And then, one day, long after no-one played the game any more, there'd be these broken ships, turning over and over in the blank-screen darkness of game space.
And he couldn't stop it. Kir-, Sigourney was right. That's what they were there for.
It was Tuesday, too. It was Maths for most of the morning. And then English. He'd better write a poem at lunchtime. You could generally get away with a poem.
He got his jacket out of the shed and sponged it off as best he could, and then propped it up by the heater. Then he investigated the fridge.
His father had been doing the shopping again. You could always tell. There were generally expensive things in jars, and odd foreign vegetables. This time there was Yoghurt Vindaloo and more celery. No-one in the house liked celery much. It always ended up going brown. And his father never bought bread and potatoes. He seemed to think that stuff like that just grew in kitchens, like mushrooms (although he always bought mushrooms, if they were the special expensive dried kind that looked like bits of mouldy bark and were picked by wizened old Frenchmen).
There was a carton of milk which thumped when he shook it.
Johnny found a cup in the ghastly cavern of the dishwasher and rinsed it under the tap. At least there wasn't much that could go wrong with black coffee.
He quite enjoyed the time by himself in the morn- ings. The day was too early to have started going really wrong.
The war was still on television. It was getting on his nerves. It was worrying him. You'd really think every- one would have had enough by now. Bigmac was in school. He'd stayed the night at Yo- less's. Mrs Yo-less had washed out his clothes, even the T-shirt with 'Blackbury Skins' on the back. It was a lot cleaner than it had ever been.
He could feel Wobbler and Yo-less looking at him with interest. So were one or two other people.
Later on, when they were in the middle of the rush which meant that every pupil in the school had to walk all the way across the campus to be somewhere else, Yo-less said: 'Bigmac said you pulled him out of the wreck. Did you?'
'What? He wasn't even-' Johnny paused.
It was amazing. He'd never thought so fast before. He thought of Bigmac's room, with its Weapons of the World posters and plastic model guns and weight- training stuff he couldn't lift. Bigmac had been thrown out of the school role-playing games club for getting too excited. Bigmac, who spent all his time trying hard to be a big thicko; Bigmac, who could work out maths problems just by looking at them. Bigmac, who played the game of being ... well, big tough Bigmac.
Johnny looked around. Bigmac was watching him. It was amazing, given that Bigmac's ancestors were a sort of monkey, how much his expression looked like the one he'd first seen on the face of the Captain, whose ancestors were a kind of alligator. It said: Help me.
'Can't really remember,' he said.
'Only my mum rang the hospital and they said there were only two boys and they were-'
'It was dark,' said Johnny.
'Yes, but if you'd really-'
'It's just best if everyone shuts up about it, all right?' said Johnny, nodding meaningfully at Bigmac.
'She said you did everything right, anyway,' said Yo-less. 'And she said you aren't being properly looked after.' 'Yo-less.' 'She said you ought to come round our house to eat sometimes.' 'Thanks,' said Johnny. 'I'm a bit busy these days' 'Doing what?' said Yo-less. Johnny fumbled in his pocket. 'What does this look like to you?' he said. Yo-less took it gravely.
'It's a photograph,' he said. 'Just looks like a TV screen with dots on.
'Yes,' sighed Johnny 'It does, doesn't it'
He took it back and shoved it deep into his pocket.
'Yo-less?'
'What?'
'If someone was.., you know.., going a bit weird in the head'
'Mental, he means,' said Wobbler, behind him.
just a bit over-strained,' said Johnny. 'I mean - would they know? Themselves?'
'Well, everyone thinks they're a bit mad,' said Yo-less. 'It's part of being normal.'
'Oh, I don't think I'm mad,' said Johnny.
'You don't?'
'Well'
'Ah-aha' said Wobbler.
'I mean the whole world seems kind of weird right now. You watch the telly, don't you? How can you be the good guys if you're dropping clever bombs right down people's chimneys? And blowing people up just because they're being bossed around by a loony?'
'Shouldn't let 'emselves be bossed around, then,' said Bigmac. Johnny looked at him. Bigmac deflated a bit. 'It's their own fault. They don't have to. That's what my brother says, anyway,' he mumbled.
'Is it?' said Johnny.
Bigmac shrugged.
'Oh, well, yes,' said Wobbler. 'How? It's hard enough to get rid of prime ministers and at least they don't have people taken out and shot. Not any more, anyway.
'My brother's stupid,' said Bigmac, so quietly under his breath that Johnny wondered if anyone else even heard it.
'There was a man on the box saying that the bomb- aimers were so good because they all grew up playing computer games,' said Wobbler.
'See?' said Johnny. 'That's what I mean. Games look real. Real things look like games. And ... and... it all kind of runs together in my head.'
'Ah,' said Yo-less, knowingly. 'That's not mental. That's shamanism. I read a book about it.'
'What's shamanism?'
'Shamans used to be these kind of people who lived partly in a dream world and partly in the real world,' said Wobbler. 'Like medicine men and druids and guys like that. They used to be very important. They used to guide people.'
'Guide?' said Johnny. 'Where to?'
'Not sure. Anyway, my mother says they were creations of Satan.'
'Yes, but your mother says that about practically everything,' said Wobbler.
'This is true,' said Yo-less gravely. 'It's her hobby.'
'She said role-playing games were creations of Satan,' said Wobbler.
'True.'
'Dead clever of him,' said Wobbler. 'I mean, sitting down there in Hell, working out all the combat tables and everything. I bet he used to really swear every time the dice caught fire . .
Shamanism, thought Johnny. Yes. I could be a shaman. A guide. That's better than being mental, at any rate.
It was Maths again. As far as Johnny was concerned, the future would be a better place if it didn't contain 3y + xZ. He had problems enough without people giving him pages of this.
He was trying to put off the idea of ringing someone up.
And then there was Social Education. Normally you could ignore Social Education, which tended to be about anything anyone had on their minds at the time or, failing that, Aids. Really the day ended with Maths. It was just there to keep you off the streets for another three-quarters of an hour.
He could try ringing up. You just needed the phone book and a bit of thought
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!'