‘No wonder everyone was very depressed,’ he thought, trying to cycle standing up.

‘Nyer nyer nyer. Spy spy spy.’

‘Shut up!’ said Wobbler. ‘Why don’t you run away to London?’

‘Ain’t gonna run away to London now,’ said the boy. ‘’S’lot more fun catchin’ spies here.’

They were back in the heart of the town now. The boy trailed behind Wobbler, pointing him out to passers-by. Admittedly, no one seemed to be about to arrest him, but he was getting some odd looks.

‘My brother Ron’s a policeman,’ said the boy. ‘He’ll come up from London and shoot you with his gun.’

‘Go away!’

‘Sharn’t!’

Opposite the entrance to Paradise Street was a small church. It was a non-conformist chapel, according to Yo-less. It had a shut-up, wet Sunday look. A couple of elderly evergreen trees on either side of the door looked as though it’d take a shovel just to get the soot off their leaves.

The three of them sat on the steps, watching the street. A woman had come out and was industriously scrubbing her doorstep.

‘Did this chapel get hit?’ said Kirsty.

‘You mean will. I don’t think so.’

‘Pity.’

‘It’s still here … I mean, in 1996,’ said Yo-less. ‘Only it’s just used as a social hall. You know, for keep-fit classes and stuff. I know, ’cos I come here for Morris Dance practice every Wednesday. Will, I mean.’

‘You?’ said Kirsty. ‘You do Morris Dancing? With sticks and hankies and stuff? You?’

‘There’s something wrong?’ said Yo-less coldly.

‘Well … no … no, of course not … but … it’s just an unusual interest for someone of – your—’

Yo-less let her squirm for a bit and then said, ‘Height?’ He dropped the word like a weight. Kirsty shut her mouth.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Another woman appeared, next door to the one scrubbing her front doorstep, and started scrubbing her doorstep.

‘What are we going to do?’ said Kirsty.

‘I’m thinking,’ said Yo-less.

Somewhere in the distance a bell went off, and kept on going off.

‘I’m thinking, too,’ said Johnny. ‘I’m thinking: we haven’t seen Bigmac for ages.’

‘Good,’ said Kirsty.

‘He might be in some trouble, I mean,’ said Johnny.

‘What do you mean, might be?’ said Yo-less.

‘And we haven’t seen Wobbler, either,’ said Johnny.

‘Oh, you know Wobbler. He’s probably hiding somewhere.’

Another woman opened the door on the other side of the street and entered the doorstep scrubbing competition.

Kirsty straightened up.

‘Why’re we acting so miserable?’ she said. ‘We’re Nineties people. We should be able to think of something. We could … we could …’

‘We could ring up Adolf Hitler,’ Yo-less suggested. ‘Can’t remember his phone number, sorry, but directory inquiries in Germany’re bound to know.’

Johnny stared glumly at the shopping trolley. He hadn’t expected time travel to be this hard. He thought of all those wasted lessons when they could have been telling him what to do if some mad woman left him a trolley full of time. School never taught you anything that was useful in real life. There probably wasn’t a single textbook that told you what to do if it turned out you were living next door to Elvis Presley.