also unthinkable and within a minute the applause was a storm.