Nation

at least, we are in full agreement,” said Ataba stoutly.
    “But that’s a very long time ago!”
    “And that is why there are so many Grandfathers!” said Mau. “It’s very simple.”
    “Yes,” said Daphne, “when you put it like that, I suppose it is.” They set off, and then she said: “What was that noise?”
    They stopped, and this time they all heard the faint crackling and rustling from behind them.
    “Are the dead rising?” asked Ataba.
    “You know, I really hoped nobody was going to suggest that,” said Daphne.
    Mau walked a few steps back along the cave, which was full of tiny crackling sounds. The dead don’t walk, he thought. That’s one of the ways you know they are dead. So what I’m doing is standing here, a long way from the sky, and I have to work out what they are doing. So what is the reason? And where have I heard this noise before?
    He walked a little way farther up the tunnel, where there was no noise at all, and waited. After a while, the crackling started again, and he thought of sunshine on hot days. It was crackling where he had left the others, too. “Let’s keep going,” he said, “and it will stop, provided we keep moving.”
    “They won’t wake up?” said Ataba.
    “It’s the papervine bindings on the Grandfathers,” Mau said. “Even when it’s bone-dry, it crackles and pops when it’s warmed up. The heat of the lamps and our bodies sets it off if we stay in one place too long. That’s all it is.”
    “Well, it was frightening me ,” said Daphne. “Well done. Deductive reasoning based on observation and experiment.”
    Mau ignored that, because he didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant. But he felt pleased. The Grandfathers didn’t wake up. The noise he had heard as a boy was just papervine getting hotter or colder. That was true, and he could prove it. It wasn’t hard to work out, so why is it all I can do not to wet myself? Because papervine moving doesn’t sound interesting and walking skeletons does, that’s why. Somehow they make us feel more important. Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear that we might not be.
    He watched Ataba move close to a Grandfather, then step back hurriedly when it began to creak.
    My body is a coward but I am not fearful. I will fear nothing, ever, he thought. Not now.
    There was a glow ahead. It appeared suddenly as they walked around a long curve—red, yellow, and green, flickering as they got closer. Ataba groaned and stopped walking, and because he did that, Mau knew he couldn’t. He looked down the slope ahead.
    “Stay and look after the old man,” he said to the ghost girl. “I don’t want him to run away.”
    I will not fear my bladder that wants to explode, he told himself as he sped down past the silent sentries, or my feet that want to turn and flee, and I will not fear the pictures that are running, screaming, through my head. He ran on, the light racing ahead of him, repeating the vow until, like Captain Roberts, he found it necessary to change the words in a hurry. I will not fear the shadow that is walking out of the pretty light, because I have found my fear down here in the dark, and I shall reach out and touch him as he reaches out to touch me….
    His fingers met his reflection and touched smooth golden metal, in a slab about the size of a man.
    Mau put his ear to it, but there was no sound. When he pushed it, it didn’t move.
    “I want you to stay where you are,” he told the others when they caught up to him. “Both of you. We’ve come down a long way. There may be water on the other side of this.”
    He prodded at the metal with his crowbar. It was very soft and also very thick, but the stone around it was the ordinary island stone, and that seemed a better bet. It soon started to flake away under blows from the pointed end of the bar, and after some work there was a hiss and the smell of wet salt. So the sea was somewhere near, but at least they were above it.
    He called the others down and hacked at the stone again, amazed at how easily he could crack it with the metal bar, opening up a gap into blackness. It was damp; he could hear a soft lapping of water in the dark. By the light of the lamp he could just make out some white steps, leading down.
    So that was it? All this way for some sea cave? There were a lot of them at the bottom of the cliffs on the western side of the island. Kids had explored them since time began, and had never found anything to get