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 argument 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 SHOPLIFTING 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, including 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 industriously 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 harvesting 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 general assumption that where you got lots of people gathered together, something illegal was bound to happen sooner or later.