Page 16 (1/2)

"It happens," said Lady Raenes, you know"

"It is?" said Vi all the power its siblings wasted in flame and noise into a stare like a ther how much he'd wanted a puppy when he was a little boy Mind you, they'd been starving-anything with on lady say, "One tries to breed for a good flame, depth of scale, correct colour and so on One just has to put up with the occasional total whittle"

The little dragon turned on Viuaranteed to win it the award for Dragon the Judges would Most Like to Take Hohter

Total whittle, Vi of the word, but he could hazard a shrewd guess It sounded like whatever it was you had left when you had extracted everything of any value whatsoever Like the Watch, he thought Total whittles, every one of thea of his life

"That's Nature for you," said her ladyship "Of course I wouldn't drea from him, but he wouldn't be able to anyway''

"Why not?" said Vions have to s, I'm afraid I'll be sorry to lose the bloodline, naturally His sire was Brenda Rodley's Treebite Brightscale Do you know Brenda?"

"Er, no," said Vimes Lady Ramkin was one of those people who assumed that everyone else knew everyone one knew

"Char up very well"

Poor little bastard, thought Vi off the bottom of the pack

No wonder they call her ato show me," Lady Ramkin prompted

Vimes wordlessly handed her the parcel She slipped off her heavy mittens and unwrapped it

"Plaster cast of a footprint," she said, baldly "Well?"

"Does it re?" said Vi bird"

"Oh" Vihed "Or a really big dragon Got it out of a ot it off the street thistricks on you, old chap"

"Er There was, er, circumstantial evidence"

He told her She stared at him

"Draco nobilis," she said hoarsely

"Pardon?" said Vion As opposed to these fellows-" she waved a hand in the direction of the aris, the lot of theone, you know This really is a nonsense No tays about it All gone Beautiful things, they were Weighed tons Biggest things ever to fly No-one kno they did it"

And then they realised

It was suddenly very quiet

All along the rows of kennels, the dragons were silent, bright-eyed and watchful They were staring at the roof

Carrot looked around him Shelves stretched away in every direction On those shelves, books He uess

"This is the Library, isn't it?" he said

The Librarian rip on the boy's hand and led hi the maze of aisles

"Is there a body?" said Carrot There'd have to be Worse than

The ape eventually padded to a halt in front of a shelf no different than, it seemed, a hundred others Soap The Librarian pointed to it

"Oook"

"Well, what about it? A hole where a book should be"

"Oook"

"A book has been taken A book has been taken? You summoned the Watch," Carrot drew himself up proudly, "because someone's taken a book? You think that's worse than ave him the kind of look other people would reserve for people who said things like "What's so bad about genocide?"

"This is practically a cri Watch time," said Carrot "Why don't you just tell the head wizards, or whoever they are?"

"Oook" The Librarian indicated with soestures that most wizards would not find their own bottoms with both hands

"Well, I don't see e can do about it," said Carrot "What's the book called?"