Terry Pratchett - Johnny and the Bomb

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.

Johnny went through his pockets. If only there was something ...

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 Johnny, as diplomatically as possible. Before, his grandfather had always told him not to go on about things.

His grandfather reached down beside his chair. There was an old wickerwork sewing box there, which had belonged to Johnny's grandmother. It hadn't been used for cotton and needles for a long time, though. It was full of old newspaper cuttings, keys that didn't fit any door in the house, stamps for one half-penny in old money, and all the other stuff that accumulates in odd corners of a house that has been lived in for a long time. Finally, after much grunting, he produced a small wooden box and opened it.

"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."

Johnny turned the silver medal over in his hands. There was a yellowing bit of paper with it, badly typed by someone who hadn't changed the ribbon on his typewriter for years.

"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 Johnny.

"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.

Johnny took them out and removed the band.

They had aircraft on them.

Johnny reached into his pocket and took out the five of clubs. It was a lot less worn, but there was no doubt that it was part of the pack. He slipped it under the band and put the pack back in the box.

Grandad and Johnny sat and looked at one another for a moment. There was no sound but the rain and the ticking of the mantelpiece clock.

Johnny felt the time drip around them, thick as amber ...

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.

Johnny trooped out into the hall.

The bell rang again, urgently.

Johnny opened the door.

"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 Johnny. "It's more like there." The elation rose up inside him like a big pink cloud. "Come on in.

"Everything. Even the pickles."

"Good!"

"I thought I ought to tell you."

"Rights."

"Do you think Mrs Tachyon will ever find her cat?" Johnny nodded.

"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! Dinner dinner dinner dinner-"

They turned. A skinny figure, wearing an old coat over a nightdress, and a woolly hat, ran along the road, expertly steering a wire cart between the mounds of rubble.

"-dinner dinner-"

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

"Search me!"

"-dinner dinner Batman!"

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 unnoticed, in a civic flowerbed, from whence it had bounced into the gutter.

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.