Terry Pratchett: Johnny And The Dead

It seemed to Johnny that a lot of people were getting things all wrong. He said this to Wobbler. Wobbler disagreed.

'It's prob'ly all different from a dead point of view,' he said.

Now they were walking along West Avenue. The cemetery was laid out like a town, with streets. They weren't named very originally — North Drive and South Walk joined West Avenue, for example, at a little gravelled area with seats in. A kind of city centre. But the silence of the big Victorian mausoleums made the place look as though it was having the longest early-closing day in the world.

'My dad says this is all going to be built on,' said Wobbler. 'He said the Council sold it to some big company for fivepence because it was costing so much to keep it going.'

'What, all of it?' said Johnny.

'That's what he said,' said Wobbler. Even he looked a bit uncertain. 'He said it was a scandal.'

'Even the bit with the poplar trees?'

'All of it,' said Wobbler. 'It's going to be offices or something.'

Johnny looked at the cemetery. It was the only open space for miles.

'I'd have given them at least a pound,' he said.

'Yes, but you wouldn't have been able to build things on it,' said Wobbler. 'That's the important thing.'

'I wouldn't want to build anything on it. I'd have given them a pound just to leave it as it

is.

'Yes,' said Wobbler, the voice of reason, 'but people have got to work somewhere. We Need jobs.'

'I bet the people here won't be very happy about it,' said Johnny. 'If they knew.'

'I think they get moved somewhere else,' said Wobbler. 'It's got to be something like that. Other- wise you'll never dare dig your garden.'

Johnny looked up at the nearest tomb. It was one of the ones that looked like a shed built of marble. Bronze lettering over the door said:

ALDERMAN THOMAS BOWLER

1822-1906 Pro Bono Publico

There was a stone carving of - presumably - the Alderman himself, looking seriously into the distance as if he, too, was wondering what Pro Bono Publico meant.

'I bet he'd be pretty angry,' said Johnny.

He hesitated for a moment, and then walked up the couple of broken steps to the metal door, and knocked on it. He never did know why he'd done that.

'Here, you mustn't!' hissed Wobbler. 'Supposing he comes lurchin' out! Anyway,' he said, lowering his voice a bit, 'it's wrong to try to talk to the dead. It can lead to satanic practices, it said on television.'

'Don't see why,' said Johnny.

He knocked again.

And the door opened.

Alderman Thomas Bowler blinked in the sun- light, and then glared at Johnny.

'Yes?' he said.

Johnny turned and ran for it.

Wobbler caught him up halfway along North Drive. Wobbler wasn't normally the athletic type, and his speed would have surprised quite a lot of people who knew him.

'What happened? What happened?' he panted.

'Didn't you see?' said Johnny.

'I didn't see anything!'

'The door opened!'

'It never!'

'It did!'

Wobbler slowed down.

'No, it didn't,' he muttered. 'No one of 'em can open. I've looked at 'em. They've all got padlocks on.'

'To keep people out or keep people in?' said Johnny.

A look of panic crossed Wobbler's face. Since he had a big face, this took some time. He started to run again.

'You're just trying to wind me up!' he yelled. 'I'm not going to hang around practising being satanic! I'm going home!'

He turned the corner into East Way and sprinted towards the main gate.

Johnny slowed down.

He thought: padlocks.

It was true, actually. He'd noticed it in the past.

All the mausoleums had locks on them, to stop vandals getting in.

And yet ... and yet ...

If he shut his eyes he could see Alderman Thomas Bowler. Not one of the lurchin' dead from out of Wobbler's videos, but a huge fat man in a fur-trimmed robe and a gold chain and a hat with corners on.

He stopped running and then, slowly, walked back the way he had come.

There was a padlock on the door of the Alder- man's tomb. It had a rusty look.

It was the talking to Wobbler that did it, Johnny decided. It had given him silly ideas.

He knocked again, anyway.

'Yes?' said Alderman Thomas Bowler.

'Er ... hah ... sorry...'

'What do you want?'

'Are you dead?

The Alderman raised his eyes to the bronze letters over the door.

'See what it says up there?' he said.

'Er ... '

'Nineteen hundred and six, it says. It was a very good funeral, I understand. I didn't attend, myself The Alderman gave this some thought. 'Rather, I did, but not in any position where I could observe events. I believe the vicar gave a very moving sermon. What was it you were wanting?'

'Er.. .'Johnny looked around desperately. 'What ... er ... what does Pro Bono Publico mean?

'For the Public Good,' said the Alderman.

'Oh. Well ... thank you.'Johnny backed away. 'Thank you very much.'

'Was that all?'

'Er ... yes.'

The Alderman nodded sadly. 'I didn't think it'd be anything important,' he said. 'I haven't had a visitor since nineteen twenty-three. And then they'd got the name wrongJ They weren't even relatives. And they were American. Oh, well. Goodbye, then.'

Johnny hesitated. I could turn around now, he thought, and go home.

And if I turn around, I'll never find out what happens next. I'll go away and I'll never know why it happened now and what would have happened next. I'll go away and grow up and get a job and get married and have children and become a grandad and retire and take up bowls and go into Sunshine Acres and watch daytime television until I die, and I'll never know.

And he thought: perhaps I did. Perhaps that all happened and then, just when I was dying, some kind of angel turned up and said would you like a wish? And I said, yes, I'd like to know what would have happened if I hadn't run away, and the angel said, OK, you can go back. And here I am, back again. I can't let myself down.

The world waited.

Johnny took a step forward.

'You're dead, right?' he said slowly.

'Oh, yes. It's one of those things one is pretty certain about.'

'You don't look dead. I mean, I thought... you know ... coffins and things ..."

'Oh, there's all that,' said the Alderman, airily, 'and then there's this, too.'

'You're a ghost?'Johnny was rather relieved. He could come to terms with a ghost.

'I should hope I've got more pride than that,' said the Alderman.

'My friend Wobbler'11 be really amazed to meet you,' said Johnny. A thought crossed his mind. 'You're no good at dancing, are you?' he said.

'I used to be able to waltz quite well,' said the Alderman.

'I meant ... sort of... like this,' said Johnny. He gave the best impression he could remem- ber of Michael Jackson dancing. 'Sort of with your feet,' he said apologetically.

'That looks grand,' said Alderman Tom Bowler.

'Yes, and you have to have a glittery glove on one hand—'

'That's important, is it?'

'Yes, and you have to say "Ow!"'

'I should think anyone would, dancing like that,' said the Alderman.

'No, I mean like "Oooowwwwweeeeeah!", with

Johnny stopped. He realized that he was getting a bit carried away.

'But, look,' he said, stopping at the end of a groove in the gravel. 'I don't see how you can be dead and walking and talking at the same time ..."

'That's probably all because of relativity,' said the

Alderman. He moonwalked stiffly across the path. 'Like this, was it? Otich!'

'A bit,' said Johnny, kindly. 'Um. What do you mean about relativity?'

'Einstein explains all that quite well,' said the Alderman.

'What, Albert Einstein?' said Johnny.

'Who?'

'He was a famous scientist. He ... invented the speed of light and things.'