Johnny and the Bomb

"You can get shot, you know," he said. "For the first offence."

The door was still open. Bigmac could hear noises in the corridor. Someone was talking on the phone, somewhere in the distance.

Bigmac wasn't an athlete. If there was an Olympic Sick Note event, he would have been in the British team. He would've won the 100 metres I've Got Asthma, the half-marathon Lurk in the Changing Rooms, and the freestyle got to go to the Doctor.

But his boots dug into the floor and he rose out of his chair like a missile going off. His feet barely touched the table top. He went past the policeman's shoulder with his legs already making ru

Bigmac landed in the doorway, turned at random, put his head down and charged. It was a hard head. It hit someone around belt level. There was a shout and a crash.

He saw another gap and headed for it. There was another crash, and the sound of a telephone smashing on the floor. Someone yelled at him to halt or they'd fire.

Bigmac didn't stop to find out what'd happened. He just hoped that a pair of 1990s Doc Martens that had been practically bought legally by his brother off a man with a lorry full of them were much better for dodging and ru

Whoever had been shouting stop or they'd fire ... fired.

There was a crack and a clang somewhere ahead of Bigmac, but he turned down a corridor, ran under the outstretched arms of another policeman, and out into a yard.

A policeman was standing next to a Jurassic bicycle, a huge machine that looked as if it were made of drainpipes welded together.

Bigmac went past him in a blur, grabbed the handlebars, swung onto the saddle and rammed his feet onto the pedals.

"Ere, what're you doin'-"

The policeman's voice faded behind him.

The bike swung out into the lane behind the station.

It was a cobbled street. The saddle was solid leather. Bigmac's trousers were very thin.

"No wonder everyone was very depressed," he thought, trying to cycle standing up.

"Nyer nyer nyer. Spy spy spy."

"Shut up!" said Wobbler. "Why don't you run away to London?"

"Ain't go

They were back in the heart of the town now. The boy trailed behind Wobbler, pointing him out to passers-by. Admittedly, no-one seemed to be about to arrest him, but he was getting some odd looks.

"My brother Ron's a policeman," said the boy. "He'll come up from London and shoot you with his gun."

"Go away!"

"Sharn't!"

Opposite the entrance to Paradise Street was a small church. It was a non-conformist chapel, according to Yoless. It had a shut-up, wet Sunday look. A couple of elderly evergreen trees on either side of the door looked as though it'd take a shovel just to get the soot off their leaves.

The three of them sat on the steps, watching the street. A woman had come out and was industriously scrubbing her doorstep.

"Did this chapel get hit?" said Kirsty.

"You mean will. I don't think so."

"Pity."

"It's still here ... I mean, in 1996," said Yoless. "Only it's just used as a social hall. You know, for keep-fit classes and stuff. I know, "cos I come here for Morns Dance practice every Wednesday. Will, I mean."

"You?" said Kirsty. "You do Morris Dancing? With sticks and hankies and stuff? You?"

"There's something wrong?" said Yoless coldly.

"Well ... no ... no, of course not ... but ... it's just an unusual interest for someone of your-"

Yoless let her squirm for a bit and then said, "Height?" He dropped the word like a weight. Kirsty shut her mouth.

"Yes," she said.

Another woman appeared, next door to the one scrubbing her front doorstep, and started scrubbing her doorstep.

"What are we going to do?" said Kirsty.

"I'm thinking," said Yoless.

Somewhere in the distance a bell went off, and kept on going off.

"I'm thinking, too," said Joh

"Good," said Kirsty.

"He might be in some trouble, I mean," said Joh

"What do you mean, might be?" said Yoless.

"And we haven't seen Wobbler, either," said Joh

"Oh, you know Wobbler. He's probably hiding somewhere."

Another woman opened the door on the other side of the street and entered the doorstep-scrubbing competition.

Kirsty straightened up.

"Why're we acting so miserable?" she said. "We're Nineties people. We should be able to think of something. We could ... we could... "

"We could ring up Adolf Hitler," Yoless suggested. "Can't remember his phone number, sorry, but directory inquiries in Germany're bound to know."

Joh

He looked down the length of Paradise Street, and felt Time streaming past him. Yoless and Kirsty faded away. He could feel them there, though, as insubstantial as dreams, as the light faded from the sky and the footballers went indoors and the wind got up and the clouds rolled in from the southwest and the town went to sleep and the bombers came out of the east and fire rained down on the houses and the allotments and the people and the goalposts chalked on the wall and all the nice, clean, white doorsteps ...

Captain Harris turned Bigmac's watch over.

"Amazing," he said. "And it says "Made In Japan"."

"Fiendishly cu

The captain picked up the radio.

"Japanese again," he said. "Why? Why put it on the back? See here. Made in Japan."

"I thought it was all rice," said the sergeant. "That's what my dad said. He was out there."

Captain Harris fiddled one of the tiny headphones into his ear and moved a switch. He listened to the hiss that was due to be replaced by Radio Blackbury in forty-eight years" time, and nodded.

"It's doing something," he said. His thumb touched the wave change switch, and he blinked.

"It's the Home Service," he said. "Clear as a bell!"

"We could have the back off it in no time," said the sergeant.

"No," said Sergeant Harris. "This has got to go to the Ministry. The men in white coats can have a look at it. How can you get valves to fit in this? Where's the aerial?"

"Very small feet," said the sergeant.

"Sorry, sergeant?"

"That's what my dad said. Japanese. The women. Very small feet, he said. So maybe they've got small hands, too. Just a thought." The sergeant tried to extend his line of technological speculation. "Good for making small things? You know. Like ships in bottles?"

The captain put the tiny radio back in the box.

"I've seen people do them," said the sergeant, still anxious to be of assistance. "You get a bottle, then you get a lot of very thin thread-"

"He's the best actor I've ever seen, I know that," said Captain Harris. "You could really think he was just a stupid boy. But this stuff... I just can't believe it. It's all very ... odd."

"We've got every man out after him," said the sergeant. "And the inspector has called out the army from West Underton. We'll have him in no time."

The captain sealed the box with sticky tape.

"I want this guarded," he said.

"We'll keep an eye on it in the main office."

"No. I want it secure."

"Well, there's an empty cell. Actually there's someone in it but I'll soon have 'em out."