The World of Poo

by Terry Pratchett

  ‘But what do they do?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Well, originally they would have lived on the tops of very old buildings like the Unseen University where they sat in the gutters and fed off what came through in the water. Now many of them are purely ornamental and have to have food left out. Some, I’m told, even allow themselves to be painted and made to hold up shields. They’re quite harmless unless you’re a pigeon; they hate pigeons.’

  Geoffrey waved up at the gargoyles as they continued on their way and thought he got a wave back.

  It was not long before they came to a bridge. Geoffrey was amazed at the houses and shops that lined both sides of its crowded carriageway. Some had small rooms sticking out over the river and as Geoffrey watched he saw something fall from one into the river with a splat.

  He and Emma squeezed between two buildings and looked down on to the sluggish River Ankh as it crawled its way to the sea. ‘It’s a bit smelly,’ said Geoffrey, ‘and why are those people in the boats holding up umbrellas? It’s not rain— Oh, I see,’ he nodded, as another splash and splatter reached their ears and the river was further enriched in its passage under the busy bridge.1

  ‘Some people are too mean to pay Sir Harry King to collect their privy buckets and it just goes in the river,’ explained Emma, ‘which makes it very smelly and extremely unpleasant for anyone going under a bridge.’ She added, ‘I think they’re making a law about it.’

  ‘Does Sir Harry collect people poo as well as dog poo?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Sir Harry collects everything; they don’t call him the King of the Golden River for nothing,’ she added. ‘Come along. Let’s go and buy those sweets.’

  They entered a funny little shop with advertisements in the window for Jolly Sailor Tobacco and Gumption’s Snuff and a large sign above the door saying SWEETS. Behind the counter was the fattest man Geoffrey had ever seen. He had a stubbly grey moustache, and was wearing a hat with a tassel, and a brightly coloured woollen shawl. What really caught Geoffrey’s attention was the magnificent parrot sitting on his shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Mister Thwaite,’ said Emma. ‘May I have some Klatchian Delight, please? And what sweets do you like, Geoffrey?’

  Geoffrey cast his eye around the shop, which had shelves of sweet jars from floor to ceiling.

  ‘How about some nutty slack or dragon drops or, if you like, chocolate?’ said Mister Thwaite. ‘I’ve just had a delivery of pig pellets for Hogswatch.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ said Geoffrey. ‘And if I don’t eat them all I can put some in my poo collection.’

  ‘Your what collection?’

  ‘I have a poo museum,’ replied Geoffrey proudly.

  ‘Well, I never did,’ said Mister Thwaite. ‘You can have this packet of gnoll berries. Goodness knows what’s in them but I can’t shift them for love nor money.’ He turned and reached up to a high shelf. The parrot squawked but continued to watch Geoffrey with a beady eye.

  As Mister Thwaite turned, Geoffrey noticed that the back of his shawl was encrusted with bird poo. ‘You must be a very lucky man,’ said Geoffrey, ‘to have all that bird poo on you. Could I have a bit of that parrot poo for my museum, please?’

  ‘Of course. I like to help a young man with his hobby,’ said Mister Thwaite. And, holding an empty tobacco packet, he let Geoffrey scrape the well-dried encrustation from the fringes of the shawl. Geoffrey put the bags of sweets and lucky parrot poo into his pockets and, having thanked Mister Thwaite, turned to leave. As he opened the door the parrot suddenly sprang into life, flew to its perch and did one of those little dances that parrots are wont to do and then shouted very loudly, ‘NOW PISS OFF.’ Mister Thwaite smiled. ‘Don’t worry. He only says that if he really likes you,’ he said.

  Geoffrey and Emma continued on their journey and before long they found themselves looking up at the most impressive gates Geoffrey had ever seen. As they stood there a change in the wind brought a smell of burning and fireworks that hit the back of his throat and made his eyes water. A shower of small sooty particles floated down around them.

  ‘That can’t be good,’ said Emma. She pushed the gate open in the manner of someone who knew she would always be welcomed, and they made their way into a yard surrounded by a collection of sheds and bigger stone buildings with thick, fortress-like walls. The roofs, however, looked very insubstantial and, in some cases, very new.

  ‘Those are the dragon sheds,’ explained Emma. ‘If one of the little dears explodes, the blast is channelled upwards. If we’re lucky we only lose a bit of roof.’

  ‘What happens if we’re not so lucky?’ asked Geoffrey, looking anxious.

  ‘Oh, you’ll be all right,’ she assured him. ‘We’ve got good protective clothing. It’s only the people who forget to wear it who lose their hair and eyebrows, and sometimes their fingers.’

  They went into one of the smaller sheds where they met a girl who seemed to be wearing armour from the neck down and held a large helmet in her gloved hands. ‘This is Emma,’ said Emma. ‘Emma, meet Geoffrey.’

  ‘Hello, Geoffrey,’ said Emma Two. ‘Let’s get you and your dog kitted up.’ He was lifted up and lowered into big stiff leather trousers that didn’t bend at all, and was given big boots and gloves and a helmet. They even found a small helmet for Widdler, making him look like a snail peering out of its shell.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said the Emmas in unison, and ushered him from the shed into one of the big stone buildings. At first there didn’t seem much to look at. There was a series of concrete pens with small, grey-green, huddled lumps under piles of sticky ash.

  ‘Why are they all covered in ash?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Well, we’ve not cleaned them out yet because Lady Sybil can usually tell what’s wrong with them from the colour and smell of their poo. They’ll have been eating quite the wrong thing.’

  ‘What should their poo be like?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘And can I have some for my poo museum?’

  ‘Well, like I said, in a healthy dragon there’s hardly any poo at all. Sometimes it’s just a fine ash that floats away in the air.’2

  ‘I wish I could get some dragon poo,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I want to get poo from every animal in the world so that people can come to my museum and see it all and be amazed.’

  To compensate for the lack of dragon poo thus far Geoffrey was given a baby dragon to hold. It perched on his hand blowing smoke rings and then suddenly, without any warning, deposited a small glowing ember on his gloved palm. Geoffrey couldn’t believe his luck! He closed his fist around it tightly for the rest of the tour in case one of the interchangeable Emmas decided that Lady Sybil needed to inspect it. When they came to leave, it seemed cool enough to surreptitiously transfer to his jacket pocket.

  Geoffrey and Emma One set off back home hand in hand, with Widdler following so close to heel that he was often in danger of tripping them up.

  Geoffrey kept looking up at the grand houses hoping to see a gargoyle. They were not far from home when they reached a very grand mansion indeed with huge curly iron gates and tall stone pillars on either side. His eyes lit up in delight when he noticed that on top of each tall pillar was a genuine gargoyle holding a shield. ‘You must get very bored just sitting up there all day. Would you like a sweet?’ Geoffrey said to one of the gargoyles.

  ‘It’s more than my job’s worth,’ said the gargoyle,3 ‘and I don’t get off duty until the end of the week. But Old Pediment over at number eight,’ he croaked, ‘is always on the lookout for interesting tidbits. He’s got a sweet tooth too.’

  ‘If I leave some sweets on my windowsill at number five do you think he’d find them?’

  ‘Doesn’t miss a thing. Old Pediment, he clears all the bird-tables this side of the road and I don’t just mean the birds’ food.’

  As they walked away, Emma said to Geoffrey, ‘You are funny. No one I know talks to gargoyles.’

  ‘I want to know where they poo. Gargoyle poo would be a very interesting find for my museum
.’

  Lily opened the door to them when they arrived back at Grand-mama’s house. ‘Wipe your feet on the mat,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. ‘And who’s got a bonfire going?’

  Geoffrey and Emma went into the drawing room to see Grand-mama, who was having a cup of tea. ‘My goodness,’ she said, ‘what is that smell? It’s as if someone’s been letting off fireworks.’ Her eyes went straight to Geoffrey’s jacket. ‘Whatever have you got in your pockets, my boy?’ Geoffrey reluctantly extracted the bags of sweets from one pocket. ‘Now come on, Geoffrey, you know I mean the other pocket.’

  ‘It’s baby swamp-dragon poo for my museum,’ said Geoffrey defensively as Emma helped him off with his jacket while Grand-mama extracted the charred ember with the sugar tongs and transferred the hot little nodule to an empty snuff tin. ‘He just laid it in my hand.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you that you are going to wash those hands before you eat anything, my boy,’ said Grand-mama. ‘I shall also have to buy you a new jacket before we go to the Guild annual luncheon.’

  She gave Geoffrey a severe look from top to bottom and continued, ‘Your late uncle Cedric was very much the same. If I remember rightly he had a very large collection of things that looked like other things; one of the largest such collections in the world, I’ve been given to understand.’ She made a tut-tutting noise and added, ‘There’s no doubt about it, incongruity runs in this family. Now I think you should take your new acquisitions down to your museum before it gets too dark.’

  Geoffrey made his way down to the end of the garden, where in the dusk he saw the shape of Plain Old Humphrey leaning on a shovel.

  ‘Hello, young man, what have you been up to today?’

  ‘I’ve had a lovely time,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’ve spoken to a gargoyle and I’ve been to a sweet shop – would you like one? – and visited the dragon sanctuary and guess what I’ve got?’ He opened the snuff tin and showed the contents to Plain Old Humphrey.

  ‘Ah, that smells a bit like dragons to me. When I was a boy we had a little swamp dragon to light the fires. But one day my dad had a bit of an accident and my mum wouldn’t have them in the house after that.’

  ‘It’s my best poo so far,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I must put it somewhere really safe so I can label it up tomorrow morning.’

  Later that evening, before he got into bed, Geoffrey remembered to take a few lumps of toffee from the crumpled paper bag and laid them out on the windowsill just in case Old Pediment the gargoyle were to drop by.

  1 By and large all rivers passing through cities and towns emerge a lot muckier than they start out. The River Ankh is notorious for its crusted, evil-smelling waters – mainly the result of the inhabitants using it as a drain, occasional burial ground and repository for all manner of ordure. The worst offenders are those who live or work along the bridges. Human nature being what it is, if it’s a question of paying someone to remove a bucket of poo from your dwelling or simply sitting above a hole where out of sight is out of mind, the latter option will win every time. In addition, if you’re having a bad day there’s the small consolation that you can give someone beneath an even worse one, if you time it right.

  2 When in good health, Draco vulgaris (the herbivorous swamp dragon) produces hardly any waste material at all, because combustion is complete. However, swamp dragons are notoriously susceptible to digestive disorders and if their diet is not strictly controlled they can become very unstable. The resulting symptoms range from violent explosions to the production of large amounts of black or green ash. Like all immature creatures, baby swamp dragons are unable to completely digest their food.

  Draco nobilis on the other hand is a carnivore. This species is particularly fond of virgins, but knights in armour are a bonus because they add a certain amount of roughage to the diet. Draco nobilis poo is like that of any carnivore, but if knights in armour have featured on the menu in the recent past, the dragons excrete small tin roundels not unlike corned beef, but still in the tin as it were.

  3 The word ‘said’ is used rather carefully here. If you want to know what a gargoyle talks like, imagine having a conversation with a reasonably friendly rock, and if you want to know what they look like, think of those lizards that spend an awful lot of time apparently staring at nothing, and then suddenly there is a movement in the air and something has suddenly become lunch at an extremely fast speed.

  A TRIP TO THE MENAGERIE AND CONVERSATION WITH A GARGOYLE

  GEOFFREY WAS USED to waking up to birdsong at home, and he’d got used to the early morning sounds of Ankh-Morpork, but what woke him this morning was quite different. A grinding of stone on stone and a crunching sound drew him to the window where, to his delight, he saw a very large gargoyle chewing the last of the toffee he’d left out.

  ‘Don’t go away,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’m just going to get dressed.’

  The gargoyle shuffled along to make room as Geoffrey and Widdler climbed out on to the windowsill to join him.

  ‘I saw you put that toffee out from across the road. I’ve not had a bit of toffee for a long time, very nice too.’

  ‘What do you normally eat?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Pigeons are good,’ munched the gargoyle and Geoffrey hardly liked to draw his attention to the pigeon sitting on his head wearing a very smug expression. But the gargoyle saw him looking and said, ‘Ah, that’s my decoy; it’s no good getting old if you don’t get artful. The silly buggers fly over thinking it’s a safe roost and Bob’s your uncle! A clever chap over in the Street of Cunning Artificers made it for me. In return I go down there every week or so and get rid of all of the pigeons on his skylight.’1

  ‘I’d better go down to breakfast; Grand-mama is taking me to the menagerie today. But I hope I’ll see you again,’ said Geoffrey, crawling back through the window. ‘If I can get back to the sweet shop I’ll bring you some more toffee.’

  ‘Thank you, but the old grinding teeth are not what they were,’ replied the gargoyle. ‘Cake is a favourite, though, especially fruit cake, but not with nuts, they give me the tweaks.’

  ‘There’s lots of cake here,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’ll put some out for you tonight if I can.’

  After breakfast, Geoffrey and Grand-mama set out for the Palace.

  ‘I think you should find this very interesting,’ said Grand-mama. ‘I’m sorry we can’t take Widdler with us, but they don’t allow dogs where we’re going.’

  Geoffrey knew it would be somewhere important because Grand-mama was wearing a large hat that looked like the top of a big boat and Lily had pressed his trousers. After much muttering about the state of them, she’d also polished his shoes.

  They travelled by coach up Park Lane, across the Isle of Gods and over the Brass Bridge. Geoffrey saw several gargoyles perched up high on the buildings and he leaned out of the window to wave at them.

  ‘A gargoyle came to visit me this morning, Grand-mama,’ he said, pulling his head back in the coach. ‘He was very friendly and I’ve promised him some cake.’

  ‘Do be very careful, Geoffrey. No wandering around on the roof looking for gargoyle poo; I know that’s what you’re really after.’

  The coach pulled up and they entered the Palace grounds by a small side gate. There was a pleasant stroll along a narrow path until they came to a small and mysterious studded door. Without any hesitation Grand-mama gave the end of the bell-pull, which was in the shape of a snake, a tug. Geoffrey moved quickly behind her, just in case. The door creaked open to reveal a short man with a very long beard and a flat-peaked cap. He wore tall rubber boots a bit like the ones that Geoffrey had for rainy days, but these were altogether more substantial, the sort of boot that laughed in the face of (or, come to that, the rear of) any animal’s nervous activity.

  The beard, which seemed to have a life of its own, enquired politely as to who they were and what their business was. Grand-mama produced a small card from her pocket. ‘We are here at the personal invitation of Lord Vetinari.�
�� The keeper stood to attention, saluted, and a large smile broke the crust between the moustache and beard.

  ‘Good morning, ma’am. My name is Pontoon, with an emphasis on the “oon”, and I have the privilege of being his lordship’s head keeper. Please do come in, we have been expecting you. What would you like to see first, young man? The largest animal we have here is the Hermit Elephant from Howondaland, and the smallest is the Llamedos Swimming Shrew. We’ve got Acrobatic Meerkats, Counting Camels, a Ring-maned Lion, a Reciprocating Ocelot – be very careful there – and Dancing Bears, to name but a few.’

  ‘I would very much like to see the elephants first, please,’ said Geoffrey.

  The old man tapped a finger to his nose and, in the tone of a connoisseur, said, ‘Very wise choice, young man, everyone should see the elephants.’

  As they walked towards a large enclosure Geoffrey started to explain to the keeper about his poo museum. ‘I’d really like to collect some poo from all of your animals. I’ve even brought my own bucket,’ he added.

  Mister Pontoon scratched his beard, causing a number of unidentified objects to fall out. ‘Well, young man, that is a rare and unusual hobby, but his lordship did say that I was to help you in every way. Your Grand-mama must be a very influential lady. But it wouldn’t be safe for you to go in their cages with your bucket and spade. Besides, all of the poo would get a bit mixed up in just one bucket and you would end up with what we in the industry call miscellaneous poo, and you don’t want that.

  ‘I’ll ask young Gus – he’s the junior assistant keeper – to get the wheelbarrow out. It’ll be good experience for him.’