Monday 13 April 2020

staying indoors all night working

From Soul Music by Terry Pratchett:

A new day dawned.
It had hardly finished doing so before Ridcully hurried through the dewy grass of the University gardens and hammered on the door of the High Energy Magic Building.
The door opened.
‘Oh, it’s you, Archchancellor.’
Ridcully pushed the door open further.
‘Morning, Stibbons. Glad to see you’re up and about early.’
Ponder Stibbons, the faculty’s youngest member, blinked at the sky.
‘Is it morning already?’ he said.
‘You ain’t been out lately?’ said Ridcully.
‘No, sir. Er. Should I have been? I’ve been busy working on my Make‑It‑Bigger device. You know, I showed you—’
‘Right, right,’ said Ridcully, looking around. ‘Anyone else been working in here?’
‘Well . . . there’s me, and Tez the Terrible and Skazz and Big Mad Drongo, I think . . .’
Ridcully blinked.
‘What are they?’ he said. And then, from the depths of memory, a horrible answer suggested itself. Only a very specific species had names like that.
Students?
‘Er. Yes?’ said Ponder, backing away. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, this is a university . . .’
Ridcully scratched his ear. The man was right, of course. You had to have some of the buggers around, there was no getting away from it. Personally, he avoided them whenever possible, as did the rest of the faculty, occasionally running the other way or hiding behind doors whenever they saw them. The Lecturer in Recent Runes had been known to lock himself in his wardrobe rather than take a tutorial.
He stared at the students. It was a worrying sight, and not just because of the natural look of students. Here were some people who, while this damn music was making everyone tap their feet, had stayed indoors all night — working.

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