Johnny and the Bomb Read Free Page A

lay around it, and there were a number of jars. One of them had broken open, and there was a smell of vinegar.
    One of the bundles was wearing sneakers.
    You didn’t see that very often.
    A terrible monster pulled itself over the top of the cart and spat at Johnny.
    It was white, but with bits of brown and black as well. It was scrawny. It had three and a half legs but only one ear. Its face was a mask of absolute, determined evil. Its teeth were jagged and yellow, its breath as nasty as pepper spray.
    Johnny knew it well. So did practically everyone else in Blackbury.”
    “Hello, Guilty,” he said, taking care to keep his hands by his sides.
    If Guilty was here, and the shopping cart was here…
    He looked down at the bundle with the sneakers.
    “I think something’s happened to Mrs. Tachyon,” he said.
    The others hurried up.
    It only looked like a bundle because Mrs. Tachyon tended to wear everything she owned, all at once. This was a woolly hat, about twelve sweaters and a pink ra-ra skirt, then bare pipe-cleaner legs down to several pairs of sports socks and the huge sneakers.
    “Is that blood?” said Wobbler.
    “Er,” said Bigmac. “Yuk.”
    “I think she’s alive,” said Johnny. “I’m sure I heard a groan.”
    “Er…I know first aid,” said Yo-less uncertainly. “Kiss of life and stuff.”
    “Kiss of life? Mrs. Tachyon? Yuk,” said Bigmac.
    Yo-less looked very worried. What seemed simple when you did it in a nice warm hall with the instructor watching seemed a lot more complicated in an alleyway, especially with all the woolly sweaters involved. Whoever invented first aid hadn’t had Mrs. Tachyon in mind.
    Yo-less knelt down gingerly. He patted Mrs. Tachyon vaguely, and something fell out of one of her many pockets. It was fish and chips, wrapped in a piece of newspaper.
    “She’s always eating chips,” said Bigmac. “My brother says she picks thrown-away papers out of the trash to see if there’s any chips still in ’em. Yuk.”
    “Er…” said Yo-less desperately, as he tried to find a way of administering first aid without actually touching anything.
    Finally Johnny came to his rescue and said, “I know how to dial 911.”
    Yo-less sagged with relief. “Yes, yes, that’s right,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you mustn’t move people, on account of breaking bones.”
    “Or the crust,” said Wobbler.

MRS. TACHYON
     
    M rs. Tachyon had always been there, as long as Johnny could remember. She was a bag lady before people knew what bag ladies were, although strictly speaking she was a cart woman.
    It wasn’t a normal supermarket cart, either. It looked bigger, the wires looked thicker. And it hurt like mad when Mrs. Tachyon pushed it into the small of your back, which she did quite a lot. It wasn’t that she did it out of nastiness—well, it probably wasn’t—but other people just didn’t exist on Planet Tachyon.
    Fortunately, one wheel squeaked. And if you didn’t get accustomed to moving away quickly when you heard the squee…squee…squee coming, the monologue was another warning.
    Mrs. Tachyon talked all the time. You could never be quite certain who she was talking to.
    “…I sez, that’s what you sez, is it? That’s what you think. An’ I could get both hands in yer mouth and still wind wool, I sez. Oh, yes. Tell Sid! Yer so skinny yer can close one eye and yer’d look like a needle, I sez. Oh, yes. They done me out of it! Tell that to the boys in khaki! That’s a pelter or I don’t know what is!”
    But quite often it was just a mumble, with occasional triumphant shouts of “I told ’em!” and “That’s what you think!”
    The cart with its squeaky wheel could turn up behind you at any hour of the day or night. No one knew when to expect it. Nor did anyone know what was in all those bags. Mrs. Tachyon tended to rummage a lot, in bins and things. So no one wanted to find out.
    Sometimes she’d disappear for weeks on end. No one knew where she went.