Johnny and the Bomb (21 page)

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.

Firemen 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 Trumpet, 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 Yo-less.

‘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 Yo-less.

‘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 Yo-less. ‘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 middle-aged 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 fireman 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 ‘Voommmm!'

‘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 its own future. ‘Johnny?' said Yo-less. ‘We'd better get out of here.'

‘Yeah, no point in staying,' said Bigmac.

Johnny turned.

‘OK,' 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, teacups cooling in their hands.

Wobbler opened the door and ushered the others through it.

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

Chapter 13
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 Yo-less. ‘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?'

Yo-less 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.'