Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett

cricket team?’ he said.
    Bigmac blinked.
    â€˜What? How should I know?’
    â€˜Who won the Boat Race last year?’
    â€˜What boat race?’
    The policeman looked again.
    â€˜And what’s that on your belt?’
    Bigmac blinked again, and looked down.
    â€˜I didn’t nick it,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s only a transistor, anyway.’
    â€˜What’s that wire going into your ear?’
    â€˜Don’t be daft. It’s only the earphone—’
    The policeman’s hand landed on his shoulder with the kind of thud that suggested it wasn’t going to let go in a hurry.
    â€˜You come along with me, Fritz,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday.’
    Bigmac’s brain drifted into focus. He looked at the uniform, and at the crowd behind it, and it began to dawn on him that he was all alone and a long, long way from home.
    â€˜I wasn’t born yesterday, either,’ he said. ‘Does that help?’
    Johnny, Kirsty and Yo-less sat in a little garden. As far as Johnny could tell, it was where part of the ring road and a traffic island were going to be one day. Now it contained a bench and some geraniums.
    â€˜They’ll blow up Paradise Street tonight,’ said Johnny.
    â€˜Where’s that?’ said Yo-less.
    â€˜Here. It’s where the sports centre was … will be, I mean.’
    â€˜Never heard of it.’
    â€˜Yes. I did say . It got blown up. And you know the funny thing about it?’
    â€˜There’s something funny about it?’ said Kirsty.
    â€˜It was by accident! The Germans had meant to bomb the big goods yard at Slate! But they got a bitlost and the weather turned bad and they saw the railway yards here and dropped all their bombs and went home. Everyone was in bed because the air raid sirens didn’t go off in time!’
    â€˜All right, all right, I know, you’ve told me before, and all about Adolf and Stalin. It’s very sad but you shouldn’t get worked up about it,’ said Kirsty. ‘It’s history. That sort of thing happens in history.’
    â€˜Aren’t you listening? It hasn’t happened yet . This is now . It’s going to happen tonight .’
    They stared at the geraniums.
    â€˜Why haven’t we gone back yet?’ said Kirsty. ‘We’ve been here ages .’
    â€˜How should I know?’ said Johnny. ‘Maybe the further you go, the longer you stay.’
    â€˜ And we just happened to go to somewhere you know all about,’ said Yo-less. ‘That’s a bit strange, in my opinion.’
    It had worried Johnny, too. Everything felt real, but maybe he’d just gone mad and taken everyone else with him.
    â€˜I don’t want to stay here, that’s definite,’ said Yo-less. ‘Being Little Black Sambo isn’t my idea of a full life.’
    Johnny stood up and grasped the handles of the trolley.
    â€˜I’m going to see Paradise Street,’ he said.
    â€˜That’s a very bad idea,’ said Kirsty. ‘I told you, anything you do affects the future.’
    â€˜I’m only going to have a look.’
    â€˜Oh yes? I find that very hard to believe, actually.’
    â€˜She’s right,’ said Yo-less, trying to keep up. ‘You shouldn’t mess around with Time. I read this book where a man went right back in time and trod on … on a dinosaur, and changed the whole future.’
    â€˜A dinosaur?’ said Kirsty.
    â€˜I think it was a dinosaur. Maybe they had small ones.’
    â€˜Huh. Or he was a very big man, perhaps,’ said Kirsty.
    The trolley bumped off the pavement, rattled across a road, and clanked up the pavement on the other side.
    â€˜What’re you going to do?’ said Kirsty. ‘Knock on people’s doors and say, “Excuse me, some bombers are going to bomb this street tonight”?’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Because they’ll lock you