Johnny and the Bomb Read online

  ‘This isn’t television,’ he mumbled.

  The droning got closer.

  ‘Wish I’d brought my camera,’ said Bigmac.

  A door opened. An avenue of yellow light spilled out into the night and a small figure dashed along it and came to a halt in the middle street.

  It shouted: ‘Our Ron’ll get you!’ The drone filled the sky. Bigmac and Wobbler started running together.

  They cleared the churchyard steps in one jump and pounded towards the boy, who was dancing around waving a fist at the sky.

  The aircraft were right overhead.

  Bigmac got to him first and lifted him off his feet. Then he skidded on the cobbles as he turned and headed back towards the church.

  They were halfway there when they heard the whistling.

  They were at the top of the steps when the first bomb hit the allotments.

  They were jumping behind the wall when the second and third bombs hit the pickle factory.

  They were landing on the grass as the bombs marched up the street and filled the air with a noise so loud it couldn’t be heard and a light so white it came right through the eyelids, and then the roar picked up the ground and shook it like a blanket.

  That was the worst part, Wobbler said later. And it was hard to find the worst part because all the others were so bad. But the ground should be the ground, there, solid, dependably under you. It shouldn’t drop away and then come back up and hit you so hard.

  Then there was a sound like a swarm of angry bees.

  And then there was just the clink of collapsing brickwork and the crackle of fires.

  Wobbler raised his head, very slowly.

  ‘Ugh,’ he said.

  There were no leaves on the trees behind them. And the trunks sparkled.

  He got up very slowly, and reached out.

  It was glass. Bits of glass studded the whole trunk of the tree. There were no leaves any more. Just glass.

  Beside him, Bigmac got to his feet like someone in a dream.

  A frying pan had hit the church door so hard that it had been driven in halfway, like a very domesticated martial arts weapon. A stone doorstep had smashed a chunk out of the brickwork.

  And everywhere there was glass, crunching underfoot like permanent hail. It glittered on the walls, reflecting the fires in the ruins. There seemed far too much to be from just a few house windows.

  And then it began to rain.

  First it rained vinegar.

  And then it rained pickles.

  There was red liquid all over Bigmac. He licked a finger and then held it up.

  ‘Tomato sauce!’

  A gherkin bounced off Wobbler’s head.

  Bigmac started to laugh. People can start laughing for all sorts of reasons. But sometimes they laugh because, against all expectations, they’re still alive and have a mouth left to laugh with.

  ‘You—’ he tried to say, ‘you— you— you want fries with that?’

  It was the funniest thing Wobbler had ever heard. Right now it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said anywhere. He laughed until the tears ran down his face and mingled with the mustard pickle.

  From somewhere in the shadows by the wall a small voice said, ‘’Ere, did anyone get any shrapnel?’

  Bigmac started to laugh on top of the laugh he was already laughing, which caused a sound like a boiler trying not to burst.

  ‘What, what, what’s shrapnel anyway?’ he managed to say.

  ‘It’s … it’s … it’s bits of bomb!’

  ‘You want fries with that?’ said Bigmac, and almost collapsed with laughing.

  The siren sang out again. But this time it wasn’t the rising and falling wail but one long tone, which eventually died away.

  ‘They’re coming back!’ said Wobbler. The laughter drained out of him as though a trapdoor had been opened.

  ‘Nah, that’s the All Clear,’ said the voice by the wall. ‘Don’t you know nuffin’?’

  Wobbler’s grandfather stood up and looked down the length of what had once been Paradise Street.

  ‘Cor!’ he said, obviously impressed.

  There wasn’t a whole house left standing. Roofs had gone, windows had blown out. Half of the buildings had simply vanished into rubble, which spilled across the street.

  Bells rang in the distance. Two fire engines skidded to a halt right outside the church. An ambulance pulled up behind them.

  ‘You want—’ Bigmac began.

  ‘Shut up, will you?’ said Wobbler.

  There were fires everywhere. Big fires, little fires. The pickle factory was well alight and smelled like the biggest fish and chip shop in the world.

  People were running from every direction. Some of them were pulling at the rubble. There was a lot of shouting.

  ‘I suppose everyone … would’ve got out, right?’ said Wobbler. ‘They would have got out, wouldn’t they?’

  The siren’s wail slowed to a growl and then a clicking noise, and then stopped.

  Johnny felt as though his feet weren’t exactly on the ground. If he were any lighter he’d float away.

  ‘They must have got out. They had nearly a whole minute,’ he said.

  The sergeant had already headed toward Paradise Street. The three of them had been left with Tom and the captain, who was watching Johnny thoughtfully.

  Things pattered onto the roof of the police station and bounced down into the street. Yo-less picked one up.

  ‘Pickled onions?’ he said.

  They could see the flames over the rooftops.

  ‘So …’ said the captain. ‘You were right. A bit of an adventure, yes? And this is where I say “Well done, chums”, isn’t it …’

  He walked to the yard door and shut it. Then he turned.

  ‘I can’t let you go,’ he said. ‘You must know that. You were with that other boy, weren’t you. The one with the strange devices.’

  There seemed no point in denying it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnny.

  ‘I think you might know a lot of things. Things that we need. And we certainly need them. Perhaps you know that?’ He sighed. ‘I don’t like this. You may have saved some lives tonight. But it’s possible that you could save a lot more. Do you understand?’

  ‘We won’t tell you anything,’ said Kirsty.

  ‘Just name, rank and serial number, eh?’ said the captain.

  ‘Supposing we … did know things,’ said Johnny. ‘It wouldn’t do you any good. And those things won’t help, either. They won’t make the war better, they’ll just make it different. Everything happens somewhere.’

  ‘Right now, I think we’d settle for different. We’ve got some very clever men,’ said the captain.

  ‘Please, captain.’ It was Tom.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They didn’t have to do all this, sir. I mean, they came and told us about the bombing, didn’t they? And … I don’t know how they got me down here, sir, but they did. ’S not right to put them in prison, sir.’

  ‘Oh, not prison,’ said the captain. ‘A country house somewhere. Three square meals a day. And lots of people who’ll want to talk to them.’

  Kirsty burst into tears.

  ‘Now, no one’s going to hurt you, little girl,’ said the captain. He moved over and put his arm around her shaking shoulders.

  Johnny and Yo-less looked at one another, and took a few steps backwards.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said the captain. ‘We just need to know some things, that’s all. Things that may be going to happen.’

  ‘Well, one thing …’ sobbed Kirsty, ‘one thing … one thing that’s going to happen is … one thing is …’

  ‘Yes?’ said the captain.

  Kirsty reached out and took his hand. Then her leg shot out and she pivoted, hauling on the man’s arm. He somersaulted over her shoulder and landed on his back on the cobbles. Even as he tried to struggle upright she was spinning around again, and caught him full in the chest with a foot. He slumped backw
ards.

  Kirsty straightened her hat and nodded at the others.

  ‘Chauvinist. Honestly, it’s like being back with the dinosaurs. Shall we go?’ she said.

  Tom backed away.

  ‘Where do girls learn to do that?’ he said.

  ‘At school,’ said Johnny. ‘You’d be amazed.’

  Kirsty reached down and took the captain’s pistol.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Yo-less. ‘Not guns! You can get into real trouble with guns!’

  ‘I happen to be the under-18 county champion,’ said Kirsty, unloading the gun. ‘But I’m not intending to use it. I just don’t want him to get excited.’ She threw the pistol behind some dustbins. ‘Now, are we going, or what?’

  Johnny looked around at Tom.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ he said. ‘Can you, er, explain things to him when he wakes up?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to start! I don’t know what happened myself!’

  ‘Good,’ said Kirsty firmly.

  ‘I mean, did I run down here or not?’ said Tom. ‘I thought I saw the bombing but – I must’ve imagined it, because it didn’t happen until after we got here!’

  ‘It was probably the excitement,’ said Yo-less.

  ‘The mind plays strange tricks,’ said Kirsty.

  They both glared at Johnny.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about anything.’

  Chapter 12

  Up Another Leg

  What Bigmac said afterwards was that he’d never intended to help. It had been like watching a film until he’d seen people scrabbling at the wreckage. Then he’d stepped through the screen.

  Firemen were pouring water on the flames. People were pulling at fallen timbers, or moving gingerly through each stricken house, calling out names – in a strange, polite way, in the circumstances.

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Mr Johnson?’

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Density, are you there?’

  ‘Mrs Williams? Anyone?’

  And Wobbler said afterwards that he could remember three things. One was the strange metallic clinking sound bricks make as piles of them slide around. One was the smell of wet burnt wood. And one was the bed. The blast had taken off the roof and half the walls of a house but there was a double bed hanging out over the road. It even still had the sheets on it. It creaked up and down in the wind.

  The two boys scrambled over the sliding rubble until they reached a back garden. Glass and bricks covered everything.

  An elderly man wearing a nightshirt tucked into his trousers was standing and staring at the wreckage on his garden.

  ‘Well, that’s my potatoes gone,’ he said. ‘It was late frost last year, and now this.’

  ‘Still,’ said Bigmac, in a mad cheerful voice, ‘you’ve got a nice crop of pickled cucumbers.’

  ‘Can’t abide ’em. Pickles give me wind.’

  Fences had been laid flat. Sheds had been lifted up and dealt like cards across the gardens.

  And, as though the All Clear had been the Last Trumpet, people were rising out of the ground.

  ‘I just hope the others are still there,’ said Kirsty, as they ran through the streets.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Yo-less.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I mean, maybe they’re sitting quietly waiting for us or they’ve got into some kind of trouble. Bets?’

  Kirsty slowed down.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘There’s something I’ve got to know. Johnny?’

  ‘Yes?’ he said. He’d been dreading this moment. Kirsty asked such penetrating questions.

  ‘What did we do? Back there? I saw the bombs drop! And I’m a very good observer! But we got down to the police station before it happened! So either I’m mad – and I’m not mad – or we—’

  ‘Ran through time,’ said Yo-less.

  ‘Look, it was just a direction,’ said Johnny. ‘I just saw the way to go …’

  Kirsty rolled her eyes. ‘Can you do it again?’

  ‘I … don’t think so. I can’t remember how I did it.’

  ‘He was probably in a state of heightened awareness,’ said Yo-less. ‘I’ve read about them.’

  ‘What … drugs?’ said Kirsty suspiciously.

  ‘Me? I don’t even like coffee!’ said Johnny. The world had always seemed so strange in any case that he’d never dared try anything that’d make it even weirder.

  ‘But it’s an amazing talent! Think of the things you—’

  Johnny shook his head. He could remember seeing the way, and he could remember the feelings, but he couldn’t remember the how. It was as if he was looking at his memories behind thick amber glass.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, and started running again.

  ‘But—’ Kirsty began.

  ‘I can’t do it again,’ said Johnny. ‘It’ll never be the right time again.’

  Bigmac and Wobbler weren’t in trouble, if only because there had been so much trouble just recently that there was, for a while, no more to get into.

  ‘This is an air-raid shelter?’ said Bigmac. ‘I thought they were all – you know, steel and stuff. Big doors that go hiss. Lights flashing on and off. You know.’ He heaved on one end of a shed which had smashed into the air-raid shelter belonging to No. 9. ‘Not just some corrugated iron and dirt with lettuces growing on top.’

  Wobbler had rescued a shovel from the ruin of someone’s greenhouse, and used it to heave bricks out of the way. The shelter door opened and a middle-aged woman staggered out.

  She was wearing a floral pinny over a nightdress, and holding a goldfish bowl with two fish in it. A small girl was clinging to her skirts.

  ‘Where’s Michael?’ the woman shouted. ‘Where is he? Has anyone seen him? I turned my back for two seconds to grab Adolf and Stalin and he was out the door like a—’

  ‘Kid in a green jersey?’ said Wobbler. ‘Got glasses? Ears like the World Cup? He’s looking for shrapnel.’

  ‘He’s safe?’ She sagged with relief ‘I don’t know what I’d have told his mother!’

  ‘You all right?’ said Bigmac. ‘I’m afraid your house is a bit … flatter than it was …’

  Mrs Density looked at what was left of No. 9.

  ‘Oh, well. Worse things happen at sea,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘Do they?’ said Bigmac, mystified.

  ‘It’s just a blessing we weren’t in it,’ said Mrs Density.

  There was a clink of brickwork and a fireman slid down the debris towards them.

  ‘All right, Mrs Density?’ he said. ‘I reckon you’re the last one. Fancy a nice cup of tea?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Bill,’ she said.

  ‘Who’re these lads, then?’ said the fireman.

  ‘We … were just helping out,’ said Wobbler

  ‘Were you? Oh. Right. Well, come away out of it, the pair of you. We reckon there’s an unexploded one at Number 12.’ The fireman stared at Bigmac’s clothes for a moment, and then shrugged. He gently took the goldfish bowl from Mrs Density and put his other arm around her shoulders.

  ‘A nice cup of tea and a blanket,’ he said. ‘Just the thing, eh? Come along, luv.’

  The boys watched them slide and scramble through the fallen bricks.

  ‘You get bombed and they give you a cup of tea?’ said Bigmac.

  ‘I s’pose it’s better than getting bombed and never ever getting one again,’ said Wobbler. ‘Anyway, there—’

  ‘Eeeeyyyyooooowwwwmmmm!’ screamed a voice behind them.

  They turned. Wobbler’s grandfather was standing on a pile of bricks and looked like a small devil in the light of the fires. He was covered in soot, and was waving something through the air and making aeroplane noises.

  ‘That looks like—’ Bigmac began.

  ‘It’s a bit off’f a bomb!’ said the boy. ‘Nearly the whole tail fin! I don’t know anyone who’s got nearly a whole tail fin!’

  He zoomed the twisted metal through the air again.

  ‘Er �
�� kid?’ said Wobbler.

  The boy lowered the fin.

  ‘You know about … motorbikes?’ said Wobbler.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Bigmac. ‘You can’t tell him anything about—’

  ‘You just shut up!’ said Wobbler. ‘You’ve got a grandad!’

  ‘Yes, but there has to be a warder there when I go an’ see him.’

  Wobbler looked back at the boy.

  ‘Dangerous things, motorbikes,’ he said.

  ‘I’m going to have a big one when I grow up,’ said his grandfather. ‘With rockets on it, an’ machine guns and everythin’. Eeeooowwmmmm!’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said Wobbler, in the special dumb voice for talking to children. ‘You don’t want to go crashing it, do you.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t crash,’ said his grandfather, confidently.

  ‘Mrs Density’s daughter’s a nice little girl, isn’t she,’ said Wobbler desperately.

  ‘She’s all smelly and horrible. Eeeeeoowwmmm! Anyway, you’re fat, mister!’

  He ran down the far side of the heap. They saw his shadow darting between the firemen, and heard the occasional ‘Voommmm!’

  ‘Come on,’ said Bigmac. ‘Let’s get back to the church. The man said they thought there was an unexploded bomb—’

  ‘He just didn’t want to listen!’ said Wobbler. ‘I would’ve listened!’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Bigmac.

  ‘Well, I would!’

  ‘Sure. Come on.’

  ‘I could’ve helped him if only he’d listened! I know stuff! Why won’t he listen? I could make life a lot easier for him!’

  ‘All right, I believe you. Now let’s go, shall we?’

  They reached the church just as Johnny and the others came running up the street.

  ‘Everyone all right?’ said Kirsty. ‘Why are you covered in soot, you two?’

  ‘We’ve been rescuing people,’ said Wobbler, proudly. ‘Well, sort of.’

  They looked at the wreck of Paradise Street. People were standing around in small groups, and sitting on the ruins. Some ladies in official-looking hats had set up a table with a tea urn on it. There were still a few small fires, however, and the occasional crash and tinkle as a high-altitude cocktail onion fell back to earth in a coating of ice.

  Johnny stared.