Johnny stared at the ceiling. The teacher was going on about the war. That was all there was to talk about these days. He listened with half an ear. No one liked the bombing. One of the girls was nearly in tears about it . . .

Supposing she was really there? Or supposing she said she’d never heard of him?

Bigmac was arguing. That was unusual.

And then someone said, ‘Do you think it’s easy? Do you think the pilots really just sit there like . . . like a game? Do you think they laugh? Really laugh? Not just laugh because they’re still alive, but laugh because it’s . . . it’s fun? When they’re being shot at for a living, every day? When any minute they might get blown up too? Do you think they don’t wonder what it’s all about? Do you think they like it? But we always turn it into something that’s not exactly real. We turn it into games and it’s not games. We really have to find out what’s real!’

They were all looking at him.

‘Anyway, that’s what I think,’ said Johnny.

Chapter 9

On Earth, No one Can Hear You
Say ‘Um’

Click!

‘Yes?’

‘Um.’

‘Hello?’

‘Um. Is Sig – is Kirsty there?’

’Who’s that?’

‘I’m a friend. Um. I don’t think she knows my name.’

‘You’re a friend and she doesn’t know your name?’

‘Please!’

‘Oh, hang on.’

Johnny stared at his bedroom wall. Eventually a suspicious voice said, ‘Yes? Who’s that?’

‘You’re Sigourney. You like C Inlay 4 Details. You fly really well. You—’

‘You’re him!’

Johnny breathed a sigh of relief. Real!

Going through the phone book had been harder than flying the starship. Nearly harder than dying.

‘I wasn’t sure you really existed,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t sure you existed,’ she said.

‘I’ve got to talk to you. I mean face to face.’

‘How do I know you’re not some sort of maniac?’

‘Do I sound like some sort of maniac?’

‘Yes!’

‘All right, but apart from that?’

There was silence for a moment. Then she said, reluctantly: ‘All right. You can come round here.’

‘What? To your house?’

‘It’s safer than in public, idiot.’

Not for me, Johnny thought.

‘OK,’ he said.

‘I mean, you might be one of those funny people.’

‘What, clowns?’

And then she said, very cautiously: ‘It’s really you?’

‘Really I’m not sure about. But me, yes.’

‘You got blown up.’

‘Yes, I know. I was there, remember.’

‘I don’t die often in the game. It took me ages even to find the aliens.’

Huh, thought Johnny.

‘It doesn’t get any better with practice,’ he said, darkly.

Tyne Crescent turned out to be a pretty straight road with trees in it, and the houses were big and had double garages and a timber effect on them to fool people into believing that Henry VIII had built them.

Kirsty’s mother opened the door for him. She was grinning like the Captain, although the Captain had the excuse that she was related to crocodiles. Johnny felt he had the wrong clothes on, or the wrong face.