Terry Pratchett - Johnny and the Bomb

"I remember when all this was buildings," he said to himself.

"What're you going on about now?"

"Oh, nothing."

"I recognize some of this," said Bigmac. "This is River Street. That's old Patel's shop on the corner, isn't it?"

But the sign over the window said: *SMOKE WOODBINES* J. Wilkinson (prop.).

"Woodbines?" said Bigmac.

"It's a kind of cigarette, obviously," said Kirsty.

A car went past. It was black, but not the dire black of the one on the hill. It had mud and rust marks on it. It looked as though someone had started out with the idea of making a very large mobile jelly mould and had changed their mind about halfway through, when it was slightly too late. Johnny saw the driver crane his head to stare at them.

It was hard to tell much from the people on the streets. There were a lot of overcoats and hats, in a hundred shades of boredom.

"We shouldn't hang around," said Kirsty. "People are looking at us. Let's go and see if we can get a newspaper. I want to know when we are. It's so gloomy."

"Perhaps it's the Depression," said Johnny. "My grandad's always going on about when he was growing up in the Depression."

"No TV, everyone wearing old-fashioned clothes, no decent cars," said Bigmac. "No wonder everyone was depressed."

"Oh, God," said Kirsty. "Look, try to be careful, will you? Any little thing you do could seriously affect the future. Understand?"

They entered the corner shop, leaving Bigmac outside to guard the trolley.

It was dark inside, and smelled of floorboards.

Johnny had been on a school visit once, to a sort of theme park that showed you what things had been like in the all purpose Olden Days. It had been quite interesting, although everyone had been careful not to show it, because if you weren't careful they'd sneak education up on you while your guard was down. The shop was a bit like that, only it had things the school one hadn't shown, like the cat asleep in the sack of dog biscuits. And the smell. It wasn't only floorboards in it. There was paraffin in it, and cooking, and candles.

A small lady in glasses looked at them carefully.

"Yes. What can I do for you?" she said. She nodded at Yoless.

"Sambo's with you, dear, is he?" she added.

The Olden Days

Guilty lay on top of the bags and purred.

Bigmac watched the traffic. There wasn't a lot. A couple of women met one another as they were both crossing the street, and stood there chatting in the middle of the road, although occasionally one of them would turn to look at Bigmac.

He folded his arms over HEAVY MENTAL.

And then a car pulled up, right in front of him. The driver got out, glanced at Bigmac, and walked off down the street.

Bigmac stared at the car. He'd seen ones like it on television, normally in those costume dramas where one car and two women with a selection of different hats keep going up and down the same street to try to fool people that this isn't really the present day.

The keys were still in the ignition.

Bigmac wasn't a criminal, he was just around when crimes happened. This was because of stupidity. That is, other people's stupidity. Mainly other people's stupidity in designing cars that could go from 0-120mph in ten seconds and then selling them to even more stupid people who were only interested in dull things like fuel consumption and what colour the seats were. What was the point in that? That wasn't what a car was for.

The keys were still in the ignition.

As far as Bigmac was concerned, he was practically doing people a favour by really seeing what their cars could do, and no way was that stealing, because he always put the cars back if he could and they were often nearly the same shape. You'd think peopled be proud to know their car could do 130mph along the Blackbury by-pass instead of complaining all the time.

The keys were still in the ignition. There were a million places in the world where the keys could have been, but in the ignition was where they were.

Old cars like this probably couldn't go at any speed at all.

The keys were still in the ignition. Firmly, invitingly, in the ignition.

Bigmac shifted uncomfortably.

He was aware that there were people in the world who considered it wrong to take cars that didn't belong to them but, however you looked at it ...

... the keys were still in the ignition.

Johnny heard Kristy's indrawn breath. It sounded like Concorde taking off in reverse.

He felt the room grow bigger, rushing away on every side, with Yoless all by himself in the middle of it.

Then Yoless said, "Yes, indeed. I'm with them. Lawdy, lawdy."

The old lady looked surprised.

"My word, you speak English very well," she said.

"I learned it from my grandfather," said Yoless, his voice as sharp as a knife. "He ate only very educated missionaries.

Sometimes Johnny's mind worked fast. Normally it worked so slowly that it embarrassed him, but just occasionally it had a burst of speed.

"He's a prince," he said.

"Prince Sega," said Yoless.

"All the way from Nintendo," said Johnny.

"He's here to buy a newspaper," said Kirsty, who in some ways did not have a lot of imagination.

Johnny reached into his own pocket, and then hesitated.

"Only we haven't got any money," he said.

"Yes we have, I've got a least two pou-" Kirsty began.

"We haven't got the right money," said Johnny meaningfully. "It was pounds and shillings and pence in those days, not pounds and pee-"

"Pee?" said the woman. She looked from one to the other like someone who hopes that it'll all make sense if they pay enough attention.

Johnny craned his head. There were a few newspapers still on the counter, even though it was the afternoon. One was The Times. He could just make out the date.

May 21, 1941.

"Oh, you have a paper, dear," said the old woman, giving up, "I don't suppose I shall sell any more today."

"Thank you very much," said Johnny, grabbing a paper and hurrying the other two out of the shop.

"Sambo," said Yoless, when they were outside.

"What?" said Kirsty. "Oh, that. Never mind about that. Give me that newspaper."

"My grandad came here in 1952," said Yoless, in the same plonking, hollow voice. "He said little kids thought his colour'd come off if he washed."

"Yes, well, I can see you're upset, but that's just how things were, it's all changed since then," said Kirsty, turning the pages.

"Then hasn't even happened yet," said Yoless. "I'm not stupid. I've read old books. We're back in golliwog history. Plucky niggers and hooray for the Empire. She called me Sambo."

"Look," said Kirsty, still reading the newspaper. "This is the olden days. She didn't mean it ... YOU know, nastily. It's just how she was brought up. You people can't expect us to rewrite history, you know."

Johnny suddenly felt as though he'd stepped into a deep freeze. It was almost certainly the you people. Sambo had been an insult, but you people was worse, because it wasn't even personal.

He had never seen Yoless so angry. It was a kind of rigid, brittle anger. How could someone as intelligent as Kirsty be so dumb? What she needed to do now was say something sensible.

"Well, I'm certainly glad you're here," said Yoless, sarcasm gleaming on his words. "So's you can explain all this to me."

"All right, don't go on about it," she said, without looking up. "It's not that important."

It was amazing, Johnny thought. Kirsty had a sort of talent for striking matches in a firework factory.

Yoless took a deep breath.

Johnny patted him on the arm.

"She didn't mean it ... you know, nastily," he said. "It's just how she was brought up."

Yoless sagged, and nodded coldly.

"You know we're in the middle of a war, don't you," said Kirsty. "That's what we've ended up in. World War Two. It was very popular around this time."