Terry Pratchett: Good Omens

"Shadwell shouldn't be going with them!" said Newt, staggering to his feet.

"What's a Shadwell?"

"He's my serg‑he's this amazing old man, you'd never believe it . . . I've got to help him!"

"Help him?" said Anathema.

"I took an oath and everything." Newt hesitated. "Well, sort of an oath. And he gave me a month's wages in advance!"

"Who're those other two, then? Friends of yours‑" Anathema began, and stopped. Aziraphale had half turned, and the profile had finally clicked into place.

"I know where I've seen him before!" she shouted, pulling herself upright against Newt as the ground bounced up and down. "Come on!"

"But something dreadful's going to happen!"

"If he's damaged the book, you're bloody well right!"

Newt fumbled in his lapel and found his official pin. He didn't know what they were going up against this time, but a pin was all he had.

They ran . . .

Adam looked around. He looked

down. His face took on an expression of

calculated innocence.

There was a moment of conflict.

But Adam was on his own ground.

Always, and ultimately, on his own ground.

He moved one hand

around in a blurred half

circle.

. . . Aziraphale and Crowley felt the world change.

There was no noise. There were no cracks. There was just that where there had been the beginnings of a volcano of Satanic power, there was just clearing smoke, and a car drawing slowly to a halt, its engine loud in the evening hush.

It was an elderly car, but well preserved. Not using Crowley's method, though, where dents were simply wished away; this car looked like it did, you knew instinctively, because its owner had spent every week­end for two decades doing all the things the manual said should be done every weekend. Before every journey he walked around it and checked the lights and counted the wheels. Serious‑minded men who smoked pipes and wore mustaches had written serious instructions saying that this should be done, and so he did it, because he was a serious‑minded man who smoked a pipe and wore a mustache and did not take such injunctions lightly, because if you did, where would you be? He had exactly the right amount of insurance. He drove three miles below the speed limit, or forty miles per hour, whichever was the lower. He wore a tie, even on Saturdays.

Archimedes said that with a long enough lever and a solid enough place to stand, he could move the world.

He could have stood on Mr. Young.

The car door opened and Mr. Young emerged.

"What's going on here?" he said. "Adam? Adam!"

But the Them were streaking towards the gate.

Mr. Young looked at the shocked assembly. At least Crowley and Aziraphale had had enough self‑control left to winch in their wings.

"What's he been getting up to now?" he sighed, not really expect­ing an answer.

"Where's that boy got to? Adam! Come back here this instant!"

Adam seldom did what his father wanted.

– – -

Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger opened his eyes. The only thing strange about his surroundings was how familiar they were. There was his high school photograph on the wall, and his little Stars and Stripes flag in the toothmug, next to his toothbrush, and even his little teddy bear, still in its little uniform. The early afternoon sun flooded through his bedroom window.

He could smell apple pie. That was one of the things he'd missed most about spending his Saturday nights a long way from home.

He walked downstairs.

His mother was at the stove, taking a huge apple pie out of the oven to cool.

"Hi, Tommy," she said. "I thought you was in England."

"Yes, Mom, I am normatively in England, Mom, protecting democ­ratism, Mom, sir," said Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger.

"That's nice, hon," said his mother. "Your Poppa's down in the Big Field, with Chester and Ted. They'll be pleased to see you."

Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger nodded.

He took off his military‑issue helmet and his military‑issue jacket, and he rolled up his military‑issue shirtsleeves. For a moment he looked more thoughtful than he had ever done in his life. Part of his thoughts were occupied with apple pie.

"Mom, if any throughput eventuates premising to interface with Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger telephonically, Mom, sir, this individual will-"

"Sorry, Tommy?"

Tom Deisenburger hung his gun on the wall, above his father's battered old rifle.

"I said, if anyone calls, Mom, I'll be down in the Big Field, with Pop and Chester and Ted."

– – -

The van drove slowly up to the gates of the air base. It pulled over. The guard on the midnight shift looked in the window, checked the cre­dentials of the driver, and waved him in.

The van meandered across the concrete.

It parked on the tarmac of the empty airstrip, near where two men sat, sharing a bottle of wine. One of the men wore dark glasses. Surpris­ingly, no one else seemed to be paying them the slightest attention.

"Are you saying," said Crowley, "that He planned it this way all along? From the very beginning?"

Aziraphale conscientiously wiped the top of the bottle and passed it back.

"Could have," he said. "Could have. One could always ask Him, I suppose."

"From what I remember," replied Crowley, thoughtfully, "‑and we were never actually on what you might call speaking terms‑He wasn't exactly one for a straight answer. In fact, in fact, he'd never answer at all. He'd just smile, as if He knew something that you didn't."

"And of course that's true," said the angel. "Otherwise, what'd be the point?"

There was a pause, and both beings stared reflectively off into the distance, as if they were remembering things that neither of them had thought of for a long time.

The van driver got out of the van, carrying a cardboard box and a pair of tongs.

Lying on the tarmac were a tarnished metal crown and a pair of scales. The man picked them up with the tongs and placed them in the box.

Then he approached the couple with the bottle.

"Excuse me, gents," he said, "but there's meant to be a sword around here somewhere as well, at least, that's what it says here at any rate, and I was wondering . . ."

Aziraphale seemed embarrassed. He looked around himself, vaguely puzzled, then stood up, to discover that he had been sitting on the sword for the last hour or so. He reached down and picked it up. "Sorry," he said, and put the sword into the box.

The van driver, who wore an International Express cap, said not to mention it, and really it was a godsend them both being there like this, since someone was going to have to sign to say that he'd duly collected what he'd been sent for, and this had certainly been a day to remember, eh?

Aziraphale and Crowley both agreed with him that it had, and Aziraphale signed the clipboard that the van driver gave him, witnessing that a crown, a pair of balances, and a sword had been received in good order and were to be delivered to a smudged address and charged to a blurred account number.

The man began to walk back to his van. Then he stopped, and turned.

"If I was to tell my wife what happened to me today," he told them, a little sadly, "she'd never believe me. And I wouldn't blame her, because I don't either." And he climbed into his van, and he drove away.

Crowley stood up, a little unsteadily. He reached a hand down to Aziraphale.

"Come on," he said. "I'll drive us back to London."

He took a Jeep. No one stopped them.

It had a cassette player. This isn't general issue, even for American military vehicles, but Crowley automatically assumed that all vehicles he drove would have cassette players and therefore this one did, within sec­onds of his getting in.

The cassette that he put on as he drove was marked Handel's Water Music, and it stayed Handel's Water Music all the way home.