Chapter One (continued)
Some of Becky's Student Friends Discuss Psychopaths, Sexual Abuse, Anger Management and Other Things

Students Tell Stories and Express Opinions About Judging People Unfairly

One of the others said, "I think people can sometimes get angry with people because of things other people tell them about them. But sometimes, they might not even be telling the truth, or they might have added things, just because they think it'll be fun if their story sounds a bit more juicy or something. I remember hearing someone in our year saying a while ago that some study had been done where people were asked if they ever made up things when they were telling other people about what had been going on lately, and quite a few admitted they sometimes gossiped about what other people had said and done, but made what they said sound more juicy than it really was, to be entertaining, and they did other things like that.

"I thought of that not long ago when something reminded me of it. There was a group of us in a pub, and some of them were a few years older than the rest of us. We'd got chatting to the older group when we got there. One bloke was criticising his girlfriend, who was actually there near him! He told the others that over a year ago, someone called Nick, who used to be friends with his girlfriend, had asked him if he could give him a lift to his new job, saying he didn't have a car himself. I don't know why he asked him in particular, ... or maybe he'd asked other people first and they'd said no. Anyway, this bloke in the pub had told Nick it wouldn't be convenient for him to do that because he worked nights, and would want to be in bed in the early morning when this man would have to go to work, but that his girlfriend would do it, since she worked quite near him, and started work at around the same time as him. He said he hadn't thought it would be a problem for his girlfriend, since her and this man had been friends after all.

"He said he told his girlfriend later that he'd said she'd give this man a lift, and told her to phone him up to see what time he wanted her to call for him; and he said she got annoyed, and lectured him for ten minutes on how it wasn't fair of him to volunteer her to run errands. And he said that even months later, she would still bring it up in arguments to get at him, as if she was hinting that he owed her something.

"I wondered why she would behave like that! But then she said his version of events was a laugh, and told us that what her boyfriend had said was hardly true at all, and that all she'd really said when he'd told her he'd said she'd give this man a lift was, 'Did you just make plans for me? Oh right, so we've reached a new level in our relationship where we can schedule appointments for each other, have we?' And then she'd laughed.

"She said that she'd given the man a lift, but it had made her late for work, and then she wasn't happy because he'd tried to get her to give him a lift to work every day, when she already often turned up a bit late, because she didn't find it easy to get up in the mornings.

"She said that as for bringing it up in arguments, what had really happened was that just a couple of days earlier, one of her old friends had told her she needed help to pick up two cars. She'd said her boyfriend was home and he could drive one. Then she told her boyfriend she'd volunteered him to do it. He didn't like that, so she'd said, 'Remember when you volunteered me to take Nick to work?' And then she'd laughed. She said she'd only said it to entertain herself.

"She said, 'I love this man and his tales of woe!'"

One of the other students said, "That's interesting. Mind you, I've known the opposite kind of thing to happen too. I post on an Internet forum where someone started a thread the other day, saying she'd been upset and had started getting really annoyed, because her husband who she'd married the year before kept getting into bad moods and complaining, and she was beginning to think he was really selfish. She said he'd been cooped up in the house for three months not being able to get a job, so she'd put up with his bad moods all that time; but then he'd got a job, but he didn't like it, and was turned down for a transfer to do something he'd like to have done, so he was upset and complaining some more; and she got angry, because she thought he ought to be grateful to have a job at all, considering there might be people struggling to survive who'd have really appreciated having any job.

"And then she got more angry because he got upset because he couldn't get the ice-cream he'd wanted in a shop, and she was annoyed because she thought it was a silly thing to be upset about, when there are people starving who can't even get enough to eat.

"I felt a bit sorry for her. I suppose I must have immediately taken her side. I suppose it could have been a mistake to do that, but I was thinking it couldn't be nice to live with someone like that at all! But some people there took the opposite point of view, criticising her for not having patience with her husband, saying that when someone's turned down for a job they want, it's only fair to sympathise with them, not criticise them for complaining about having to make do with one they don't like so much. They said it sounded as if she wasn't supportive at all!

"I thought what they said sounded a bit harsh, considering they couldn't have known how much she sympathised with him before she got upset with his complaining and told him he really ought to be grateful for what he had. But I suppose it's possible I was too quick to sympathise with her, at least at first, when she hadn't given us much information. So really, thinking about it, none of us had enough information to make the judgments we did, because we only had her side of the story, so we didn't know whether he really was just difficult to live with, or whether she was behaving in an uncaring way towards him, or whether it was really six of one and half a dozen of the other, as they say.

"Mind you, it might have partly been that the other people who posted in the thread didn't notice some of the phrasing I did, such as where she said she'd been very upset about his behaviour. Or maybe I didn't take into account some of the things they did, like that she didn't say she'd sympathised with his disappointment at not getting the job he wanted at first; so I suppose it could have sounded as if she'd gone straight in to saying he could at least be grateful for getting something. I realised it sounded a bit like that later.

"But I reckon people must often take the side of the person they can identify with most, instead of just thinking about what they can and can't tell from the facts. So maybe it's just human nature for us to be more likely to take the side of our friends and family, or people in situations we can imagine being in ourselves, or people of the same gender or some other group as us. I'm not sure how often that happens; but maybe it happens quite a bit. ... Mind you, maybe it's often more that it's just that it's natural to just believe what you're told, and that you want to help someone who comes to you saying they've got a problem. I mean, what kind of person would you have to be if a friend of yours, or anyone else, came to you with a problem, and instead of just believing them and thinking about whether you could do anything to help, you just instantly thought, 'Hmmm! I wonder if I'm being told the whole truth here, or if there's more to this than meets the eye. I wonder how much of the problem is their fault.'

"I think people's points of view are partly to do with who they feel for most though. I mean, for one thing, I think there were one or two men replying to this woman, who must have been able to imagine themselves on the receiving end of their wives' criticisms, so maybe they put extra feeling into criticising her because of that. Well, not everyone who criticised her was a man. But there was one man who told her to give her husband more freedom to speak his mind, since he knew what it was like to have a wife who criticised him for saying what he thought, and it wasn't nice at all, so if she didn't let him speak his mind more, she would end up losing him. I thought, 'You don't even know if she's the kind of person who never lets him speak his mind, or whether she does, but he just goes on and on and on complaining till she gets sick of it!'

"You know what I mean: It's not a bad thing to feel as if you can identify with a person and say you think you know how they must feel because you've been in a situation that sounds like it, and try to get someone to be more sympathetic to them, or something like that; but it's not fair to just assume a person's doing something that's upsetting another person, and tell them to stop, just because someone did something that upset you in a situation that seems to be like it, so you think what's happening in their lives must be pretty much the same as what happened in yours, just judging by the little bit you know about it."

One of the others said, "I know what you mean. I think that kind of thing must go on in a lot of ways. I heard about this famous popstar who did this really sick stuff, sexually abusing lots of teenage girls, and persuading a lot of them to go to bed with him, only to abandon them and move on to the next one afterwards. And he did that with loads of them. And it really upset them, because they ended up feeling as if he didn't care about them at all after he'd seemed to, or as if he was just a sexual predator when they'd admired him before. And after a while, a journalist got to talk to quite a few of them and their families, all about what happened and how upset they were. And articles were written about what this man was doing.

"But afterwards, not many people seemed to care, and lots of people said horrible things about the girls online, calling them bitches and whores and gold-diggers, just out to fleece the popstar of money, and stuff like that. I'm sure the people saying nasty things didn't say those things after any thoughtful analysis of the facts - you know, thinking things like, 'Hmmm! well, after a lot of careful contemplation, a bit of head-scratching and some thoughtful investigation, I've reached a conclusion with approximately 92 % certainty that these girls are just whores, bitches and gold-Diggers!' You know, I bet their reactions were just primal instinctive primitive globs of mindless hate, because they liked the popstar and objected to people saying bad things about him, so they just automatically leapt to the conclusion that it was unfair of them to be saying bad things about him and damaging his reputation, so they must be just nasty!

"Or maybe some of them liked to be abusive to women and girls themselves, and would hate to be publicly exposed as abusers, so they really felt for the man when he was, so they were angry with the girls for telling their stories, and thought they ought to be punished for it or something. ... Either that, or some of them might have been just trolls, enjoying an opportunity to be nasty for kicks, or whatever they troll for.

"Not that knowing that would make it much less upsetting for the girls who were having the nasty things said about them, after they'd made all the effort to muster up the courage to talk about what had happened to them to some journalist who was a complete stranger, when it would probably have meant they got upset by having to dredge up horrible memories and talk about them.

"But it makes me think of how easy it must be to get mobs to go after people, if so many people don't think about things carefully, but just get all angry because they side with the people they feel for most or something. Maybe it's easy for everyone to just side with the people they identify most with when it comes to things they care about."

The student who'd been talking before about the woman who'd got criticism on the forum after she'd complained about her husband said, "Yeah. And also, I think the interpretations people put on things can have a lot to do with their own experiences of things they're reminded of by them, such as an experience of knowing what it feels like to be criticised by a partner, or beliefs they've developed over time, that they might have come to hold because they've read quite a lot of things by people who have those beliefs, and they believed them without questioning them, or they got them from people they know who've told them things they've just accepted as true; so they interpret things they hear about in the way you'd expect someone with those beliefs to do, instead of reserving judgment till they know more about them.

"I don't know if you know what I mean, but to give an example, if someone often reads a newspaper that often features stories about benefit fraudsters pretending to be disabled or poor, who cheat the system, then if they hear a story about a disabled person applying for a benefit that disabled people can apply for and being refused, they might be a lot more likely to think, 'Well, the benefits agency probably discovered the person wasn't as disabled as they said they were, and that they were trying to defraud the system', than someone who automatically sympathises with disabled people would, who might automatically assume the disabled person was as disabled as they said they were, and that they were unfairly refused benefits.

"Or imagine if someone's somehow developed the belief that people have a right not to hear any noise whatsoever from their neighbours. Then they might get a bit annoyed even if they hear just a little bit of noise from one, while someone who's grown up just accepting that hearing a bit of noise from neighbours is just natural's probably a lot less likely to be bothered by it if it's not loud enough to disturb them. So one will get annoyed, and the other one won't, not because of the noise levels, which might be the same for both, but just because of what beliefs they've both come to hold about the amount of noise it's reasonable to have to hear.

"Or say if someone's spent years working in an office with other women who keep saying things like, 'All men are scumbags' - you know, say if every time something bad happens in one of their marriages, other ones try to commiserate with her, and say things like, 'Well, what can you expect; it just shows that all men are scumbags!' - then it might be that this other person working in the office, - if she doesn't know any better, because she hasn't had much experience of relationships and hasn't known many men, - gets into a relationship, but it doesn't last, because the man treats her badly.

"Well it might happen that instead of thinking of that as one bad relationship, and trying to analyse what went wrong so as to learn from mistakes made, such as realising how it's not a good idea to get into a relationship with someone before knowing whether there's real compatibility between the two people's personalities, so as to try to have a better chance of getting into a good relationship that lasts in the future, she might just think it must prove what the other women were saying all along - that all men are scumbags.

"And of course it can work the other way around as well, - you know, say if a testosterone-driven male teenager - or some other male - gets rejected a few times when he asks women out, and he gets in with some males who somehow think all women will automatically reject nice men and go for bad ones, or that women are users who'll get what they want out of a man and then dump him, or that they won't give ugly men a chance, - or if they have some kind of bigoted beliefs like that, then he might start believing them. And he might even stop bothering to try to get a girlfriend altogether. But he might start feeling resentful of women because he believes what he's been told about them, and doesn't rate his chances of getting a girlfriend very highly, and just blames women.

"So he'll just carry on doing that, instead of doing something that might actually help him more, like looking up advice on how to increase the chances of getting a girlfriend and following any of it that seems wise, doing more dating, doing what he can to improve his looks and behaviour and confidence, and whatever else it's going to take.

"One reason women get put off men is if they come across as desperate and whiny about not having a girlfriend, as if they expect someone to want to do them the favour of solving their problems before they even know them. You know, it's hard to imagine self-pity or neediness stirring up passion in someone, isn't it.

"But if a man comes across like that, and can't attract women, he might be interpreting his rejection according to a belief he's begun to hold about the way women are, instead of looking into the real possible causes of what's happening, and trying to do something useful about it. And then if they join forums and other communities of men who think the same as they do, they'll likely be convinced all the more that they're right because they're being backed up, and their views might grow stronger because they might be influenced by men who think worse things."

One of the group said, "Rats! Hey, I wonder if the attitudes of animals get influenced by animals around them. And I wonder if little animals like slugs have personalities, so it's possible to get slugs that are more caring than other slugs, and psychopathic slugs, and grumpy slugs, and that kind of thing."

The Topic of Animals Having Personalities Comes Up

One of the group said, "Actually, I've read things about how animals might have individual personalities. I read that some fish are more shy or introverted than other fish in the same species, liking to keep themselves to themselves, when others take more risks. And it's been found that fish like some fish in their species more than other ones, and make friends with them. People who own fish tanks can sometimes see that kind of thing going on.

"And it seems fish are more intelligent than we give them credit for. I remember reading that there was an experiment to teach fish the way out of a net, and they remembered it about a year later. And there's a species of fish that use leaves as a substitute for the nests they made if something happens to them. ... Yeah, I never knew fish made nests; but apparently some species do. Some freshwater fish use snail shells. Some others use mounds of sand and gravel. And there are other kinds too.

"And fish can seem depressed if they're in a fish tank with nothing much to do. They can get lethargic and even stop eating, according to something I read, which said it's best to put things in a tank they can play on, like obstacle courses.

"And it said there was a vet who noticed that all the fish in a pond would swim to the other side when they saw him coming, because they must have worried he'd grab hold of them and give them an unpleasant examination or something. He must have done things like that before. But fish can excitedly swim to the top of their tank when someone comes with food.

"A scientist even found that among one species of fish they studied, the fish that had had caring dads were more timid than the ones that hadn't. The ones that hadn't were more likely to go up to predators to inspect them, and end up being eaten. Yuck.

"When you think about fish having personalities and feelings, ... Well, with me anyway, it makes me wonder if it's really fair to eat them, ... although at least a lot of fish do eat other fish.

"I read about other animals having personalities too. I read that a scientist studied lizards of a certain species, and found that some were sociable, liking to hang around with groups of others, while others kept themselves to themselves more; and more aggressive males spent a lot more time with other males, while non-aggressive males spent more time among the females.

"I suppose anyone who's got pets will already know they've got personalities, like if they've got rabbits, and some are playful but others seem passive, or if they've got a couple of dogs, and one's naughtier than the other one.

"I even read that scientists are coming to think that animals can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. I read about a study of hares, that found that ones that had had to escape from predators quite a bit were more likely to hide a lot and stop eating much and breeding than other ones were.

"Thinking about this stuff makes me wonder if eating animals is really fair. Mind you, it hasn't stopped me yet, for whatever reason."

The students thought about that. Then the conversation moved onto other things for a while.

After some time, they finished their conversation and parted.

Chapter Two
The Funny Story

A few days after that conversation, the students met up over lunch in a lighter mood, and one of them offered to tell the others a story she'd made up to make fun of a man on a forum who'd been annoying her. She said,

"This man on a forum I'm on just loves to insult people, which I wouldn't mind if his insults were actually clever so they were amusing, but they're just gross. I'd repeat them, but they might put people off their food, or make some of it come up again, and then they definitely won't want to eat it. But he left the forum recently, and I decided to make up a story about his ghost for fun. I'll tell you the story if you like."

They thought it might be a laugh, so they agreed. She said,

"OK then: 'There was a teenage schoolboy called Stoneheart. It seems a bit cruel of his parents to have named him that; but it was surprisingly appropriate. He was a gun nut, who loved to bring guns to school and flash them around, boasting about how he'd be willing to use them on anyone who tried to fight him. He was always insulting people, and saying smutty things to the girls if they ever insulted him, or tried to defend anyone he insulted, saying things such as telling them he knew they were just after his body.

"'There were other boys in the class with strange names too. One was called Dribble. No one knew why; but perhaps his parents had thought that was an appropriate name for him when he was a baby, although he was embarrassed about it when he grew older, in fact just as soon as he was old enough to understand what it meant.

"'Another boy was called Sleepy, and another one was called Onion. But none of the boys got teased about their names as much as Stoneheart did, because nobody liked Stoneheart because he was so obnoxious.

"'He used to boast about how he wanted to go into the army after he left school. One of the girls one day said she thought it was barbaric of him to want to go and kill people; and he sneered at her, saying there were other things people could do in the army besides being in combat, and she was ignorant to think that's what he wanted to do. So from then on, she sometimes joked about how he seemed to be longing to go into the army so he could spend his days washing up for the troops or packing parachutes, as if he thought washing up was his life's dream. She thought he seemed to aggressive a person for that to be really true though.

"'One day, she decided to squirt tomato ketchup all down his front and then get a group of her friends to all tell him it looked as if he must have committed a grisly murder and had the victim's blood on his clothes, asking him if he'd finally decided he couldn't wait any longer to use one of the guns he was so proud of.

"'When the class saw him with tomato ketchup all over his clothes, they laughed at him, and jeered that he must be a very messy eater, and said other things like that.

"He scrubbed his clothes till he got most of the stains out. But then his classmates made jokes about how he must have wet himself. The teacher told him to take his clothes off and hang them up to dry.

"'He reluctantly did so. But neither he nor anyone else had any spare clothes he could put on, so he had to go around virtually naked for hours.

"'Then one of the girls took his clothes and hid them. He yelled and yelled in rage when he couldn't find them; but no one admitted to taking them, so he had to walk around and sit in class virtually naked all day.

"'His classmates laughed at him and teased him a lot. And he got teased the next day too, even though he wore clothes that day. People said his hairy chest made him look like a gorilla, and that they reckoned he was probably one in disguise really. And they said other insulting things, enjoying themselves.

"'For someone who liked to make himself out to be a tough guy, Stoneheart was actually very thin-skinned. The teasing really got to him, till in a fit of self-pity and rage, he decided he couldn't stand it any more and used his best gun to kill himself.

"'You might have thought that would make his former classmates feel sorry about the way they'd behaved towards him. But he was so despised because of his obnoxious nature that they just made fun of him some more.

"'But soon, scary rumours started circulating that Stoneheart's ghost was prowling around, usually at night but sometimes even during school hours. It was said to wander the corridors and from room to room, loudly lamenting, "Oh, my clothes! My clothes! Where are my clothes? They say my hairy chest makes them think I'm really a gorilla. I can't stand it! Oh, my clothes, my clothes!" It would groan in a long melancholy way before saying again, "Oh, my clothes!" It was said to sometimes approach people and ask, "Have you seen my clothes? I've lost my clothes! Oh, my clothes! Please help me find my clothes!"

"'Some people were worried about one day meeting Stoneheart's ghost. But others didn't believe it was real.

"'One Halloween, a couple of boys decided to have a bit of fun dressing up as Stoneheart's ghost and trying to scare the teachers. One stood in the corridor outside a classroom during a lesson and shouted mournfully, "Oh, my clothes! My clothes! Has anyone seen my clothes?"

"'Alarmed, the teacher stopped the lesson and told everyone to listen, feeling sure she'd just heard Stoneheart's ghost. She was too scared to carry on the lesson, and told the children to wait while she went to report it to the principle. The boy pretending to be Stoneheart's ghost hid as she went past.

"'Another boy crept up behind a teacher and suddenly said, "Excuse me, have you seen my clothes? I can't find my clothes! Please help me!"

"'The teacher was carrying a pile of books at the time and dropped them all, startled. The boy crept away as she picked them up and went off to tell other staff members she thought Stoneheart's ghost was prowling around.

"'The boys decided it was so much fun to pretend to be Stoneheart's ghost they'd do it some more. Over the next few days, teachers often stopped their lessons in panic as they heard a spooky voice from the corridor saying things like, "Please, someone, help me find my clothes! They say my hairy chest makes them think I'm really a gorilla. I can't stand it!"

"'Then a daring boy decided to hide under the teacher's desk and say it. She leapt up and ran off to the principal's office.

"'The principal decided to call in a priest to exorcise the ghost of Stoneheart.

"'A priest came in with some candles and holy water and said a prayer of exorcism at the desk Stoneheart's ghost was said to have appeared under, bidding Stoneheart to be at peace and lay himself to rest.

"'But in the middle of his prayer, a mournful voice from outside the door shouted, "My clothes! My clothes! Please, someone help me find my clothes!"

"'So the priest said he'd better go round the corridors and other rooms sprinkling them with holy water and praying there too, bidding Stoneheart to leave.

"'So he did. But no sooner had he left one place than a voice cried out from it, "Oh, my clothes! My clothes! I can't find my clothes!"

"'The priest kept going back to exorcise that place again. But as he was doing so, he heard voices crying out from other places, begging for help to find lost clothes. Soon he was rushing all over the school, not just sprinkling holy water now but flinging it around, saying his exorcism prayers louder and louder, hoping Stoneheart would hear. Teachers would shout, "Mind the electrical equipment!" when he got a bit too close to the computers.

"'Nothing seemed to work, and he was becoming exhausted running from place to place. He decided to call in the priests who worked with him, thinking a group exorcism might be more powerful. They all came, with more holy water and candles, as well as a lot of incense. They made the incense waft all over the school. At first, they stood in a big group praying the exorcism prayer together. But still, they would say an exorcism prayer in one place, move on to the next, and from the place they'd just been in would come a gloomy voice begging for help to find missing clothes.

"'And soon, something even more disturbing started happening. Instead of just hearing one voice from one place, they started hearing several voices coming from different places, all mournfully crying things like, "Help! I've lost my clothes! Please, please, I need my clothes! Please help me find them!"

"'The priests decided to split up. They each ran from place to place in the school, desperately trying to exorcise the ghost as they went.

"'Then, they thought they heard the voices of Stoneheart's ghost crying out from outside the school! Some followed. From all directions, voices cried out in what sounded like anguish, "My clothes! Oh, my clothes!" As the priests followed, they got further and further from the school.

"'Soon, they were trying to track the voices all around the town. They got exhausted trying to run after them themselves! So after a while they called in all the priests from the local parishes to help. They couldn't understand why Stoneheart's ghost seemed to have split into pieces, each with a separate voice, but that's what seemed to have happened.

"'Meanwhile, all the boys playing the trick were whispering to their friends in the town, telling them what they were doing. Their friends thought it would be fun to join in, and they told other people who also joined in. Soon there were hundreds crying out from all directions in anguished voices, "Oh, my clothes! My clothes! Please! Someone help me find my clothes!"

"'The priests didn't know what to do! Stoneheart's ghost seemed to have split into so many bits of ghost they didn't know which bits to try and tackle next. They called in all the priests from hundreds of miles around. Soon, thousands of priests were hot on the heels of what they thought were the bits of Stoneheart's ghost, throwing bucketloads of holy water about the place, yelling exorcism prayers, trying desperately to get rid of the ghost voices.

"'Some of the boys climbed trees. From high above them, some of the priests heard, "My clothes! My clothes! I can't find my clothes! Help!"

"'Some of the priests climbed trees to be on the same level as the ghost voices in the hope that getting closer to them would help them exorcise them better. Those walking below were drenched with holy water as the priests flung it about in the tree tops and it rained down on them.

"'One priest became exasperated. He went into the graveyard where Stoneheart was buried. He dug up some of the earth on it and, amid a flurry of swear words, bawled, "Here, you stupid stubborn spirit! This is your home! Here's where you need to go! Now get in there! Now!" Then he flung the earth back. Unfortunately he flung it so hard in his anger that some of it flew across to the next grave and knocked over some flowers on it.

"'Unfortunately for him, one of Stoneheart's family was there and got upset. By then, Journalists from all over the area had flocked to the town. One of them heard what the priest had done. The next day, the headline rang out in the local papers: "Swearing Priest Desecrates Graves, One of Dead Schoolboy."

"'But it was quite far down the page. Much more sensational things were reported before that!

"'The priests got together outside the church. They thought that since nothing had worked up until then, maybe they needed to try something new. But what?

"'One priest suggested that instead of just ordering Stoneheart's ghost to go back into the spirit world and lay itself to rest, they could try persuasion.

"'So when they next heard a voice crying out in anguished tones about lost clothes, one of them shouted, "Stoneheart! You don't need your clothes in the spirit world. Honestly, you won't need them. Don't worry about it."

"'It was an old-fashioned church, and the acoustics made the priest's words echo all around.

"'But a voice that seemed to come from the very top of the church still cried out, "Oh, my clothes! I've lost my clothes! Where've they gone? What can I do? Please, someone help me!"

"'In reality, one of the boys had found a big ladder and leant it against a wall at the back of the church, climbed up and was shouting from the top of it.

"'A priest shinned up a drain pipe at the front of the church, thinking that if he could only get closer to the ghost at the top of the church, he might have more chance of persuading it that it didn't need its clothes so it could lay itself to rest in peace.

"'It was a great effort to climb up the drain pipe. But he was only halfway up when he heard lots of other voices from different places in the town crying out, "Oh, my clothes! I've lost my clothes!"

"'He thought that even if he managed to get to the church roof and he finally did succeed in persuading the bit of ghost there to go back to the spirit world, what if all the other bits of ghost didn't follow it but stayed in the town? He thought wearily that climbing up the church roof would probably be a waste of effort. So he climbed down again.

"'The priests felt discouraged. They decided to phone the bishop to get advice.

"'The bishop suggested that they try to sympathise with the bits of ghost. He said that maybe they knew they didn't really need their clothes, but they were still upset at losing them. Showing understanding and concern for their feelings might help pacify them.

"'So the priests started walking around the town again, and every time they heard an anguished voice crying out about lost clothes, they shouted things like, "We know you're upset. We're sorry you lost your clothes. We really are. If we could only give them back to you, we would. You must be feeling really upset. We understand. Believe us when we say we care. We really sympathise."

"'Little children and old ladies stared in surprise as they heard the priests shouting out like that as they went by.

"'But the ghost voices kept calling out.

"'After a while, the priests decided to phone up all the bishops in that part of the country and ask them to come over and see if they could muster up a powerful enough prayer to persuade the ghost to go back in peace to the spirit world.

"'So they called all the bishops and they came and tried. They brought more buckets of holy water, and enough incense to cause clouds to waft above the town. At first, they tried speaking to the ghost in an especially commanding voice. When that didn't work, they tried sympathy. When that didn't work, they tried begging God to get rid of the spirit for them.

"'Nothing worked. If anything, the ghost seemed to be splitting into even more bits. Twice as many ghost voices seemed to be crying out in anguish about lost clothes as had done only half an hour before!

"'Then something even more puzzling happened. They began to hear female voices crying out, "Please, help me find my clothes! I need my clothes! They say my hairy chest makes them think I'm really a gorilla. I can't stand it!"

"'Some girls had thought it would be a laugh to join in.

"'But the priests couldn't understand it! The ghost was now splitting into female parts as well?

"'The bishops called a meeting in front of the church. They scratched their heads and discussed with each other whether any of them could think of a theological precedent for male ghosts speaking with female voices, or indeed of ghosts splitting into many parts. They tried to remember everything they'd ever read about spirits and demonology and that kind of thing.

"'One of them said he thought he remembered there was a case in 1675 where a male demon spoke with a high-pitched female voice when a priest ordered it to leave someone it was possessing.

"'They couldn't remember much. They decided to phone the pope and ask for advice. One of them suggested they beg the pope to come over and help.

"'They phoned the pope. When he heard about the weird ghostly phenomena, he was puzzled. Since he couldn't give them any advice there and then, they begged him to come to their country and help.

"'He said he needed to think about it. He was due to go on tour to Ireland the very next day. Millions of people were expecting to go and see him. Preparations had already been made for big events. But a ghost wandering a town in broad daylight crying out constantly about lost clothes just had to be stopped!

"'The pope had a think, and then agreed to cancel the first part of his tour to Ireland and come to their country to try to get rid of the ghost.

"'The next morning, the story broke in 96 countries: The pope had cancelled the first couple of days of his tour to Ireland to go across the Atlantic to exorcise the ghost of a schoolboy who had lost his clothes and then shot himself, and now wandered the town crying out to people to help him find his lost clothes.

"'Journalists from all over the world flocked to the town to investigate. They stopped people all over the town to ask them what they'd heard and seen. Several priests and bishops were interviewed. Stoneheart's family barricaded themselves in their home and took their phone off the hook to try and hide from journalists trying to ask questions.

"'The news was sweeping the world and causing a sensation! In fact, tourists would visit the town in droves for years to come. It became one of the country's main tourist attractions. And for several hundred years, books about demonology reported the strange case of the ghost splitting into hundreds of bits, including female ones, and crying out for help with finding its lost clothes.

"'But when they heard about the pope's impending visit, a group of people who proudly called themselves "skeptics", who didn't believe in ghosts, suspected that what was really happening was that people were pretending to be the ghost and fooling the priests. They decided to descend on the town to try to prove it. They planned to follow the sounds of the voices and try and catch the people pretending to be the ghost.

"'Nearly 100 skeptics went there. They soon heard voices calling out for help finding lost clothes. They began the chase immediately. They chased the people pretending to be the ghost down the streets and through people's gardens and caught a lot of them. Most of them were faster runners than the priests.

"'But the pranksters were unhappy at being caught! They struggled to get away and shouted and swore at the skeptics. Policemen passed a lot of them. It looked as if the skeptics were attacking the people pretending to be the ghosts, since they ran up behind them and grabbed them. Lots of skeptics were arrested for assault. Soon the police cells were full of skeptics.

"'The skeptics who hadn't been put in the cells heard about what was happening and thought they'd have to get their fellow skeptics out of trouble! They started speaking to the many journalists flooding the town, explaining the misunderstanding and how they were convinced there wasn't really a ghost but people were pretending to be him, saying they'd just been trying to prove it.

"'The story broke all over the news.

"'The pope turned up around that time.

"'The people pretending to be Stoneheart's ghost heard about the pope's arrival, and some saw him. They also heard about the skeptics chasing people around the town to try to prove they were pretending to be the ghost. They thought they'd better stop their games and go home. If they got caught pretending to be the ghost when the pope was there, they thought, it would make news all over the world! They'd be so embarrassed! Their pictures might be on the front pages of papers all over the country and abroad! People might remember what they'd done for years! And if the skeptics who caught them were arrested, they might have to go to court and claim to have been assaulted by them, or admit they really were pretending to be the ghost. They didn't want that!

"'So they all decided to stop and go home.

"'The pope met the priests and bishops. They all went into the town centre. Traffic was stopped and loudspeakers were set up. The pope prayed a long prayer, asking God to deliver the town from Stoneheart's ghost, and commanding the ghost to go and settle back into the spirit world and leave the town in peace.

"'Then there was a big prayer meeting, and lots of hymns were sung by lots of the people of the town who'd come out to watch the pope.

"'At the end, some of them realised that ever since the pope had prayed the long deliverance prayer, they hadn't heard the ghost. They remarked to others about it and they agreed.

"'The pope and bishops and priests stayed around for the next few hours, during which time no one heard any voices calling out for help finding lost clothes at all.

"'They all concluded the pope's prayer must have worked. They thanked him heartily. They were full of gratitude and wished him well for his shortened tour in Ireland.

"'The pope went up in the estimation of millions of people around the world. Some began to think he must be a miracle worker, and several political leaders invited him to tour their countries.

"'Stoneheart's hometown became a place of pilgrimage that hundreds of thousands flocked to every year to see the sights where the pope had miraculously delivered the people from the ghost who cried out about wanting his clothes. The town made a lot of money from all the tourists.

"'Some history and theology books of the future contained accounts of the strange ghostly happenings in the town and the pope's deliverance. Some mentioned the skeptics who hadn't believed the ghost was real and had tried to prove it, but not all of them did. The town was now famous all over the world.'"