Terry Pratchett - Johnny And The Dead

saw to it no teacher ever questioned the Note, which excused him from doing everything.

'Anyway, they could be anywhere,' he said. 'Anyway, I can't look for 'em, can I? Anyway, they're probably just inside your head.'

'You heard them on the radio!'

'I heard voices. That's what radio's for, innit?'

It occurred to Johnny, not for the first time, that the human mind, of which each of his friends was in possession of one almost standard sample, was like a compass. No matter how much you shook it up, no matter what happened to it, sooner or later it'd carry on pointing the same way. If three- metre-tall green Martians landed on the shopping mall, bought some greetings cards and a bag of sugar cookies and then took off again, within a day or two people would believe it never happened.

'Not even Mr Grimm's here, and he's always here,' said Johnny.

He looked at Mr Vicenti's ornate grave. Some people were taking photographs of it.

'Always here,' he said.

'He's gone weird again,' said Wobbler.

'You all go back,' said Johnny, quietly. 'I just thought of something.'

They all looked round. Their brains don't believe in the dead, Johnny thought, but they keep getting outvoted by all the rest of them.

'I'm OK,' said Johnny. 'You go on back. I'll see you at Wobbler's party tonight, all right?'

'Remember not to bring any... you know... friends,' said Wobbler, as the three of them left.

Johnny wandered down North Drive.

He'd never tried to talk to the dead. He'd said things when he knew they were listening, and sometimes they'd been clearly visible, but; apart from that first time, when he'd knocked on the door of the Alderman's mausoleum for a joke ...

'Will you look at this?'

One of the people who'd been examining the grave had picked up the radio, which had been lodged behind a tuft of grass.

'Honestly, people have no respect.'

'Does it work?'

It didn't. A couple of days of damp grass had done for the batteries.

'No.'

' Give it to the men dumping the rubbish on the lorry, then.'

'I'll do it,' said Johnny.

He hurried off with it, keeping a lookout, trying to find one dead person among the living.

'Ah, Johnny.'

It was Mr Atterbury, leaning over the wall of the old boot works. 'Exciting day, isn't it? You started something, eh?'

'Didn't mean to,' said Johnny, automatically. Things were generally his fault.

'It could go either way,' said Mr Atterbury. 'The old railway site isn't so good, but ... things look promising, I do know that. People have woken up.'

'That's true. A lot of people.'

'United Consolidated don't like fuss. The District Auditor is here, and a man from the Development Commission. It could go very well.'

'Good. Urn.'

'Yes?'

'I saw you on television,' said Johnny. 'You called United Consolidated public-spirited and co- operative.'

'Well, they might be. If they've got no choice. They're a bit shifty but we might win through. It's amazing what you can do with a kind word.'

'Oh. Right. Well, then ... I've got to go and find someone, if you don't mind ...'

There was no sign of Mr Grimm anywhere. Or any of the others. Johnny hung around for hours, with the birdwatchers and the people from the Blackbury Wildlife Trust, who'd. found a fox's den behind William Stickers' memorial, and some Japanese tourists. No-one quite knew why the Japanese tourists were there, but Mrs Liberty's grave was getting very well photographed.

Eventually, though, even Japanese tourists run out of film. They took one last shot of them- selves in front of William Stickers' monument, and headed back towards their coach.

The cemetery emptied. The sun began to set over the carpet warehouse.

Mrs Tachyon went past with her loaded shopping trolley to wherever it was she spent her nights.

The cars left the old boot works, and only the bulldozers were left, like prehistoric monsters sur- prised by a sudden cold snap.

Johnny sidled up to the forlorn little stone under the trees.

'I know you're here,' he whispered. 'You can't leave like the others. You have to stay. Because you're a ghost. A real ghost. You're still here, Mr Grimm. You're not just hanging around like the rest of them. You're haunting.'

There was no sound.

'What did you do? Were you a murderer or something?'

There was still no sound. In fact, there was even more silence than before.

'Sorry about the television,' said Johnny nervously.

More silence, so heavy and deep it could have stuffed mattresses.

He walked away, as fast as he dared.

'This fuss over the cemetery's certainly breathed a bit of life into this town,' said his mother. 'Go and give your grandad his tray, will you? And tell him about it. You know he takes an interest.'

Grandad was watching the News in Hindi. He didn't want to. But the thingy for controlling the set had got lost and everyone had forgotten how to change channels without it.

'Brought you your tray, Grandad.'

'Right.'

'You know the old cemetery? Where you showed me William Stickers' grave?'

'Right.'

'Well, maybe it won't be built on now. There was a meeting last night.'

'Right?'

'I spoke up at the meeting.'

'Right.'

'So it might be all right.'

'Right.'

Johnny sighed. He went back into the kitchen.

'Can I have an old sheet, Mum?'

'What on earth for?'

'Wobbler's Halloween party. I can't think of anything else.'

'There's the one I used as a dustcover, if you're going to cut holes in

it.'

'Thanks, Mum.'

'It's pink.'

'Aaaaooow, Mum!'

'It's practically washed out. No-one'11 notice.'

It also, as it turned out, had the remains of some flowers embroidered on one end. Johnny did his best with a pair of scissors.

He'd promised he'd go. But he went the long way round, with the sheet in a bag, just in case the dead had come back and might see him. And there was Mr Grimm to think about now.

After he'd been gone a few minutes, the TV started showing the News in English, which looked less interesting than the Hindi News.

Grandad watched it for a while, and then sat up.

'Hey, girl, it says they're trying to save the old cemetery.'

'Yes, Dad.'

'It looked like our Johnny on the stage there.'

'Yes, Dad.'

'No-one tells me anything around here. What's this?'

'Chicken, Dad.'

'Right.'

They were somewhere in the high plateaus of Asia, where once camel trains had traded silk across five thousand miles and now madmen with guns shot one another in the various names of God. 'How far to morning?'

'Nearly there ...'

'What?'

The dead slowed down in a mountain pass, full of driving snow.

'We owe the boy something. He took an interest. He remembered us.'

'Zat's absolutely correct. Conservation of energy. Be- sides, he'll be worrying.'

'Yes, but ... if we go back now ... we'll become like we were, won't we? I can feel the weight of that gravestone now.'

'Sylvia Liberty! You said we shouldn't leave!'

'I've changed my mind, William.'

'Yes. I spent half my life beingjrightened of dying, and now I'm deadJ'm going to stop beingjrightened,' said the Alderman. 'Besides ... I'm remembering things ...'

There was a murmur from the rest of the dead.

7 think ve all are,' said Solomon Einstein. 'All the zings we forgot when we were alive ...'

'That's the trouble with life,' said the Alderman. 'It takes up your whole time. I mean, I won't say it wasn't fun. Bits of it. Quite a lot of it, really. In its own way. But it wasn't what you'd call living ...'

'We don't have to be frightened of the morning,' said Mr Vicenti. 'We don't have to be frightened of anything.'