Read Online Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett - Free Book Online Page A

Dibbler.
    “Well, my friend, in that case you can just get yourself to—”
    “Detritus?”
    “Yes, Mr. Dibbler?”
    “Hit this man.”
    “Right you are, Mr. Dibbler.”
    Detritus’s arm whirled around in a 180 degree arc with oblivion on the end of it. The guard was lifted off his feet and smashed through the door, coming to a stop in its wreckage twenty feet away. There was a cheer from the queue.
    Dibbler looked approvingly at the troll. Detritus was wearing nothing except a ragged loincloth which covered whatever it was that trolls felt it necessary to conceal.
    “Very good, Detritus.”
    “Right you are, Mr. Dibbler.”
    “But we shall have to see about getting you a suit,” said Dibbler. “Now, please guard the gate. Don’t let anyone in.”
    “Right you are, Mr. Dibbler.”
    Two minutes later a small gray dog trotted through the troll’s short and bandy legs and hopped over the remains of the gate, but Detritus didn’t do anything about this because everyone knew dogs weren’t anyone.

    “Mr. Silverfish?” said Dibbler.
    Silverfish, who had been cautiously crossing the studio with a box of fresh film stock, hesitated at the sight of a skinny figure bearing down on him like a long-lost weasel. Dibbler’s expression was the expression worn by something long and sleek and white as it swims over the reef and into the warm shallow waters of the kiddies’ paddling area.
    “Yes?” said Silverfish. “Who’re you? How did you get—”
    “Dibbler’s the name,” said Dibbler. “But I’d like you to call me Throat.”
    He clasped Silverfish’s unresisting hand and then placed his other hand on the man’s shoulder and stepped forward, pumping the first hand vigorously. The effect was of acute affability, and it meant that if Silverfish backed away he would dislocate his own elbow.
    “And I’d just like you to know,” Dibbler went on, “that we’re all incredibly impressed at what you boys are doing here.”
    Silverfish watched his own hand being strenuously made friends with, and grinned uncertainly.
    “You are?” he ventured.
    “All this—,” Dibbler released Silverfish’s shoulder just long enough to expansively indicate the energetic chaos around them. “Fantastic!” he said. “Marvellous! And that last thing of yours, what was it called now—?”
    “High Jinks at the Store,” said Silverfish. “That’s the one where the thief steals the sausages and the shop-keeper chases him?”
    “Yeah,” said Dibbler, his fixed smile glazing for only a second or two before becoming truly sincere again. “Yeah. That was it. Amazing! True genius! A beautifully sustained metaphor!”
    “That cost us nearly twenty dollars, you know,” said Silverfish, with shy pride. “And another forty pence for the sausages, of course.”
    “Amazing!” said Dibbler. “And it must have been seen by hundreds of people, yes?”
    “Thousands,” said Silverfish.
    There was no analogy for Dibbler’s grin now. If it had managed to be any wider, the top of his head would have fallen off.
    “Thousands?” he said. “Really? That many? And of course they all pay you, oh, how much—?”
    “Oh, we just take up a collection at the moment,” said Silverfish. “Just to cover costs while we’re still in the experimental stage, you understand.” He looked down. “I wonder,” he added, “could you stop shaking my hand now?”
    Dibbler followed his gaze. “Of course!” he said, and let go. Silverfish’s hand carried on going up and down for a while of its own accord, out of sheer muscular spasm.
    Dibbler was silent for a moment, his expression that of a man in deep communion with some inner god. Then he said, “You know, Thomas—may I call you Thomas?—when I saw that masterpiece I thought, Dibbler, behind all this is a creative artist—”
    “—how did you know my name was—”
    “—a creative artist, I thought, who should be free to pursue his muse instead of being burdened with all the fussy