“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.”