Terry Pratchett - Johnny and the Bomb

Most of the figure was in deep shade, but there were 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.

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 Yoless.

"Me too," said Bigmac.

"Cheeseburger?" said Johnny.

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

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 Yoless, 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?"

"Yes, of course," said Kirsty. Behind Wobbler, the staff were watching nervously, like monks in some quiet monastery somewhere who've just had St Peter drop in for tea.

"A hundred years ago it'd have been a marvel. And now we throw them away without a second thought. So ... how do you make one?"

"Well ... you get some oil, and ... I've think there's something about it in a book I've got-"

"Right," said Wobbler, leaning back. "You don't know. I don't know, either."

"But I wouldn't bother with that. I'd write science fiction," said Kirsty. "Moon landings and stuff."

"You probably could," said Wobbler. A tired expression crossed his face, and he started to pat the pockets of his coat as if looking for something. "But I've never had much of a way with words, I'm afraid. No. I opened a hamburger bar."

Johnny looked around, and then started to grin.

"That's right," said Wobbler. "In 1952. I knew it all, you see. Thick shakes, Double Smashers with Cheese'n Egg, paper hats for the staff, red sauce in those little round plastic bottles that look like tomatoes ... oh, yes. I had three bars in the first year, and ten the year after that. There's thousands, now. Other people just couldn't keep up. I knew what would work, you see. Birthday treats for the kids, the Willie Wobbler clown-"

"Willie Wobbler?" said Kirsty.

"Sorry. They were more innocent times," said Wobbler. "And then I started ... other things. Soft toilet paper, for a start. Honestly, the stuff they had back in the 1940s you could use as roofing felt! And when that was going well, I started to listen to people. People with bright ideas. Like "I think I could make a tape recorder really small so that people could carry it around" and I'd say "That might just catch on, you know, here's some money to get started". Or "You know, I think I know a way of making a machine to record television signals on tape so that people could watch them later" and I'd say "Amazing Whatever will they think of next! Here's some money, why don't we form a company and build some? And while we're about it, why don't we see if movies can be put on these tape thingies too?...

"That's dishonest," said Kirsty. "That's cheating."

"I don't see why," said Wobbler. "People were amazed that I'd listen to them, because everyone else thought they were crazy. I made money, but so did they."

"Are you a millionaire?" said Bigmac.

"Oh, no. I was a millionaire back in 1955. I'm a billionaire now, I think." He snapped his fingers again. The chauffeur in black, who had silently appeared behind them, stepped forward.