Johnny and the Dead Read Online Free PDF

said the Alderman.
    “And what is Dead Man’s Hand?” said Mr. Vicenti.
    “There’s probably a scientific explanation,” said Yo-less, as the newspaper fluttered through the air.
    “What?” said Bigmac.
    “I’m trying to think of one!”
    “It’s holding itself open!”
    William Stickers opened the paper.
    “It’s probably just a freak wind!” said Yo-less, backing away.
    “I can’t feel any wind!”
    “That’s why it’s freaky!”
    “What are you going to do about this?” the Alderman demanded.
    “Excuse me, but this Dead Man’s Hand. What is it?”
    “Will everyone SHUT UP?” said Johnny.
    Even the dead obeyed.
    “Right,” he said, settling down a bit. “Um. Look, um, you lot, these…people…want to talk to us. Me, anyway—”
    Yo-less, Wobbler, and Bigmac were staring intently at the newspaper. It hung, motionless, more than three feet above the ground.
    “Are they…the breath-impaired?” asked Wobbler.
    “Don’t be an idiot! That sounds like asthma,” said Yo-less. “Come on. If you mean it, say it. Come right out with it. Are they…” He looked around at the darkening landscape, and hesitated. “Er…post-senior citizens?”
    “Are they lurching?” asked Wobbler. Now he and the other two were so close that they looked like one very wide person with six legs.
    “You didn’t tell us about this,” said the Alderman.
    “This what?” said Johnny.
    “In the newspaper. Well, it is called a newspaper. But it has pictures of women in the altogether! Which may well be seen by respectable married women and young children!”
    William Stickers was, with great effort, holding the paper open at the Entertainment Section. Johnny craned to read it. There was a rather poor photo of a couple of girls at Blackbury Swimming Pool and Leisure Center.
    “They’ve got swimsuits on,” he said.
    “Swimsuits? But I can see almost all of their legs!” the Alderman roared.
    “Nothing wrong with that at all,” snapped the elderly woman in the huge fruity hat. “Healthy bodies enjoying calisthenics in the God-given sunlight. And very practical clothing, I may say.”
    “Practical, madam? I dread to think for what!”
    Mr. Vicenti leaned toward Johnny.
    “The lady in the hat is Mrs. Sylvia Liberty,” he whispered. “Died nineteen fourteen. Tireless suffragette.”
    “Suffragette?” said Johnny.
    “Don’t they teach you that sort of thing now? They campaigned for votes for women. They used to chain themselves to railings and chuck eggs at policemen and throw themselves under the Prince of Wales’s horse on Derby days.”
    “Wow.”
    “But Mrs. Liberty got the instructions wrong and threw herself under the Prince of Wales.”
    “What?”
    “Killed outright,” said Mr. Vicenti. He clicked his disapproval. “He was a very heavy man, I believe.”
    “When you two have ceased this bourgeois arguing,” shouted William Stickers, “perhaps we can get back to important matters?” He rustled the paper. Wobbler blinked.
    “It says in this newspaper,” said William Stickers, “that the cemetery is going to be closed. Going to be built on. Do you know about it?”
    “Um. Yes. Yes. Um. Didn’t you know?”
    “Was anyone supposed to tell us?”
    “What’re they saying?” said Bigmac.
    “They’re annoyed about the cemetery being sold. There’s a story in the paper.”
    “Hurry up!” said William Stickers. “I can’t hold it much longer….”
    The newspaper sagged. Then it fell through hishands and landed on the path.
    “Not as alive as I was,” he said.
    “Definitely a freak whirlwind,” said Yo-less. “I’ve heard about them. Nothing supernat—”
    “This is our home ,” boomed the Alderman. “What will happen to us, young man?”
    “Just a minute,” said Johnny. “Hold on. Yo-less?”
    “Yes?”
    “They want to know what happens to people in graveyards if they get built on.”
    “The…dead want to know that?”
    “Yes,” said the Alderman and Johnny at the