Don't Walk On The Cracks!

"'Fyou walk on the cracks, you love Louise Smellyhead!"

"'Fyou walk on the cracks, Louise Smellyhead loves you!"

But now they were walking beneath that brown, shrivelled pine. The one
where the roots were breaking up through the pathway, so it was all
cracked up, so you couldn't help but walk on the cracks. And even if
you did manage to skip across on your tip-toes, there would always be
someone there to shove you, and make you walk on the cracks.

"Yah! Garry loves Louise Smellyhead! Garry loves Louise
Smellyhead!"

It was a ritual. They did it every Wednesday morning, on the walk
through the grey graveyard from the church back to the school next
door. After that kind of service which made you think about how hard
the pews were, and how old the prayer-books were, and how much better
you could do that reading which Louise Smellyhead always did, it was a
relief to get outside and make some noise and push each other
around.

"'Fyou don't walk on the cracks, the Gravemen will get you!"

You could always rely on someone to say something like that. And there
would be a few squeals as people leapt for the cracks, and shoved each
other off them. The Gravemen, of course, were always worse than Louise
Smellyhead. You could bare being loved by Louise Smellyhead, or loving
Louise Smellyhead back, but the Gravemen were something else. They
didn't love you, and you didn't love them.

They lived beneath the stone slabs, and only came out at night, to take
someone back down with them when morning came. There weren't many of
them (they'd counted fourteen), but then, the graveyard wasn't big
(even smaller with that new road), and one Graveman was one Graveman
too many. Nobody had ever seen a Graveman, of course, but they all knew
they existed; they were the bad version of Santa. Ben's mother had said
so, and Ben always believed his mother, so the others did too.

"The Gravemen are coming for Timmy! The Gravemen are coming for
Timmy!"

"No! No! They're not coming for me! They're not! They're coming for
Louise Smellyhead!"

"Yeah! They're coming for Louise Smellyhead! No-one likes her!"

Louise 'Smellyhead' Smelton, who walked behind them, did not reply. She
did not even look up. She never said anything to anybody but the
teachers. It was unfortunately true that no-one did like Louise,
because she was always getting the best marks, the most praise and the
most enjoyable things to do. There was always one.

Worst of all, she wouldn't play along with this cracks thing. Everyone
else did, but it only took one to spoil it for everybody, because if
one person didn't believe it, then it cast doubt on whether anybody
could believe it. And if the risk wasn't there, it wasn't much fun
anymore.

"The Gravemen are coming for you Louise!"

And now they were at the gate, the one that stood where the church's
property stopped, and the school's began, though in places they
overlapped. They waited here noisily until Miss Brent came, opened the
gate and led them into the warmth of the red brick building. However,
Ben and Timmy always stopped just inside the gate to inspect the School
Snails. A patch of wall here was always covered in snails, and they
were especially good at frightening the girls with. It was then that
Timmy had the idea.

It would have to wait until next Wednesday, and they'd have to be
quick. They were always hurried into church in the morning, the
teachers not wanting to let the children's attention wander into the
graveyard even before the service. Things did not go according to plan,
because Louise Smellyhead did not do the reading today, and she did not
collect the prayer-books either. This meant Ben and Timmy had only a
few minutes to fill her coat pockets as they hung their coats and
scarves up at the back of the church.

That service was particularly long. The vicar's version of the
Christmas story was none too engaging, but most of all was the suspense
of how long it would take Louise Smellyhead to find her little
surprise. It was well worth the wait.

Ben and Timmy got a safe distance as they were donning their coats, but
not too far as to not be able to see her face. How she screamed! And
she only saw one of the snails! The whole church seemed to roar with
laughter, though it was probably only Ben, Timmy and a few of their
friends who had been let in on the great plan. They'd never seen Louise
cry, despite their years of taunting, but now she was sobbing, and tore
off her coat frantically. Then she ran through the arched doorway, her
shoes clicking briskly on the cold stone floor. They never saw her
again.

Miss Brent hurried after Louise, and did not return. A little later the
vicar went out to see why, and returned in a fluster, and hurried them
all back to those hard pews, and got out his guitar.

Ben's mother said Louise had been in a car accident, just out on that
new road, and that this was the reason she got that petition together,
and that nobody at the school was safe. Ben believed her of course, and
so did Garry and Hannah. Timmy, however, knew differently.

The Gravemen had come for her.

He had seen her new home. There was a fifteenth door in the earth, not
far from the gate between the school and the church. And he had
actually seen the Gravemen making it the next Wednesday, and had
instantly cried.
They did not go to the church that way again. And indeed, as soon as he
was given the choice, Timmy never went back there again.

It's all overgrown now. The grass is unkempt, and the brambles creep
over the walls and under the fences. In autumn the graveyard turns an
earthy brown. The sun never shines in that graveyard, though perhaps
that's because it's in the shadow of the church. And that pine is
finally dead, untended to for so many years.