Terry Pratchett - Johnny And The Dead

'Modern Purpose-Designed Offices,' said William Stickers. 'Whatever they are.'

' I think it means they were designed on purpose,' said Johnny.

'And how shameful to be sold for fivepence!' said dead Mrs Liberty.

'That's the living for you,' said William Stickers. 'No thought for the downtrodden masses.'

'Well, you see,' said Johnny wretchedly, 'the Council says it costs too much to keep up and the land was worth—'

'And what's this here about Blackbury Municipal Authority?' said the Alderman. 'What happened to Blackbury City Council?'

'I don't know,' said Johnny. 'I've never heard of it. Look, it's not my fault. I like this place, too. I was only saying to Wobbler, I didn't like what's happening.'

'So what are you going to do about it?' said the Alderman.

Johnny backed away, but came up against Mr Vicenti's Rolls-Royce of a grave.

'Oh, no,' he said. 'Not me. It's not up to me!'

'I don't see why not,' said dead Mrs Sylvia Liberty. 'After all, you can see and hear us.'

'No-one else takes any notice,' said Mr Vicenti.

'We've been trying all day,' said the Alderman.

'People walking their dogs. Hah! Theyjust hurry away,' said William Stickers.

'Not even old Mrs Tachyon,' said Mr Vicenti.

'And she's mad,' said the Alderman. 'Poor soul.'

'So there's only you,' said William Stickers. 'So you must go and tell this Municipal whateveritis that we aren't ... going ... to ... move!'

'They won't listen to me! I'm twelve! I can't even vote!'

'Yes, but we can,' said the Alderman.

'Can we?' said Mr Vicenti.

The dead clustered around him, like an American football team.

'We're still over twenty-one, aren't we? I mean, technically.'

'Yes, but we're dead,' said Mr Vicenti, in a reasonable tone of voice.

'You can vote at eighteen now,' said Johnny.

'No wonder people have no respect,' said the Alderman. 'I said the rot'd set in if they gave the vote to women—'

Mrs Liberty glared at him.

'Anyway, you can't use a dead person's vote,' said William Stickers. 'It's called Personation. I stood as Revolutionary Solidarity Fraternal Workers' Party Candidate. I know about this sort of thing.'

'I'm not proposing to let anyone use my vote,'

said the Alderman. 'I want to use it myself. No law against that.'

'Good point.'

'I served this city faithfully for more than fifty years,' said the Alderman. 'I do not see why I should lose my vote just because I'm dead. Democracy. That's the point.'

'People's democracy,' said William Stickers.

The dead fell silent.

'Well ...' said Johnny miserably. Til see what I can do.'

'Good man,' said the Alderman. 'And we'd also like a paper delivered every day.'

'No, no,' Mr Vicenti shook his head. 'It's so hard to turn the pages.'

'Well, we must know what is happening,' said Mrs Liberty. 'There's no telling what the living are getting up to out there while our backs are turned.'

Til... think of something,' said Johnny. 'Some- thing better than newspapers.'

'Right,' said William Stickers. 'And then you get along to these Council people and tell them—'

'Tell them we're not going to take this lying down!' shouted the Alderman.

'Yes, right,' said Johnny.

And the dead faded. Again there was the sen- sation of travelling, as if the dead people were going back into a different world ...

'Have they gone?' said Wobbler.

'Not that they were here,' said Yo-less, the scien- tific thinker.

'They were here, and they've gone,' said Johnny.

'It definitely felt a bit weird,' said Bigmac. 'Very cold.'

'Let's get out of here,' said Johnny. 'I need to think. They want me to stop this place being built on.'

'How?'

Johnny led the way quickly towards the gates.

'Huh! They've left it up to me.'

'We'll help,' said Yo-less, promptly.

'Will we?' said Wobbler. 'I mean, Johnny's OK, but ... I mean ... it's meddlin' with the oc- cult. And your mum'11 go spare.'

'Yes, but if it's true then it's helping Chris- tian souls,' said Yo-less. 'That's all right. They are Christian souls, aren't they?'

'I think there's a Jewish part of the cemetery,' said Johnny.

'That's all right/Jewish is the same as Christian,' said Bigmac.

'Not exactly,' said Yo-less, very carefully. 'But similar.'

'Yeah, but ...' said Wobbler, awkwardly. 'I mean ... dead people and that ... I mean ... he can see 'em, so it's up to him ... I mean ...'

'We all supported Bigmac when he was in juv- enile court, didn't we?' said Yo-less.

'You said he was going to get hung,' said Wobbler. 'And I spent all morning doing that "Free the Blackbury One" poster.'

'It was a political crime,' said Bigmac.

'You stole the Minister of Education's car when he was opening the school,' said Yo-less.

'It wasn't stealing. I meant to give it back,' said Bigmac.

'You drove it into a wall. You couldn't even give it back on a shovel.'

'Oh, so it was my fault the brakes were faulty? I could have got badly hurt, right? I notice no- one worried about that. It was basically his fault, leaving cars around with Noddy locks and bad brakes—'

'I bet he doesn't have to repair his own brakes.'

'It's society's fault, then—'

'Anyway,' said Yo-less, 'we were behind you that time, right?'

'Wouldn't like to be in front of him,' said Wobbler.

'And we were right behind Wobbler when he got into trouble for complaining to the record shop about the messages from God he heard when he played Cliff Richard records backwards—'

'You said you heard it too,' said Wobbler. 'Hey, you said you heard it!'

' Only after you told me what it was,' said Yo-less. 'Before you told me what I was listening for, it just sounded like someone going ayip-ayeep-mwerpayeep.' 1

'They shouldn't do that sort of thing on records,'

1 But according to Wobbler it was really: 'Hey, kids! Go to school and get a good education! Listen to your parents! It's cool to go to church!'

said Wobbler defensively. 'Gettin' at impressionable minds.'

'The point I'm making,' said Yo-less, 'is that you've got to help your friends, right?' He turned to Johnny. 'Now, personally, I think you're very nearly totally disturbed and suffer- ing from psychosomatica and hearing voices and seeing delusions,' he said, 'and probably ought to be locked up in one of those white jackets with the stylish long sleeves. But that doesn't matter, 'cos we're friends.'

'I'm touched,'said Johnny.

'Probably,' said Wobbler, 'but we don't care, do we, guys?'

His mother was out, at her second job. Grandad was watching Video Whoopsy.

'Grandad?'

'Yes?'

'How famous was William Stickers?'

'Very famous. Very famous man,' said the old man, without looking around.

'I can't find him in the encyclopedia.'

'Very famous man, was William Stickers. Haha! Look, the man's just fallen off his bicycle! Right into the bush!'

Johnny took down the volume L-MIN, and was silent for a few minutes.

Grandad had a complete set of huge encyclopedias. No-one really knew why. Somewhere in 1950 or something, Grandad had said to himself, 'get educated', and had bought the massive books on hire purchase. He'd never

opened them. He'd just built a bookcase for them. Grandad was superstitious about books. He thought that if you had enough of them around, educa- tion leaked out, like radioactivity.

'How about Mrs Sylvia Liberty?'

'Who's she?'

'She was a suffragette, I think. Votes for women and things.'

'Never heard of her.'

'She's not in here under "Liberty" or "Suf- fragette".'

'Never heard of her. Whoa, look here, the cat's fallen in the pond—!'

'All right ... how about Mr Antonio Vicenti?'

'What? Old Tony Vicenti? What's he up to now?'