Good Omens

spectacles had been broken, and Brian’s sweater needed five stitches.
    The Them were together from then on, and Pepper was Pepper forever, except to her mother, and (when they were feeling especially courageous, and the Them were almost out of earshot) Greasy Johnson and the Johnsonites, the village’s only other gang.
    Adam drummed his heels on the edge of the milk crate that was doing the office of a seat, listening to this bickering with the relaxed air of a king listening to the idle chatter of his courtiers.
    He chewed lazily on a straw. It was a Thursday morning. The holidays stretched ahead, endless and unsullied. They needed filling up.
    He let the conversation float around him like the buzzing of grasshoppers or, more precisely, like a prospector watching the churning gravel for a glint of useful gold.
    â€œIn our Sunday paper it said there was thousands of witches in the country,” said Brian. “Worshiping Nature and eating health food an’ that. So I don’t see why we shouldn’t have one round here. They were floodin’ the country with a Wave of Mindless Evil, it said.”
    â€œWhat, by worshipin’ Nature and eatin’ health food?” said Wensleydale.
    â€œThat’s what it said.”
    The Them gave this due consideration. They had once—at Adam’s instigation—tried a health food diet for a whole afternoon. Their verdict was that you could live very well on healthy food provided you had a big cooked lunch beforehand.
    Brian leaned forward conspiratorially.
    â€œ And it said they dance round with no clothes on,” he added. “They go up on hills and Stonehenge and stuff, and dance with no clothes on.”
    This time the consideration was more thoughtful. The Them had reached that position where, as it were, the roller coaster of Life had almost completed the long haul to the top of the first big humpback of puberty so that they could just look down into the precipitous ride ahead, full of mystery, terror, and exciting curves.
    â€œHuh,” said Pepper.
    â€œNot my aunt,” said Wensleydale, breaking the spell. “Definitely not my aunt. She just keeps trying to talk to my uncle.”
    â€œYour uncle’s dead,” said Pepper.
    â€œShe says he still moves a glass about,” said Wensleydale defensively. “My fat her says it was moving glasses about the whole time that made him dead in the first place. Don’t know why she wants to talk to him,” he added, “they never talked much when he was alive.”
    â€œThat’s necromancy, that is,” said Brian. “It’s in the Bible. She ought to stop it. God’s dead against necromancy. And witches. You can go to Hell for it.”
    There was a lazy shifting of position on the milk crate throne. Adam was going to speak.
    The Them fell silent. Adam was always worth listening to. Deep in their hearts, the Them knew that they weren’t a gang of four. They were a gang of three, which belonged to Adam. But if you wanted excitement, and interest, and crowded days, then every Them would prize a lowly position in Adam’s gang above leadership of any other gang anywhere.
    â€œDon’t see why everyone’s so down on witches,” Adam said.
    The Them glanced at one another. This sounded promising.
    â€œWell, they blight crops,” said Pepper. “And sink ships. And tell you if you’re going to be king and stuff. And brew up stuff with herbs.”
    â€œMy mother uses herbs,” said Adam. “So does yours.”
    â€œOh, those are all right,” said Brian, determined not to lose his position as occult expert. “I expect God said it was all right to use mint and sage and so on. Stands to reason there’s nothing wrong with mint and sage.”
    â€œAnd they can make you be ill just by looking at you,” said Pepper. “It’s called the Evil Eye. They give you a look, and then you get ill and no one knows why. And they make a model of you and stick it full of pins and you get ill where all the pins are,” she added cheerfully.
    â€œThat sort of thing doesn’t happen any more,” reiterated Wensleydale, the rational thinking person. “ ’Cos we invented Science and all the vicars set fire to the witches for their own good. It was called the Spanish Inquisition.”
    â€œThen I reckon we should find out if her at Jasmine Cottage is a witch and if she is we should