Around him, the boys’ conversation, as their conversations did, took on its own peculiar style.

‘Anyway, no one’s proved the dinosaurs did die out.’

‘Oh, yeah, right, sure, they’re still around, are they?’

‘I mean p’raps they only come out at night, or are camouflaged or something …’

‘A brick-finished stegosaurus? A bright red Number 9 brontosaurus?’

‘Hey, neat idea. They’d go round pretending to be a bus, right, and people could get on – but they wouldn’t get off again. Oooo-Eee-Oooo …’

‘Nah. False noses. False noses and beards. Then just when people aren’t expecting it – UNK! Nothing on the pavement but a pair of shoes and a really big bloke in a mac, shuffling away …’

Paradise Street, thought Johnny. Paradise Street was on his mind a lot, these days. Especially at night.

I bet if you asked the people there if time travel was a good idea they’d say yes. I mean, no one knows what happened to the dinosaurs, but we know what happened to Paradise Street.

I wish I could go back to Paradise Street.

Something hissed.

They looked around. There was an alleyway between the charity clothes shop and the video library. The hissing came from there, except now it had changed into a snarl.

It wasn’t at all pleasant. It went right into his ears and right through Johnny’s modern brain and right down into the memories built into his very bones. When an early ape had cautiously got down out of its tree and wobbled awkwardly along the ground, trying out this new ‘standing upright’ idea all the younger apes were talking about, this was exactly the kind of snarl it hated to hear.

It said to every muscle in the body: run away and climb something. And possibly throw down some coconuts, too.

‘There’s something in the alley,’ said Wobbler, looking around in case there were any trees handy.

‘A werewolf?’ said Bigmac.

Wobbler stopped. ‘Why should it be a werewolf?’ he said.

‘I saw this film, Curse of the Revenge of the Werewolf,’ said Bigmac, ‘and someone heard a snarl like that and went into a dark alley, and next thing, he was lying there with all his special effects spilling out on the pavement.’

‘Huh,’ quavered Wobbler. ‘There’s no such things as werewolves.’

‘You go and tell it, then.’

Johnny stepped forward.

There was a shopping trolley lying on its side just inside the alley, but that wasn’t unusual. Herds of shopping trolleys roamed the streets of Blackbury. While he’d never seen one actually moving, he sometimes suspected that they trundled off as soon as his back was turned.

Bulging carrier bags and black plastic dustbin liners lay around it, and there was a number of jars. One of them had broken open, and there was a smell of vinegar.

One of the bundles was wearing trainers.

You didn’t see that very often.

A terrible monster pulled itself over the top of the trolley and spat at Johnny.