Good Omens

"More than half, anyway," said Pepper. "'Cos, you remember, when there was all that fuss over the ole folks' party in the village hall when we‑"

"That doesn't count," said Adam. "They got told off just as much as us. Anyway, old folks are s'pposed to like listenin' to the sound of children playin', I read that somewhere, I don't see why we should get told off 'cos we've got the wrong kind of old folks‑" He paused. "Anyway . . . we're better'n them."

"Oh, we're better'n them," said Pepper. "You're right about that. We're better'n them all right. We jus' don't always win."

"Just suppose," said Adam, slowly, "that we could beat 'em prop­erly. Get‑get them sent away or somethin'. Jus' make sure there's no more ole gangs in Lower Tadfield apart from us. What do you think about that?"

"What, you mean he'd be . . . dead?" said Brian.

"No. Jus'‑jus' gone away."

The Them thought aboutthis. Greasy Johnson had been a fact of life ever since they'd been old enough to hit one another with a toy railway engine. They tried to get their minds around the concept of a world with a Johnson‑shaped hole in it.

Brian scratched his nose. "I reckon it'd be brilliant without Greasy Johnson," he said. "Remember what he did at my birthday party? And I got into trouble about it."

"I du

"Seems to me," said Wensleydale, "that if you asked people in Lower Tadfield, they'd say they'd be better off without the Johnsonites or the Them."

Even Adam looked shocked at this. Wensleydale went on stoically: "The old folks' club would. An' Picky. An'‑"

"But we're the good ones . . ." Brian began. He hesitated. "Well, all right," he said, "but I bet they'd think it'd be a jolly sight less interestin' if we all weren't here."

"Yes," said Wensleydale. "That's what I mean."

"People round here don't want us or the Johnsonites," he went on morosely, "the way they're always goin' on about us just riding our bikes or skateboarding on their pavements and making too much noise and stuff. It's like the man said in the history books. A plaque on both your houses."

This met with silence.

"One of those blue ones," said Brian, eventually, "saying 'Adam Young Lived Here,' or somethin'?"

Normally an opening like this could lead to five minutes' rambling discussion when the Them were in the mood, but Adam felt that this was not the time.

"What you're all sayin'," he summed up, in his best chairman tones, "is that it wouldn't be any good at all if the Greasy Johnsonites beat the Them or the other way round?"

"That's right," said Pepper. "Because," she added, "if we beat them, we'd have to be our own deadly enemies. It'd be me an' Adam against Brian an' Wensley," She sat back. "Everyone needs a Greasy John­son," she said.

"Yeah," said Adam. "That's what I thought. It's no good anyone wi

"Seems simple enough to me," said Wensleydale, sitting back. "I don't see why it's taken thousands of years to sort out."

"That's because the people trying to sort it out were men," said Pepper, meaningfully.

"Don't see why you have to take sides," said Wensleydale.

"Of course I have to take sides," said Pepper. "Everyone has to take sides in something."

Adam appeared to reach a decision.

"Yes. But I reckon you can make your own side. I think you'd better go and get your bikes," he said quietly. "I think we'd better sort of go and talk to some people."

– – -

Putputputputputput, went Madame Tracy's motor scooter down Crouch End High Street. It was the only vehicle moving on a suburban London street jammed with immobile cars and taxis and red London buses.

"I've never seen a traffic jam like it," said Madame Tracy. "I won­der if there's been an accident."

"Quite possibly, " said Aziraphale. And then, "Mr. Shadwell, unless you put your arms round me you're going to fall off. This thing wasn't built for two people, you know."

"Three," muttered Shadwell, gripping the seat with one white­knuckled hand, and his Thundergun with the other.

"Mr. Shadwell, I won't tell you again."

"Ye'll have ter stop, then, so as I can adjust me weapon," sighed Shadwell.

Madame Tracy giggled dutifully, but she pulled over to the curb, and stopped the motor scooter.

Shadwell sorted himself out, and put two grudging arms around Madame Tracy, while the Thundergun stuck up between them like a chap­eron.

They rode through the rain without talking for another ten min­utes, putputputputput, as Madame Tracy carefully negotiated her way around the cars and the buses.

Madame Tracy found her eyes being moved down to the speedome­ter‑rather foolishly, she thought, since it hadn't worked since 1974, and it hadn't worked very well before that.

"Dear lady, how fast would you say we were going?" asked Aziraphale.

"Why?"

"Because it seems to me that we would go slightly faster walking."

"Well, with just me on, the top speed is about fifteen miles an hour, but with Mr. Shadwell as well, it must be, ooh, about

"Four or five miles per hour," she interrupted.

"I suppose so," she agreed.

There was a cough from behind her. "Can ye no slow down this hellish machine, wumman?" asked an ashen voice. In the infernal pan­theon, which it goes without saying Shadwell hated uniformly and cor­rectly, Shadwell reserved a special loathing for speed demons.

"In which case," said Aziraphale, "eve will get to Tadfield in some­thing less than ten hours"

There was a pause from Madame Tracy, then, "How far away is this Tadfield, anyway?"

"About forty miles."

"Um," said Madame Tracy, who had once driven the scooter the few miles to nearby Finchley to visit her niece, but had taken the bus since, because of the fu

". . . we should really be going at about seventy, if we're going to get there in time," said Aziraphale. "Hmm. Sergeant Shadwell? Hold on very tightly now."

Putputputputput and a blue nimbus began to outline the scooter and its occupants with a gentle sort of a glow, like an afterimage, all around them.

Putputputputputput and the scooter lifted awkwardly off the ground with no visible means of support, jerking slightly, until it reached a height of five feet, more or less.

"Don't look down, Sergeant Shadwell, " advised Aziraphale.

". . ." said Shadwell, eyes screwed tightly shut, gray forehead beaded with sweat, not looking down, not looking anywhere.