Johnny and the Bomb

"Er! Er! Someone called Mrs Density!" said Wobbler, desperation throwing up a memory.

"Number Eleven," said Johnny, pulling out a photocopy of a newspaper clipping. "Lived there with her daughter Gladys. I got all the names for my project."

"My gran's name was Gladys!" said Wobbler. "You mean, because he didn't run off back to London, he's going to die tonight and I'm not going to be born?"

"Could be," said Yoless.

"What'll happen to me?"

"You'll just have to stay here," said Johnny.

"No ways This is the olden days! It's awful! I went past a cinema and it's all old movies! In black and white! And there was this cafe and you know what they'd got chalked on a board in front? "Meat and two veg"! What kind of food is that? Even Hong Kong Henry's takeaway tells you what kind of meat!

Everyone dresses like someone out of Eastern Europe! I'd go round the bend here!"

"My grandad always goes on about how they used to have so much fun when he was a kid even though they didn't have anything," said Bigmac.

"Yes, but everyone's grandad says that," said Kirsty. "It's compulsory. It's like where they say "50p for a chocolate bar? When I was young you could get one and still have change out of sixpence."

"I think they had fun," said Johnny, "because they didn't know they didn't have anything."

"Well, I know," said Wobbler. "I know about food that's more than two colours, and stereo systems, and decent music and ... and all kinds of stuff! I want to go home!"

They all looked at Johnny.

"You got us into this," said Yoless.

Me.

"It's your imagination," said Kirsty. "It's too big for your head, just like Sir J ... " She stopped. "Just like I've always said," she corrected herself, "and it drags everyone else along with it. I don't know how, but it does. You got all worked up about Paradise Street, and now here we are."

"You said it didn't make any difference if the street got bombed or not," said Johnny. "You said it was just history!"

"I don't want to be history!" moaned Wobbler.

"All right, you win," said Kirsty. "What do you want us to do?"

Johnny shuffled the papers.

"Well ... what I found out for my project was that ... there was a big storm, you see. The weather got very bad. And the bombers must've seen Blackbury and dropped their bombs anyway and turned around. That used to happen. There was ... there is an air raid siren. It was supposed to go off if bombers were near," he said. "Only it didn't."

"Why not?"

The folder shut with a snap.

"Let's start by finding out," said Johnny.

It was on a pole on the roof in the High Street. It didn't look very big.

"That's all it is?" said Yoless. "Looks like a giant yoyo."

"That's an air-raid siren all right," said Kirsty. "I saw a picture in a book."

"How d'they work? Set off by radar or something?"

"I'm sure that's not been invented yet," said Johnny.

"Well, how then?"

"Maybe there's a switch somewhere?"

"It'd be somewhere safe, then," said Yoless. "Somewhere where people wouldn't be able to set it off for a laugh."

Their joint gaze travelled down the pole, across the roof, down the wall, past the blue lamp, and stopped when it met the words: "Police Station".

"Oh, dear," said Yoless.

They sat down on a bench by a civic flowerbed, opposite the door. A policeman came out and stood in the sunshine, watching them back.

"It's a good job we left Bigmac to guard the trolley," said Yoless.

"Yes," said Johnny. "He's always been allergic to policemen."

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 gingerly through each stricken house, calling out names - in a strange, polite way, in the circumstances.

"Yoo-hoo, Mr Johnson?"

"Excuse me, Mrs Density, are you there?"

"Mrs Williams? Anyone?"

And Wobbler said afterwards that he could remember three things. One was the strange metallic clinking sound bricks make as piles of them slide around. One was the smell of wet burnt wood. And one was the bed. The blast had taken off the roof and half the walls of a house but there was a double bed hanging out over the road. It even still had the sheets on it. It creaked up and down in the wind.

The two boys scrambled over the sliding rubble until they reached a back garden. Glass and bricks covered everything.

An elderly man wearing a nightshirt tucked into his trousers was standing and staring at the wreckage on his garden.

"Well, that's my potatoes gone," he said. "It was late frost last year, and now this."

"Still," said Bigmac, in a mad cheerful voice, "you've got a nice crop of pickled cucumbers."

"Can't abide 'em. Pickles give me wind."

Fences had been laid flat. Sheds had been lifted up and dealt like cards across the gardens.

And, as though the All Clear had been the Last Trump, people were rising out of the ground.

"I just hope the others are still there," said Kirsty, as they ran through the streets.

"What do you think?" said Yoless.

"Sorry?"

"I mean, maybe They're sitting quietly waiting for us or They've got into some kind of trouble. Bets?"

Kirsty slowed down.

"Hang on a minute," she said. "There's something I've got to know. Johnny?"

"Yes?" he said. He'd been dreading this moment. Kirsty asked such penetrating questions.

"What did we do? Back there? I saw the bombs drop! And I'm a very good observer! But we got down to the police station before it happened! So either I'm mad - and I'm not mad - or we-"

"Ran through time," said Yoless.

"Look, it was just a direction," said Johnny. "I just saw the way to go ... "

Kirsty rolled her eyes. "Can you do it again?"

"I ... don't think so. I can't remember how I did it."

"He was probably in a state of heightened awareness," said Yoless. "I've read about them."

"What ... drugs?" said Kirsty suspiciously.

"Me? I don't even like coffee!" said Johnny. The world had always seemed so strange in any case that he'd never dared try anything that'd make it even weirder.

"But It's an amazing talent! Think of the things you-"

Johnny shook his head. He could remember seeing the way, and he could remember the feelings, but he couldn't remember the how. It was as if he was looking at his memories behind thick amber glass.

"Come on," he said, and started running again.

"But-" Kirsty began.

"I can't do it again," said Johnny. "It'll never be the right time again."

Bigmac and Wobbler weren't in trouble, if only because there had been so much trouble just recently that there was, for a while, no more to get into.

"This is an air-raid shelter?" said Bigmac. "I thought they were all - you know, steel and stuff Big doors that go hiss. Lights flashing on and off. You know." He heaved on one end of a shed which had smashed into the air-raid shelter belonging to No. 9. "Not just some corrugated iron and dirt with lettuces growing on top."

Wobbler had rescued a shovel from the ruin of someone's greenhouse, and used it to heave bricks out of the way. The shelter door opened and a middleaged woman staggered out.

She was wearing a floral pinny over a nightdress, and holding a goldfish bowl with two fish in it. A small girl was clinging to her skirts.

"Where's Michael?" the woman shouted. "Where is he? Has anyone seen him? I turned my back for two seconds to grab Adolf and Stalin and he was out the door like a-"

"Kid in a green jersey?" said Wobbler. "Got glasses? Ears like the World Cup? He's looking for shrapnel."

"He's safe?" She sagged with relief. "I don't know what I'd have told his mother!"

"You all right?" said Bigmac. "I'm afraid your house is a bit ... flatter than it was ... "

Mrs Density looked at what was left of No. 9.

"Oh, well. Worse things happen at sea," she said vaguely.

"Do they?" said Bigmac, mystified.

"It's just a blessing we weren't in it," said Mrs Density.

There was a clink of brickwork and a firemen slid down the debris towards them.

"All right, Mrs Density?" he said. "I reckon You're the last one. Fancy a nice cup of tea?"

"Oh, hello, Bill," she said.

"Who're these lads, then?" said the fireman.

"We ... were just helping out," said Wobbler

"Were you? Oh. Right. Well, come away out of it, the pair of you. We reckon There's an unexploded one at Number 12." The fireman stared at Bigmac's clothes for a moment, and then shrugged. He gently took the goldfish bowl from Mrs Density and put his other arm around her shoulders.

"A nice cup of tea and a blanket," he said. "Just the thing, eh? Come along, luv."

The boys watched them slide and scramble through the fallen bricks.

"You get bombed and they give you a cup of tea?" said Bigmac.

"I s'pose It's better than getting bombed and never ever getting one again," said Wobbler. "Anyway, there-"

"Eeeeyyyyooooowwwwmmmm!" screamed a voice behind them.

They turned. Wobbler's grandfather was standing on a pile of bricks and looked like a small devil in the light of the fires. He was covered in soot, and was waving something through the air and making aeroplane noises.

"That looks like-"Bigmac began.

"It's a bit off'f a bomb!" said the boy. "Nearly the whole tail fin! I don't know anyone who's got nearly a whole tail fin!"

He zoomed the twisted metal through the air again.

"Er ... kid?" said Wobbler.

The boy lowered the fin.

"You know about ... motorbikes?" said Wobbler.

"Oh, no," said Bigmac. "You can't tell him anything about-"

"You just shut up!" said Wobbler. "You've got a grandad!"

"Yes, but there has to be a warder there when I go an" see him."

Wobbler looked back at the boy.

"Dangerous things, motorbikes," he said.

"I'm going to have a big one when I grow up," said his grandfather. "With rockets on it, an" machine guns and everythin'. Eeeooowwmmmm!"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Wobbler, in the special dumb voice for talking to children. "You don't want to go crashing it, do you."

"Oh, I won't crash," said his grandfather, confidently.

"Mrs Density"s daughter"s a nice little girl, isn't she," said Wobbler desperately.

"She's all smelly and horrible. Eeeeeoowwmmm! Anyway, You're fat, mister!"

He ran down the far side of the heap. They saw his shadow darting between the firemen, and heard the occasional "Voommrnm!"

"Come on," said Bigmac. "Let's get back to the church. The man said they thought there was an unexploded bomb-"

"He just didn't want to listen!" said Wobbler. "I would've listened!"

"Yeah, sure," said Bigmac.

"Well, I would!"

"Sure. Come on."

"I could've helped him if only he'd listened! I know stuff? Why won't he listen? I could make life a lot easier for him!"

"All right, I believe you. Now Let's go, shall we?"

They reached the church just as Johnny and the others came running up the street.

"Everyone all right?" said Kirsty. "Why are you covered in soot, you two?"

"We've been rescuing people," said Wobbler, proudly. "Well, sort of."

They looked at the wreck of Paradise Street. People were standing around in small groups, and sitting on the ruins. Some ladies in official-looking hats had set up a table with a tea urn on it. There were still a few small fires, however, and the occasional crash and tinkle as a high-altitude cocktail onion fell back to earth in a coating of ice.

Johnny stared.

"Everyone got out, Johnny," said Wobbler, watching him carefully.

"I know."

"The siren was just in time."

"I know."

Behind him, Johnny heard Kirsty say: "I hope they get counselling?"

"We found out about that," said Bigmac's voice. "They get a nice cup of tea and told to cheer up because it could be worse."

"That's all?"

"Well ... There's biscuits, too."

Johnny watched the street. The firelight almost made it look cheerful.

And his mind's eye saw the other street. It was here, too, happening at the same time. There were the same fires and the same piles of rubble and the same fire engines. But there were no people - except the ones carrying stretchers.

We're in a new time, he thought.

Everything you do changes everything. And every time you move in time you arrive in a time a little bit different to the one you left. What you do doesn't change the future, just a future.

There's millions of places when the bombs killed everyone in Paradise Street.

But it didn't happen here.

The ghostly images faded away as the other time veered off into it's own future.

"Johnny?" said Yoless. "We'd better get out of here."

"Yeah, no point in staying," said Bigmac.

Johnny turned.

"Okay," he said.

"Are we going by trolley or are we going to ... walk?" said Kirsty.

Johnny shook his head.

"Trolley," he said.

It was waiting where they'd left it. But there was no sign of Guilty.

"Oh, no!" said Kirsty. "We're not going to look for a cat."

"He went to watch the bombing," said Wobbler. "Don't know what happened to him after that."

Johnny gripped the handle of the trolley. The bags creaked in the darkness.

"Don't worry about the cat," he said. "Cats find their own way home."

The Golden Threads Club occupied the old church on Friday mornings. Sometimes there was a folk singer, or entertainment from local schools, if this couldn't be avoided. Mainly there was tea and a chat.

This was usually about how things were worse now than they had ever been, especially those golden days when you could buy practically anything for sixpence and still have change.

There was a change in the air and five figures appeared.

The Golden Threaders watched them suspiciously, in case they broke into "The Streets of London". They also noted that they were under thirty years old, and therefore almost certainly criminals. For one thing, They'd apparently stolen a shopping trolley. And one of them was black.

"Er... " said Johnny.

"Is this the theatre group?" said Kirsty. The others were astonished at the quick thinking. "Oh, no, wrong church hall, very sorry."

They edged towards the door, pushing the trolley.

The Threaders watched them owlishly, tea-cups cooling in their hands.

Wobbler opened the door and ushered the others through it.

"Don't forget, one of them was black," said Yoless, as he stepped out. He rolled his eyes sarcastically and waved his hands in the air. "We's goin' to de carnivaaal!"

Some Other Now ...

The air outside smelled of 1996. Kirsty looked at her watch.

"Ten-thirty on Saturday morning," she said. "Not bad."

"Er, your watch is at ten-thirty on Saturday morning," said Johnny. "That doesn't mean we are."

"Good point."

"But I think we are, anyway. This all looks right."

"Looks fine to me," said Wobbler.

"We've been out all night," said Yoless. "My mum'll go spare.

"Tell her you stopped at my place and the phone was broken," said Wobbler.

"I don't like lying."

"Are you going to tell her the truth?"

Yoless thought for a few agonized seconds. "Your phone was broken, right?"

"Yeah, and I'll tell my mum I was staying at your place," said Wobbler.

"I shouldn't think my grandad's noticed I'm not in," said Johnny. "He always drops off in front of the telly.,

"My parents have a very modern outlook," said Kirsty.

"My brother doesn't mind where I am so long as the police don't come round," said Bigmac.

Before time travelling to any extent, Johnny thought, you should always get your alibi sorted out.

He stared at the place where Paradise Street had been. It was still the Sports Centre. That hadn't changed. But Paradise Street was still there, underneath. Not underground. Just ... somewhere else. Another fossil.

"Did we change anything?" said Kirsty.

"Well, I'm back," said Wobbler. "And that's good enough for me."

"But those people are alive when they ought to've been dead" Kirsty began, and stopped when she saw Johnny's expression. "All right, not exactly ought, but you know what I mean. One of them might've invented the Z-bomb or something."

"What's the Z-bomb?" said Bigmac.

"How should I know? It wasn't invented when we left!"

"Someone in Paradise Street invented a bomb?" said Johnny.

"Well, all right, not a bomb. Something else that'd change history. Any little thing. And you know we left all Bigmac's stuff in the police station?"

"Ahem."

Yoless removed his hat and produced a watch and a Walkman.

"The sergeant was so flustered he forgot to lock the cupboard after he got the siren out," said Yoless. "So I nipped in."

"Did you get the jacket?"

"Chucked it in a dustbin."

"That was mine," said Bigmac reproachfully.

"Well, maybe that's all right," Kirsty conceded reluctantly. "But There's bound to be some other changes. We'd better find out pretty fast."

"We'd better have a bath, too," said Wobbler.

"Your hands have got blood on them," said Johnny.

Wobbler looked down vaguely.

"Oh, yeah. Well ... we were pulling at smashedup walls and things," he said. "You know ... in case there was anyone trapped ... "

"You should've seen him grab his grandad!" said Bigmac. "It was brilliant!"

Wobbler looked proud.

They met up an hour later in the mall. The burger bar was back to the way it had always been. No-one said anything about it, but from the way he sighed occasionally it was clear that Bigmac was thinking of free burgers every week for the rest of his life.

That jogged Johnny's memory.

"Oh ... yes," said Johnny. "Er. We've got this letter ... for you ... "

He pulled it out. It was crumpled, and covered in vinegar and sooty fingerprints.

"Er, It's for you," he repeated. "Someone ... asked us to give it to you.

"Yeah, someone," said Yoless.

"Who we don't know who he was," said Bigmac. "A completely mysterious person. So It's no use you asking us questions."

Wobbler gave them a suspicious look, and ripped open the envelope.

"Go on, what's he say?" said Bigmac.

"Who?" said Wobbler.

"Y- this mysterious person," said Bigmac.

"Dumb stuff," said Wobbler. "Read it yourself."

Johnny took the paper that had been in the envelope. It contained a list, numbered from one to ten.

"1) I Eat healthy food in moderation", he read. "2) An hour's exercise every day is essential. 3) Invest money wisely in a mixture of-"

"What's the point of all this junk? It's the sort of thing grandads say," said Wobbler. "Why'd anyone want to tell me that? You'd have to be some kind of loony to go around telling people that. This was one of those religious blokes that hang around in the mall, right? Huh. I thought it might be something important."

Bigmac glanced at the burger bar again, and sighed deeply.

"There have been changes," said Kirsty. "Clark Street isn't Clark Street any more. I noticed when I went past. It's Evershott Street."

"That's frightening," said Bigmac. "Oooeeeoooeee ... a street name was mysteriously changed ... "

"I thought it was always Evershott Street," said Yoless.

"Me too," said Wobbler.

"And that shop over there ... that used to sell cards and things. Now It's a jeweler's," said Kirsty insistently.

The boys craned around to look at it.

"It's always been a jeweler's, hasn't it?" said Wobbler. He yawned.

"Well, You're an unobservant bunch, I-" Kirsty began.

"Hold on," said Johnny. "How did you get all those cuts on your hands, Wobbler? You too, Bigmac."

"Well, er, I ... er ... " Wobbler's eyes glazed.

"We ... were messing around," said Bigmac. "Weren't we?"

"Yeah. Messing around. Somewhere."

"Don't you remember-?" Kirsty began.

"Forget about it," said Johnny. "Come on, Kirsty, We've got to go."

"Where to?"

"Visiting time. We've got to see Mrs Tachyon."

Kirsty waved a hand frantically at the other three.

"But they don't seem to-"

"It doesn't matter! Come on!"

"They can't just forget!" said Kirsty, as they hurried out of the mall. "They can't just think: "Oh, it was all a dream"!"

"I think It's all sort of healing over," said Johnny. "Didn't you see it happening back in 1941? Tom didn't really believe anything that had happened. I bet by now ... I mean, a few hours after ... I bet They're remembering ... I mean, they remembered ... something different. He ran all the way and got there just in time. Everyone was a bit shocked because of the bombing. Something like that. People have to forget what really happened because ... well, it didn't happen. Not here."

"We can remember what really happened," said Kirsty.

"Perhaps that's because You're hyper-intelligent and I'm mega-stupid," said Johnny.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Kirsty. "You're being a bit unfair."

"Oh. Good."

"I meant I wouldn't go so far as to say "hyper". Just "very". Why do we have to see Mrs Tachyon?"

"Someone ought to. She's a time-bag-lady," said Johnny. "I think It's all the same to her. Round the corner or 1933, they're all just directions to her. She goes where she likes."

"She's mad."

They'd reached the hospital steps. Johnny trudged up them.

She probably is mad, he thought. Or eccentric, anyway. I mean, if she went to a specialist and he showed her all those cards and ink blots she'd just nick them or something.

Yes. Eccentric. But she wouldn't do things like dropping bombs on Paradise Street. You have to be sane to think of things like that. She's totally round the bend. But perhaps she gets a better view from there.

It was quite a cheerful thought, in the circumstances.

Mrs Tachyon had gone. The ward sister seemed quite angry about it.

"Do you know anything about this?" she demanded.

"Us?" said Kirsty. "We've just come in. Know about what?"

Mrs Tachyon had gone to the lavatory. She'd locked herself in. And in the end They'd had to get someone to take the lock off, in case she'd fallen down in there.

She wasn't in there at all.

They were three floors up and the window was too small even for someone as skinny as Mrs Tachyon to climb through.

"Was there any toilet paper?" said Johnny.

The sister gave him a look of deep suspicion.

"The whole roll's gone," she said.

Johnny nodded. That sounded like Mrs Tachyon.

"And the headphones have vanished," said the sister. "Do you know about any of this? You've been visiting her."

"That's only been because It's, you know, like a project," said Kirsty, defensively.

There was the sound of sensible shoes behind them. They turned out to belong to Ms Partridge the social worker.

"I've phoned the police," she said.

"Why?" said Johnny.

"Well, she- oh, It's you. Well, she ... needs help. Not that they were any help. They said she always turns up."

Johnny sighed. Mrs Tachyon, he suspected, never needed help. If she wanted help she just took it. If she needed a hospital, she went where there was one. She could be anywhere now.

"Must have slipped out when no-one was looking," said Ms Partridge.

"She couldn't," said the sister stoutly. "We can see the door from here. We're very careful about that sort of thing."

"Then she must have vanished into thin air!" said Ms Partridge.

Kirsty sidled closer to Johnny while they argued and said, out of the corner of her mouth: "Where did you leave the trolley?"

"Behind our garage," said Johnny.

"D'you think she's taken it?"

"Yes," said Johnny happily.

Johnny was quiet on the bus home. They'd gone to the library and he'd wangled a photocopy of the local paper for the day after the raid.

There was a picture of people looking very cheerful in the ruins of Paradise Street. Of course, things were pretty faded now, but there was Mrs Density with her goldfish bowl, and Wobbler's grandfather with his bit of bomb and, just behind them, grinning and holding his thumb up, you could just make out Wobbler. It hadn't been a good photo to start with and it hadn't improved with age and he had soot all over his face but, if you knew it was Wobbler, you could see it was him all right.

They're all forgetting except me, he thought. I bet even if I showed them the paper They'd say, "Oh yes, that bloke looks like Wobbler, so what?"

Because ... they live here. They've always lived here. In a way.

When you travel in time it really happens, but It's like a little loop in a tape. You go round the loop and then carry on from where you were before. And everything that's changed turns out to be history.

"You've gone very quiet," said Kirsty.

"I was just thinking," said Johnny. "I was thinking that if I showed the others this piece from the paper They'd say, oh, yeah, that looks like ole Wobbler, so what?"

Kirsty leaned across.

"Oh, yes," she said. "Well? It does look like Wobbler. So what?"

Johnny stared out of the window.

"I mean," he said, "It's Wobbler in the paper. Remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Well ... yesterday?"

She wrinkled her forehead.

"Didn't we go to some sort of party?"

Johnny's heart sank.

It all settles down, he thought. That's what's so horrible about time travel. You come back to a different place. You come back to the place where you didn't go in the first place, and it's not your place.

Because here was where no-one died in Paradise Street. So here's where I didn't want to go back. So I didn't. So they didn't, either. When the newspaper picture was taken we were back there, but, now we're back here, we never went. So they don't remember because here there's nothing to remember. Here, we did something else. Hung on. Hung around.

Here I'm remembering things that never happened.

"It's your stop," said Kirsty. "Are you all right?"

"No," said Johnny, and got off the bus.

It was raining heavily, but he went and checked to see if the trolley was where he'd left it. It wasn't. On the other hand, maybe it had never been there at all.

When he went up to his bedroom he could hear the rain drumming on the roof. He'd vaguely hoped that he might have been a different person in this world but there it all was: the same bedroom, the same mess, the same space shuttle on its bit of red wool. The same stuff for the project all over the table.

He sat on his bed and watched the rain for a while. He could feel the shadows in the air, hovering around the corners of the room.

He'd lost Mrs Tachyon's paper somewhere. That would have been proof. But no-one else would believe it.

He could remember it all - the rain on the moor, the thunderstorm, the sting on his whole body when they'd run through time - and it hadn't happened. Not exactly. Normal, dull, boring, everyday life had just poured right in again.

Johnny went through his pockets. If only there was something ...

His fingers touched a piece of card ...

The sound of Australian accents from downstairs suggested that his grandad was in. He trailed downstairs and into the little front room.

"Grandad?"

"Yes?" said his grandfather, who was watching

Cobbers.

"You know the war-"

"Yes?"

"You know you said that before you went in the army you were a sort of aircraft spotter-"

"Got a medal for it," said his grandfather. He picked up the remote control and switched off the set, which never usually happened. "Showed it you, didn't I? Must've done."

"Don't think so," said Johnny, as diplomatically as possible. Before, his grandfather had always told him not to go on about things.

His grandfather reached down beside his chair. There was an old wickerwork sewing box there, which had belonged to Johnny's grandmother. It hadn't been used for cotton and needles for a long time, though. It was full of old newspaper cuttings, keys that didn't fit any door in the house, stamps for one half-penny in old money, and all the other stuff that accumulates in odd corners of a house that has been lived in for a long time. Finally, after much grunting, he produced a small wooden box and opened it.

"They said they never knew how I done it," he said proudly. "But Mr Hodder and Captain Harris spoke up for me. Oh, yes. Had to be possible, they said, otherwise I couldn't 've done it, could I? The phones'd got hit by lightning and the bike wouldn't start no matter what he yelled so I had to run all the way down into the town. So they had to give it to me "cos they spoke up."

Johnny turned the silver medal over in his hands. There was a yellowing bit of paper with it, badly typed by someone who hadn't changed the ribbon on his typewriter for years.

"Gallant action ... " he read, " ... ensuring the safety of the people of Blackbury ..."

"Some men from the Olympics came to see me after the war," said his grandfather. "But I told them I didn't want any."

"How did you do it?" said Johnny.

"They said someone's watch must've been wrong," said Grandad. "I don't know about that. I just ran for it. "S'all a bit of a blur now, tell you the truth ... "

He put the medal back in the box. Beside it, held together with an elastic band, was a grubby pack of cards.

Johnny took them out and removed the band.

They had aircraft on them.

Johnny reached into his pocket and took out the five of clubs. It was a lot less worn, but there was no doubt that it was part of the pack. He slipped it under the band and put the pack back in the box.

Grandad and Johnny sat and looked at one another for a moment. There was no sound but the rain and the ticking of the mantelpiece clock.

Johnny felt the time drip around them, thick as amber ...

Then Grandad blinked, picked up the remote control, and aimed it at the TV.

"Anyway, We've all passed a lot of water under the bridge since those days," he said, and that was that.

The doorbell rang.

Johnny trooped out into the hall.

The bell rang again, urgently.

Johnny opened the door.

"Oh," he said gloomily. "Hello, Kirsty."

Rain had plastered her hair to her head.

"I ran back from the next stop," she said.

"oh. Why?"

She held up a pickled onion.

"I found it in my pocket. And ... I remembered. We did go back."

"Not back," said Johnny. "It's more like there." The elation rose up inside him like a big pink cloud. "Come on in.

"Everything. Even the pickles."

"Good!"

"I thought I ought to tell you."

"Rights."

"Do you think Mrs Tachyon will ever find her cat?" Johnny nodded.

"Wherever he is," he said.

The sergeant and the soldier picked themselves up off the ground and staggered towards the wreckage where the house had been.

"That poor old biddy! That poor old biddy!" said the sergeant.

"D'you think she might've got out in time?" said the soldier.

"That poor old biddy!"

"She was sort of close to the wall," moaned the soldier hopefully.

"The house isn't there any more! What do you think?"

They scrambled through the damp ruins of Paradise Street.

"Oh God, There's going to be hell to pay for this..."

"You're telling me! You shouldn't 've left it unguarded! That poor old biddy!"

"D'you know how much sleep We've had this past week? Do you? And we lost Corporal Williams over in Slate! We knocked off for five minutes in the middle of the night, that's all!"

A crater lay in front of them. Something bubbled in the bottom.

"She got any relatives?" said the soldier.

"No. No-one. Been here ages. My dad says he remembers seeing her about sometimes when he was a lad," said the sergeant.

He removed his helmet.

"Poor old biddy," he said.

"That's what you think! Dinner dinner dinner dinner-"

They turned. A skinny figure, wearing an old coat over a nightdress, and a woolly hat, ran along the road, expertly steering a wire cart between the mounds of rubble.

"-dinner dinner-"

The sergeant stared at the soldier. "How did she do that?"

"Search me!"

"-dinner dinner Batman!"

Some way away, Guilty ambled in his sideways fashion through the back streets.

He'd had an interesting morning hunting through the remains of Paradise Street, and had passed some quality time during the afternoon in the ruins of the pickle factory, where there were mice, some of them fried. It had been a good day.

Around him, Blackbury went back to sleep.

There was still a terrible smell of vinegar everywhere.

By some miracle of preservation, a large jar of pickled beetroot had been blown right across the town and landed, unbroken and unnoticed, in a civic flowerbed, from whence it had bounced into the gutter.

Guilty waited by it, washing himself.

After a while he looked up as a familiar squeaking sound came around the corner, and stopped. A hand wearing a woolly glove with the fingers cut out reached down and picked up the jar. There was a series of complicated unscrewing noises, and then a sound like ... well, like someone eating pickled beetroot until the juice ran down their chin.

"Ali," said a voice, and then belched. "That's the stuff to give the troops! Bromide? That's what you think! Laugh? I nearly brought a tractor!"

Guilty hopped up onto the trolley.

Mrs Tachyon reached up and adjusted the headphones under her bobble hat.

She scratched at a surgical dressing. Dratted thing. She'd have to get someone to take it off her, but she knew a decent nurse over in 1917.

Then she scrabbled in her pockets and fished out the sixpence the sergeant had given her. She remembered him giving it to her. Mrs Tachyon remembered everything, and had long ago given up wondering whether the things she remembered had already happened or not. Take life as it was going to come was her motto. And if it didn't come, go and fetch it.

The past and the future were all the same, but you could get a good feed off of a sixpence, if you knew the right way to do it.

She squinted at it in the grey light of dawn.

It was a bit old and grubby, but the date was quite clear. It said: 1903.

"Tea and buns? That's what you think, Mr Copper!"

And she went back to 1903 and spent it on fish and chips. And still had change.