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'What d'you think about it, Mr Zombie?'
'It's a great life, Mrs Ogg,' said the zombie.
'There. See, Esme? He don't mind. Better than being shut up in a stuffy coffin all day, I'll be bound.'
Granny looked up at the zombie. He was - or, technically, had been - a tall, handsome man. He still was, only now he looked like someone who had walked through a room full of cobwebs.
'What's your name, dead man?' she said.
'I am called Saturday.'
'Man Saturday, eh?' said Nanny Ogg.
'No. Just Saturday, Mrs Ogg. Just Saturday.'
Granny Weatherwax looked into his eyes. They were more sentient than most eyes she had seen that belonged to people who were, technically, alive.
She was vaguely aware that there were things you had to do to a dead person to turn them into a zombie, although it was a branch of magic she'd never wanted to investigate.
Yet you needed more than just a lot of weird fish innards and foreign roots - the person had to want to come back. They had to have some terrible dream or desire or purpose that would enable them to overcome the grave itself. . .
Saturday's eyes burned.
She reached a decision. She held out a hand.
'Very pleased to meet you, Mister Saturday,' she said. 'And I'm sure I'd enjoy your lovely stew.'
'It's called gumbo,' said Nanny. 'It's got lady's fingers in it.'
'I know well enough that lady's fingers is a kind of plant, thank you very much,' said Granny. 'I'm not entirely ignorant.'
'All right, but make sure you get a helping with snakes' heads in it as well,' said Nanny Ogg. 'They're the best part.'
'What kind of plant is snakes' heads?'
'Best if you just eat up, I reckon,' said Nanny.
They were sitting on the warped wood veranda round the back of Mrs Gogol's shack, overlooking the swamp. Mossy beards hung from every branch. Unseen creatures buzzed in the greenery. And everywhere there were v-shaped ripples cutting gently through the water.
'I expect it's really nice here when the sun's out,' said Nanny.
Saturday trudged into the shack and returned with a makeshift fishing pole, which he baited and cast over the rail. Then he sort of switched off; no-one has more patience than a zombie.
Mrs Gogol leaned back in her rocking-chair and lit her pipe.
'This used to be a great ole city,' she said.
'What happened to it?' said Nanny.
Greebo was having a lot of trouble with Legba the cockerel.
For one thing, the bird refused to be terrorized. Greebo could terrorize most things that moved upon the face of the Discworld, even creatures nominally much bigger and tougher than he was. Yet somehow none of his well-tried tactics - the yawn, the stare and above all the slow grin -seemed to work. Legba merely looked down his beak at him, and pretended to scratch at the ground in a way that brought his two-inch spurs into even greater prominence.
That only left the flying leap. This worked on nearly every creature. Very few animals remained calm in the face of an enraged ball of whirring claws in the face. In the case of this bird, Greebo suspected, it might well result in his becoming a furry kebab.
But this had to be resolved. Otherwise generations of cats would laugh at him.
Cat and bird circled through the swamp, each apparently paying the other no attention whatsoever.
