Terry Prachett. Johnny and the bomb
страница №5
...olicemen."Kirsty sighed. "Honestly, you boys haven't got a clue."
She stood up, crossed the road and began to talk to the policeman. They
could hear the conversation. It went like this:
"Excuse me, officer-"
He gave her a friendly smile.
"Yes, little lady? Out in your mum's clothes, are you?"
Kristy's eyes narrowed.
"Oh, dear," said Johnny, under his breath.
"What's the matter?" said Yoless.
"Well, you know you and wouldn't "Sambo"? That's Kirsty and words like
"little lady"."***
"I was just wondering", said the little lady, through clenched teeth,
"how that big siren works."
"Oh, I shouldn't worry your head about that, love," said the policeman.
"It's very complicated. You wouldn't understand."
"Look for something to hide behind," said Johnny. "Like another
planet."
Then his mouth dropped open as Kirsty won a medal.
"It's just that I get so worried," she said, and managed a simper, or
what she probably thought was a simper. "I'm sure Mr Hitler"s bombers are
going to come one night and the siren won't go off. I can't get to sleep for
worrying!"
The policeman laid a hand on the shoulder of the girl who had left
Blackbury Karate Club because no boy would dare come within two metres of
her.
"Oh, we can't have that, love," he said. He pointed. "See up there on
Blackdown? Well, Mr Hodder and his very brave men are up there every night,
keeping a look-out. If any planes come near here tonight he'll ring the
station in a brace of shakes, don't you worry."
"But supposing the phone doesn't work?"
"Oh, then he'll be down here on his bike in no time."
"Bike? A bike? That's all?"
"It's a motorbike," said the policeman, giving her the nervous looks
everyone eventually gave Kirsty.
She just stared at him.
"It's a Blackbury Phantom," he added still further, in a tone of voice
that suggested this should impress even a girl.
"Oh? Really? Oh, that's a relief," said Kirsty. "I feel a lot better
for knowing that. Really."
"That's right. There's nothing for you to worry about, love," said the
policeman happily.
"I'll just go off and play with my dolls, I expect," said Kirsty.
"That's a good idea. Have a tea party," said the policeman, who
apparently didn't know withering scorn when he heard it.
Kirsty crossed the road and sat down on the seat.
"Yes, I expect I should have a party with all my dollies," she said,
glaring at the flowers.
Yoless looked at Johnny over her head.
"What?" he said.
"Did you hear what that ridiculous policeman said?" said Kirsty.
"Honestly, It's obvious that the stupid man thinks that just because I'm
female I've got the brains of a baby. I mean, good grief! Imagine living in
a time when people could even think like that without being prosecuted!"
"Imagine living in a time when a bomb could come through your ceiling,"
said Johnny.
"Mind you, my father said he lived in the shadow of the atomic bomb all
through the Sixties," said Kirsty.
"I think that was why he wore flares. Hah! Dollies! Pink dresses and
pink ribbons. "Don't worry your head about that, girlie." This is the dark
ages."
Yoless patted her on the arm.
"He didn't mean it . . . you know, nastily," he said. "It's just how he
was brought up. You people can't expect us to rewrite history, you know-"
Kirsty frowned at him.
"Is that sarcasm?" she said.
"Who? Me?" said Yoless innocently.
"All right, all right, you've made your point. What's so special about
a Blackbury Phantom, anyway?"
"They used to make them here," said Johnny. "They were quite famous, I
think. Grandad used to have one."
They raised their eyes to the dark shape of Blackdown. It had loomed
over the town even back in 1996, but then it had a TV mast.
"That's it?" said Kirsty. "Men just sitting on hills and listening?"
"Well, Blackbury wasn't very important," said Johnny. "We made jam and
pickles and rubber boots and that was about it."
"I wonder what's going to go wrong tonight?" said Yoless.
"We could climb up there and find out," said Johnny. "Let's go and get
the others-"
"Hang on," said Kirsty. "Think, will you? How do you know we might not
cause what's going to go wrong tonight?"
Johnny hesitated. For a moment he looked like a statue. Then he said:
"No. If we start thinking like that we'll never do anything."
"We've already messed up the future once! Everything we do affects the
future!"
"It always has. It always will. So what? Let's get the others."
Running Into Time
There was no question of using the roads, not with the police still
looking for a Bigmac who, with a wardrobe of costumes to chose from, had
chosen to go back in time wearing a German soldier's uniform.
They'd have to use the fields and footpaths. Which meant we'll have to
leave the trolley," said Yoless. "We can shove it in the bushes here."
"That means we'll be stuck here if anything goes wrong!" said Bigmac.
"Well, I'm not lugging it through mud and stuff."
"What if someone finds it?"
"There's Guilty," said Kirsty. "He's better than a guard dog."
The cat that was better than a guard dog opened one eye and yawned. It
was true. No-one would want to be bitten by that mouth. It would be like
being savaged by a plague laboratory.
Then he curled into a more comfortable ball.
"Yes, but it belongs to Mrs Tachyon," said Johnny, weakly.
"Hey, we're not thinking sensibly - again," said Kirsty. "All we have
to do is go back to 1996, go up to Blackdown on the bus, then come back in
time again and we'll be up there-"
"No!" shouted Wobbler.
His face was bright red with terror.
"I'm not stopping here by myself again! I'm stuck here, remember?
Supposing you don't come back?"
"Of course we'll come back," said Johnny. "We came back this time,
didn't we?"
"Yes, but supposing you don't? Supposing you get run over by a lorry or
something? What'll happen to me?"
Johnny thought about the long envelope in his inside pocket. Yoless and
Bigmac were looking at their feet. Even Kirsty was looking away.
"Here," said Wobbler suspiciously. "This is time travel, right? Do you
know something horrible?"
"We don't know anything," said Bigmac.
"Absolutely right," said Kirsty.
"What, us? We don't know a thing," said Johnny miserably.
"Especially about burgers," said Bigmac.
Kirsty groaned. "Bigmac!"
Wobbler glared at them.
"Oh, yes," he muttered. "It's "wind up ole Wobbler" time again, right?
Well, I'm going to stay with the trolley, right? It's not going anywhere
without me, right?"
He stared from one to the other, daring them to disagree.
"All right, I'll stay with you," said Bigmac. "I'll probably only get
shot anyway, if I go anywhere."
"What're you going to do up on Blackdown, anyway?" said Wobbler. "Find
this Mr Hodder and tell him to listen really carefully? Wash out his ears?
Eat plenty of carrots?"
"They're for good eyesight," said Yoless helpfully. "My granny said
they used to believe carrots helped you see in-"
"Who cares!"
"I don't know what we can do," said Johnny. "But . . . something must
have gone wrong, right? Maybe the message didn't get through. We'll have to
make sure it does."
"Look," said Kirsty.
The sun had already set, leaving an afterglow in the sky. And there
were clouds over Blackdown. Dark clouds.
"Thunderstorm," she said. "They always start up there."
There was a growl in the distance.
Blackbury was a lot smaller once they were in the hills. A lot of it
wasn't there at all.
"Wouldn't it be great if we could tell everyone what they're going to
do wrong," said Johnny, when they paused for breath.
"No-one'd listen," said Yoless. "Supposing someone turned up in 1996
and said they were from 2040 and started telling everyone what to do? They'd
get arrested, wouldn't they?"
Johnny looked ahead of them. The sunset sky lurked behind bars of angry
cloud.
"The listeners'll be up at the Tumps," said Kirsty. "There's an old
windmill up there. It was some kind of look-out post during the war. Is, I
mean."
"Why didn't you say so before?" said Johnny.
"It's different when it's now."
The Tumps were five mounds on top of the down. They grew heather and
wortleberries. It was said that dead kings were buried there in the days
when your enemy was at arm's length rather than ten thousand feet above your
head.
The clouds were getting lower. It was going to be one of those
Blackbury storms, a sort of angry fog that hugged the hills.
"You know what I'm thinking?" said Kirsty.
"Telephone lines," said Johnny. "They go out in thunderstorms."
"Right."
"But the policeman said there was a motorbike," said Yoless.
"Starts first time, does it?" said Johnny. "I remember my grandad said
that before you were qualified to ride a Blackbury Phantom you had to learn
to push it fifty metres, cursing all the way. He said they were great bikes
when they got started."
"How long is it till . . . you know . . . the bombs?"
"About an hour."
Which means they're already on the way, Johnny thought. Men have walked
out onto airfields and loaded bombs onto planes with names like Dormers and
Heinkels. And other men have sat round in front of a big map of England,
only it'd be in German, and there'd be crayon marks around Slate. Blackbury
probably wasn't even on the map. And then they'd get up and walk out and get
into the planes and take off. And men on the planes would get out their maps
and draw lines on them; lines which crossed at Slate. Your mission for
tonight: bomb the goods yard at Slate.
And then the roar filled his ears. The drone of the engines came up
through his legs. He could taste the oil and the sweat and the stale rubber
smell of the oxygen mask. His body shook with the throb of the engines and
also with the thump of distant explosions. One was very close and the whole
aircraft seemed to slide sideways. And he knew what the mission for tonight
was. Your mission for tonight is to get home safely. It always was.
Another explosion shook the plane, and someone grabbed him.
"What?"
"It's weird when you do that!" shouted Kirsty, above the thunder. "Come
on! It's dangerous out here! Haven't you got enough sense to get out of the
rain?"
"It's starting to happen," Johnny whispered, while the storm broke
around him.
"What is?"
"The future!"
He blinked as the rain started to plaster his hair against his head. He
could feel time stretching out around him. He could feel its slow movement
as it carried forward all those grey bombs and those white doorsteps,
pulling them together like bubbles being swirled around a whirlpool. They
were all earned along by it. You couldn't break out of it because you were
part of it. You couldn't steer a train.
"We'd better get him under cover!" shouted Yoless as lightning hit
something a little way off. "He doesn't look well at all!"
They staggered on, occasionally lurking under a wind-bent tree to get
their breath back.
There was a windmill among the Tumps. It had been built on one of the
mounds, although the sails had long gone. The others put their arms around
Johnny and ran through the soaking heather until they reached it and climbed
the steps.
Yoless hammered on the door. It opened a fraction.
"Good lord!" said a voice. It sounded like the voice of a young man.
"What're you? A circus?"
"You've got to let us in!" said Kirsty. "He's ill!"
"Can't do that," said the voice. "Not allowed, see?"
"Do we look like spies?" shouted Yoless.
"Please!" said Kirsty.
The door started to close, and then stopped.
"Well . . . all right," said the voice, as unseen hands pulled the door
open. "But Mr Hodder says to stand where we can see you, okay? Come on in."
"It's happening," said Johnny, who still had his eyes closed. "The
telephone won't work."
"What's he going on about?"
"Can you try the telephone?" said Kirsty.
"Why? What's wrong with it?" said the boy. "We tested it out at the
beginning of the shift just now. Has anyone been mucking about with it?"
There was an older man sitting at a table. He gave them a suspicious
look, which lingered for a while on Yoless.
"I reckon you'd better try the station," he said. "I don't like the
sound of all this. Seems altogether a bit suspicious to me."
The first man reached out towards the phone.
There was a sound outside as lightning struck somewhere close. It
wasn't a zzzippp-it was almost a gentle silken hiss, as the sky was cut in
half.
Then the phone exploded. Bits of bakelite and copper clattered off the
walls.
Kristy's hand flew to her head.
"My hair stood on end!"
"So did mine," said Yoless. "And that doesn't often happen, believe
me," he added.
"Lightning hit the wire," said Johnny. "I knew that.
Not just here. Other stations on the hills, too. And now he'll have
trouble with the motorbike."
"What's he going on about?"
"You've got a motorbike, haven't you?" said Kirsty.
"So what?"
"Good grief, man, you've lost your telephone! Aren't you supposed to do
something about that?"
The men looked at one another. Girls weren't supposed to shout like
Kirsty.
"Tom, nip down to Doctor Atkinson's and use his phone and tell the
station ours has gone for a burton," said Mr Hodder, not taking his eyes off
the three. "Tell them about these kids, too."
"It won't start," said Johnny. "It's the carburettor, I think. That . .
. always gives trouble."
The one called Tom looked at him sideways. There was a change in the
air. Up until now the men had just been suspicious. Now they were uneasy,
too.
"How did you know that?" he said.
Johnny opened his mouth. And shut it again.
He couldn't tell them about the feel of the time around him. He felt
that if he could only focus his eyes properly, he could even see it. The
past and future were there, just around some kind of corner, bound up to the
ever-travelling now by a billion connections. He felt that he could almost
reach out and point, not there or over there or up there but there, at right
angles to everywhere else.
"They're on their way," he said. "They'll be here in half an hour."
"What will? What's he going on about?"
"Blackbury's going to be bombed tonight," said Kirsty. Thunder rolled
again.
"We think," said Yoless.
"Five planes," said Johnny.
He opened his eyes. Everything overlapped like a scene in a
kaleidoscope. Everyone was staring at him, but they were surrounded by
something like fog. When they moved, images followed them like some kind of
special effect.
"It's the storm and the clouds," he managed to say. "They think they're
going to Slate but they'll drop their bombs over Blackbury."
"Oh, yes? And how d'you know this, then? They told you, did they?"
"Listen, you stupid man," said Kirsty. "We're not spies! Why would we
tell you if we were?"
Mr Hodder pulled open the door.
"I'm going down to use the doctor's phone," he said. "Then maybe we can
sort out what's going on."
"What about the bombers?" said Kirsty.
The older man opened the door. The thunder had rolled away to the
north-east, and there was no sound but the hiss of the rain.
"What bombers?" he said, and shut it behind him.
Johnny sat down with his head in his hands, blinking his eyes again to
shut out the flickering images.
"You lot'd better get out," said Tom. "It's against the rules, having
people in here . . . "
Johnny blinked. There were more bombers in front on his eyes. and they
didn't go away.
He scrabbled at the playing cards on the table.
"What're these for?" he said urgently. "Playing cards with bombers on
them?"
"Eh? What? Oh . . . that's for learning aircraft recognition," said
Tom, who'd been careful to keep the table between him and Johnny. "You plays
cards with "em and you sort of picks up the shapes, like."
"You learn subliminally?" said Kirsty.
"Oh, no, you learn from playing with these here cards," said Tom
desperately. Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a
motorbike.
Johnny stood up.
"All right," he said. "I can prove it. The next card ... the next card
you show me . . . the next card . . . "
Images filled his eyes. If this is how Mrs Tachyon sees the world, he
thought, no wonder she never seems all there because she's everywhere.
Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a motorbike
even harder.
" . . . the next card . . . will be the five of diamonds."
"I don't see why I should have to play games-" The man glanced
nervously at Kirsty, who had that effect on people.
"Scared?" she said.
He grabbed a card at random and held it up.
"It's the five of diamonds all right," said Yoless.
Johnny nodded. "The next one.. . the next one . . . the next one will
be the knave of hearts."
It was.
Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a motorbike
very hard and swearing.
"It's a trick," said the man. "One of you messed around with the pack."
"Shuffle them all you like," said Johnny. "And the next one you show me
will be . . . the ten of clubs."
"How did you do that?" said Yoless, as the boy turned the card over and
stared at it.
"Er . . . " It had felt like memory, he told himself. "I remembered
seeing it," said Johnny.
"You remembered seeing it before you actually saw it?" said Kirsty.
Outside, there was the sound of someone trying to start a motorbike very
hard and swearing even harder.
"Er . . . yes."
"Oh, wow," she said. "Precognition. You're probably a natural medium."
"Er, I'm a size eleven," said Johnny, but they weren't listening.
Kirsty had turned to Tom.
"You see?" she said. "Now do you believe us?"
"I don't like this. This isn't right," he said. "Anyway . . . anyway,
There's no phone-"
The door burst open.
"All right!" roared Mr Hodder. "What did you kids do to my bike?"
"It's the carburettor," said Johnny. "I told you."
"Here, Arthur, you ought to listen to this, this boy knows things-"
Kirsty glanced at her watch.
"Twenty minutes," she said. "It's more than two miles down to the town.
Even if we ran I'm not sure we could do it."
"What're you talking about now?" said Mr Hodder.
"There must be some kind of code," said Kirsty. "If you have to ring up
and tell them to sound the siren, what do you say?"
"Don't tell them!" snapped Mr Hodder.
" "This is station BD3"," said Johnny, his eyes looking unfocussed.
"How did you know that? Did he tell you? Did you tell them?"
"No, Arthur!"
"Come on," said Kirsty, hurrying towards the door. "I got a county
medal in athletics!"
She elbowed the older man aside.
The thunder was growling away in the east. The storm had settled down
to a steady, grey rain.
"We'll never make it," said Yoless.
"I thought you people were good at running," said Kirsty, stepping out.
"People of my height, you mean?"
"You were right," said the young man, as Johnny was dragged out into
the night, "This is station BD3!"
"I know," said Johnny. "I remembered you just telling me."
He staggered and grabbed at Yoless to stay upright. The world was
spinning around him. He hadn't felt like this since that business with the
cider at Christmas. The voices around him seemed to be muffled, and he
couldn't be sure whether they were really there, or voices he was
remembering, or words that hadn't even been spoken yet.
He felt that his mind was being shaken loose in time, and it was only
still here because his body was a huge great anchor.
"It's downhill all the way," said Kirsty, and sped off Yoless followed
her.
Far away, down in the town, a church clock began to strike eleven.
Johnny tried to lumber into a run, but the ground kept shifting under
his feet.
Why are we doing this? He thought. We know it happened, I've got a copy
of the paper in my pocket, the bombs will land and the siren won't go off
You can't steer a train!
That's what you think, said a voice in his head . . .
He wished he'd been better at this. He wished he'd been a hero.
From up ahead, he heard Yoless's desperate cry.
"I've tripped over a sheep! I've tripped over a sheep!"
The lights of Blackbury spread out below them. There weren't many of
them - the occasional smudge from a car, the tiny gleam from a window where
the moths had got at the blackout curtain.
A wind had followed the storm. Streamers of cloud blew across the sky.
Here and there a star shone through.
They ran on. Yoless ran into another sheep in the blackness.
There was the crunch of heavy boots on the road behind them and Tom
caught them up.
"If you're wrong there's going to be big trouble!" he panted.
"What if we're right?" said Kirsty.
"I hope You're wrong!"
Thunder rumbled again, but the four runners plunged on in a bubble of
desperate silence.
They were leaving the moor behind. There were hedges on either side of
the road now.
Tom's boots skidded to a halt.
"Listen!"
They stopped. There was the grumbling of the thunder and the hiss of
the rain.
And, behind the noises of the weather, a faint and distant droning.
Gravel flew up as the young man started to run again. He'd been moving
fast before but now he flew down the road.
A large house loomed up against the night. He leapt over the fence,
pounded across the lawns, and started to hammer on the front door.
"Open up! Open up! It's an emergency!"
Johnny and the others reached the gate. The droning was louder now.
We could have done something, Johnny thought. I could have done
something. I could've . . . well, there must have been something. We thought
it would be so easy. Just because we're from the future. What do we know
about anything? And now the bombers are nearly here and there's nothing we
can do.
"Come on! Open up!"
Yoless found a gate and hurried through it. There was a splash in the
darkness.
"I think I've stepped into some sort of pond," said a damp voice.
Tom stepped away from the house and groped on the ground for something.
"Maybe I can smash a window," he mumbled.
"Er . . . It's quite deep," said Yoless, damply. "And I'm caught up on
some kind of fountain thing. . . "
Glass tinkled. Tom reached through the window beside the door. There
was a click, and the door opened.
They heard him trip over something inside, and then a weak light went
on. Another click and
"This phone's dead too! The lightning must've got the exchange!"
"Where's the next house?" said Kirsty, as Tom hurtled down the path.
"Not till Roberts Road!"
They ran after him, Yoless squelching slightly.
The drone was much louder now. Johnny could hear it above the sound of
his own breath.
Someone must notice it in the town, he thought. It fills the whole sky!
Without saying anything, they all began to run faster
And, at last, the siren began to wail.
But the clouds were parting and the moon shone through and there were
shadows nosing through the rags of cloud and Johnny could feel the unseen
shapes turning over and over as they drifted towards the ground.
First there was the allotment, and then the pickle factory, and then
Paradise Street exploded gently, like a row of roses opening. The petals
were orange tinged with black and unfolded one after another, as the bombs
fell along the street.
Then the sounds arrived. They weren't bangs but crunches, punches,
great wads of noise hammered into the head.
Finally they died away, leaving only a distant crackling and the rising
sound of a fire bell.
"Oh, no!" said Kirsty.
Tom had stopped. He stood and stared at the distant flames.
"The phone wasn't working," he whispered. "I tried to get here but the
phone wasn't working."
"We're time travellers!" said Yoless. "This isn't supposed to happen!"
Johnny swayed slightly. The feeling was like flu, but much worse. He
felt as if he were outside his own body, watching himself.
It was the hereness of here, the nowness of now . . . People survived
by not paying any attention to feelings like this. If you stopped, and
opened your head to them, the world would roll over you like a tank . . .
Paradise Street was always going to be bombed. It was being bombed. It
would have been bombed. Tonight was a fossil in time. It was a thing.
Somewhere, it would always have happened. You couldn't steer a train!
That's what you think . . .
Somewhere . . .
Flames flickered over the housetops. More bells were ringing.
"The bike wouldn't start!" mumbled Tom. "The phone wouldn't work! There
was a storm! I tried to get down here in time! How could it have been my
fault?"
Somewhere . . .
Johnny felt it again . . . the sense that he could reach out and go in
directions not found on any map or compass but only on a clock. It poured up
from inside him until he felt that it was leaking out of his fingers. He
hadn't got the trolley or the bags but . . . maybe he could remember how it
felt . . .
"We've got time," he said.
"Are you mad?" said Kirsty.
"Are you going to come or not?" said Johnny.
"Where?"
Johnny took her hand, and reached out for Yoless with his other hand.
Then he nodded towards Tom, who was still staring at the flames.
"Grab him, too," he said. "We'll need him when we get there."
"Where?"
Johnny tried to grin.
"Trust me," he said. "Someone has to."
He started to walk. Tom was dragged along with them like a sleepwalker.
"Faster," said Johnny. "Or we'll never get there."
"Look, the bombs have fallen," said Kirsty, wearily. "It's happened."
"Right. It had to," said Johnny. "Otherwise we couldn't get there
before it did. Faster. Run."
He pushed forward, dragging them after him.
"I suppose we might be able to . . . help," panted Yoless. "I know . .
. first aid."
"First aid?" said Kirsty. "You saw the explosions!"
Beside her, the young man suddenly seemed to wake up. He stared at the
fire in the town and lurched forward. And then they were all running, all
trying to keep up, all causing the others to go faster.
And there was the road, in that direction.
Johnny took it.
The dark landscape lit up in shades of grey, like a very old film. The
sky went from black to an inky purple. And everything around them looked
cold, like crystal; all the leaves and bushes glittering as if they were
covered in frost.
He couldn't feel cold. He couldn't feel anything.
Johnny ran. The road under his feet was sticky, as though he was trying
to sprint in treacle.
And the air filled with the noise he'd last heard from the bags, a
great whispering rush of sound, like a million radio stations slightly out
of tune.
Beside him Yoless tried to say something, but no words came out. He
pointed with his free hand, instead.
Blackbury lay ahead of them. It wasn't the town he knew in 1996, and it
wasn't the one from 1941 either. It glowed.
Johnny had never seen the Northern Lights. He'd read about them,
though. The book said that on very cold nights sometimes the lights would
come marching down from the North Pole, hanging in the sky like curtains of
frozen blue fire.
That was how the town looked. It gleamed, as cold as starlight on a
winter night.
He risked a glance behind.
There, the sky was red, a deep crimson that brightened to a ruby glow
at its centre.
And he knew that if he stopped running it would all end. The road would
be a road again, the sky would be the sky . . . but if he just kept going in
this direction . . .
He forced his legs to move onward, pedalling in slow motion through the
thick, cold, silent air. The town got closer, brighter.
Now the others were pulling on his arms. Kirsty was trying to shout
too, but there was no sound here except the roar of all the tiny noises.
He snatched, at their fingers, trying to hold on . . .
And then the blue rushed towards him and met the red coming the other
way and he was toppling forward onto the road.
He heard Kirsty say, "I'm covered in ice!"
Johnny pushed himself to his feet and stared at his own arms. Ice
crackled and fell off his sleeves as he moved.
Yoless looked white. Frost steamed off his face.
"What did we do? What did we do?" said Kirsty.
"Listen, will you?" said Yoless. "Listen!"
There was a whirring somewhere in the darkness, and a clock began to
strike.
Johnny listened. They were on the edge of town. There was no traffic in
the dark streets. But there were no fires, either. There was the muffled
sound of laughter from a nearby pub, and the chink of glasses.
The clock went on striking. The last note died away. A cat yowled.
"Eleven o'clock?" said Kirsty. "But we heard eleven o'clock when we . .
. were . . . on the downs . . . "
She turned and stared at Johnny.
"You took us back in time?"
"Not . . . back, I think," said Johnny. "I think . . . behind. Outside.
Around. Across. I don't know!"
Tom had managed to get to his knees. What they could see of his face in
the dusk said that here was a man to whom too much had happened, and whose
brain was floating loose.
"We've got seven minutes," said Johnny.
"Huh?" said Tom.
"To get them to sound the siren!" shouted Kirsty.
"Huh? The bombs . . . I saw the fires . . . it wasn't my fault, the
phone-"
"They didn't! But they will! Unless you do something! Right now! On
your feet right now!" shouted Kirsty.
No-one could resist a voice like that. It went right through the brain
and gave its commands directly to the muscles. Tom rose like a lift.
"Good! Now come on!"
The police station was at the end of the street. They reached the door
in a group and fought one another to get through it.
There was an office inside, with a counter running across it to
separate the public from the forces of Law and Order. A policeman was
standing behind it. He had been writing in a large book, but now he was
looking up with his mouth open.
"Hello, Tom," he said. "What's going on?"
"You've got to sound the siren!" said Johnny.
"Right now!" said Kirsty.
The sergeant looked from one to the other and then at Yoless, where his
gaze lingered for a while. Then he turned and glanced at a man in military
uniform who was sitting writing at a desk in the office. The sergeant was
the sort of man who liked an audience if he thought he was going to be
funny.
"Oh, yes?" he said. "And why should I do that, then?"
"They're right, sergeant," said Tom. "You've got to do it! We . . . ran
all the way!"
"What, off the down?" said the sergeant. "That's two miles, that is.
Sounds a bit fishy to me, young man. Been round the back of the pub again,
have you? Hah . . . remember that Dormer 111 bomber you heard last week?" He
turned and smirked at the officer again. "A lorry on the Slate road, that
was!"
Kristy's patience, which in any case was only visible with special
scientific equipment, came to an end.
"Don't you patronize us, you ridiculous buffoon!" she screamed.
The sergeant went red and took a deep breath. Then it was let out
suddenly.
"Hey, where do you think You're going?"
Tom had scrambled over the desk. The soldier stood up but was pushed
out of the way.
The young man reached the switch, and pulled it down.
You Want Fries With That?
Wobbler and Bigmac skulked behind the church.
"They've been gone a long time," said Bigmac.
"It's a long way up there," said Wobbler.
"I bet something's happened. They've been shot or something."
"Huh, I thought you liked guns," said Wobbler.
"I don't mind guns. I don't like bullets," said Bigmac. "And I don't
want to get stuck here with you!"
"We've got the time trolley," said Wobbler. "But do you know how to
work it? I reckon you've got to be half mental like Johnny to work it. I
don't want to end up fighting Romans or something."
"You won't," said Bigmac.
He froze as he realized what he'd said. Wobbler homed in.
"What do you mean, stuck here with you? What does happen if I don't go
home?" he said. "You lot went back to 1996. I wasn't there, right?"
"Oh, you don't want to know any stuff like that," said Bigmac.
"Oh, yeah?"
"You come in here and act cheeky-" the sergeant began.
"Be quiet!" snapped Captain Harris, standing up. "Why doesn't your
siren work?"
"We tests it every Tuesday and Friday, reg'lar-" said the sergeant.
"There's a hole in the ceiling," said Yoless.
Tom stood looking at the switch. He was certain he'd done his bit. He
wasn't sure how, but he'd done it. And things that should be happening next
weren't happening.
"It wasn't my fault," he mumbled.
"Your man fired a gun," said the sergeant. "We never did know where the
bullet went."
"We know now," said the captain grimly. "It's hit a wire somewhere."
"There's got to be some other way," said Johnny. "It mustn't end like
this! Not after everything! Look!"
He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and held it up.
"What's that?" said the captain.
"It's tomorrow's newspaper," said Johnny. "If the siren doesn't go
off."
The captain stared at it.
"Oh, trying to pull our leg, eh?" said the police sergeant nervously.
The captain turned his eyes from the paper to Johnny's wrist. He
grabbed it.
"Where did you get this watch?" he snapped. "I've seen one like it
before! Where do you come from, boy?"
"Here," said Johnny. "Sort of. But not . . . now."
There was a moment's silence. Then the captain nodded at the sergeant.
"Ring up the local newspaper, will you?" he said. "It's a morning
paper, isn't it? Someone should still be there."
"You're not seriously-"
"Please do it."
Seconds ticked by as the policeman huddled over the big black phone. He
muttered a few words.
"I've got Mr Stickers, the chief compositor," he said. "He says They're
just clearing the front page and what do we want?"
The captain glanced at the paper, and sniffed at it.
"Fish? Never mind . . . is there an advertisement for Johnson's Cocoa
in the bottom left hand corner of the page? Don't stare. Ask him."
There was some mumbling.
"He says yes, but-"
The captain turned the page over.
"On page two, is there a single column story headed "Fined 2/6p for
Bike Offence"? On the crossword, is One Down "Bird of Stone, We Hear" with
three letters? Next to an advertisement for Plant's Brushless Shaving
Creams? Ask him."
The sergeant glared at him, but spoke to the distant Stickers.
"Roc," said Kirsty, in an absentminded way.
The captain raised an eyebrow.
"It's a mythical bird, I think," said Yoless, in the same hypnotized
voice. "Spelled like "rock" but without a K. "We hear" means it sounds the
same."
"He says yes," said the sergeant. "He says-"
"Thank you. Tell him to be ready in case . . . no, Let's not be hasty .
. . just thank him."
There was a click when the sergeant put the phone down.
Then the captain said, "Do you know how long We've got?"
"Three minutes," said Johnny.
"Can we get on the roof, sergeant?" said the captain. "Dunno, but-"
"Is there some other siren in the town?"
"There's a manky old wind-up thing we used to use, but-"
"Where is it?"
"It's under the bench in the Lost Property cupboard but-"
There was a leathery noise and suddenly the captain was holding a
pistol.
"You can argue with me afterwards," he said. "You can report me to
whomever you like. But right now you can give me the keys or unlock the
blasted cupboard, or I'll shoot the lock off. And I've always wanted to try
that, believe me."
"You don't believe these kids, do-"
"Sergeant!"
In a sudden panic, the sergeant fumbled in his pockets and trotted
across the room.
"You do believe us?" said Kirsty.
"I'm not sure," said the captain, as the sergeant dragged out something
big and heavy. "Thank you, sergeant. Let's get it outside. No. I'm not sure
at all, young lady. But I might believe that watch. Besides . . . if I'm
wrong, then all that will happen is that I'll look foolish, and I daresay
the sergeant will give you all a thick ear. If I'm right then . . . this
won't happen?" He waved the paper.
"I . . . think so," said Johnny. "I don't even know if arty of this
will happen . . . "
Bigmac was on the floor with Wobbler on top of him. Wobbler might not
know how to fight, but he did know how to weigh.
"Get off!" said Bigmac, flailing around. Trying
vicious street-fight punches on Wobbler was like hitting a pillow.
"I'm still alive in 1996, Aren't I?" said Wobbler. "Cos I've been born,
right? So even if I never time travel back I ought to still be alive in
1996, right? I bet you
know something about me!"
"No, no, we never met you!"
"I'm alive, then? You do know something, right?"
"Get off, I can't breathe!"
"Come on, tell me!
"You're not supposed to know what's going to
happen!"
"Who says? Who says?"
There was a yowl behind him. Wobbler turned his
head. Bigmac looked up.
Guilty the cat stretched lazily, yawned, and hopped down off the bags.
He padded confidently alongside the mossy wall, moving in his lurching
diagonal fashion, and disappeared around the building.
"Where's it going?" said Wobbler.
"How should I know? Get off "f me!"
The boys followed the cat, who didn't seem at all
bothered by their presence.
He stopped at the church door and lay down with
his front paws outstretched.
"First time I've seen him go away from the trolley,"
said Bigmac.
And then they heard it.
Nothing.
The faint noises of the town didn't stop. There was the sound of a
piano from a pub somewhere. A door opened, and there was laughter. A car
went by slowly, in the distance. But suddenly the sounds were coming from a
long way off, as if there was some sort of thick invisible wall.
"You know those bombs . . . " said Wobbler, not taking his eyes off the
cat.
"What bombs?" said Bigmac.
"The bombs Johnny's been going on about."
"Yeah?" said Bigmac.
"Can you remember what time he said? It was pretty soon, I think."
"Brilliant! I've never seen anywhere bombed," said Bigmac.
Guilty started to purr, very loudly.
"Er . . . you know my sister lives in Canada," said Wobbler, in a
worried voice.
"What about her? What's she got to do with anything?"
"Well . . . she sent me a postcard once. There's this cliff there,
right, where the Indians used to drive herds of buffalo over to kill them .
. . "
"Isn't geography wonderful."
"Yeah, only . . . there was this Indian, right, and he wondered what
the drive would look like from underneath . . . and that's why It's called
Head-Bashed-In Jump. Really."
They both turned and looked at the chapel.
"This is still here in 1996," said Bigmac. "I mean, It's not going to
get bombed. . . "
"Yeah, but don't you think it'd be better to be sort of behind it"
The wail of a siren rose and fell.
There were faint noises in Paradise Street. Someone must have moved a
blackout curtain, because light showed for a moment. Someone else shouted,
in a back garden somewhere.
"Great!" said Bigmac. "All we need is popcorn."
"But It's going to happen to real people!" said Wobbler, aware that
real people could include him.
"No, "cos the siren's gone off. They'll all be down their bomb
shelters. That's the whole point. Anyway, it'd happen anyway, right? It's
history, okay? It'd be like going back to 1066 and watching the Battle of...
whatever it was. It's not often you get to see an entire pickled onion
factory blow up, either."
People were certainly moving. Wobbler could hear them in the night. A
sound from this end of the street was exactly like someone walking into a
tin bath in the darkness.
And then . . .
"Listen," said Bigmac, uncertainly.
Guilty sat up and looked alert.
There was a faint droning noise in the east.
"Brilliant," said Bigmac.
Wobbler edged towards the side of the church.
"This isn't television," he mumbled.
The droning got closer.
"Wish I'd brought my camera," said Bigmac.
A door opened. An avenue of yellow light spilled out into the night and
a small figure dashed along it and came to a halt in the middle street.
It shouted: "Our Ron'll get you!"
The drone filled the sky.
Bigmac and Wobbler started running together. They cleared the
churchyard steps in one jump and pounded towards the boy, who was dancing
around waving a fist at the sky.
The aircraft were right overhead.
Bigmac got to him first and lifted him off his feet.
Then he skidded on the cobbles as he turned and headed back towards the
church.
They were halfway there when they heard the whistling.
They were at the top of the steps when the first bomb hit the
allotments.
They were jumping behind the wall when the second and third bombs hit
the pickle factory.
They were landing on the grass as the bombs marched up the street and
filled the air with a noise so loud it couldn't be heard and a light so
white it came right through the eyelids, and then the roar picked up the
ground and shook it like a blanket.
That was the worst part, Wobbler said later. And it was hard to find
the worst part because all the others were so bad. But the ground should be
the ground, there, solid, dependably under you. It shouldn't drop away and
then come back up and hit you so hard.
Then there was a sound like a swarm of angry bees.
And then there was just the clink of collapsing brickwork and the
crackle of fires.
Wobbler raised his head, very slowly.
"Ugh," he said.
There were no leaves on the trees behind them. And the trunks sparkled.
He got up very slowly, and reached out.
It was glass. Bits of glass studded the whole trunk of the tree. There
were no leaves any more. Just glass.
Beside him, Bigmac got to his feet like someone in a dream.
A flying pan had hit the church door so hard that it had been driven in
halfway, like a very domesticated martial arts weapon. A stone doorstep had
smashed a chunk out of the brickwork.
And everywhere there was glass, crunching underfoot like permanent
hail. It glittered on the walls, reflecting the fires in the ruins. There
seemed far too much to be from just a few house windows.
And then it began to rain.
First it rained vinegar.
And then it rained pickles.
There was red liquid all over Bigmac. He licked a finger and then held
it up.
"Tomato sauce!"
A gherkin bounced off Wobbler's head.
Bigmac started to laugh. People can start laughing for all sorts of
reasons. But sometimes they laugh because, against all expectations, They're
still alive and have a mouth left to laugh with.
"You-" he tried to say, "You- you- you want fries with that?"
It was the funniest thing Wobbler had ever heard. Right now it was the
funniest thing anyone had ever said anywhere. He laughed until the tears ran
down his face and mingled with the mustard pickle.
From somewhere in the shadows by the wall a small voice said, "Ere, did
anyone get any shrapnel?"
Bigmac started to laugh on top of the laugh he was already laughing,
which caused a sound like a boiler trying not to burst.
"What, what, what's shrapnel anyway?" he managed to say.
"It's . . . It's . . . It's bits of bomb!"
"You want fries with that?" said Bigmac, and almost collapsed with
laughing.
The siren sang out again. But this time it wasn't the rising and
falling wail but one long tone, which eventually died away.
"They're coming back!" said Wobbler. The laughter drained out of him as
though a trapdoor had been opened.
"Nah, that's the All Clear," said the voice by the wall. "Don't you
know nuffin'?"
Wobbler's grandfather stood up and looked down the length of what had
once been Paradise Street.
"Cor!" he said, obviously impressed.
There wasn't a whole house left standing. Roofs had gone, windows had
blown out. Half of the buildings had simply vanished into rubble, which
spilled across the street.
Bells rang in the distance. Two fire engines skidded to a halt right
outside the church. An ambulance pulled up behind them.
"You want-" Bigmac began.
"Shut up, will you?" said Wobbler.
There were fires everywhere. Big fires, little fires. The pickle
factory was well alight and smelled like the biggest fish and chip shop in
the world.
People were running from every direction. Some of them were pulling at
the rubble. There was a lot of shouting.
"I suppose everyone . . . would've got out, right?" said Wobbler. "They
would have got out, wouldn't they?"
The siren's wail slowed to a growl and then a clicking noise, and then
stopped.
Johnny felt as though his feet weren't exactly on the ground. If he
were any lighter he'd float away.
"They must have got out. They had nearly a whole minute," he said.
The sergeant had already headed toward Paradise Street. The three of
them had been left with Tom and the captain, who was watching Johnny
thoughtfully.
Things pattered onto the roof of the police station and bounced down
into the street. Yoless picked one up.
"Pickled onions?" he said.
They could see the flames over the rooftops.
"So . . . " said the captain. "You were right. A bit of an adventure,
yes? And this is where I say "Well done, chums", isn't it . . . "
He walked to the yard door and shut it. Then he turned.
"I can't let you go," he said. "You must know that. You were with that
other boy, weren't you. The one with the strange devices."
There seemed no point in denying it.
"Yes," said Johnny.
"I think you might know a lot of things. Things that we need. And we
certainly need them. Perhaps you know that?" He sighed. "I don't like this.
You may have saved some lives tonight. But It's possible that you could save
a lot more. Do you understand?"
"We won't tell you anything," said Kirsty.
"Just name, rank and serial number, eh?" said the captain.
"Supposing we . . . did know things," said Johnny. "It wouldn't do you
any good. And those things won't help, either. They won't make the war
better; They'll just make it different. Everything happens somewhere."
"Right now, I think we'd settle for different. We've got some very
clever men," said the captain.
"Please, captain." It was Tom.
"Yes?"
"They didn't have to do all this, sir. I mean, they came and told us
about the bombing, didn't they? And . . . I don't know how they got me down
here, sir, but they did. "S not right to put them in prison, sir."
"Oh, not prison," said the captain. "A country house somewhere. Three
square meals a day. And lots of people who'll want to talk to them."
Kirsty burst into tears.
"Now, no-one's going to hurt you, little girl," said the captain. He
moved over and put his arm around her shaking shoulders.
Johnny and Yoless looked at one another, and took a few steps
backwards.
"It's all right," said the captain. "We just need to know some things,
that's all. Things that may be going to happen."
"Well, one thing. . . " sobbed Kirsty, "one thing . . . one thing
that's going to happen is . . . one thing is . . ."
"Yes?" said the captain.
Kirsty reached out and took his hand. Then her leg shot out and she
pivoted, hauling on the man's arm. He somersaulted over her shoulder and
landed on his back on the cobbles. Even as he tried to struggle upright she
was spinning around again, and caught him full in the chest with a foot. He
slumped backwards.
Kirsty straightened her hat and nodded at the others.
"Chauvinist. Honestly, It's like being back with the dinosaurs. Shall
we go?" she said.
Tom backed away.
"Where do girls learn to do that?" he said.
"At school," said Johnny. "You'd be amazed."
Kirsty reached down and took the captain's pistol.
"Oh, no," said Yoless. "Not guns! You can get into real trouble with
guns!"
"I happen to be the under-18 county champion," said Kirsty, unloading
the gun. "But I'm not intending to use it. I just don't want him to get
excited." She threw the pistol behind some dustbins. "Now, are we going, or
what?"
Johnny looked around at Tom.
"Sorry about this," he said. "Can you, er, explain things to him when
he wakes up?"
"I wouldn't know how to start! I don't know what happened myself!"
"Good," said Kirsty firmly.
"I mean, did I run down here or not?" said Tom. "I thought I saw the
bombing but - I must've imagined it, because it didn't happen until after we
got here!"
"It was probably the excitement," said Yoless.
"The mind plays strange tricks," said Kirsty.
They both glared at Johnny.
"Don't look at me," he said. "I don't know anything about anything."
Up Another Leg
What Bigmac said afterwards was that he'd never intended to help. It
had been like watching a film until he'd seen people scrabbling at the
wreckage. Then he'd stepped through the screen.
Fireman were pouring water on the flames. People were pulling at fallen
timbers, or moving ging...
