They're always complaining about eating food that comes out of theground, they think it's not natural. And they think the rain is asprinkler system. I think they think the whole world is just a biggerStore. Urn."

He stared at the unresponsive cube for a while, scraping his mind for other things to say.

"Anyway, that means Granny Morkie is the oldest nome," he saideventually. "And that means she's entitled to a place on the council, even though she's a woman. Abbot Gurder objected to that, but we said, all right, you tell her, and he wouldn't, so she is. Um."

He looked at his fingernails. The Thing had away of listening that was quite off-putting.

"Everyone's worried about the winter. Um. But we've got masses ofpotatoes stored up, and it's quite warm down here. The Store nomes havesome funny ideas, though. They said that when it was Christmas Fayre timein the Store there was this thing that came called Santer Claws. I justhope it hasn't followed us, that's all. Um."

He scratched an ear.

"All in all, everything's going right. Um."

He leaned closer.

"You know what that means? If you think everything's going right, something's going wrong that you haven't heard about yet. That's what Isay. Um."

The black cube managed to look sympathetic.

"Everyone says I worry too much. I don't think it's possible to worry toomuch. Um."

He thought some more.

"Um. I think that's about all the news for now." He lifted the Thing upand put it back in its hole.

He'd wondered whether to tell it about his argument with Grimma, butthat was, well, personal.

It was all that reading books, that was what it was. He shouldn't havelet her learn to read, filling her head with stuff she didn't need toknow. Gurder was right, women's brains did overheat. Grimma's seemed tobe boiling hot the whole time, these days.