The Wit & Wisdom of Discworld - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,77

a human, after all. He should know how to deal with something like Malicia. But Keith was just wandering around the shed, staring at things.

Malicia leaned against the wall with incredible nonchalance. There was not a click. A panel in the floor did not slide back. ‘Probably the wrong place,’ she said. ‘I’ll just rest my arm innocently on this coat hook.’ A sudden door in the wall completely failed to happen. ‘Of course, it’d help if there was an ornate candlestick,’ said Malicia. ‘They’re always a sure-fire secret passage lever. Every adventurer knows that.’

‘There isn’t a candlestick,’ said Maurice.

‘I know. Some people totally fail to have any idea of how to design a proper secret passage,’ said Malicia. She leaned against another piece of wall, which had no effect whatsoever.

‘I don’t think you’ll find it that way’ said Keith, who was carefully examining a trap.

‘Oh? Won’t I?’ said Malicia. ‘Well, at least I’m being constructive about things! Where would you look, if you’re such an expert?’

‘Why is there a rat hole in a ratcatchers’ shed?’ said Keith. ‘It smells of dead rats and wet dogs and poison. I wouldn’t come near this place if I was a rat.’

‘Ye-es,’ said Malicia. ‘That usually works, in stories. It’s often the stupid person who comes up with the good idea by accident.’ She crouched down and peered into the hole. ‘There’s a sort of little lever,’ she said. ‘I’ll just give it a little push …’

There was a clonk under the floor, part of it swung back, and Keith dropped out of sight.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Malicia. ‘I thought something like that would probably happen …’

*

‘Now I want to ask you a question,’ said Darktan. ‘You’ve been the leader for … how long?’

‘Ten years,’ said the mayor.

‘Isn’t it hard?’

‘Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Everyone argues with me all the time,’ said the mayor. ‘Although I must say I’m expecting a little less arguing if all this works. But it’s not an easy job.’

‘It’s ridiculous to have to shout all the time just to get things done,’ said Darktan.

‘That’s right,’ said the mayor.

‘And everyone expects you to decide things,’ said Darktan.

‘True.’

‘The last leader gave me some advice just before he died, and do you know what it was? “Don’t eat the green wobbly bit”!’

‘Good advice?’ said the mayor.

‘Yes,’ said Darktan. ‘But all he had to do was be big and tough and fight all the other rats that wanted to be leader.’

‘It’s a bit like that with the council,’ said the mayor.

‘What?’ said Darktan. ‘You bite them in the neck?’

‘Not yet,’ said the mayor. ‘But it’s a thought, I must say’

‘It’s just all a lot more complicated than I ever thought it would be!’ said Darktan, bewildered. ‘Because after you’ve learned to shout you have to learn not to!’

‘Right again,’ said the mayor. ‘That’s how it works … See the river? See the Houses? See the people in the streets? I have to make it all work. Well, not the river, obviously, that works by itself. And every year it turns out that I haven’t upset enough people for them to choose anyone else as mayor. So I have to do it again. It’s a lot more complicated than I ever thought it would be.’

‘What, for you too? But you’re a human!’ said Darktan in astonishment.

‘Hah! You think that makes it easier? I thought rats were wild and free!’

‘Hah!’ said Darktan.

They stared out of the window.

‘It’s just like I always tell my daughter,’ said the man. ‘Stories are just stories. Life is complicated enough as it is. We have to plan for the real world. There’s no room for the fantastic’

‘Exactly’ said the rat.

The thing about stories is that you have to pick the ones that last.

THERE’S trouble on the Aching farm - nightmares spreading down from the hills. And now Tiffany Aching’s little brother has been stolen by the Queen of the Fairies (although Tiffany doesn’t think this is entirely a bad thing).

Tiffany’s got to get him back. To help her, she has a weapon (a frying pan), her granny’s magic book (well, Diseases of the Sheep, actually) and—

‘Crivens! Whut aboot us, ye daftie!’

—oh, yes. She’s also got the Nac Mac Feegle, the Wee Free Men, the fightin’, thievin’, tiny blue-skinned pictsies who were thrown out of Fairyland for being Drunk and Disorderly…

Ordinary fortune-tellers tell you what you want to happen; witches tell you what’s going to happen whether you want it to or not. Strangely enough, witches tend to be more accurate but