Read Online Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Terry Pratchett
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while the nurse bustled around the room.
There were a few odds and ends—a pipe, a tobacco tin, a huge old penknife. There was a scrapbook full of sepia postcards of flowers and fields of cabbages and simpering French ladies dressed in what someone must once have thought was a very daring way. Yellowing newspaper cuttings were stuck between the pages. And there was a small wooden box lined with toilet paper and containing several medals.
And there was a photograph of the Blackbury Pals, just like the one in the old newspaper.
Johnny lifted it out very carefully and turned it over. It crackled.
Someone had written, in violet ink, a long time ago, the words: Old Comrades!!! We’re the Boys, Kaiser Bill! If You Know a Better ’ole, Go to IT!!
And there were thirty signatures underneath.
Beside twenty-nine of the signatures, in pencil, someone had made a small cross.
“They all signed it,” he said quietly. “He must have got a copy from the paper, and they all signed it.”
“What was that, dear?”
“This photo.”
“Oh, yes. He showed it to me once. That was him in the war, you know.”
Johnny turned it over again and found Atkins, T. He looked a bit like Bigmac, with jug-handle ears and a secondhand haircut. He was grinning. They all were. All the same kind of grin.
“He used to talk about them a lot,” said the nurse.
“Yes.”
“His funeral’s on Monday. At the crem. One of us always goes, you know. Well, you have to, don’t you? It’s only right.”
He dreamed, on Saturday night…
He dreamed of Rod Serling walking along Blackbury High Street, but as he was trying to speak impressively to the camera, Bigmac, Yo-less, and Wobbler started to peer over his shoulder and say things like, “What’s this book about, then?” and “Turn over the page, I’ve read this bit….”
He dreamed of thumbs…
And woke up and stared at the ceiling. He still hadn’t replaced the bits of string that held up the plastic model of the Space Shuttle. It was forever doing a nosedive.
He was pretty sure other kids didn’t have lives like this. It just kept on happening. Just when he thought he’d got a grip on the world, and saw how it all worked, it sprang something new on him, and what he thought was the whole thing, ticking away nicely, turned out tobe just some kind of joke.
His granddad had mumbled a very odd message when Johnny had arrived home. As far as he could understand, Wobbler or someone had been making odd phone calls. His granddad had also muttered something about conjuring tricks.
He looked at his clock radio. It said 2:45. There was no chance of going back to sleep. He tried Radio Blackbury.
“—yowzahyowzahyowzah! And the next caller on Uncle Mad Jim’s bodaaacious Problem Corner iiisss—”
Johnny froze. He had a feeling…
“William Stickers, Mad Jim.”
“Hi, Bill. You sound a bit depressed, to me .”
“It’s worse than that. I’m dead, Jim.”
“Wow! I can see that could be a real downer , Bill. Care to tell us about it?”
“You sound very understanding, comrade. Well … ”
Of course he’s understanding, thought Johnny as he struggled into his dressing gown. Everyone phones up Mad Jim in the middle of the night. Last week he talked for twenty minutes to a lady who thought she was a roll of wallpaper. You sound totally sane compared to most of them.
He snatched up his Walkman and switched on its radio so that he could go on listening as he ran down thestairs and out into the night.
“ — and now I just heard there isn’t even ANY Soviet Union anymore. What happened?”
“Seems to me you haven’t been keeping up with current events, Bill.”
“I thought I explained about that”.
“Oh, sure. You said. You’ve been dead. But you’re alive again, right?” Mad Jim’s voice had that little chuckle in it that it always got when he’d found a real dingdong on the line and could picture all his insomniac listeners turning up the
There were a few odds and ends—a pipe, a tobacco tin, a huge old penknife. There was a scrapbook full of sepia postcards of flowers and fields of cabbages and simpering French ladies dressed in what someone must once have thought was a very daring way. Yellowing newspaper cuttings were stuck between the pages. And there was a small wooden box lined with toilet paper and containing several medals.
And there was a photograph of the Blackbury Pals, just like the one in the old newspaper.
Johnny lifted it out very carefully and turned it over. It crackled.
Someone had written, in violet ink, a long time ago, the words: Old Comrades!!! We’re the Boys, Kaiser Bill! If You Know a Better ’ole, Go to IT!!
And there were thirty signatures underneath.
Beside twenty-nine of the signatures, in pencil, someone had made a small cross.
“They all signed it,” he said quietly. “He must have got a copy from the paper, and they all signed it.”
“What was that, dear?”
“This photo.”
“Oh, yes. He showed it to me once. That was him in the war, you know.”
Johnny turned it over again and found Atkins, T. He looked a bit like Bigmac, with jug-handle ears and a secondhand haircut. He was grinning. They all were. All the same kind of grin.
“He used to talk about them a lot,” said the nurse.
“Yes.”
“His funeral’s on Monday. At the crem. One of us always goes, you know. Well, you have to, don’t you? It’s only right.”
He dreamed, on Saturday night…
He dreamed of Rod Serling walking along Blackbury High Street, but as he was trying to speak impressively to the camera, Bigmac, Yo-less, and Wobbler started to peer over his shoulder and say things like, “What’s this book about, then?” and “Turn over the page, I’ve read this bit….”
He dreamed of thumbs…
And woke up and stared at the ceiling. He still hadn’t replaced the bits of string that held up the plastic model of the Space Shuttle. It was forever doing a nosedive.
He was pretty sure other kids didn’t have lives like this. It just kept on happening. Just when he thought he’d got a grip on the world, and saw how it all worked, it sprang something new on him, and what he thought was the whole thing, ticking away nicely, turned out tobe just some kind of joke.
His granddad had mumbled a very odd message when Johnny had arrived home. As far as he could understand, Wobbler or someone had been making odd phone calls. His granddad had also muttered something about conjuring tricks.
He looked at his clock radio. It said 2:45. There was no chance of going back to sleep. He tried Radio Blackbury.
“—yowzahyowzahyowzah! And the next caller on Uncle Mad Jim’s bodaaacious Problem Corner iiisss—”
Johnny froze. He had a feeling…
“William Stickers, Mad Jim.”
“Hi, Bill. You sound a bit depressed, to me .”
“It’s worse than that. I’m dead, Jim.”
“Wow! I can see that could be a real downer , Bill. Care to tell us about it?”
“You sound very understanding, comrade. Well … ”
Of course he’s understanding, thought Johnny as he struggled into his dressing gown. Everyone phones up Mad Jim in the middle of the night. Last week he talked for twenty minutes to a lady who thought she was a roll of wallpaper. You sound totally sane compared to most of them.
He snatched up his Walkman and switched on its radio so that he could go on listening as he ran down thestairs and out into the night.
“ — and now I just heard there isn’t even ANY Soviet Union anymore. What happened?”
“Seems to me you haven’t been keeping up with current events, Bill.”
“I thought I explained about that”.
“Oh, sure. You said. You’ve been dead. But you’re alive again, right?” Mad Jim’s voice had that little chuckle in it that it always got when he’d found a real dingdong on the line and could picture all his insomniac listeners turning up the
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