In the distance a whistle was blown and somewhere in this moving, jostling, crushing and in most cases drinking mob of people there was a game going on, apparently. He had to take Trev’s word for it. There were Oos and Aahs in the distance and the crowd ebbed and flowed in response. Trev and his chums, who called themselves, as far as Nutt could make out over the din, the Dimwell Massive Pussy, took advantage of every temporary space to move nearer and nearer to the mysterious game, holding their ground when the press went against them and pushing hard when an eddy went their way. Push, sway, shove… and something in this spoke to Nutt. It came up through the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands, and slid into his brain with a beguiling subtlety, warming him, stripping him away from himself and leaving him no more than a beating part of the loving, moving thing around him.
A chant came past. It had started somewhere at the other end of the game and, whatever it had been once, it was now just four syllables of roar from hundreds of people and gallons of beer. As it faded, it took the warm, belonging feeling away with it, leaving a hole.
Nutt looked into the eyes of Trev.
‘Happened to you, did it?’ Trev said. ‘That was quick.’
‘It was –‘ Nutt began.
‘I know. We don’t talk about it,’ said Trev flatly.
‘But it spoke to me without – ‘
‘We don’t talk about it, okay? Not that sort of thing. Look! They’re being pushed back. It’s opening up! Let’s shove!’
And Nutt was good at shoving… very good. Under his inexorable pressure people slid or gently spun out of the way, their hobnailed boot scraping on the stones as, short of an alternative, the owners were rolled and squeezed alongside Nutt and Trev and deposited behind them, somewhat dizzy, bewildered and angry.
Now, though, there was a frantic tugging at Nutt’s belt.
‘Stop pushing!’ Trev shouted. ‘We’ve left the others behind!’
‘In fact my progress is now hindered by a pease pudding and chowder stand. I have been doing my best, Mister Trev, but it has really been slowing me down,’ said Nutt over his shoulder, ‘and also Miss Glenda. Hello, Miss Glenda.’
Trev glanced behind him. There was a fight going on back there, and he could hear Andy’s battle cry. There was generally a fight going on around Andy, and if there wasn’t, he started one. But you had to like Andy, because . . . well, you just had to. He – Glenda was up ahead? Surely that meant that she would be there too?
There was a commotion further on and a vaguely oblong thing, wrapped now in tatters of cloth, rose up in the air and fell back, to cheers and catcalls from the crowd. Trev had been right up to the game face many times before. It was no big deal. He’d seen the ball dozens of times.
But how long had Nutt been pushing a pudding stall in front of him like a snowplough? Oh my, Trev thought, I’ve found a player! How can ‘e do it? He looks half-starved all the time!
…
There was a sudden, localised silence. The kind of noise made by people who are holding their breath. He looked up and saw the ball, for the second time in the game.
There was a core of ash wood in there somewhere, then a leather skin and finally dozens of layers of cloth for grip, and it was dropping with pinpoint inevitability towards the beautiful, dreamy head of Juliet. Trev dived at her without a moment’s thought, dragging her under the cart as the ball thumped on to the cobbles where She had been gracing the world with Her presence.
Many things went through Trev’s mind as the ball hit the ground. She was in his arms, even if She was complaining about getting mud on her coat. He had probably saved Her life, which from a romantic point of view was money in the bank, and – oh, yes. Dimmer or Dolly, if one of the hardcore posses found out about this the next thing to go through his head would be a boot.
She giggled.
‘Shush!’ he managed. ‘Not a good idea if you’d rather not know how you would look with that beautiful hair shaved off!’
Trev peered out from under the stall, and attracted no attention at all.
This is because Nutt had picked up the ball and was turning it over and over in his hands with a frown on what was visible of, if you were kind, his face.
‘Is this all it is?’ he said to a bewildered Glenda. ‘A most inappropriate ending to a pleasant social gathering with interesting canapés! Where is this wretched thing supposed to be then?’
Glenda, hypnotised by the sight, pointed a wavering finger in the general direction of down the street.
‘There’s a big pole? Painted white . . . well, spattered with red at the bottom . . .’
‘Oh yes, I see it. Well, in that case, I’ll - Look, will you men please stop pushing?’ Nutt added to the crowd, who were craning to see.
‘But there’s no way you’ll ever get it there!’ Glenda yelled. ‘Just put it down and come away!’
Trev heard a grunt from Nutt and absolute silence from the rest of the world. Oh, no, he thought. Really no IT must be more than, what, a hundred and fifty yards to that goal, and those things fly like a bucket. There is no way that he could –
A distant pock broke the breathless silence, which healed itself instantly.
Trev peered over his shoulder as the sixty-foot goal post gave up its battle with termites, rot, weather, gravity and Nutt, and fell into its own base in a cloud of dust…
~Terry Pratchett (Unseen Academicals)