Glenda blinked. I cannot believe I just did that, she thought. Twenty-five dollars for putting some clothes on! That’s more than I earn in a month! That’s just not right. And the sherry said, ‘What exactly is wrong here? Would you dress up in chain mail and parade in front of a lot of strangers for twenty-five dollars?’

Glenda shuddered. Certainly not, she thought.

‘Well, there you are then,’ said the sherry.

But it will all end in tears, thought Glenda.

‘No, you’re just saying that because part of you thinks it should,’ said the sherry. ‘You know there are far worse things that a girl could do for twenty-five dollars than put some clothes on. Take them off, for a start.’

But what will the neighbours say? was the last despairing argument from Glenda.

‘They can stick it up their jumper,’ said the sherry. ‘Anyway, they won’t know, will they? Dolly Sisters doesn’t shop in the Maul, it’s far too grand. Look, we’re looking at twenty-five dollars. Twenty-five dollars to do what you couldn’t stop her doing now with a length of lead pipe. Just look at her face! She looks as if someone has lit a lamp inside.’

It was true.

Oh, all right then, thought Glenda.

‘Good,’ said the sherry. ‘And incidentally, I’m feeling lonely.’

And as the tray was at Glenda’s elbow again, she reached out automatically. Juliet was now surrounded by dwarfs and, by the sound of it, she was having a lightning education in how to wear clothing. But it wouldn’t matter, would it? The truth of the matter was that Juliet would look good in a sack. Somehow, everything she wore fitted perfectly. Glenda, on the other hand, never found anything good in her size and indeed seldom found anything in her size. In theory, something should fit, but all she ever found was facts, which are so unbecoming.

‘Well, we have a nice day for it,’ said the Archchancellor.

‘Looks like rain,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes hopefully.

‘I suggest two teams of five on a side,’ said Ridcully. ‘Only a friendly game, of course, just to get the hang of it.’

Ponder Stibbons made no comment. Wizards were competitive. It was a part of wizardry. Wizards have no more idea of a friendly game than cats have of a friendly mouse. The college lawns stretched out in front of them. ‘Of course, next time we’ll have proper jerseys,’ said Ridcully. ‘Mrs Whitlow already has her girls working on that. Mister Stibbons!’

‘Yes, Archchancellor?’

‘You shall be the keeper of the rules and adjudicate fairly. I will, of course, be captain of one of the teams and you, Runes, will captain the other. As Archchancellor, I suggest that I pick my team first and then you will be at liberty to choose yours.’

‘It isn’t actually supposed to work like that, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder. ‘You pick a team member and then he picks a team member until you have enough team members or have run out of team members who aren’t grossly fat or trembling with nerves. At least that’s how I remember it.’ Ponder, in his youth, had spent far too long standing next to the fat kid.

‘Oh well, if that’s how it’s done, then I suppose we shall have to do it that way,’ said the Archchancellor with bad grace. ‘Stibbons, it will be your task to penalize the opposing side for any infringements they make.’

‘Don’t you mean that I should penalize either side for any infringements they make, Archchancellor?’ he said. ‘It has to be fair.’

Ridcully looked at him with his mouth open as if Ponder had mentioned a concept that was totally alien. ‘Oh yes, I suppose it has to be like that.’

A variety of wizards had turned out this afternoon from curiosity, a suspicion that being there might turn out to be a good career move, and the prospect of maybe seeing some colleagues travelling across the lawn on their noses.

Oh dear, thought Ponder as the choosing began. It was just like school again, but at school nobody wanted the fat boy. Here, of course, it had to be a case of nobody wanted the fattest boy, which, since the departure of the Dean, was a matter of fine judgement.

Ponder reached into his robes and pulled out a whistle or, perhaps, the grandfather of all whistles, eight inches long and as thick as a generous pork sausage.

‘Where did that come from, Mister Stibbons?’ said Ridcully.

‘As a matter of fact, Archchancellor, I found it in the study of the late Evans the Striped.’

‘It’s a fine whistle,’ said Ridcully.

It was an innocent sentence that managed to hint quite silently that such a fine whistle should not be in the hands of Ponder Stibbons when it could be in the ownership of, for example, the Archchancellor of a university. Ponder spotted this because he had been expecting it. ‘I shall need this to alert and control the behaviour of both teams,’ he said haughtily. ‘You made me the referee, Archchancellor, and I’m afraid that for the duration of the game I am, as it were,’ he hesitated, ‘in charge.’

‘This university is a hierarchy, you understand, Stibbons?’

‘Yes, sir, and this is a game of football. I believe that the procedure is to put the football down and when the whistle is blown each side will attempt to hit the goal of the opposing side with the ball while trying to prevent the ball hitting their own goal. Have we all understood that?’

‘It seems pretty clear to me,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. There was a murmur of agreement.

‘Nevertheless, before the game I demand a blow on the whistle.’

‘Of course, Archchancellor, but then you must give it me back. I am the custodian of the game.’ He handed over the whistle.

On Ridcully’s first attempt at blowing he dislodged a spider that had been living a blameless yet frugal life for the last twenty years and deposited him in the beard of the Professor of Natural Studies, who was just passing.

The second blow shook free the fossilized pea inside and filled the air with echoes of liquid brass. And then…

Ridcully froze. His face flushed from the neck upwards at speed. The sound of his next drawn breath was like the vengeance of the gods. His stomach expanded, his eyes became pinpoints, thunder rolled overhead and he roared, ‘WHY HAVEN’T YOU BOYS BROUGHT YOUR KIT?!’

St Elmo’s fire roared along the length of the whistle. The sky darkened and fear gripped every watching soul as time reversed and there stood the giant, maniacally screaming Evans the Striped. The instigator of badly forged notes from your mother, the enthusiast for long runs in the sleet, the promoter of communal showers as a cure for adolescent shyness and the one who, if you didn’t bring your proper gear, would make you PLAY IN YOUR PANTS. Venerable wizards who had faced down the most cunning of monsters through the decades trembled in damp adolescent fear as the scream went on and on, to be halted as sharply as it started.

Ridcully fell forward on to the turf.

‘I do apologize for that,’ said Dr Hix, lowering his staff. ‘A slightly evil deed, of course, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it was necessary in the circumstances. The skull ring, remember? University statute? And that was a clear case of possession by artefact if ever I saw one.’

The collected wizards, the cold sweat beginning to evaporate, nodded sagely. Oh, yes. It was regrettably necessary, they agreed. For his own good, they agreed. Had to be done, they agreed. And this verdict was echoed by Ridcully himself when he opened his eyes and said, ‘What the hell was that?’

‘Er, the soul of Evans the Striped, I think, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder.

‘In the whistle, was it?’ Ridcully rubbed his head.

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Ponder.

‘And who hit me?’

A general shuffling and murmuring indicated that by democratic agreement this was a question that could best be answered by Dr Hix.

‘It was acceptable treachery under college statute, sir. Wouldn’t mind the whistle for the Dark Museum, if nobody objects.’