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Joh
"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 Joh
"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 Joh
"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 Joh
"We can remember what really happened," said Kirsty.
"Perhaps that's because You're hyper-intelligent and I'm mega-stupid," said Joh
"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 Joh
"She's mad."
They'd reached the hospital steps. Joh
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 ski
"Was there any toilet paper?" said Joh
The sister gave him a look of deep suspicion.
"The whole roll's gone," she said.
Joh
"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 Joh
"Well, she- oh, It's you. Well, she ... needs help. Not that they were any help. They said she always turns up."
Joh
"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 Joh
"Behind our garage," said Joh
"D'you think she's taken it?"
"Yes," said Joh
Joh
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, gri
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 Joh
Kirsty leaned across.
"Oh, yes," she said. "Well? It does look like Wobbler. So what?"
Joh
"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?"
Joh
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 Joh
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.