Free Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett Page A

call them pre-petroleum persons.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ said Bigmac. ‘One Million Years PC. Get it? ’Cos there was this film called One Million Years B C, but—’
    Kirsty’s mouth was open.
    â€˜Do you lot go on like this all the time?’ she said. ‘Yes, you do. I’ve noticed it before, actually. Ratherthan face up to facts, you start yakking on about weird things. When are we?’
    â€˜May the twenty-first,’ said Johnny, sitting down next to her. ‘Just gone half past three.’
    â€˜Oh yes?’ said Kirsty. ‘And how come you’re so sure?’
    â€˜I went and asked a man who was walking his dog,’ said Johnny.
    â€˜Did he say what year?’
    Johnny met Kirsty’s gaze. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I know what year.’
    They climbed out of the hollow and pushed their way through the bushes.
    A scrubby field stretched away below them. There were some allotment gardens at the bottom end of the field, and then a river, and then the town of Blackbury.
    It was definitely Blackbury. There was the familiar rubber boot factory chimney. There were a few other tall chimneys as well. He’d never seen those before. The man with the dog was watching them from some way off. So was the dog. Neither of them seemed particularly Jurassic, although the dog looked somewhat suspicious.
    â€˜Wha . . ?’ said Wobbler. ‘Here, what’s been happening? What have you done?’
    â€˜I told you we’d travelled in time,’ said Kirsty. ‘Weren’t you listening?’
    â€˜I thought it was just some trick! I thought you were just messing about!’ He gave Johnny a very worried look. ‘This is just messing about, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    Wobbler relaxed.
    â€˜It’s messing about with time travel,’ said Johnny.
    Wobbler looked scared again.
    â€˜Sorry. But that’s Blackbury all right. It’s just smaller. I think we’re where the mall is going to be.
    â€˜How do we get back?’ said Yo-less.
    â€˜It just sort of happens, I think.’
    â€˜You’re just doing it with hallucinations, aren’t you,’ said Wobbler, never a boy to let go of hope. ‘It’s probably the smell from the trolley. We’ll come round in a minute and have a headache and it’ll all be all right.’
    â€˜It just sort of happens?’ said Yo-less. He was using his careful voice again, the voice that said there was something nasty on his mind. ‘How do you get back?’
    â€˜There’s a flash, and there you are,’ said Kirsty.
    â€˜And you’re back where you left?’
    â€˜Of course not. Only if you didn’t move. Otherwise you go back to wherever where you are now is going to be then.’
    There was silence while they all worked this out.
    â€˜You mean,’ said Bigmac, ‘that if you walk a couple of metres, you’ll be a couple of metres away from where you started when you get back?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Even if there’s been something built there?’ said Yo-less.
    â€˜Yes … no … I don’t know.’
    â€˜So,’ said Yo-less, still speaking very slowly, ‘if there’s a lot of concrete, what happens?’
    They all looked at Kirsty. She looked at Johnny.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Probably you kind of … get lumped together.’
    â€˜Yuk,’ said Bigmac.
    There was a wail from Wobbler. Sometimes, when it involved something horrible, his mind worked very fast.
    â€˜I don’t want to end up with just my arms sticking out of a concrete wall!’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t think it’d happen like that,’ said Yo-less.
    Wobbler relaxed, but not much. ‘How would it happen, then?’ he said.
    â€˜What I think would happen is, see, all the atoms in your body, right, and all the atoms in the wall would be trying to be in the same place at the same