Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett Page A

up, that’s why,’ said Yo-less.
    â€˜Right,’ said Kirsty. ‘It’ll be just like the man who trod on Yo-less’s dinosaur.’
    â€˜It may have been some sort of insect, now I come to think of it,’ said Yo-less. ‘Anyway, there’snothing you can do. It’s already happened, otherwise how come you know about it? You can’t mess up history.’
    The trolley stopped so quickly that they ran into the back of Johnny.
    â€˜Why does everyone always talk like that?’ he said. ‘It’s stupid . You would really watch someone run over by a car because that’s what was supposed to happen, would you? Everything we do changes the future, all the time. So we ought to do what’s right .’
    â€˜Don’t shout, people are looking at us,’ said Kirsty.
    The trolley bumped over the kerb and started to bounce on some cobbles. They were already out of the town centre.
    And there was Paradise Street.
    It wasn’t very long. There were only ten terraced houses on either side, and some of them were boarded up. The far end was a pair of double wooden gates to a factory. They’d once been painted green, but time and the weather had turned the colour into a sort of mossy grey.
    Someone had chalked a set of goalposts on the doors, and half a dozen small boys in knee-length shorts were kicking a ball about.
    Johnny watched them as they scuffled and perpetrated fouls that would have gladdened the heart of any football manager.
    About halfway along the street a young man was repairing a motorcycle. Tools lay on a piece of sacking on the pavement. The football emerged from a complicated tackle, hit the spanners, and almost knocked the bike over.
    â€˜Turn it up, you little devils,’ said the man, pushing the ball away.
    â€˜You never said anything about children,’ said Kirsty, so quietly that Johnny nearly didn’t hear her.
    Johnny shrugged.
    â€˜It’s all going to get blown up?’ said Yo-less.
    Johnny nodded.
    â€˜There wasn’t very much detail in the local paper,’ he said. ‘They didn’t used to put very much in, in case the enemy read it. It was all to do with something they called the war effort. You know … not wanting to let the enemy know you’d been hurt. There was a photo of a lady with her thumb up saying “Blackbury can take it, Mister Hitler!” but there was hardly anything else about the raid until a couple of years afterwards.’
    â€˜You mean the government hushed it up?’ said Kirsty.
    â€˜Makes sense, I suppose,’ said Yo-less gloomily. ‘I mean, you don’t want to say to the enemy, “Hey, you missed your target, have another go”.’
    The football slammed against the factory gates,rattling them. There didn’t seem to be any teams. The ball just went everywhere, surrounded by a mob of small boys.
    â€˜I don’t see what we could do ,’ said Kirsty. Her voice sounded uneasy, now.
    â€˜What? Just now you were telling me I shouldn’t do anything,’ said Johnny.
    â€˜It’s different when you see people, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I suppose it wouldn’t work if we just told someone?’
    â€˜They’d say “how do you know?” and then you’d probably get shot as a spy,’ said Yo-less. ‘They used to shoot spies.’

Chapter 7

Heavy Mental
    The man in the khaki uniform turned Bigmac’s transistor radio over and over in his hands.
    Bigmac watched nervously. There was a police sergeant in the room, and Bigmac was familiar with policemen. But there was a soldier standing by the door, and he had a gun in a holster. And the one sitting down looked tired but had a very sharp expression. Bigmac was not the fastest of thinkers, but it had dawned on him that this was unlikely to be the kind of situation where you got let off with a caution.
    â€˜Let’s start again,’ said the