Johnny and the Bomb (14 page)

Johnny pushed the door shut behind them, and listened for a moment.

‘… well, then …
bend
and
stretch
and
wheeze
and
bend
…'

He straightened up. It was
amazing
what you could get away with. Ten-legged aliens would be immediately accepted in Blackbury if they were bright enough to ask the way to the Post Office and complain about the weather. People had a way of just not seeing anything that common sense said they shouldn't see.

‘I bet something's gone wrong,' said Bigmac.

‘Er …' said Yo-less.

‘No, this has got to be the 1990s,' said Kirsty. ‘It's the only period in history when you wouldn't be burned at the stake for wearing a green and purple tracksuit, isn't it?'

The bulk of the sports centre loomed opposite them. Five minutes ago, thought Johnny, five of
my
minutes ago, that was a street. Get your head round that.

‘Er …' said Yo-less again.

‘They
shot
at me,' said Bigmac. ‘A
real
bullet! I heard it hit the actual wall!'

‘Er …' said Yo-less.

‘Oh, what's the
matter
with you?' said Kirsty.

‘Er … where's Wobbler?'

They looked around.

‘Oh,
no
…' said Johnny.

They were Wobblerless.

‘I ain't going back!' said Bigmac, backing away. ‘Not to get shot at!'

‘He wouldn't have wandered off again, would he?' said Kirsty.

‘No,' said Johnny. ‘He must still be there!'

‘Look, get a grip, will you?' said Kirsty. ‘You said the church doesn't get hit! He's OK.'

‘Yes … but he's OK in 1941!'

‘S'posing something goes wrong?' said Bigmac. ‘He didn't come back this time, s'posing we go back and
all
get stuck? I'll get shot!'

‘You think
you've
got problems?' said Yo-less. ‘
I'd
have to learn to play the banjo.'

‘Will you all stop panicking and
think
for a moment?' said Kirsty. ‘This is
time
travel. He's always going to be there,
whenever
we go back! Of
course
we ought to go and get him! But we don't have to
rush
.'

Of course, it was true. He'd always be there, thought Johnny. They could go back in ten years time and he'd still be there. Just like something on a tape – you could play it, and fast forward, and rewind, and it would always be there. And later that night, the bombs would land in Paradise Street – and
that
night would always be there. For ever. Every second, always there. Like little fossils.

Kirsty hauled the trolley away and pushed it down the steps towards the pavement.

‘His mum 'n dad'll worry,' said Yo-less, uncertainly.

‘No, they won't,' said Kirsty. ‘Because we can bring him back to right
here
.'

‘Really? Why can't we see us doing it, then?' said Yo-less. ‘You mean any minute we're just going to pop up with Wobbler and say “hi, us, here's Wobbler, see you later”?'

‘Oh, good grief,' said Kirsty. ‘I can't think about that. You can't think about time travel with a logical mind.'

Yo-less turned and looked at Johnny's face.

‘Oh, no,' he said. ‘He's off again …'

Everything's there waiting, Johnny thought. That's the thing about time. It doesn't matter how long it takes to build a time machine. We could all die out and evolution could start again with moles or something, it could take millions of years, but sooner or later someone will find out how to do it. It might not even be a machine. It might just be a way of understanding what time is, like everyone was scared of lightning and then one day someone said, look, you can store it in little bottles and then it was just electricity. But it wouldn't actually matter, because once you'd worked out how to use it, everything would be there. If someone ever finds a way of travelling in time,
ever
, in the entire history of the universe, then they could be here today.

And then he thought of the bombers, nosing
through the clouds over the houses and the footballers and all those clean doorsteps …

‘Uh?' he said.

‘You all right?' said Yo-less.

‘Let's get a drink, at least,' said Kirsty, shoving the trolley firmly towards the town centre.

And then she stopped.

Johnny hadn't often seen her shocked. Kirsty normally dealt with the terrible and the unexpected by getting angry with it. But now she stopped, and went pale.

‘Oh, no …' she said.

The road from the old church led down the hill towards traffic lights at the bottom.

An overloaded shopping trolley, with a boy and a girl clinging to it, was hurtling down the other road.

As they watched, it heeled over like a yacht tacking against the wind, turned a full ninety degrees, and plunged into the car park of the Neil Armstrong Shopping Mall.

A long black car followed it.

He'd forgotten all about the car. Maybe there
were
secret societies. Maybe there were men in black in long black cars who said things like, ‘The truth is out there' and came and found you if you got your hand trapped in the occult.

Johnny could see a map in his head. But it was a map of time.

They'd moved in time at his house. But Yo-less was right, you probably could move in time like a train on a track, so you flipped over onto another track just a little bit further along. You moved in space, really.

And he'd done it again, when he thought they were going to die at the traffic lights. And the black car had vanished … because it didn't exist in
this
time. He definitely hadn't seen it when he'd looked behind him.

They'd come back to a time when it existed.

The car pulled to a halt outside the mall.

A feeling of absolute certainty stole over Johnny. He knew the answer. Later on, with any luck, he'd find out what the question was, but right now he was sure of the answer.

Forget about secret societies. Forget about time police. Policemen had to have nice logical minds, and to deal with time you needed a mind like Mrs Tachyon.

But there was someone else who'd
know
where they'd be today, wasn't there …

Because … supposing we
didn't
go back? Supposing … maybe we went back and did things wrong?

He started to run.

Johnny dodged across the road. A car hooted at him.

Across in the car park, a man in black, with black sunglasses and a peaked black hat, got out of the car and hurried into the mall.

Johnny leapt over the low wall into the car park and weaved between shoppers and their trolleys …

… and panted to a halt in front of the car.

It had stopped right in front of the entrance, where no one was ever allowed to park.

In the bright sunlight it looked even blacker than Johnny remembered. Its engine ticked occasionally as it cooled down. On the hood was a silver ornament.

It looked very much like a hamburger.

If he squinted, Johnny could just make out a figure in the rear seat, a mere shadow behind the darkness of the glass.

He ran around and snatched at the handle of the back door, yanking it open.

‘All right! I know you're in there! Who are you, really?'

Most of the figure was in deep shade, but there was a pair of hands visible, resting on a black cane with a silver tip.

Then the figure moved. It unfolded slowly, and became a large man in a coat that was half coat, half cloak. He emerged carefully, making sure both feet were firmly on the ground before easing the rest of his body out of the car.

He was quite tall, tall enough so that he was big rather than fat. He wore a large black hat and had a short, silvery beard.

He smiled at Johnny, and nodded at the others as they hurried up.

‘Who am I?' he said. ‘Well, now … why don't you guess? You were always good at this sort of thing.'

Johnny looked at him, and then at the car, and then back up the hill to where the old church was just visible.

‘I think …' he said.

‘Yes?' said the old man. ‘Yes? Go on?'

‘I think that … I mean, I don't know … but I know I'm going to know … I mean, I think I know why you've come to find us …'

‘Yes?'

Johnny swallowed. ‘But we were—' he began.

The old man patted him on the shoulder.

‘Call me Sir John,' he said.

Chapter 8
Trousers of Time

There were differences in the mall. One big difference, certainly. The burger bar had changed. There were different-shaped paper hats, and the colour scheme was blue and white instead of red and yellow.

The old man led the way.

‘Who
is
he?' hissed Kirsty.

‘You'll laugh if I tell you! This is
time
travel! I'm still trying to work out the rules!'

Sir John sat down heavily in a seat, motioned them to sit down as well, and then did the second-worst thing anyone could do in a fast-food restaurant.

He snapped his fingers at a waitress.

All the staff were watching them anxiously.

‘Young lady,' said Sir John, wheezing slightly, ‘these people will have whatever they want. I will have a glass of water. Thank you.'

‘Yes, Sir John,' said the waitress, and hurried away.

‘You're not s'posed to do that,' said Bigmac hoarsely. ‘You're s'posed to queue up.'

‘No,
you're
supposed to queue up,' said Sir John. ‘I don't have to.'

‘Have you always been called Sir John?' said Johnny.

The man winked at him.

‘You know, don't you,' he said. ‘You've worked it out. You're right. Names are easily changed, especially in wartime. I thought it might be better. I got the knighthood in 1964 for services to making huge amounts of money.'

The waitress hurried back with the water, and then produced a notebook and looked expectantly at them all with the bright, brittle smile of someone who is expecting to be sacked at any moment.

‘I'll have … well, I'll have everything,' said Yo-less.

‘Me too,' said Bigmac.

‘Cheeseburger?' said Johnny.

‘Chilli beanburger,' said Kirsty. ‘And I want to know what's going on, OK?'

Sir John beamed at her in a slightly distracting way. Then he nodded at the waitress.

‘Make me one with everything,' he said, slowly and carefully, as if quoting something he'd heard a long time ago, ‘because I want to become a Muslim.'

‘A
Buddhist
,' said Yo-less, without thinking. ‘You
always
muck up the punchl—' Then his mouth dropped open.

‘Do I?' said Wobbler.

‘Well … I hung around for a while and you didn't come back,' said Wobbler. ‘And then—'

‘But we did! I mean, we will!' said Kirsty.

‘This is where it gets difficult,' said Wobbler, patiently. ‘Johnny knows. Supposing you didn't go back? Supposing you were scared to, or you found that you couldn't? The possibility exists, and that means the future forks off in two different ways. In one you went back, in one you didn't. Now you've ended up in the future where you didn't go back. I've been here since 1941. Don't try to think too hard about this, because it'll make your brain hurt.

‘Anyway … first I stayed with Mr and Mrs Seeley,' he continued. ‘I'd met them that first day. Their son was away in the Navy and everyone thought I was an evacuee who was a bit daft and,
what with one thing and another, there's too much to worry about in a big war for people to ask too many questions about one fat boy. They were very nice people. They sort of … adopted me, I suppose, because their son got torpedoed. But I moved away after a few years.'

‘Why?' said Kirsty.

‘I didn't want to meet my own parents or anything like that,' said Wobbler. He still seemed out of breath. ‘History is full of patches as it is, without causing any more trouble, eh? Changing my name wasn't hard, either. In a war … well, records go missing, people get killed, everything gets shaken up. A person can duck down and pop up somewhere else as
someone
else. I was in the Army for a few years, after the war.'

‘
You
?' said Bigmac.

‘Oh, everyone had to be. National Service, it was called. Out in Berlin. And then I came back and had to make a living. Would you like another milkshake? I personally wouldn't, if I were you. I know how they're made.'

‘You could've invented computers!' said Bigmac.

‘Really? You think so?' The old man laughed. ‘Who'd have listened to a boy who hadn't even been to university? Besides … well, look at this …'

He picked up a plastic fork and tapped it on the table.

‘See this?' he said. ‘We throw away millions of them every day. After five minutes' use they're in the trash, right?'