Johnny and the Dead

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Book: Read Johnny and the Dead for Free Online
Authors: Terry Pratchett
radio. It’s probably easier for you than newspapers. Um. I looked up radio in the encyclopedia and most of you ought to know what it is. Um. Youtwiddle the knobs and radio comes out. Um. So I’ll just tuck it down behind Mr. Vicenti’s slab, all right? Then you can find out what’s going on.”
    He coughed.
    “I…I did some thinking last night, and…and I thought maybe if people knew about all the…famous…people here, they’d be bound to leave it alone. I know it’s not a very good idea,” he said hopelessly, “but it’s the best I could come up with. I’m going to make a list of names. If you don’t mind?”
    He’d hoped Mr. Vicenti would be about. He quite liked him. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t been dead as long as the others. He seemed friendlier. Less stiff.
    Johnny walked from gravestone to gravestone, noting down names. Some of the older stones were quite ornate, with fat cherubs on them. But one had a pair of football boots carved on it. He made a special note of the name:
     
    STANLEY “WRONG WAY” ROUNDWAY
1892–1936
THE LAST WHISTLE
     
    He nearly missed the one under the trees. It had a flat stone in the grass, without even one of the ugly flower vases, and all it declared was that this was the last resting place of Eric Grimm (1885–1927). No “JustResting,” no “Deeply Missed,” not even “Died,” although probably he had. Johnny wrote the name down, anyway.
    Mr. Grimm waited until after Johnny had gone before he emerged and glared after him.

FOUR
     
    I t was later that morning.
    There was a new library in the Civic Center. It was so new, it didn’t even have librarians. It had Assistant Information Officers. And it had computers. Wobbler was banned from the computers because of an incident involving a library terminal, the telephone connection to the main computer, another telephone line to the computer at East Slate Air Base ten miles away, another telephone line to a much bigger computer under a mountain somewhere in America, and almost World War Three.
    At least that’s what Wobbler said. The Assistant Information Officers said it was because he got chocolate in the keyboard.
    But he was allowed to use the microfiche readers. They couldn’t think of a good reason to stop him.
    “What’re we looking for, anyway?” said Bigmac.
    “Nearly everyone who died here used to get buriedin that cemetery,” said Johnny. “So if we can find someone famous who lived here, and then we can find them in the cemetery, then it’s a famous place. There’s a cemetery in London with Karl Marx in it. It’s famous for him being dead in it.”
    “Karl Marx?” said Bigmac. “What was he famous for?”
    “You’re ignorant, you are,” said Wobbler. “He was the one who played the harp.”
    “No, Karl was the one who usedta talka lika dis,” said Yo-less.
    “Actually, he was the one with the cigar,” said Wobbler.
    “That’s a very old joke,” said Johnny severely. “The Marx Brothers. Ha, ha. Look, I’ve got the old newspaper files. The Blackbury Guardian . They go back nearly a hundred years. All we’ve got to do is look at the front pages. That’s where famous people’d be.”
    “And the back pages,” said Bigmac.
    “Why the back pages?”
    “Sports. Famous footballers and that.”
    “Yeah, right. Hadn’t thought of that. All right, then. Let’s get started…”
    “Yeah, but…” said Bigmac.
    “What?” said Johnny.
    “So this Karl Marx, then,” said Bigmac. “What films was he in?”
    Johnny sighed. “Listen, he wasn’t in any films. Hewas…he led the Russian Revolution.”
    “No he didn’t,” said Wobbler. “He just wrote a book called, oh, something like It’s About Time There Was a Revolution , and the Russians just followed the instructions. The actual leaders were a lot of people with names ending in ski .”
    “Like Stalin,” said Yo-less.
    “Right.”
    “Stalin means Man of Steel,” said Yo-less. “I read where he didn’t like

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