From Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett:

Granny wasn't at home in public houses. She sat stiffly to attention behind her port-and-lemon, as if it were a shield against the lures of the world.

Nanny Ogg, on the other hand, was enthusiastically downing her third drink and, Granny thought sourly, was well along that patch which would probably end up with her usual dancing on the table, showing her petticoats and singing "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All".

The table was covered with copper coins. Vitoller and his wife sat at the other end, counting. It was something of a race.

Granny considered Mrs. Vitoller as she snatched farthings from under her husband's fingers. She was an intelligent looking woman, who appeared to treat her husband much as a sheepdog treats a favourite lamb. The complexities of the marital relationship were known to Granny only from a distance, in the same way that an astrologer can view the suface of a remote and alien world, but it had already occurred to her that a wife to Vitoller would have to be a very special woman with bottomless reserves of patience and organisational ability and nimble fingers.

"Mrs. Vitoller," she said eventually, "may I make so bold as to ask if your union has been blessed with fruit?"

The couple looked blank.

"She means-" Nanny Ogg began.

"No, I see," said Mrs. Vitoller, quitely. "No. We had a little girl once."

A small cloud hung over the table. For a second or two Vitoller looked merely human-sized, and much older. He stared at the small pile of cash in front of him.

"Only, you see, there is this child," said Granny, indicating the baby in Nanny Ogg's arms. "And he needs a home."

The Vitollers stared. Then the man sighed. Mrs. Vitoller said, "Why does he need a home?"

"He hasn't got one," said Granny. "At least not one where he would be welcome."

The silence continued. Then Mrs. Vitoller said, "And you, who ask this, you are by way of being his-?"

"Godmothers," said Nanny Ogg promptly. Granny was slightly taken aback. It would never have occured to her.

Vitoller played absently with the coins in front of him. His wife reached out across the table and touched his hand, and there was a moment of unspoken communication. Granny looked away. She had grown expert at reading faces, but there were times when she preferred not to.

"Money is, alas, tight-" Vitoller began.

"But it will stretch," said his wife firmly.

"Yes. I think it will. We would be happy to take care of him."

Granny nodded, and fished in the deepest recesses of her cloak. At last she produced a small leather handbag, which she tipped out onto the table. There was a lot of silver, and even a few tiny gold coins.

"This should take care of-" she groped- "nappies and suchlike. Clothes and things. Whatever."

"A hundered times over, I should think," said Vitoller weakly. "Why didn't you mention this before?"

"If I'd had to buy you, you wouldn't be worth the price."

"But you don't know anything about us!" said Mrs. Vitoller.

"We don't, do we?" said Granny calmly. "Naturally we'd like to hear how he gets along. You could send us letters and suchlike. But it would not be a good idea to talk about all this after you've left, do you see? For the sake of the child?"

Mrs. Vitoller looked at the two old women.

"There's something else here, isn't there?" she said. "Something big behind all this?"

Granny hesitated, then nodded.

"But it would do us no good to know all about it?"

Another nod.

Granny stood up as several actors came in, breaking the spell. Actors had a habit of filling all the space around them.

"I have other things to see to," she said. "Please excuse me."

"What's his name?" said Vitoller.

"Tom," said Granny, hardly hesitating.

"John," said Nanny. The two witches exchanged glances. Granny won.

"Tom John," she said firmly, and swept out.

She met a breathless Magrat outside the door.

"I found a box," she said. "It had all the crowns and things in it. So I put it in, like you said, right underneath everything."

"Good," said Granny.

"Our crown looked really tatty compared to the others!"

"It just goes to show, doesn't it," said Granny. "Did anyone see you?"

"No, everyone was too busy, but-" Magrat hesitated, and blushed.

"Out with it, girl."

"Just after that a man came up and pinched my bottom." Magrat went a deep crimson and slapped a hand over her mouth.

"Did he?" said Granny. "And then what?"

"And then, and then-"

"Yes?"

"He said, he said-"

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'Hallo, my lovely, what are you doing tonight?'"

Granny ruminated on this for a while, and then said, "Old Goodie Whemper, she didn't get out and about much, did she?"

"It was her leg, you know," said Magrat.

"But she taught you all the midwifery and everything?"

"Oh, yes, that," said Magrat. "I've done lots."

"But-" Granny hesitated, groping her way across unfamiliar territory- "she never talked to you about what you might call the previous."

"Sorry?"

"You know," said Granny with an edge of desperation in her voice, "Men and such."

Magrat looked as though she were about to panic. "What about them?"

Granny Weatherwax had done many unusual things in her time, and it took a lot to make her refuse a challenge. But this time she gave in.

"I think," she said helplessly, "that it might be a good idea if you have a quiet word with Nanny Ogg one of these days. Fairly soon."

There was a cackle of laughter from the window behind them, a chink of glasses, and a thin voice raised in song: "-with a giraffe, If you stand on a stool. But the hedgehog-"

Granny stopped listening. "Only not just now," she added.

^*This would be Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Go grab a copy.

Terry Pratchett and the Discworld

Wyrd Sisters copyright 1988 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett. First printed in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz Ltd. Printed in the United States of America by Roc, Penguin Publishing Group. First edition printed 1990. Used without permission.

Previous: Emma Bull

Next: Primo Levi