just seen the busted set. But Johnny saw the little man in his neat suit, watching the ghost of the television.

'Ah, boy,' he said. 'You have been causing trouble, have you?' He pointed to the screen.

Johnny gasped. There was Mr Atterbury, very calmly talking to a lady on a sofa. There was also one of the people from United Amalagamated Consolidated Holdings. And he was having some difficulty, was the Consolidated man. He'd come along with some prepared things to say and he was having problems getting his mind round the idea that they weren't working any more.

Mr Grimm turned up the volume control.

'—at every stage, fully sensitive to public opinion in this matter, I can assure you, but there is no doubt that we entered into a proper and legal contract with the relevant Authority.'

'But the Blackbury Volunteers say too much was decided behind closed doors,' said the lady, who looked as though she was enjoying herself. 'They say things were never fully discussed and that no-one listened to the local people.'

'Of course, this is not the fault of United Amalagamated Consolidated Holdings,' said Mr Atterbury, smiling benevolently. 'They have an enviable record of civic service and co-operation with the public. I think what we have here is a mistake rather than any near-criminal activity, and

we in the Volunteers would be more than happy to assist them in any constructive way and, indeed, possibly even compensate them.'

Probably no-one else but Johnny and the Consolidated man noticed Mr Atterbury take a ten-pence piece out of his pocket. He turned it over and over in his fingers. The man from the company watched it like a mouse might watch a cat.

He's going to offer him double his money back, Johnny thought. Right there on television.

He didn't. He just kept turning the coin over and over, so that the man could see it.

'That seems a very diplomatic offer,' said the interviewer. 'Tell me, Mr — er—'

'A spokesman,' said the Consolidated man. He looked quite ill. There was a glint as light flashed off the coin.

'Tell me, Mr Spokesman ... what is it that United Amalgamated Consolidated Holdings ac- tually does?'

Mr Atterbury would probably have been a good man in the Spanish Inquisition, Johnny told himself

Mr Grimm turned the sound down again.

' Where's everyone else?' said Johnny.

'Haven't come back,' said Mr Grimm, with horrible satisfaction. 'Their graves haven't been slept in. That's what happens when people don't listen. And do you know what's going to happen to them?'

'No.'

'They're going to fade away. Oh, yes. You've put

ideas in their heads. They think they can go gadding about. But people who go gadding about and not staying where they're put... they don't come back. And that's an end to it. It could be Judgement Day tomorrow, and they won't be here. Hah! Serves them right.'

There was something about Mr Grimm that made Johnny want to hit him, except that it wouldn't work anyway and, besides, hitting him would be like hitting mud. You'd get dirtier for doing it.

'I don't know where they've gone,' he said, 'but I don't think anything bad's happened to them.'

'Think what you like,' said Mr Grimm, turning back to the television.

'Did you know it's Halloween?' said Johnny.

'Is it?' said Mr Grimm, watching an advert for chocolate. 'I shall have to be careful tonight, then.'

When Johnny reached the bridge he looked back. Mr Grimm was still there, all alone.

The dead rode a radio signal over Wyoming ...

They were already changing. They were still recognizable, but only when they thought about it.

'You see, /told you it was possible,' said the person who was occasionally Mr Fletcher. 'We don't need wires!'

They ran into an electric storm high over the Rocky Mountains. That was fun.

And then they surfed down the radio waves to California.

'What time is it?' 'Midnight!'

Johnny was a sort of hero in school. The Blackbury Guardian had a front page story headed: COUNCIL

SLAMMED IN CEMETERY SALE RUMPUS. The

Guardian often used words like 'slammed' and 'rumpus'; you wondered how the editor talked at home.

Johnny was in the story with his name spelled wrong, and there was a quote which ran: 'War hero Arthur Atterbury, president of the newly formed "Blackbury Volunteers", told the Guardian: "There are young people in this town with more sense of history in their little fingers than some adults have in their entire committee-bound bodies". This is thought to be a reference to Cllr Miss Ethel Liberty, who was not available for comment last night.'

Even one or two of the teachers mentioned it; it was unusual for people from the school to appear in the paper, except very close to headlines like TWO

FINED AFTER JOYRIDE ESCAPADE.

Even the History master asked him about the Blackbury Pals. And then Johnny found himself telling the class about the Alderman and William Stickers and Mrs Sylvia Liberty, although he said he'd got the information out of the library. One of the girls said she was definitely going to do a project on Mrs Liberty, Champion of Women's Rights, and Wobbler said, yes, champion of women's right to get things wrong, and that started a good argu- ment which lasted until the end of the lesson.

Even the headmaster took an interest - probably out of aforesaid relief that Johnny wasn't involved in one of those YOUTH GANG FINED FOR SHOP- LIFTING stories. Johnny had to find his way to his office. The recommended method was to tie one end of a piece of string to somewhere you knew and get your friends to come and look for you if you were away more than two days. He got a short speech about 'social awareness', and was out again a minute later.

He met the other three in the lunch break.

'Come on,' he said.

'Where to?'

'The cemetery. I think something's gone wrong.'

'I haven't had my lunch yet,' said Wobbler. 'It's very important for me to have regular meals. Otherwise my stomach acid plays up.'

'Oh, shut up.'

By the time they raced one another across the heart of Australia, they didn't even need the radio.

The dawn dragged its slow way across the Pacific after them, but they were running free.

'Do we ever need to stop?'

'No!'

'I always wanted to see the world before I died!'

'Well, then, it was just a matter of timing.'

'What time is it?'

'Midnight!'

The cemetery wasn't empty now. There were a

couple of photographers there, for one thing, in- cluding one from a Sunday newspaper. There was a film crew from Mid-Midlands Television. And the

dog-walking people had been joined by others, just walking around and looking.

In a neglected corner, Mrs Tachyon was in- dustriously Vim-ing a gravestone.

'Never seen so many people here,' said Johnny. He added, 'At least, ones who're breathing.'

Yo-less wandered over from where he'd been talking to a couple of enthusiastic people in woolly bobble hats, who were peering through the huge thicket behind Mrs Liberty's grave.

'They say we've not only got environment and ecology, but some habitat as well,' he said. 'They think they've seen a rare Scandinavian thrush.'

'Yeah, full of life, this place,' said Bigmac.

A Council lorry had driven a little way up the towpath. Some men in donkey jackets were har- vesting the old mattresses. The zombie television had already gone. Mr Grimm was nowhere to be seen, even by Johnny.

And a police car was parked just outside the gates. Sergeant Comely was working on the gen- eral assumption that where you got lots of people gathered together, something illegal was bound to happen sooner or later.

The cemetery was alive.

'They've gone,' said Johnny. 'I can feel them ... not here.'