Diggers by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online Page B

is?” he whispered.
    â€œIsn’t she here?”
    â€œI’m quite sure she isn’t,” said Dorcas. “She’d have had something very sharp to say by now if she was. She may have stayed in the school hole with the children when the bell went. It’s just as well.”
    Nisodemus has got something on his mind, he thought. I’m not certain what it is, but it smells bad.
    And it got worse as the day wore on, especially since it began to rain. A nasty, freezing sort of rain. Sleet, according to Granny Morkie. It was soggy, not really water but not quite ice. Rain with bones.
    Somehow it seemed to find its way into places where ordinary rain hadn’t managed to get. Dorcas organized younger nomes to digging drainage trenches and rigged up a few of the big light bulbs for heat. The older nomes sat hunched around them, sneezing and grumbling.
    Granny Morkie did her best to cheer them up. Dorcas began to really wish the old woman wouldn’t do that.
    â€œThis ain’t nothing,” she said. “I remember the Great Flood. Made our hole cave right in—we was cold and drenched for days!” She cackled and rocked backward and forward. “Like drownded rats, we was! Not a dry stitch on, you know, and no fire for a week. Talk about a laugh!”
    The Store nomes stared at her and shivered.
    â€œAnd you don’t want to go worrying about crossing them open fields,” she went on, conversationally. “Nine times out o’ ten you don’t get et by anything.”
    â€œOh, dear,” said a lady nome, faintly.
    â€œYes, I’ve been out in fields hundreds o’ times. It’s a doddle if you stay close to the hedge and keep your eyes open. You hardly ever have to run very much,” said Granny.
    No one’s temper was improved when they learned that the Land Rover had parked right on the patch of ground they were going to plant things in. The nomes had spent ages during the summer hacking the hard ground into something resembling soil. They’d even planted seeds, which hadn’t grown. Now there were two great ruts in it, and a new padlock and chain on the gate.
    The sleet was already filling the ruts. Oil had leaked in and formed a rainbow sheen on the surface.
    And all the time, Nisodemus was reminding people how much better it had been in the Store. They didn’t really need much persuading. After all, it had been better. Much better.
    I mean, thought Dorcas, we can keep warm and there’s plenty of food, although there is a limit to the number of ways you can cook rabbit and potatoes. The trouble is, Masklin thought that once we got outside the Store, we’d all be digging and building and hunting and facing the future with strong chins and bright smiles. Some of the youngsters are doing well enough, I’ll grant you. But us old ’uns are too set in our ways. It’s all right for me, I like tinkering with things, I can be useful, but the rest of them, well . . . all they’ve really got to occupy themselves is grumbling, and they’ve become really good at that.
    I wonder what Nisodemus’s game is. He’s too keen, if you ask me.
    I wish Masklin would come back.
    Even young Gurder wasn’t too bad.
    It’s been three days now.
    At a time like this, he knew he’d feel better if he went and looked at Big John.

6
    I. For in the Hill was a Dragon, from the days when the World was made.
    II. But it was old and broken and dying.
    III. And the Mark of the Dragon was on it.
    IV. And the Mark was Big John.
    From The Book of Nome,
Big John Chap. 1, v. I–IV
    B IG JOHN .
    Big John was his. His little secret. His big secret, really. No one else knew about Big John, not even Dorcas’s assistants.
    He’d been pottering around in the big old half-ruined sheds on the other side of the quarry, one day back in the summer. He hadn’t really had any aim in mind, except perhaps the possibility of finding a