The World of Poo

by Terry Pratchett

  He whistled sharply and a boy of about fourteen, with a shock of straw-coloured hair on which was perched, back to front, an old keeper’s hat, emerged from a shed pushing a very official-looking wheelbarrow. He seemed too big for his clothes, with the exception of his boots, which would have fitted a giant.

  ‘We’ve got some old feed bags,’ said Mister Pontoon, ‘and there’s some waxed-paper bags that my missus puts my sandwiches in. That should do us for now and we can gather your samples as we go, so to speak.’

  They followed the boy pushing his barrow to a large enclosure, with a very high fence made of strong iron bars. Inside were a number of tea-cosy-shaped haystacks, some of which seemed to have door-openings, showing a dark interior. Quite suddenly one of the haystacks rose up on four stumpy grey legs and began to wander away. When it stopped a huge pile of poo dropped to the floor with a wet splatty sound.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Geoffrey, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a poo as big as that before. If Plain Old Humphrey were here he’d want that for his compost heap.’2

  Geoffrey and his Grand-mama continued past what they now knew to be elephants to a large cage holding a sulky-looking camel. Unusually, the bars of this cage were horizontal rather than vertical, with large spherical beads threaded at intervals, which the camel listlessly pushed to and fro.

  ‘That’s a Counting Camel from Djelibeybi,’ said Mister Pontoon. ‘He gets really bored if we don’t keep him occupied. Careful in there, young Gus, don’t spoil the arrangement. You know how bad it gets if you move the decimal point when he’s in the middle of something.’

  ‘He does look very bad tempered,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘He’ll spit at you as soon as look at you and I don’t think you want to start collecting that,’ said Mister Pontoon. ‘He’s very particular about his floating-point integers. So we’ll move on now, if you don’t mind. Now, look over there: that’s the Coat-Hanger Elk from Nothingfjord. It’s called that because its antlers make wonderful coat-hangers. Shame really, there’s not many left in the wild. If you want to have one you have to obtain a special permit and allow it to live in your wardrobe. It can get a bit whiffy, but you’ll always know where your best suit is.’

  ‘Ah, I think we’ve timed it just right here,’ said Mister Pontoon. ‘Wait for it … Oh, straight in the bag! Very neat, young Gus. Now, see that pond, we think we’ve got one of the famous Chameleon Alligators from Genua. Could be a log, mind you, because it hasn’t moved in a long while. But every now and then we see a few feathers near it and Bert, one of the other keepers, reckoned he left a pair of rubber boots on the bank over there last week and they went missing.’ Geoffrey peered at the log doubtfully. ‘Don’t you get too close, young Geoffrey, the paperwork can be a real trial and we already owe Igor for sorting out old Bert when he put his— Well, he got too close to the rotating nogo cage and I shall say no more with a lady present. Now, can you hear that noise?’

  Geoffrey stopped and listened; in the distance he detected a boingy sort of sound.

  ‘That comes from the Bouncing Kangaroo enclosure just around the corner. Let’s make our way over. They come all the way from Fourecks, and they think that we don’t know that they’re digging a hole under that trampo-line to try to get home. Won’t get them anywhere, though, his lordship had us build a metal cage under the enclosure.’

  Out of the corner of his eye Geoffrey spotted a small hunched-over kangaroo making a furtive dash towards an unfeasibly tall and precarious-looking pile of straw and earth in the corner of the enclosure. Mister Pontoon noticed it too. ‘Catch them on the hop if you can, Gus, there’s a good lad.’

  ‘Do the animals often escape?’ asked Geoffrey earnestly, fearful that potential exhibits for his poo collection might be about to hop off over the fence.

  ‘Not often, but look across there at our troupe of Acrobatic Meerkats. They’re always trying to escape too – them and their three-ringed circus. It’s not even as if they can juggle very well. We could never keep them in their old cage because they’d form themselves into a pyramid, the one at the top would throw himself across the gap and the others would climb over and out of the top. Later on they’d send a little postcard.’

  Geoffrey watched the cartwheeling meerkats for a minute.

  ‘Dreadful show-offs, your meerkats,’ said Mister Pontoon. ‘No, please don’t applaud, it only encourages them. Better be quick in there, Gus, or they’ll start their clown routine and you know what Lord Vetinari thinks about clowns.’

  As they walked away, some of the meerkats paraded round the cage holding up a badly painted sign that said: ‘The Incomparable Meerkats’, and underneath: ‘Performances every 5 minits’.

  ‘Isn’t that amazing?’ said Geoffrey.

  The keeper shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. Sometimes they spell “performance” wrong.’

  As they moved on, Mister Pontoon put his finger to his lips. ‘Now hush, walk as quietly as you can, otherwise you won’t see a thing. You wait outside with the wheelbarrow, Gus, I’ll call you if there’s anything to pick up.’

  They entered a darkened shed with a large caged area to one side. ‘Here we have the last breeding pair of Bashful Pandas from the Agatean Empire,’ the keeper whispered. Geoffrey peered into the gloom. He could make out two large shapes sitting at opposite ends of the cage with their backs to the far wall. One of them seemed to be smoking a pipe and the other seemed to be knitting something. ‘We’re not holding our breath,’ said Mister Pontoon, ‘but it’s a funny old world. And you’re in luck – they’ve not got round to hiding their poo yet. Shy about all their bodily functions, they are, and, just like them, their poo comes out in black and white. Come along, Gus, bring in the shovel.’

  ‘This must be very rare poo indeed,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘It most certainly is,’ said Mister Pontoon, ‘and if they don’t get round to producing a Bashful Panda baby soon there won’t be any more of it. So you take good care of it.’

  ‘I certainly will,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘Mister Pontoon?’ said Grand-mama. ‘I wonder if I might make a suggestion. Why don’t you just leave them in peace, you know, with a curtain or something? Or maybe some light music? I have no reason to get coarse with my grandson here, all ears, but I think that might be the way forward, as it were.’

  ‘Ooh, are you a biologist, madam?’

  ‘No, but I am a married woman and a married woman who is telling you to give these creatures some privacy. Then I guarantee you will reap dividends and, indeed, pandas.’

  ‘How did all these animals get here?’ asked Geoffrey inquisitively.

  ‘They were mostly given as presents to his lordship from visiting indignitaries and ambassadors and the like,’ said Mister Pontoon. ‘A bit silly, really, because I reckon he’d prefer a nice book, but it’s become a bit of a tradition, see. You know, heads of state giving each other animals they don’t want. I can still remember the Sultan of Ymitury turning up with half a dozen creatures bound up in black cloth like oversized skittles. He told us to keep them warm and they would hatch out into giant butterflies. It took us a while to work out that they were his less-favoured concubines.’

  ‘What’s a concubine?’ asked Geoffrey.

  Before the keeper could answer, Grand-mama interjected in a voice of thunder, ‘It’s a kind of vegetable.’

  ‘Are there any animals that I can feed?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘We’ve got some Woolly Goats from the Trollbone mountains,’ said the keeper. ‘Mind you, it’s not easy to tell them front from back at this time of year. Though old Bert is quite clever with them: he waits until they fart and that gives him a clue as to which end to feed.’

  In their enclosure Geoffrey studied the incredibly hairy goats and, being an observant boy, and having a special interest, he looked at the ground and saw a pile of droppings. He duly collected these in his bucket and then walked to the other end with the handful of cabbage leaves the keeper had given him. He was rewarded
with a long leathery tongue shooting out of the hairy thatch and taking the leaves out of his hand.

  ‘There must be an awful lot of poo every day,’ said Geoffrey as the small party walked back towards the gate. ‘The compost heaps would be as big as a mountain if you kept it all.’

  ‘Anything we can’t use is taken away by Sir Harry King’s men; his lordship has a daily collection. Sir Harry pays us a bit extra if we keep the lion dung separate, so lucky for you I can give you a sample of that. It’s a bit pongy, mind.’

  ‘Do you have a hippo or a wyvern in the Menagerie?’

  ‘No,’ said Mister Pontoon, ‘they’re your heraldics, a different kettle of fish altogether, as it were, most exotic. There’s only one place you’ll find them, young Geoffrey, and that is at the Royal College of Heralds. They’ve rebuilt most of it since the fire but it’s a strange old place. You’ll have a job getting in there: you’ve got to be nobby before they’ll even answer the door. Apart from sirs and lords, the only other person I know who can get in is Doughnut Jimmy the vet. He looks after our animals and was called in there to look at their wyvern only last week.’

  ‘Thank you very much for helping me, Mister Pontoon,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘My pleasure, young man, and it’s made a nice change for young Gus. I’ll get him to pack up your specimens and we’ll put them on top of the carriage because I don’t suppose your Grand-mama will want to travel with that lot inside.’

  ‘I think we should go and have our picnic in the park; it’s a bit smelly in here, Geoffrey,’ said Grand-mama after they had said their farewells.

  And so they walked across a large area of lawn and trees, and under one particular tree Geoffrey saw a rather elderly and portly man sitting on a small stool. He was wearing a keeper’s hat but Geoffrey couldn’t see any animals. Geoffrey edged closer and very politely asked the keeper what he was keeping. ‘My job, young sir,’ said the man, ‘is of fundamental importance in this whole menagerie, because I, young sir, am the Re-Director.’

  ‘The Re-Director?’ said Geoffrey. ‘That sounds very important. What do you re-direct?’

  At Geoffrey’s feet and stretching for quite some distance was a thin stone trough filled with greenish water. ‘That,’ said the old keeper, ‘is one of the greatest achievements in engineering by the late and some would say unlamented B. S. Johnson, engineer, architect and scholar. And that, young sir, is the most unusual and peculiar fish stream in the entire world.’

  Geoffrey stood on the edge of the narrow strip and saw a shape in the depths below, slowly moving towards him.

  ‘Stand back now, young sir,’ said the keeper, rising to his feet as the shape drew near to where he was sitting.

  ‘This re-directing requires years of experience.’ He picked up off the grass a most peculiar object. It was a large net, quite narrow but with a long and sturdy handle. It fitted perfectly into the channel and with a great effort the keeper plunged the net into the water, levered forth a very large, rectangular fish and then, stepping over the trough and turning hubwards, he placed the fish, this time facing the other way, back into the stream. He heaved the dripping net over his shoulder, lit his pipe and walked slowly to the other end of the stream where there was another small canvas stool with a parasol attached.

  ‘How often do you have to do this?’ Geoffrey asked the back of the receding figure.

  ‘Forty-eight and a half times a day, young sir.’

  ‘What is the half time?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Well, the fish and me aren’t getting any younger and so sometimes we just goes halfway. And once a week,’ said the keeper, ‘I do a bit of cleaning out after the fish has done his business.’

  ‘So where do you put the business?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Ah, well, young sir, fish business is not as useful for gardeners as most businesses are, but if you look carefully when you walk away, you will see the trees behind my chairs are slightly bigger than the rest of the trees in the park.’

  Before he went to bed that evening Geoffrey carefully put a piece of fruit cake that he’d managed to smuggle up from the kitchen on the windowsill for Old Pediment the gargoyle.

  1 It is suspected that gargoyles are, in fact, a type of troll. Over the years of their exposure to the abnormal magical activity that always surrounds Unseen University they have evolved into mobile and sentient beings. Their diet is varied but the emphasis now is on pigeons. Their alimentary tract, which is a complex U-shaped organ, was originally designed for the digestion of a watery mineral diet that entered the body through the ears. The solids were filtered and digested in the usual fashion while the liquid was extracted and expelled through the mouth. The recent change in food source has resulted in their ears becoming vestigial, and a small and isolated loop of intestine between the ears and throat, not unlike the human appendix, is all that remains. Another result of this change in diet is their ability to move their jaws and even close their mouths, making it much easier to have a conversation with them. Saying that, gargoyles seldom talk about anything but pigeons and how much they dislike them.

  2 Elephants, including hermit elephants, eat grass, leaves and sometimes whole tree branches, but only absorb 40 per cent of the nutrients. This means that elephant poo not only makes good compost but is also of considerable nutritional value to other animals, especially birds and insects. An elephant can produce about 20kg of poo a day; over a year that would stack up to over 7,000kg. On the basis that an elephant lives for sixty-five years or so, we’re looking at a lifetime production of poo not far short of 5,000 tonnes, which is, it has been calculated, enough poo to fill the Ankh-Morpork Opera House up to the small trap door in the loft.

  A LUNCH AT THE GUILD OF PLUMBERS AND DUNNAKIN DIVERS

  LIKE ALL CHILDREN, Geoffrey woke at dawn with every switch in his body turned full on. Older people generally check to see that nothing has fallen off in the night. There is always a careful but thorough audit of which limb to get out of bed first so the rest of the body can follow. Geoffrey, however, simply bounded out of bed and, after saying hello to the gleaming Mister Gazunder, went straight to the window to see if the cake had gone. It had, and Geoffrey, being of an observant mind and now informed in the ways of the world of digestion, climbed out on to the ledge to look downwards. He was overjoyed when he saw what he took to be a small deposit on the border of the flowerbed beneath his window. Without a thought he raced down the stairs, past an astonished Hartley, out through the back door – pausing only to pick up his bucket from the top step – and round the corner of the house, looking up until he was standing under his bedroom window. It was only then, looking down, that he realized he was barefoot. Luckily, gargoyle poo so much resembles gravel that you may think of it as gravel. Geoffrey was thankful to see he had not stepped in all of it and there was still enough to scrape up into his bucket.

  As he made his way back round to the scullery door, finding along the way some long grass on which to wipe his toes, he saw at the end of the garden two burly men hoisting on to their shoulders a pole from which hung a large container. A gentle morning breeze brought a whiff of the privy and he was about to go wandering off following his nose, as it were, when Hartley the cook came to the door and in a kindly voice said, ‘Now you come here, young man. Get washed and dressed and your breakfast will be ready when you come down.’

  After breakfast Geoffrey took his bucket of gargoyle poo down to the sheds to put in his museum, hoping to see Plain Old Humphrey. Sure enough, he found the gardener sitting on a bench at the bottom of the garden, carefully cleaning his spade. There was no sign of the men Geoffrey had seen earlier, but there was still a whiff hanging around like a smelly ghost. ‘Plain Old Humphrey? Who were those men here early this morning?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘That was Jimmer and Bob the gongers. They should have been here last night,’ said Plain Old Humphrey, ‘but their cart got clamped down at The Soake so they were running a bit late.’

  ‘What do gongers do
?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Jimmer and Bob work for Sir Harry King and they empty all the cesspits and privies around here,’ said Plain Old Humphrey.1

  ‘I know about privies, but I don’t know what a cesspit is,’ said Geoffrey, determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious occupation.

  ‘Well, using these new-fangled lavatory contraptions, like the Deluge Supreme your Grand-mama has installed, means there is a lot of water in with the business. It all goes into a pit where the water can soak away and then every now and then you have to dig out what’s left, and I’m sure your Grand-mama wouldn’t want to do that.’

  ‘And it all goes to Sir Harry?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Yes, Sir Harry has collecting carts waiting all round the city to take this valuable night soil down to his yard.’

  ‘I wish I could go to his yard!’ said Geoffrey, enthusiastically. ‘He must have the biggest collection of poo in the world!’

  ‘Watch out, here’s trouble,’ said Plain Old Humphrey. As he spoke, Lily the maid appeared.

  ‘Your Grand-mama has been looking all over for you, young man,’ she said to Geoffrey. ‘You’re to come straight inside.’ She turned on her heel and walked away without waiting for a reply. Plain Old Humphrey winked at Geoffrey, took his pipe out of his mouth and poked his tongue out at the retreating figure.

  Geoffrey giggled but obediently followed Lily into the kitchen where he found his Grand-mama, who was talking to Hartley the cook. ‘Geoffrey and I will be out for lunch, but we will be back for dinner,’ she was saying. ‘Geoffrey, oh there you are, we have been invited to a luncheon at the Guild of Plumbers and Dunnakin Divers by my good friend Sir Charles Lavatory, so you’ll need to look smart. I’ve bought you a new jacket; it’s in your room. Please don’t ruin this one because I’ve had it tailored especially for you.’