Wings by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online Page B

assume he wants to keep clean."
    "So is it safe to get out of the bag now?"
    " 'Safe' is a relative word."
    "What? What? Like 'uncle,' you mean?"
    "I mean that nothing is totally safe. But I suggest that the human will be wetting himself for some time."
    "Yeah. There's a lot of human to clean," said Angalo. "Come on. Let's do it." The bag was lying on a bed. It was easy enough to climb down the covers onto the floor.
    Hoom-hoom booOOOOM boom...
    "What do we do now?" said Angalo.
    "After we've eaten, that is," said Gurder firmly.
    Masklin trotted across the thick carpet. There was a tall glass door in the nearest wall. It was slightly open, letting in a warm breeze and the sounds of the night.
    A human would have heard the click and buzz of crickets and other small mysterious creatures whose role in life is to sit in bushes all night and make noises that are a lot bigger than they are. But nomes hear sounds slowed down and stretched out and deeper, like a record player on the wrong speed. The dark was full of the thud and growl of the wilderness.
    Gurder joined Masklin and squinted anxiously into the blackness.
    "Could you go out there and see if there is something to eat?" he said.
    "I've a horrible feeling," said Masklin, "that if I go out there now there will be something to eat, and it'll be me." Behind them the human voice sang on.
    Boom-hoom-hoom - BOOOooooMMM womp...
    "What's the human singing about, Thing?" said Masklin.
    "It is a little difficult to follow. However, it appears that the singer wishes it to be known that he did something his way."
    "Did what?"
    "Insufficient data at this point. But whatever it was, be did it at a) each step on life's highway and b) not in a shy way." There was a knock at the door. The singing stopped. So did the gushing of the water. The nomes ran for the shadows.
    "Sounds a bit dangerous," Angalo whispered. "Walking along highways, I mean. Each step along life's side-walk would be safer."
    Grandson Richard, 39, came out of the shower room with a towel around his waist. He opened the door. Another human, with all his clothes on, came in with a tray. There was a brief exchange of hoots, and the clothed human put down the tray and went out again. Grandson Richard, 39, disappeared into the shower room again.
    Bub-buh hub-hub boom hoOOOOmm...
    "Food!" Gurder whispered. "I can smell it! There's food on that tray!"
    "A bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with coleslaw," said the Thing. "And coffee. And orange juice."
    "How did you know?" said all three nomes in unison.
    "He ordered it when be checked in."
    "Coleslaw!" moaned Gurder ecstatically. "Bacon! Coffee!"
    "And orange juice," said Angalo.
    "Hah!" Masklin stared upward. The tray had been left on the edge of a table.
    There was a lamp near it. Masklin had lived in the Store long enough to know that where there was a lamp, there was a wire.
    He'd never found a wire he couldn't climb.
    Regular meals, that was the problem. He'd never been used to them. When he'd lived Outside, he'd got accustomed to going for days without food and then, when food did turn up, eating until he was greasy to the eyebrows. But the Store nomes expected something to eat several times an hour. The Store nomes ate all the time. They only had to miss half a dozen meals and they started to complain.
    "I think I could get up there," he said.
    "Yes. Yes," said Gurder.
    "But is it all right to eat Grandson Richard's sandwich?" Masklin added.
    Gurder opened his eyes. He blinked.
    "That's an important theological point," he muttered. "But I'm too hungry to think about it, so let's eat it first, and then if it turns out to be wrong to eat it, I promise to be very sorry." Boom-boom whop whop, foom boom...
    "The human says that the end is now near and he is facing a curtain," the Thing translated. "This may be a shower curtain."
    Masklin pulled himself up the wire and onto the table, feeling very exposed.
    It was obvious that the Floridians had a different idea about