Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett Page A

we’re in the future, the important thing is to find out which horses are going to win races, and so on.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜So we can bet money on them and become rich, of course.’
    â€˜I don’t know how to bet!’
    â€˜One problem at a time.’
    Johnny looked though the grimy window. The weather didn’t look very different. There were no flying cars or other definite signs of futurosity. But Guilty was no longer under the bench.
    â€˜Grandad has a racing paper,’ he said, feeling a bit light-headed.
    â€˜Let’s go, then.’
    â€˜What? Into my house?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Supposing I meet me?’
    â€˜Well, you’ve always been good at making friends.’
    Reluctantly, Johnny led the way out of thegarage. Garden paths in the future, he noted, were made of some gritty grey substance which was amazingly like cracked concrete. Back doors were an excitingly futuristic faded blue colour, with little dried flakes where the paint had bubbled up. It was locked, but his ancient key still fitted.
    There was a rectangle on the floor consisting of spiky brown hairs. He wiped his feet on it, and looked at the time measurement module on the wall. It said ten past three.
    The future was amazingly like the present.
    â€˜Now we’ve got to find a newspaper,’ said Kirsty.
    â€˜It won’t be a lot of help,’ said Johnny. ‘Grandad keeps them around until he’s got time to read them. They go back months. Anyway, everything’s normal . This doesn’t look very futuristic to me .’
    â€˜Don’t you even have a calendar?’
    â€˜Yes. There’s one on my bedside clock. I just hope I’m at school, that’s all.’
    According to the clock, it was the third of October.
    â€˜The day before yesterday,’ said Johnny. ‘Mind you, it could be the clock. It doesn’t work very well.’
    â€˜Yuk. You sleep in here?’ said Kirsty, looking around with an expression like a vegetarian in a sausage factory.
    â€˜Yes. It’s my room.’
    Kirsty ran her hand over his desk, which was fairly crowded at the moment.
    â€˜What’re all these photocopies and photos and things?’
    â€˜ That’s the project I’m doing in history. We’re doing the Second World War. So I’m doing Blackbury in the war.’
    He tried to get between her and the desk, but Kirsty was always interested in things people didn’t want her to see.
    â€˜Hey, this is you, isn’t it?’ she said, grabbing a sepia photograph. ‘Since when did you wear a uniform and a pudding-basin haircut?’
    Johnny tried to grab it. ‘And that’s Grandad when he was a bit older than me,’ he mumbled. ‘I tried to get him to talk about the war like the teacher said but he tells me to shut up about it.’
    â€˜You’re so local , aren’t you,’ said Kirsty. ‘I can’t imagine much happening here—’
    â€˜Something did happen,’ said Johnny. He pulled out Mrs Tachyon’s chip paper and jabbed at the front page with his finger. ‘At 11.07pm on May 21, 1941. Bombs! Real bombs! They called it the Blackbury Blitz. And this is the paper from the day after. Look.’ He rummaged among the stuff on his desk and pulled out a photocopy. ‘See? I got a copy of the same page out of the library! But this paper’s real, it’s new!’
    â€˜If she is … from the past … why does she wear an old ra-ra skirt and trainers?’ said Kirsty.
    Johnny glared angrily at her. She had no right not to care about Paradise Street!
    â€˜Nineteen people got killed! In one night!’ he said. ‘There wasn’t any warning! The only bombs that fell on Blackbury in the whole of the war! The only survivors were two goldfish in a bowl! It got blown into a tree and still had water in it! All the people got killed!’
    Kirsty picked up a