'Yes, Mister Hoggett, it is. Apart from, and I insist on drawing your attention to it, a beautiful golden lady floating over the pitch. Am I the only one seeing this?'
Hoggett glanced towards the rising Juliet. 'Yeah, right, very pretty, but we've lost, have we?'
'Yes, Mister Hoggett, you have clearly and emphatically lost.'
'And, just to be precise,' said Hoggett, 'there are no more, like, rules, are there?'
'No, Mister Hoggett, you are no longer subject to the rules of football.'
'Thank you for that clarification, your worship, and may I also thank you on behalf of United for the way you handled the trying events of this afternoon.'
With this, he turned and punched Andy full in the face. Mister Hoggett was a mild man, but years of lifting a pig carcass in each hand meant that he had a punch that even Andy's thick skin had to reckon with. Even so, after Andy had blinked a few times he managed to say, 'You bastard.'
'You lost us the game,' said Hoggett. 'We could have won fair and square, but you had to muck it up.' And those around him felt able to murmur in support of the accusation.
'Me? It wasn't me! It was that bloody Trev Likely and his little orc chum. They was using magic. You can't say that wasn't magic.'
'Just skill, I assure you,' said the former Dean. 'Amazing skill, certainly, but he is well known for his prowess with the tin can, which itself is a veritable icon of football.'
'Where is that bloody Likely, anyway?'
Glenda, eyes fixed on the centre of the pitch, said in the voice of someone half hypnotized, 'He's rising up in the air as well.'
'Look, you can't tell me that's not magic,' Andy insisted.
'No,' said Glenda. 'You know what, I think it's religion. Can't you hear?'
'I can't hear anything, dear, with all the noise from the crowd,' said the former Dean.
'Yes,' said Glenda. 'Listen to the crowd.'
He did. It was a roar, a great sky-filling roar, old and animal and coming up from the gods knew where, but inside it, travelling like a hidden message, he made out the words. They swam into focus, if indeed the ear could focus and if he was actually hearing them with his ears. They might have been coming through his bones... If the striker thinks he scores Or if the keeper cries in shame They understand not the crowd's applause I make, and hear and earn again For I am the crowd and I am the ball I am the triumph and the blame I am the turf, the pies, the All Always and ever, I am the Game. It matters not who won or lost Nothing is the score you made Fame is a petal that curls in the frost But I will remember how you played.
And it stays there, Glenda thought, like sound in a banner. Everybody one part of it.
Juliet and Trev began to float down, hand in hand, turning gently until they landed lightly on the turf, still kissing. A sort of reality began to leak back into the arena, and there are some people who, even when hearing the voice of the nightingale, will say 'What's that bloody noise?'
'Cheatin' bastard,' said Andy and launched himself directly at Trev, covering the ground at speed as the boy stood there with a very bemused but happy expression on his face. He did not notice the hell-bent Andy until a huge boot kicked him squarely in the groin, so hard that the eyes of all male watchers watered in sympathetic pain.
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Trev felt the micromail sing as the thousands of links moved and just as quickly settled down again. It was as if a little breeze had blown up his pants. Apart from that, he hadn't felt a thing.
Andy, on the other hand, had. He was lying on the ground, bent double, making a sort of whistling noise through his teeth.
Someone slapped Trev on the back. It was Pepe.
'You did put my pants on, didn't you? Well, obviously not my pants. You'd have to be suicidal to want to put my pants on. Anyway, I've come up with a name for the stuff: I'm going to call it Retribushium. Can't ever say it will be an end to war, 'cos I can't imagine anything putting an end to war, but it sends the force back the way it came. Didn't chafe either, did it?'
'No,' said Trev, amazed.
'Well, it did for him! My word, though, he's a game one. That reminds me, I'll need a picture of you in them.'
Andy was rising slowly, elevating himself to the vertical almost by willpower alone. Pepe grinned, and somehow it seemed obvious to Trev that anyone who was going to get up and try any threats with Pepe grinning at him was more than suicidal.
'Got a knife, have you, you little squirt?' said Andy.
'No, Andy,' said Nutt behind him. 'No more. The game is over. Fortune has favoured Unseen Academicals and I believe the traditional ending is to exchange shirts in an atmosphere of good fellowship.'
'But not pants,' said Pepe under his breath.