The rabbit wrinkled its nose uncertainly.
The duck squinted at the cat. The cat stared at the rabbit. The mouse peered at the duck.
The duck rocketed upwards. The rabbit became a fastdisappearing cloud of sand. The mouse tore over the dunes. And, feeling a lot happier than it had done for weeks, the cat ran after it.
Click . . .
Ginger and Victor sat at a table in the corner of the Mended Drum. Eventually Ginger said: 'They were good dogs.'
'Yes,' said Victor, distantly.
'Morry and Rock have been digging through the rubble for ages. They said there's all kind of cellars and things down there. I'm sorry.'
'Yes.'
'Maybe we ought to put up a statue to them, or something.'
'I'm not sure about that,' said Victor. 'I mean, considering what dogs do to statues. Maybe dogs dying is all part of Holy Wood. I don't know.'
Ginger traced the outline of a knothole on the tabletop.
'It's all over now,' she said. 'You do know that, don't you? No more Holy Wood. It's all over.'
'Yes.'
'The Patrician and the wizards won't let anyone make any more clicks. The Patrician was very definite about it.'
'I don't think anyone wants to make any,' said Victor. 'Who's going to remember Holy Wood now?'
'What do you mean?'
'Those old priests built a kind of half-baked religion around it. They forgot all about what it really was. That didn't matter, though. I don't think you need chants and fires. You just need to remember Holy Wood. We need someone to remember Holy Wood really well.'
'Yeah,' said Ginger, grinning. 'You'd need a thousand
elephants.' !
'Yeah.' Victor laughed. 'Poor old Dibbler,' he said. 'He never got them, either . . . '
Ginger moved a fragment of potato round and round on her plate. There was something on her mind, and it wasn't food.
'But it was great, wasn't it?' she burst out. 'We had something really amazing, didn't we?'
'Yes.'
'People really thought it was good, didn't they?'
'Oh, yes,' said Victor sombrely.
'I mean, didn't we bring something really great into the world?'
'No kidding.'
'I didn't mean that. Being a screen goddess isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know,' said Ginger.
'Right.'
Ginger sighed. 'No more Holy Wood magic,' she said.