‘Come on! Open up!’

Yo-less found a gate and hurried through it. There was a splash in the darkness.

‘I think I’ve stepped into some sort of pond,’ said a damp voice.

Tom stepped away from the house and groped on the ground for something.

‘Maybe I can smash a window,’ he mumbled.

‘Er … it’s quite deep,’ said Yo-less, damply. ‘And I’m caught up on some kind of fountain thing …’

Glass tinkled. Tom reached through the window beside the door. There was a click, and the door opened.

They heard him trip over something inside, and then a weak light went on. Another click and—

‘This phone’s dead too! The lightning must’ve got the exchange!’

‘Where’s the next house?’ said Kirsty, as Tom hurtled down the path.

‘Not till Roberts Road!’

They ran after him, Yo-less squelching slightly. The drone was much louder now. Johnny could hear it above the sound of his own breath.

Someone must notice it in the town, he thought. It fills the whole sky!

Without saying anything, they all began to run faster—

And, at last, the siren began to wail.

But the clouds were parting and the moon shone through and there were shadows nosing through the rags of cloud and Johnny could feel the unseen shapes turning over and over as they drifted towards the ground.

First there was the allotment, and then the pickle factory, and then Paradise Street exploded gently, like a row of roses opening. The petals were orange tinged with black and unfolded one after another, as the bombs fell along the street.

Then the sounds arrived. They weren’t bangs but crunches, punches, great wads of noise hammered into the head.

Finally they died away, leaving only a distant crackling and the rising sound of a fire bell.

‘Oh, no!’ said Kirsty.

Tom had stopped. He stood and stared at the distant flames.

‘The phone wasn’t working,’ he whispered. ‘I tried to get here but the phone wasn’t working.’

‘We’re time travellers!’ said Yo-less. ‘This isn’t supposed to happen!’

Johnny swayed slightly. The feeling was like flu, but much worse. He felt as if he were outside his own body, watching himself.

It was the hereness of here, the nowness of now … People survived by not paying any attention to feelings like this. If you stopped, and opened your head to them, the world would roll over you like a tank …

Paradise Street was always going to be bombed. It was being bombed. It would have been bombed. Tonight was a fossil in time. It was a thing. Somewhere, it would always have happened. You couldn’t steer a train!

That’s what you think …

Somewhere …

Flames flickered over the housetops. More bells were ringing.

‘The bike wouldn’t start!’ mumbled Tom. ‘The phone wouldn’t work! There was a storm! I tried to get down here in time! How could it have been my fault?’

Somewhere …

Johnny felt it again … the sense that he could reach out and go in directions not found on any map or compass but only on a clock. It poured up from inside him until he felt that it was leaking out of his fingers. He hadn’t got the trolley or the bags but … maybe he could remember how it felt …