“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.”

“And you are here now because…?”

“Landen said he’d videotape Dr. Who for me, and the Daleks are my favorite.”

“I’m more into the Sontarans myself,” said Miles.

“Humph!” said Joffy. “It’s what I would expect from someone who thinks Jon Pertwee was the best Doctor.”

Landen and I stared at him, unsure of whether we should agree, postulate a different theory—or what.

“It was Tom Baker,” said Joffy, ending the embarrassed silence. Miles made a noise that sounded like “conventionalist,” and Landen went off to fetch the tape.

“Doofus?” whispered Joffy when Landen had gone.

“Yes?”

“Have you told him?”

“No,” I whispered back.

“You can’t not tell him, Thursday—if you don’t tell him the truth about the BookWorld and Acme Carpets, it’s like you’re—I don’t know—lying to him.”

“It’s for his own good,” I hissed. “It’s not like I’m having an affair or something.”

“Are you?”

“No, of course not!”

“It’s still a lie, sister dearest. How would you like it if he lied to you about what he did all day?”