Johnny and the Bomb

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.

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.

Joh

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 Joh

His grandfather reached down beside his chair. There was an old wickerwork sewing box there, which had belonged to Joh

"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."

Joh

"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 Joh

"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.

Joh

They had aircraft on them.

Joh

Grandad and Joh

Joh

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.

Joh

The bell rang again, urgently.

Joh

"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 Joh

"Everything. Even the pickles."

"Good!"

"I thought I ought to tell you."

"Rights."

"Do you think Mrs Tachyon will ever find her cat?" Joh

"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! Di

They turned. A ski

"-di

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

"Search me!"

"-di

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 u

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.