Terry Pratchett - Johnny and the Bomb

"It's all right," said Johnny. "The doctor said I just worry about things too much."

"What kind of loony tests did you have?" said Bigmac. "Big needles and electric shocks and that?"

"No, Bigmac," sighed Johnny. "They don't do that. They just ask you questions."

"What, like "are you a loony?"

"It's be sound to go a long way back in time," said Wobbler. "Back to the dinosaurs. No chance of killing your grandad then, unless he's really old. Dinosaurs'd be all right."

"Great!" said Bigmac. "Then I could wipe `em out with my plasma rifle! Oh, yes!"

"Yeah," said Wobbler, rolling his eyes. "That'd explain a lot. Why did the dinosaurs die out sixty-five million years ago? Because Bigmac couldn't get there any earlier."

"But you haven't got a plasma rifle," said Johnny.

"If Wobbler can have a time machine, then I can have a plasma rifle."

"Oh, all right."

"And a rocket launcher."

A time machine, thought Johnny. That would be something. You could get your life exactly as you wanted it. If something nasty turned up, you could just go back and make sure that it didn't. You could go wherever you wanted and nothing bad would ever have to happen.

Around him, the boys" conversation, as their conversations did, took on its own peculiar style.

"Anyway, no-one's proved the dinosaurs did die out."

"Oh, yeah, right, sure, they're still around, are they?"

"I mean p'raps they only come out at night, or are camouflaged or something... "

"A brick-finished stegosaurus? A bright red Number 9 brontosaurus?"

"Hey, neat idea. They'd go round pretending to be a bus, right, and people could get on - but they wouldn't get off again. Oooo-Eee-Oooo ... "

"Nah. False noses. False noses and beards. Then just

when people aren't expecting it - UNK! Nothing on the pavement but a pair of shoes and a really big bloke in a mac, shuffling away ... "

Paradise Street, thought Johnny. Paradise Street was on his mind a lot, these days. Especially at night.

I bet if you asked the people there if time travel was a good idea they'd say yes. I mean, no one knows what happened to the dinosaurs, but we know what happened to Paradise Street.

I wish I could go back to Paradise Street.

Something hissed.

They looked around. There was an alleyway between the charity clothes shop and the video library. The hissing came from there, except now it had changed into a snarl.

It wasn't at all pleasant. It went right into his ears and right through Johnny's modern brain and right down into the memories built into his very bones. When an early ape had cautiously got down out of its tree and wobbled awkwardly along the ground, trying out this new "standing upright" idea all the younger apes were talking about, this was exactly the kind of snarl it hated to hear.

It said to every muscle in the body: run away and climb something. And possibly throw down some coconuts, too.

"There's something in the alley," said Wobbler, looking around in case there were any trees handy.

"A werewolf?" said Bigmac.

Wobbler stopped. "Why should it be a werewolf?" he said.

"I saw this film, Curse of the Revenge of the Werewolf," said Bigmac, "and someone heard a snarl like that and went into a dark alley, and next thing, he was lying there with all his special effects spilling out on the pavement."

"Huh," quavered Wobbler. "There's no such things as werewolves."

"You go and tell it, then."

Johnny stepped forward.

There was a shopping trolley lying on its side just inside the alley, but that wasn't unusual. Herds of shopping trolleys roamed the streets of Blackbury. While he'd never seen one actually moving, he sometimes suspected that they trundled off as soon as his back was turned.

Bulging carrier bags and black plastic dustbin liners lay around it, and there was a number of jars. One of them had broken open, and there was a smell of vinegar.

One of the bundles was wearing trainers.

You didn't see that very often.

A terrible monster pulled itself over the top of the trolley and spat at Johnny.

It was white, but with bits of brown and black as well. It was scrawny. It had three and a half legs but only one ear. Its face was a mask of absolute, determined evil. Its teeth were jagged and yellow, its breath as nasty as a pepper spray.

Johnny knew it well. So did practically everyone else in Blackbury.

"Hello, Guilty," he said, taking care to keep his hands by his sides.

If Guilty was here, and the shopping trolley was here...

He looked down at the bundle with the trainers.

"I think something's happened to Mrs Tachyon," he said.

The others hurried up.

It only looked like a bundle, because Mrs Tachyon tended to wear everything she owned, all at once. This was a woolly hat, about twelve jerseys and a pink ra- skirt, then bare pipe cleaner legs down to several pairs of football socks and the huge trainers.

"Is that blood?" said Wobbler.

"Ur," said Bigmac. "Yuk."

"I think she's alive," said Johnny. "I'm sure I heard a groan."

"Er ... I know first aid," said Yoless, uncertainly. "Kiss of life and stuff."

"Kiss of life? Mrs Tachyon? Yuk," said Bigmac.

Yoless looked very worried. What seemed simple when you did it in a nice warm hall with the instructor watching seemed a lot more complicated in an alleyway, especially with all the woolly jumpers involved. Whoever invented first aid hadn't had Mrs Tachyon in mind.

Yoless knelt down gingerly. He patted Mrs Tachyon vaguely, and something fell out of one of her many pockets. It was fish and chips, wrapped in a piece of newspaper.

"She's always eating chips," said Bigmac. "My brother says she picks thrown-away papers out of the bin to see if there's any chips still in 'em. Yuk."

"Er ... " said Yoless desperately, as he tried to find a way of administering first aid without actually touching anything.

Finally Johnny came to his rescue and said, "I know how to dial 999."

Yoless sagged with relief. "Yes, yes, that's right," he said. "I'm pretty sure you mustn't move people, on account of breaking bones."

"Or the crust," said Wobbler.

Mrs Tachyon

Mrs Tachyon had always been there, as long as Johnny could remember. She was a bag lady before people knew what bag ladies were, although strictly speaking she was a trolley woman.

It wasn't a normal supermarket trolley, either. It looked bigger, the wires looked thicker. And it hurt like mad when Mrs Tachyon pushed it into the small of your back, which she did quite a lot. It wasn't that she did it out of nastiness well, it probably wasn't - but other people just didn't exist on Planet Tachyon.

Fortunately, one wheel squeaked. And if you didn't get accustomed to moving away quickly when you heard the squee ... squee ... squee coming, the monologue was another warning.

Mrs Tachyon talked all the time. You could never be quite certain who she was talking to.

" ... I sez, that's what you sez, is it? That's what you think. An' I could get both hands in yer mouth and still wind wool, I sez. Oh, yes. Tell Sid! Yer so skinny yer can close one eye and yer'd look like a needle, I sez. Oh, yes. They done me out of it! Tell that to the boys in khaki! That's a pelter or I don't know what is!"

But quite often it was just a mumble, with occasional triumphant shouts of "I told 'em!" and "That's what you think!".

The trolley with its squeaky wheel could turn up behind you at any hour of the day or night. No one knew when to expect it. Nor did anyone know what was in all those bags. Mrs Tachyon tended to rummage a lot, in bins and things. So no one wanted to find out.

Sometimes she'd disappear for weeks on end. No one knew where she went. Then, just when everyone was beginning to relax, there'd be the squee ... squee ... squee behind them and the stabbing pain in the small of the back.