Part 48 (1/2)

”Happens in the theater all the time,” said Nanny Ogg.

”It certainly does,” said Granny. ”It's only a mercy he doesn't have a long-lost twin brother.”

There was the sound of much scuffling in the audience. Someone was climbing along a row, dragging someone else.

”Mother!” came a voice from the gloom. ”What do you think you are doing?”

”You just come with me, young Henry!”

”Mother, we can't go up on the stage...!”

Henry Slugg frisbeed the plate into the wings, clambered down from the stage and heaved himself over the edge of the orchestra pit, a.s.sisted by a couple of violinists.

They met at the first row of seats. Agnes could just hear their voices.

”I meant meant to come back. You know that!” to come back. You know that!”

”I wanted to wait but, what with one thing and another...especially one thing. Come here, young Henry...”

”Mother, what what is happening?” is happening?”

”Son...you know I always said your father was Mr. Lawsy the eel juggler?”

”Yes, of-”

”Please, both of you, come back to my dressing room! I can see we've got such a lot to talk about.”

”Oh, yes. A lot...”

Agnes watched them go. The audience, who could spot opera even if it wasn't being sung, applauded.

”All right,” she said. ”And now now is it the end?” is it the end?”

”Nearly,” said Granny.

”Did you do something to everyone's heads?”

”No, but I felt like smacking a few,” said Nanny.

”But no one said 'thank you' or anything!”

”Often the case,” said Granny.

”Too busy thinking about the next performance,” said Nanny. ”The show must go on,” she added.

”That's...that's madness!”

”It's opera. I noticed that even Mr. Bucket's caught it, too,” said Nanny. ”And that young Andre has been rescued from being a policeman, if I'm any judge.”

”But what about me me?”

”Oh, them as makes makes the endings don't the endings don't get get them,” said Granny. She brushed an invisible speck of dust off her shoulder. them,” said Granny. She brushed an invisible speck of dust off her shoulder.

”I expect we'd better be gettin' along, Gytha,” she said, turning her back on Agnes. ”Early start tomorrow.”

Nanny walked forward, shading her eyes as she stared out into the dark maw of the auditorium.

”The audience haven't gone, you know,” she said. ”They're still sitting out there.”

Granny joined her, and peered into the gloom. ”I can't imagine why,” she said. ”He did say say the opera's over...” the opera's over...”

They turned and looked at Agnes, who was standing in the center of the stage and glowering at nothing.

”Feeling a bit angry?” said Nanny. ”Only to be expected.”

”Yes!”

”Feeling that everything's happened for other people and not for you?”

”Yes!”

”But,” said Granny Weatherwax, ”look at it like this: what's Christine got to look forward to? She'll just become a singer. Stuck in a little world. Oh, maybe she'll be good enough to get a little fame, but one day the voice'll crack and that's the end of her life. You You have got a choice. You can either be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines...or you can be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs, and where the trapdoors are. Isn't that better?” have got a choice. You can either be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines...or you can be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs, and where the trapdoors are. Isn't that better?”

”No!”

The infuriating thing about Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, Agnes thought later, was the way they sometimes acted in tandem, without exchanging a word. Of course, there were plenty of other things-the way they never thought that meddling was meddling if they they did it; the way they automatically a.s.sumed that everyone else's business was their own; the way they went through life in a straight line; the way, in fact, that they arrived in any situation and immediately started to change it. Compared to that, acting on unspoken agreement was a mere minor annoyance, but it was here and up close. did it; the way they automatically a.s.sumed that everyone else's business was their own; the way they went through life in a straight line; the way, in fact, that they arrived in any situation and immediately started to change it. Compared to that, acting on unspoken agreement was a mere minor annoyance, but it was here and up close.

They walked toward her, and each laid a hand on her shoulder.

”Feeling angry angry?” said Granny.

”Yes!”

”I should let it out then, if I was you,” said Nanny.

Agnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed.

It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook.

It rose, pa.s.sing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor.

The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one.

As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of winegla.s.ses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistle down with att.i.tude.