Page 64 (1/2)
To David Pratchett and Jiht their sons to be curious
It is hard to understand nothing, but thetravels everywhere, always ahead of so yearns to becoe, to dance and to experience – in short, to be so
And now it found its chance as it drifted in the ether Nothing, of course, knew about so was different, oh yes, and so nothing slid silently into so in mind and, fortunately, landed on the back of a turtle, a very large one, and hurried to beco was better than that and suddenly the elemental was captured! The bait had worked
Anyone who has ever seen the River Ankh sliding along its bed of miscellaneous nastiness would understand why so much of the piscine food for the people of Ankh-Morpork has to be supplied by the fishing fleets of Quirastric trouble for the citizenry, Ankh-Morpork fishers have to ensure that their suppliersway from the city
For Bowden Jeffries, purveyor of the very best in seafood, the two hundred miles or more which lay between the fish docks at Quir distance throughout the winter, autu and a sheer penance in the suhway, such as it was, beca City Once you had had to deal with a ton of overheated octopus, you never forgot it; the smell lasted for days, and followed you around and alet it out of your clothes
People were so de, but the elite of Ankh-Morpork and, indeed, everyone else wanted their fish, even in the hottest part of the season Even with an icehouse built by his oo hands and, by arrange the journey, it made you want to cry, it really did
And he said as ardener, who looked at his beer and said, ‘It’s always the saine how quickly strawberries turn into little balls of mush in the heat? Well, I’ll tell you: no time at all Blink and you miss ’em, just when everybody wants their strawberries And you ask the watercress people how difficult it is to get the damn stuff to the city before it’s as liovernment!’
‘No,’ said his cousin ‘I’ve had enough of this Let’s write to the newspapers! That’s the way to get things done Everyone’s coetables and the seafood Vetinari should be ht of the small-time entrepreneur After all, what do we occasionally pay our taxes for?’
Dick Simnel was ten years old when, back at the fae, his father si metal, all enveloped in a pink stea da Dick Si steam that he would make steam his servant
His mother had other ideas She was a hbours, ‘Babbies are born everywhere I’ll never be without a custoainst her son’s wishes, Elsie Simnel decided to take him away from what she now considered to be a haunted place She packed up their belongings and together they returned to her family home near Sto Lat, where people didn’t inexplicably disappear in a hot pink cloud
Soon after they arrived so for his mother to return fro that looked interesting, and which turned out to be a library At first he thought it was full of poncy stuff, all kings and poets and lovers and battles, but in one crucial book he found so called mathematics and the world of numbers
And that hy, one day soether every fibre of his being and said, ‘Mother, you know last year when I said I were going ’iking in the mountains of Uberith me mates, well, it were kind of … sort of … a kind of lie, only very small, mind you’ Dick blushed ‘You see, I found t’keys to Dad’s old shed and, well, I went back to Sheepridge and did so and …’ he looked at his ’
Dick was braced for stiff objections, but he hadn’t reckoned on tears – so many tears – and as he tried to console her he added, ‘You, Mother, and Uncle Flavius gotof the nu the arithmetic and weird stuff dreamed up by the philosophers in Ephebe where even caarithht ideas but he didn’t have the … tech-nol-ogy right’
At this point, Dick allowed hisyou, our Dick, you’re just like your stubborn father were, pigheaded Is that what you’ve been doin’ in the barn? Teck-ology?’ She looked at hihed ‘I can see I can’t tell you what to do, but you tell oin’ the way of your poor old dad?’ She started sobbing again
Dick pulled out of his jacket soht have been made for a miniature wizard, and said, ‘This’ll keeprule! I can tell the sine what to do, and the cosine likewise and work out the tangent of t’quaderatics! Co and come wi’ me now to t’barn You must see ’er!’
Mrs Sireat open barn he had kitted out like the workshop back at Sheepridge, hoping against hope that her son had accidentally found hie circle oflike a squirrel in a cage, giving off a smell much like camphor
‘Here she is, Mother Ain’t she champion?’ Dick said happily ‘I call her Iron Girder!’
‘But what is it, son?’
He grinned hugely and said, ‘It’s what they call a pro-to-type, Mother You’ve got to ’ave a pro-to-type if you’re going to be an engineer’
His mother smiled wanly
but there was no stopping Dick The words just tumbled out
‘The thing is, Mother, before you atteot to ’ave some idea of what it is you want to do One of the books I found in the library was about being an architect And in that book, the’ouse he always et an idea of hoould all work out He said it sounds fiddly and stuff, but going slowly and being thorough is the only way forward And so I’ orks and what doesn’t And actually, I’ I ine I wanted would be very ’eavy, so I chopped up t’wooden circle for firewood and went back to t’forge’