Papa Georgio by Annie Murray Page B

side.
    Grandpa came up next to me, swung his leg over and disappeared down the other side. When he landed I heard him say, ‘Ooooof!’ and ‘Darnit! Dropped the torch!’
    I was still lurching about on the gate and I got the giggles. I’m breaking into a cemetery with my grandfather, I thought, and now he’s probably broken his leg and we’ll never get out and I could feel bubbles of laughter in me like a bottle of lemonade at Grandpa stumbling about and cursing down there. I couldn’t actually see him because it was so dark.
    I just managed to climb down, still bursting inside. Grandpa, a shadow beside me, reached for my hand. He seemed to be swaying about a bit too.
    ‘Right!’ he said. ‘Well at least I’ve found my hat.’ Then he couldn’t seem to think why we’d climbed over the gate. ‘Well, whatever are we doing here!’ he said, chortling helplessly, and I burst into more giggles as well and soon we were bent over, completely out of breath we were laughing so much. Just as we began to pull ourselves together, Grandpa stumbled over something on the ground and thumped over backwards like a sack of potatoes and we started off all over again.
    ‘Come along now,’ he said at last. ‘We must behave like Responsible Personages. ‘Let’s go and have a look. Take my arm, Janey dear. The torch is a goner so we’ll have to do without. At least there’s a little shred of moon.’
    Our eyes were getting used to the dark and we could see a path nearby. Grandpa showed me that as well as the big stone plinths and tombs there was another way of being buried in Italy.
    ‘See here,’ he pointed.
    On our left was a high wall, but in the gloom you could just make out that it was divided up into squares like a giant filing cabinet.
    ‘The ground’s so rocky in so many places here that they can’t just bury everyone,’ Grandpa said. ‘So they put them in these, above the ground, and close them up and they have their names on them, see?’
    There was a little picture of the person on most of them and some had little nosegays of flowers fixed to them as well.
    ‘Well here they all are. Peaceful, isn’t it?’ Grandpa said.
    The funny thing was, it could have felt very scary there. If I’d been on my own I would have seen ghosts and skeletons jumping out from behind every grave with black holes for eyes. But I was there with Grandpa and the way he talked about the dead people, it was just as if they were friends, people just like us who’d sort of lain down for a snooze.
    We could smell the night now, the earth and the herby plants.
    ‘We’d better go back, my little dear,’ Grandpa said. ‘Brenda will be worrying.’
    I climbed back over the clanky gate and managed to jump down into the street, then stood looking up at Grandpa as he swung one leg over.
    ‘Here we come!’ he announced. And then, ‘Oh, darn it! Got my trouser leg caught on something down there – darn it !
    He was sprawled along the top of the gate, leaning down, muttering and cursing. I didn’t notice the footsteps coming along the road until the man was quite close to us and Grandpa was still calling out,
    ‘I’m going to have to go back over or I’ll lose my trousers, and that won’t do!’
    The man seemed to have magicked himself right next to me. He was small and round and wearing a wide black hat and black clothes. He stopped and looked at me, then up at the top of the gate with big, solemn eyes.
    ‘Grandpa!’ I called, panic-stricken.
    ‘What is it?’ He peered over at us, both looking up at him. Even in this most undignified state, Grandpa managed to raise his hat.
    ‘ Buona sera , Padre,’ he said. Good evening, he was saying.
    The little round man touched the brim of his hat, most politely. ‘ Buona sera, signore, signorina ,’ he said, giving each of us a nod. Then he disappeared along the street. I’m sure he was smiling.
    With a grunt and a ripping sound, Grandpa managed to get his trousers freed and his feet