The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner: And Other Stories

by Terry Pratchett

  ‘We’re stone trolls,’ said Tyran proudly. ‘We can hold our breaths under molten rocks if necessary.’

  ‘Hmph,’ said the nymph and dived, shouting, ‘Follow me!’

  Tyran, Ogbuff and the sergeant tramped along the river bed after the nymph – trolls can’t swim, they’re much too heavy.

  The water nymph told them he was in fact Icon, the king of the river. Every now and again he stopped to speak to the fish which swam around him like an army. The water was chilly and full of these fish, which swam round and round the trolls with uncomfortably hungry expressions.

  ‘This river must be our own Trollwash,’ said the sergeant in a cloud of bubbles, and they all thought of the little stream that ran out of the mountain.

  When Icon finally swam up to the surface again the trolls all tramped up the bank until their heads poked out of the water like rocks.

  ‘The current’s rolling it on down to the sea,’ said Icon. ‘Was it very valuable?’

  They all nodded gloomily.

  ‘It’s very big, the sea,’ said Icon. ‘It goes all around the world. There’s caves at the bottom of it, deeper than that mountain you live on.’ He saw their glum expressions. ‘Look here,’ he added quickly, for he was a kindly soul, ‘I’ve got a friend who lives in the sea, salty sort but nice chap. Sea troll, you know. Tell you what, we’ll go and see him.’

  All that day the trolls followed the river king down his river until the water got saltier and saltier, and the fish got bigger and the surface above them got greener.

  ‘I can’t come any further because of the salt,’ said Icon. ‘But just you walk ashore and I’ll call him.’

  The trolls clomped onto a lonely beach, noisy with surf and seagulls. Icon put his hands together and gave a long deep call. Nothing happened for a while, and then something started happening in the sea.

  The sea bubbled and hissed, and suddenly, with a snort that silenced the seagulls, a large sad head bobbed up. It was blue and covered in scales, with a crown of brown seaweed tilted over one ear.

  Icon cupped his hands together and called: ‘These stone trolls are looking for their Fire Opal. Have you seen it?’

  The head nodded.

  ‘Off you go,’ hissed Icon. ‘He doesn’t say much but he’s a decent chap at heart.’

  The trolls said their thank-yous to Icon, then waded awkwardly out through the surf until it closed over their heads. You might think it is quiet under the sea, but it is very noisy; they heard the roar of the tide, and the clanging of bells in drowned churches far away, the swirl of water over rock, and the sound of fish.

  The sea troll swam slowly towards them. ‘Come with me!’ he boomed, in a cloud of bubbles.

  ‘It’s rotten cold,’ said Ogbuff, shivering. ‘And wet,’ he added.

  ‘My feet ache,’ moaned the sergeant.

  ‘Not far,’ said the sea troll.

  He led them down past sunken wrecks and goggle-eyed fish, while the water around them got greener and greener. Finally he stopped at a deep crevasse in the sea bed.

  ‘Went down there,’ he bubbled, then he blinked slowly at them and started to swim away.

  ‘Hey!’ said Prince Tyran, but he was gone.

  ‘It’s dark down there,’ said the sergeant dubiously.

  ‘Deadly dangerous – probably octopuses, you know, and sharks,’ added Ogbuff.

  ‘Cowards!’ said Tyran, and jumped into the crevasse. He sank for a long time, past dark fish with lights on their snouts and luminous teeth, until he landed with a slight bump on a round rock. He groped around in the dark, there was a slight click! and the dark shadows were lit by a blue glow.

  It was the Fire Opal!

  Prince Tyran had landed on one of the giant oysters that live in the deeps, and it had swallowed the Opal. He could see it inside the gaping shell, next to a big pearl.

  Ogbuff and the sergeant floated slowly down into the glow.

  ‘We thought we’d have to follow to make sure you weren’t being eaten by sharks,’ explained Ogbuff.

  ‘Look at this!’ said Tyran. The trolls clustered round the oyster and stared. Within the shell, the beautiful gemstone shone with a translucent splendour that seemed to reflect the beauty of the sea around it. By its side the pearl looked almost dull.

  ‘You know, I think it’s still trying to get to the centre of the Earth . . .’ began Ogbuff, but Tyran wasn’t listening.

  He reached carefully into the oyster and grabbed the Opal. But he nudged the pearl – and there was a snap! and the Opal went flying out of the shell and rolled away behind some rocks. Tyran’s arm was caught in the shell, but the skin of a stone troll is very hard and strong, and after he thumped the oyster a couple of times it let go. After all, he hadn’t been trying to take its pearl away so the oyster didn’t mind too much.

  Meanwhile Ogbuff had followed the Opal behind the rocks. He found a cave there. It led downwards.

  ‘My feet really do ache,’ moaned the sergeant.

  The Fire Opal rolled on down through one cave after another with the three trolls in hot pursuit. They bounced down great tunnels and leaped rivers of molten lava, scurried through caverns glittering with diamonds and garnets – and all the time the Fire Opal was just out of reach, tumbling steadily onwards the centre of the Earth.

  Ogbuff was puffing along behind the other two when they suddenly disappeared. He didn’t have time to stop before he too had blundered over the edge of a deep hole.

  He landed in a river of molten rock – there’s a lot of that towards the centre of the Earth. But trolls are almost indestructible, so to Ogbuff it was like floating in warm treacle. The swift current carried the cook on. Bobbing ahead were Prince Tyran and the sergeant, across underground planes of boiling mud and steam. It was pleasantly warm.

  This must be where we trolls originally came from, Prince Tyran thought. It’s nice. Great pools of sizzling metal roared and gushed around him as he drifted peacefully.

  After a while the trolls heard a distant squeaking noise. They looked up – and this is what they saw.

  They were really floating about on the inside of a large circular cave – it was as though the centre of the Earth was a great round room, and they were on one of the walls.

  In the middle of the round space, a large creature was turning a handle. There were a lot of cogwheels round the handle, and a long thick axle that disappeared into the floor. The axle turned slowly on a large ball bearing, but the ball bearing was the Fire Opal, now glowing with a bright blue light.

  ‘Is this yours?’ said the creature who was turning the handle. He peered at them through the mist.

  ‘Er – yes, sir,’ said Tyran.

  ‘You’re trolls, aren’t you? It was trolls who took the bearing away – centuries ago, you know. They came right down here, took one look at the ball bearing and picked it up.’ He pointed at the Fire Opal, now blushing all the colours of the rainbow. ‘It’s very difficult, you know, keeping the world turning without it. It squeaks and shakes, and needs oil.’

  ‘How long have you been turning that handle?’ asked the sergeant breathlessly.

  ‘It’s a family tradition. I’m Gravendersop the 1045th.’

  ‘The Fire Opal has been the Crown Jewel in our crown for centuries,’ said Tyran. ‘We’d be lost without it.’

  ‘We followed it all day from our mountain,’ said Ogbuff.

  ‘At great expense of our feet,’ added the sergeant.

  ‘Well, perhaps we can come to some agreement,’ said Gravendersop the 1045th.

  ‘For the Opal we’ll give you – um – a ton of gold,’ said the prince.

  Gravendersop the 1045th went on operating the world-turning handle with one hand and rubbed his nose with the other. ‘There’s lots of gold here at the centre of the Earth,’ he said at last. ‘Only it’s better when you get near the surface. It’s brighter.’

  ‘How about diamonds and emeralds?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘No thank you. T
hey grow like weeds down here.’

  The trolls huddled together and whispered among themselves.

  ‘Well, what do you want for the Opal?’ said Tyran at last.

  ‘I’ve been turning the world round ever since my father – Gravendersop the 1044th – passed away,’ said Gravendersop. ‘I’ll give you the Opal if you’ll do my turning for me for five minutes while I take a break, then find a suitable rock to take its place.’

  The trolls agreed, and climbed up the machinery to the handle. It took the three of them to turn it, while Gravendersop sat down beside them and lit his pipe.

  ‘Phew, this is hard work,’ gasped Ogbuff.

  ‘Don’t slow down,’ said Gravendersop. ‘If you do the world will stop, there’ll be earthquakes and floods, and everyone will be flung off into outer space.’

  ‘The five minutes are nearly up,’ panted Tyran Ogg.

  ‘Well now,’ said Gravendersop, ‘I don’t think I want to start turning the world again or go and hunt for another stone. I think I’ll have a little holiday . . .’

  ‘Here, come back—’ began the trolls, as he started to walk away. Gravendersop had cheated them!

  For a moment they let go of the handle—

  And the world stopped.

  There was a click from the machinery, the Fire Opal bounced out, and the trolls were whirled away on a great gust of wind. There was nothing they could do about it.

  They heard Gravendersop yelling at them as they bounced past him, but they could not stop as they were hurled away through the tunnels. Faster and faster they went, spinning in the wind until they shot out of the ground like bullets.

  In the distance they could see Whitehelm Mountain, but it was moving. Everything was spinning off the Earth now that it had stopped, and with a crash the mountain rose like a rocket. The trolls went too, up through the clouds and away from Earth.

  It seemed to Tyran Ogg that he was roaring through space for days before he landed upside down in a heap of dust. He crawled out spluttering.

  In front of him lay a wide valley of white ash, full of craters. In the distance he saw a line of jagged mountains and above them, hanging in a skyful of stars, was the Earth.

  He was on the moon! His dream had finally come true.

  A moment later the mountains landed with a thud, bouncing trolls all over the place, and the Fire Opal smashed into some rocks.

  None of the trolls were hurt, of course, because they are almost indestructible. There’s no water or air on the moon, but that didn’t bother them, because they only breathed when they felt like it. The first thing they did was put the Fire Opal back in Tyran Ogg’s crown and proclaim him King of the Moon which, because it was so rocky, was a real paradise for them.

  They never found out what happened to Gravendersop the 1045th, but since the world is going round he must still be turning the handle.

  Or maybe now it is Gravendersop the 1046th . . .?

  LORD CAKE AND THE BATTLE FOR BANWEN’S BEACON

  You’ve all heard of Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo, the little border town in the Wild West of England, and how it became famous in the Great Coal Rush of 1881 . . .

  It became a boom town, with wild gambling parties and drinking in the rip-roaring Temperance Hotel, often until as late as 9 p.m. There were sheep rodeos too, and every day wagon trains left to cross the wild wet mountains and colonize the fertile valleys of Aberystwyth and Fishguard.

  But the full story of the Coal Rush has never been told. Well, it will be now.

  It was a wild grey Welsh day when the peace of the old public bar was disturbed by wild cries of: ‘Coal! Coal! It’s coal, look you, isn’t it.’

  Everyone rushed to the window. Down the street galloped a big shaggy carthorse, and on its back was a little man covered in coal dust from head to foot. In one hand he waved a great big nugget of coal.

  By the time he reached the Assay Office half the town was following him. An Assay office, as you probably know, is where gold prospectors can find out if the gold they find really is gold, and how much it is worth. Only this one was for coal, of course.

  ‘Pure anthracite!’ said the man at the office. ‘Worth as much as two pounds a tonfn1 – where did you find it?’

  ‘Up on Banwen’s Beacon,’ said the little prospector. ‘I’d just like to stake my claim, please. My name’s Rupert Pullover.’

  Anthracite! The news whizzed around the town like a bullet, and soon everyone was loading up their donkeys with picks and shovels and claim jumpers.fn2

  Banwen’s Beacon was a large bald hill above the village. A wide seam of coal came almost to the surface there, and all Rupert Pullover had done was dig down through the turf.

  It wasn’t long before all work had stopped in the village. The clang of picks and shovels floated down from the beacon and every sheep and cart for miles around was hauled in to take the coal away.

  Everything would have been fine if a tall man wearing a forbidding bowler hat hadn’t climbed up the hill. He called out to all the miners to stop work.

  ‘As Clerk of the County Council,’ he said, ‘I have to tell you all that you are trespassing.’

  ‘But this is common land,’ said Rupert Pullover. ‘It doesn’t belong to anyone!’

  ‘According to papers deposited at our offices this morning,’ said the clerk, ‘it belongs to Lord Cake. I should clear off if you don’t want to be up before the magistrates tomorrow.’

  Lord Cake owned a big sheep farm not far from Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo and was a well-known local cheat and general nuisance.

  ‘How can it belong to Lord Cake?’ asked Dai Taten,fn3 the village grocer, now also a prospector with everyone else in the village. ‘It’s not belonged to anyone for hundreds of years, boyo.’

  ‘It’s all legal,’ said the clerk, and hurried off before they started to throw things.

  ‘Let’s get back down to the village and see about this!’ said Dai.

  Rupert Pullover, Dai Taten and the other prospectors rushed down to the village.

  ‘It’s true,’ said the man in the Assay Office. ‘Just after you came in shouting about finding coal one of Lord Cake’s men brought in the deeds of the Beacon hills. That means he owns Banwen’s Beacon, and if you dig up that coal you might be put in prison.’

  ‘But Banwen’s Beacon doesn’t belong to anyone, boyo,’ said Dai Taten.

  ‘The papers said it belonged to Lord Cake.’

  ‘It’s a rotten fiddle,’ said Rupert Pullover, when they were outside again.

  Just then the door of the saloon bar swung open, and out came Lord Cake with his bailiffs behind him. He resembled a large pudding and had a face as red as a cherry. When he walked, he wobbled so much that he looked like he would fall over.

  ‘I heard you, Pullover,’ he growled. ‘It’s about time you little coalminers were taught a lesson. I’m going to have the Great Western Railway brought through the village to take the coal away, and you can’t stop me. Hahahahaha.’fn4

  ‘You know Banwen’s Beacon doesn’t really belong to you,’ said Rupert.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Lord Cake. ‘If you can prove Banwen’s Beacon doesn’t belong to me, then you’ll be able to mine coal there, won’t you?’

  And with another evil laugh he waddled away down the High Street.

  ‘There’s an old map in the bank,’ whispered Dai, ‘that’ll show who Banwen’s Beacon belongs to!’

  But when they got to the bank, there was Lord Cake!

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘If you’re looking for a certain map, well, it’s locked in the vaults, and since I’ve just bought the bank . . .’ He grinned nastily.

  That night the miners held a meeting in the public bar. It was a typical Wild West saloon, with people gambling huge sums at dominoes and darts, and someone playing cheerful tunes on the piano.fn5

  ‘So it’s all agreed,’ said Rupert. ‘To get the map, tomorrow morning we rob the bank.’

  ‘Can’t we pinch a bit o
f money too?’ asked Dai.

  ‘Just the map.’

  ‘Waste of an opportunity, if you ask me,’ said Dai.

  ‘Now, you all know what you’ve got to do?’ asked Rupert. ‘One-arm Evans and Black-eye Morgan’ll attract the attention of Police Constable Hodgkins while me and Dai rob the bank, and Tom’ll have our getaway bicycles waiting outside.’ He looked around at them all, then added, ‘We’ve only got one chance, so things had better go well! Otherwise Lord Cake will have our coal.’

  Tomorrow came, and Rupert Pullover’s plan for stealing the map from Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo bank went into action.

  Rupert and Dai Taten waited outside the bank until it opened. Then, with spotted handkerchiefs over their faces and brandishing pistols bought only that morning from the toy shop, they rushed in.

  ‘Reach for the sky, pardner,’ said Dai, waving his pistol at the manager.

  ‘Eh?’

  Rupert Pullover felt a bit of a fool. ‘Stop putting your hands in the air and open the safe,’ he said. ‘We don’t want your money, just the map.’

  ‘Lord Cake said I wasn’t to let it out of my sight,’ said the manager.

  ‘We’ll fill you full of holes, boyo,’ said Dai, who was really enjoying himself.

  But Rupert took the manager’s keys and started to open the safe. Now the news of the robbery was spreading like an out-of-control fire, and when PC Hodgkins at the police station heard it he rushed out on his bike.

  Only to find that someone had let his tyres down. It was all part of the plan.