First Among Sequels

15. Home Again

Friday went to his room in a huff as soon as we got in. Mrs. Berko-Boyler told us that the girls were fine and that she had folded all the washing, cleaned the kitchen, fed Pickwick and made us all cottage pie. This wasn’t unusual for her, and she scoffed at any sort of payment, then shuffled off home, muttering darkly about how if she’d killed her husband when she’d first thought of it, she’d be “out of prison by now.”

“Where’s Jenny?” I asked Landen, having just gone upstairs to check. “She’s not in her room.”

“She was just in the kitchen.”

The phone rang, and I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“It’s Millon,” came a soft voice, “and I’m sorry to call you at home.”

“Where are you?”

“Look out the window.”

I did as he asked and saw him wave from his usual spot between the compost heap and the laurels. Millon de Floss, it should be explained, was my official stalker. Even though I had long ago dropped to the bottom of the Z-class celebrity list, he had insisted on maintaining his benign stalkership because, as he explained it, “we all need a retirement hobby.” Since he had shown considerable fortitude during a sojourn into the Elan back in ’88, I now counted him as a family friend, something that he always denied, when asked. “Friendship,” he intoned soberly, “always damages the pest factor that is the essence of the bond between stalker and stalkee.” None of the kids were bothered by him at all, and his early-warning capabilities were actually very helpful-he’d spotted Felix8, after all. Not that stalking was his sole job, of course. Aside from fencing cheese to the east of Swindon, he edited Conspiracy Theorist magazine and worked on my official biography, something that was taking longer than we had both thought.

“So what’s the problem? You still up for the cheese buy this evening?” I asked him.

“Of course-but you’ve got visitors. A car on the street with two men in it and another man climbing over the back wall.”

I thanked him and put the phone down. I’d made a few enemies in the past, so Landen and I had some prearranged contingency measures.

“Problems?” asked Landen.

“It’s a code yellow.”

Landen understood and without a word dashed off toward the front of the house. I opened the back door and crept out into the garden, took the side passage next to the dustbins and slipped behind the summer house. I didn’t have to wait long, as a man wearing a black coverall and a balaclava helmet came tiptoeing up the path toward where I was hidden. He was carrying a sack and a bag of marshmallows. I didn’t waste any time on pleasantries; I simply whacked him hard on the chin with my fist, and when he staggered, momentarily stunned, I thumped him in the chest, and he fell over backward with a grunt. I pulled off the balaclava to reveal a man I recognized-it was Arthur Plunkett of the Swindon Dodo Fanciers Guild.

“For GSD’s sake, Arthur,” I said, “how many times do I have to tell you that Pickwick’s not for sale?”

“Uuuuh,” he said, groaning and wheezing as he tried to regain his wind.

“Come on, idiot,” I said as I heaved him up and rested him against the back of the summer house. “You know better than to break into my house-I can be dangerously protective of my family. Why do you think I’m the only one in Swindon able to leave my car unlocked at night?”

“Ooooooh.”

“Wait here,” I said to him, and trotted back indoors. I could be dangerous, but then so could Landen, even with one leg. The front door was open, and I could see him hiding behind the privet hedge. I ran low across the lawn and joined him.

“It’s only dodo fanciers,” I hissed.

“Again?” he replied. “After what happened last time?”

I nodded. Clearly, Pickwick’s Version 1.2 rarity was a prize worth risking a lot for. I looked across the road to where a Buick was parked by the curb. The two men inside were wearing dark glasses and making a lot of effort to be inconspicuous.

“Shall we stop them?”

“No,” giggled Landen. “They won’t get far.”

“What have you done?” I asked in my serious voice.

“You’ll see.”

As we watched, Arthur Plunkett decided to make a run for it-well, a hobble for it, actually-and came out through the gate and limped across the road. The driver of the car started up the engine, waited until Plunkett had thrown himself in the back, then pulled rapidly away from the curb. They got about twenty feet before the cable that Landen had tied around their rear axle whipped tight and, secured to a lamppost at the other end and far too strong to snap, it tore the axle and most of the suspension clear from the back of the car, which then almost pitched up onto its nose before falling with a crunch in the middle of the road. After a short pause, the three men climbed shakily out of the car and then legged it off down the street, Plunkett behind.

“Was that really necessary?” I asked.

“Not at all,” admitted Landen through a series of childish giggles. “But I’d always wanted to try it.”

“I wish you two would grow up.”

We looked up. My brother Joffy and his partner, Miles, were staring at us over the garden gate.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, getting up from where we’d been crouched behind the hedge and giving Landen a heave to get him on his feet. “It’s just a normal evening in Swindon.” I looked around, as the neighbors had come out to gawk at the wreck of the Buick and motioned Joffy and Miles inside. “Come on in for a cup of tea.”

“No tea,” said Joffy as we walked into the house. “We’ve just had a tankerful at Mum’s-can’t you hear me slosh as I walk?”

“And enough Battenberg cake to fill the Grand Canyon,” added Miles in a stuffed-with-cake sort of voice.

“How’s the carpet business, Doofus?” asked Joffy as we stood in the hall.

“Couldn’t be better-how’s the faith-unification business?”

“We’ve nearly got everyone,” said Joffy with a smile. “The atheists came on board last week. Once we’d suggested that ‘god’ could be a set of essentially beneficent physical rules of the cosmos, they were only too happy to join. In fact, apart from a few scattered remnants of faith leaders who can’t quite come to terms with the loss of their power, influence and associated funny hats, it’s all looking pretty good.”

Joffy’s nominal leadership of the British Archipelago Branch of the Global Standard Deity was a matter of considerable import within the Next family. The GSD was proposed by delegates of the 1978 Global Interfaith Symposium and had gathered momentum since then, garnering converts from all the faiths into one diverse religion that was flexible enough to offer something for everyone.

“I’m amazed you managed to convert them all,” I said.

“It wasn’t a conversion,” he replied, “it was a unification.”

“And you are here now because…?”

“Landen said he’d videotape Dr. Who for me, and the Daleks are my favorite.”

“I’m more into the Sontarans myself,” said Miles.

“Humph!” said Joffy. “It’s what I would expect from someone who thinks Jon Pertwee was the best Doctor.”

Landen and I stared at him, unsure of whether we should agree, postulate a different theory-or what.

“It was Tom Baker,” said Joffy, ending the embarrassed silence. Miles made a noise that sounded like “conventionalist,” and Landen went off to fetch the tape.

“Doofus?” whispered Joffy when Landen had gone.

“Yes?”

“Have you told him?”

“No,” I whispered back.

“You can’t not tell him, Thursday-if you don’t tell him the truth about the BookWorld and Acme Carpets, it’s like you’re-I don’t know-lying to him.”

“It’s for his own good,” I hissed. “It’s not like I’m having an affair or something.”

“Are you?”

“No, of course not!”

“It’s still a lie, sister dearest. How would you like it if he lied to you about what he did all day?”

“I daresay I’d not like it. Leave it to me, Joff-I’ll be fine.”

“I hope so. Happy birthday-and in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s some Camembert on fire in the hood of your Acme Carpets van.”

“Some what?”

“Camembert. On fire.”

“Here it is,” said Landen, returning with a video. “‘Remembrance of the Daleks.’ Where did Thursday go?”

“Oh, she just nipped out for something. Well, must be off! People to educate, persuade and unify-hopefully in that order. Ha-ha-ha.”

“Sorry about that,” I said, coming back from outside. “I thought I saw Pickwick make faces at the cat next door-you know how they hate each other.”

“But she’s over there,” said Landen, pointing to where Pickwick was still struggling to look at herself and her blue-and-white stripy sweater in the mirror.

I shrugged. “Must have been another dodo.”

“Is there another bald dodo in the neighborhood with a blue stripy cardigan? And can you smell burning cheese?”

“No,” I said innocently. “What about you, Joff?”

“I’ve got to go,” he repeated, staring at his watch. “Remember what I said, sister dearest!”

And he and Miles walked off toward the crowd that had started to gather around the wrecked car.

“I swear I can smell burning cheese,” said Landen as I shut the front door.

“Probably Mrs. Berko-Boyler cooking next door.”

Outwardly I was worry-free, but inside I was more nervous. A chunk of burning Camembert on your doorstep meant only one thing: a warning from the Swindon Old Town Cheese Mafia-or, as they liked to be known, the Stiltonistas.