Johnny and the Bomb (9 page)

‘How do we get back?' said Yo-less.

‘It just sort of happens, I think.'

‘You're just doing it with hallucinations, aren't you,' said Wobbler, never a boy to let go of hope. ‘It's probably the smell from the trolley. We'll come round in a minute and have a headache and it'll all be all right.'

‘It just sort of happens?' said Yo-less. He was using his careful voice again, the voice that said there was something nasty on his mind. ‘How do you get back?'

‘There's a flash, and there you are,' said Kirsty.

‘And you're back where you left?'

‘Of course not. Only if you didn't move. Otherwise you go back to wherever where you are now is going to be then.'

There was silence while they all worked this out.

‘You mean,' said Bigmac, ‘that if you walk a couple of metres, you'll be a couple of metres away from where you started when you get back?'

‘Yes.'

‘Even if there's been something
built
there?' said Yo-less.

‘Yes … no … I don't know.'

‘So,' said Yo-less, still speaking very slowly, ‘if there's a lot of concrete, what happens?'

They all looked at Kirsty. She looked at Johnny.

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘Probably you kind of … get lumped together.'

‘Yuk,' said Bigmac.

There was a wail from Wobbler. Sometimes, when it involved something horrible, his mind worked very fast.

‘I don't want to end up with just my arms sticking out of a concrete wall!'

‘Oh, I don't think it'd happen like that,' said Yo-less.

Wobbler relaxed, but not much. ‘How
would
it happen, then?' he said.

‘What I
think
would happen is, see, all the atoms in your body, right, and all the atoms in the wall would be trying to be in the same place at the same time and they'd all smash together suddenly and—'

‘And what?' said Kirsty.

‘—and … er … bang, good night, Europe,' said Yo-less. ‘You can't argue with nuclear physics, sorry.'

‘My arms
wouldn't
end up sticking out of a wall?' said Wobbler, who hadn't quite caught up.

‘No,' said Yo-less.

‘Not a wall near here, anyway,' said Bigmac, grinning.

‘Don't wind him up,' said Yo-less severely. ‘This is serious. It could happen to
any
of us. We dropped when we landed, right? Does that mean that if we suddenly go back now we'll be sticking out of the floor of the mall, causing an instant atomic explosion?'

‘They make enough fuss when you drop a Coke can,' said Johnny.

‘Where's Wobbler gone?' said Kirsty.

Wobbler was a disappearing shape, heading for the allotments. He shouted something.

‘What'd he say?' she said.

‘He said “I'm off home!”' said Johnny.

‘Yeah, but,' said Bigmac, ‘… where he's running now … if we're where the mall is …
will
be … then over there's the shopping estate. That field he's running across.' He squinted. ‘That's where Currys is going to be.'

‘How will we know we're about to go back?' said Yo-less.

‘There's a sort of flicker for a moment,' said Johnny. ‘Then … zap. Er … what'll happen if he comes out where there's a fridge or something? Is that as bad as a concrete wall?'

‘I don't know much about fridge atoms,' said Yo-less. ‘They might not be as bad as concrete atoms. But I shouldn't think anyone around here would need new wallpaper ever again.'

‘Wow! An atomic Wobbler!' said Bigmac.

‘Let's get the trolley and go after him,' said Johnny.

‘We don't need it. Leave it here,' said Kirsty.

‘No. It's Mrs Tachyon's.'

‘There's just one thing I don't understand,' said Yo-less, as they hauled the trolley across the field.

‘There's
millions
of things I don't understand,' said Johnny.

‘What?
What?
What are you going on about now?'

‘Televisions. Algebra. How skinless sausages hold together. Chinese,' said Johnny. ‘I don't understand any of them.

‘The trolley's got no works,' said Yo-less. ‘There's no time machinery.'

‘Maybe the time is in the bags,' said Johnny.

‘Oh, right! Bags of time? You can't just shove time in a bag!'

‘Maybe Mrs Tachyon didn't know that. She's always picking up odds and ends of stuff.'

‘You can't pick up time,
actually
. Time's what you pick things up
in
,' said Kirsty.

‘My granny saves string,' said Bigmac, in the manner of someone who wants to make a contribution.

‘Really? Well, you can't pick up the odd half-hour and knot it on to another ten minutes you've got spare, in case you haven't noticed,' said Kirsty. ‘Honestly, don't they teach you any physics at your school? Fridge atoms was bad enough! What on earth's a fridge atom?'

‘The smallest possible particle of fridge,' said Yo-less.

Perhaps you
could
save time, Johnny thought rebelliously. You could waste it, it could run through your fingers and you could put a stitch in it. Of course, perhaps that was only a manner of speaking and it all depended on how you looked at it, but Mrs Tachyon looked at things in a corkscrew kind of way.

He remembered touching a bag. Had time leaked out?
Something
had hissed through his fingers.

‘You can't have the smallest possible particle of fridge! It'd just be iron atoms and so on!'

‘A fridge molecule, then. One atom of everything you need to make a fridge,' said Yo-less.

‘You couldn't ha— well, all right, you
could
have one atom of everything you need to make a fridge but that wouldn't make it a fridge molecule because—' She rolled her eyes. ‘What am I saying? You've got
me
thinking like that now!'

The rest of the universe said that time wasn't an object, it was just Nature's way of preventing everything from happening at once, and Mrs Tachyon had said: that's what
you
think …

The path across the field led through the allotments. They looked like allotments everywhere, with the occasional old man who looked exactly like the old men who worked on allotments. They wore the special old man's allotment trousers.

One by one, they stopped digging as the trolley bumped along the path. They turned and watched in a silent allotment way.

‘It's probably Yo-less's coat they're looking at,' Kirsty hissed. ‘Purple, green and yellow. It's plastic, right? Plastic hasn't been around for long. Of course, it might be Bigmac's
Heavy Mental
T-shirt.'

They're planting beans and hoeing potatoes, thought Johnny. And tonight there's going to be a crop of great big bomb craters …

‘I can't see the by-pass,' said Bigmac. ‘And there's no TV tower on Blackdown.'

‘There's all those extra factory chimneys,
though,' said Yo-less. ‘I don't remember any of those. And where's the traffic noise?'

It's May 21, 1941, thought Johnny. I
know
it.

There was a very narrow stone bridge over the river. Johnny stopped in the middle of it and looked back the way they'd come. A couple of the allotment men were still watching them. Beyond them was the sloping field they'd arrived in. It wasn't particularly pretty. It had that slightly grey tint that fields get when they're right next to a town and know that it's only a matter of time before they're under concrete.

‘I remember when all this was buildings,' he said to himself.

‘What're you going on about now?'

‘Oh, nothing.'

‘I recognize
some
of this,' said Bigmac. ‘This is River Street. That's old Patel's shop on the corner, isn't it?' But the sign over the window said: *SMOKE WOODBINES* J. Wilkinson (prop.).

‘Woodbines?' said Bigmac.

‘It's a kind of cigarette, obviously,' said Kirsty.

A car went past. It was black, but not the dire black of the one on the hill. It had mud and rust marks on it. It looked as though someone had started out with the idea of making a very large mobile jelly mould and had changed their mind
about halfway through, when it was slightly too late. Johnny saw the driver crane his head to stare at them.

It was hard to tell much from the people on the streets. There were a lot of overcoats and hats, in a hundred shades of boredom.

‘We shouldn't hang around,' said Kirsty. ‘People are looking at us. Let's go and see if we can get a newspaper. I want to know when we are. It's so
gloomy
.'

‘Perhaps it's the Depression,' said Johnny. ‘My grandad's always going on about when he was growing up in the Depression.'

‘No TV, everyone wearing old-fashioned clothes, no decent cars,' said Bigmac. ‘No wonder everyone was depressed.'

‘Oh, God,' said Kirsty. ‘Look, try to be careful, will you? Any little thing you do could seriously affect the future. Understand?'

They entered the corner shop, leaving Bigmac outside to guard the trolley.

It was dark inside, and smelled of floorboards.

Johnny had been on a school visit once, to a sort of theme park that showed you what things had been like in the all-purpose Olden Days. It had been quite interesting, although everyone had been careful not to show it, because if you weren't careful they'd sneak education up on you while
your guard was down. The shop was a bit like that, only it had things the school one hadn't shown, like the cat asleep in the sack of dog biscuits. And the smell. It wasn't only floorboards in it. There was paraffin in it, and cooking, and candles.

A small lady in glasses looked at them carefully.

‘Yes. What can I do for you?' she said. She nodded at Yo-less.

‘Sambo's with you, dear, is he?' she added.

Chapter 6
The Olden Days

Guilty lay on top of the bags and purred.

Bigmac watched the traffic. There wasn't a lot. A couple of women met one another as they were both crossing the street, and stood there chatting in the middle of the road, although occasionally one of them would turn to look at Bigmac.

He folded his arms over HEAVY MENTAL.

And then a car pulled up, right in front of him. The driver got out, glanced at Bigmac, and walked off down the street.

Bigmac stared at the car. He'd seen ones like it on television, normally in those costume dramas where one car and two women with a selection of different hats keep going up and down the same street to try to fool people that this isn't really the present day.

The keys were still in the ignition.

Bigmac wasn't a criminal, he was just around when crimes happened. This was because of stupidity. That is, other people's stupidity. Mainly other people's stupidity in designing cars that could go from 0–120mph in ten seconds and then selling them to even more stupid people who were only interested in dull things like fuel consumption and what colour the seats were. What was the point in that? That wasn't what a car was
for
.

The keys were still in the ignition.

As far as Bigmac was concerned, he was practically doing people a favour by really seeing what their cars could do, and no way was that stealing, because he always put the cars back if he could and they were often nearly the same shape. You'd think people'd be
proud
to know their car could do 130mph along the Blackbury by-pass instead of complaining all the time.

The keys were still in the ignition. There were a million places in the world where the keys could have been, but in the ignition was where they were.

Old cars like this probably couldn't go at any speed at all.

The keys were still in the ignition. Firmly, invitingly, in the ignition.

Bigmac shifted uncomfortably.

He was aware that there were people in the world who considered it wrong to take cars that didn't belong to them but, however you looked at it …

… the keys were still in the ignition.

Johnny heard Kirsty's indrawn breath. It sounded like Concorde taking off in reverse.

He felt the room grow bigger, rushing away on every side, with Yo-less all by himself in the middle of it.

Then Yo-less said, ‘Yes, indeed. I'm with them. Lawdy, lawdy.'

The old lady looked surprised.

‘My word, you speak English very well,' she said.

‘I learned it from my grandfather,' said Yo-less, his voice as sharp as a knife. ‘He ate only very educated missionaries.'

Sometimes Johnny's mind worked fast. Normally it worked so slowly that it embarrassed him, but just occasionally it had a burst of speed.

‘He's a prince,' he said.

‘Prince Sega,' said Yo-less.

‘All the way from Nintendo,' said Johnny.

‘He's here to buy a newspaper,' said Kirsty, who in some ways did not have a lot of imagination.