Original subtitles

- Ladies and gentlemen, the suggestion by certain papers

that our recent explosion was not atomic

is, of course, quite untrue.

I am here to tell you

the real story of what happened.

This is the truth.

Honest, cross my heart!

You may smoke, gentlemen.

Now let me see.

It all started on a Wednesday morning.

Yes, that's right.

It was the first Wednesday of the holidays

and the secret society of our village

were at their new headquarters,

fixing up the resistance movement.

There's one of us missing at the moment,

but I can introduce you to the rest.

This is Tom Chizzler.

He's the leader of the gang,

bit on the bossy side, really.

But we don't take too much notice of him.

Hans Einstein Blotz, our mechanical genius.

He's a Swiss and lives

over near the atomic research station.

His dad's a scientist.

Alice Nightingale's the doctor's daughter.

She rather fancies herself as a nurse,

always got a bandage and things with her.

A bit silly, really.

Mary Huxley acts as a spy.

Her dad's a park keeper, so she's used to hiding

in bushes and watching things.

And this seems to be me, Horatio Flynn.

They say I exaggerate a bit, but that's not fair!

I wouldn't do such a thing, honest I wouldn't!

Well, that's five of us.

No sign of Ernest yet,

absent-minded like most professors.

We haven't got time to hang around all day waiting for him.

We got some importance business on hand.

- Say, Tom, won't your mum mind us living here?

- No, I rule the roost around this joint.

♪ Cock-a-doodle doo

- You got a smell in here.

- Oh sit down it's cleaned up and good manure too.

- Oh, got a flea already.

- I'll squirt some disinfectant around.

- No, you won't.

You'll give the hens asthma.

- We got the most whopping fleas in our garden.

They sit on the trees and bark.

- No!

- Honest they do.

- Anyone not satisfied can get out.

Cut out the cackle and let's get down to business.

We're going to wage a war.

- A war?

- Go on.

- Who do you think?

Police Constable Parker, of course.

- Oh, Nosey.

- That's different.

- Hooray!

- We're going to blow him up.

- Good Lord, wow!

- Gee.

- That's right.

- Goody, we're gonna blow up Nosey Parker.

- Quiet, quiet.

First of all, who knows how to make gunpowder?

- Hans, you ought to.

Wasn't your grandfather an inventor.

- Yeah, but in Switzerland you don't invent gunpowder.

- What do you invent then?

- Well, my grandfather invented an immersible watch

and a special cuckoo clock.

- My watch is immersible.

- Ooh.

- It is.

I often leave it in a bucket of water overnight.

- But it doesn't go anyhow.

- I know but it is immersible.

- What was so special about the cuckoo clock?

- It lays a wooden egg on the first of April.

- Quiet, quiet.

Ernest will know how to make gunpowder.

I wonder what's happened to him.

Why is he so late?

- Now get a move on, get a move on.

You're obstructing the traffic.

- What traffic?

- Never you mind what traffic.

And get this contraption out of the way.

- It's not a contraption, it's a vehicle.

- Oh, it is, is it?

And where's your license?

- Don't be ridiculous.

I'm not old enough to have one.

- You watch your step, young man.

You're old enough for me to run in.

Bostle, that's where you ought to be the lot of you.

- Fen Parker can't bear children, you know.

- No one expects him to do them.

- Hm?

Oh, Doctor, you are awful.

- Weekly reports, please, and make it slippy.

- I chalked Nosey Parker on his wall.

- I sent him a postcard without a stamp.

He had to pay five pence.

- And I put a banana skin under his bath mat.

Whoop!

- And I put weed killer in his watering can.

- I put a douse of salts in his thermos flask.

- What's the problem with Parker?

Are some of the young talent been getting up to mischief?

- Well, mind you, I suppose he's only conscientious

but he needn't have reported young Tom

for setting the clock back down at the railway station,

did he now.

- I didn't hear about that one.

I won't take these.

It's rather coarse paper.

Gimme an ounce of my usual, will you?

- Yes.

It appears that he slipped into the station master's office

and set the clock back 20 minutes.

They were very angry on the Brighton Bell.

- Why?

- Well, old Fred in the signal box got his times all mixed

and sent it up to Scotland.

- Blimey.

Make it two ounces, will you?

- But what I say is youthful spirits, just youthful spirits.

You mustn't repress them or the most dreadful things

will happen in later life.

- Well, according to your theory my young Alice

should be pushing somebody over a cliff

so that she can bandage them up.

You know, I wouldn't put it past a single one of them,

dear little children.

I'd drown the blinking lot.

- Oh, go on.

- Now, that young Ernest,

for instance.

He's another of them.

Next thing he'll be making atomic bombs like his father.

- A brilliant man.

- Cheffle?

Oh, he's a clever enough fellow I understand.

But why this village of all villages should be inflicted

with a rash of atomic scientists beats me.

- Well, I suppose we should be honored.

Splitting the atom up there at the atomic station,

well, there's not many people can do that.

- Maybe not.

But this is just a nice, ordinary, civilized village.

All we want is to be left in peace and quietness.

- Gunpowder?

That's easy.

We'll need 200 grams of sulfur, call it half pound,

say four ounces of saltpeter.

- Lucky my dad's a chemist.

- When will you pinch it?

- Want a clip on the ear?

Who said I'm gonna pinch it?

- I suppose it's not pinching really.

- What's my dad's mine, isn't it?

What else do we need?

- I've got the rest of the ingredients in my lab.

- Good old prof.

- Gunpowder will put Nosey Parker in his place all right.

But it's got to be secret see.

All take the oath.

Swear where?

- Where we swear where know what to the woo spear we.

- Come outta there at once all of you.

- Let's scatter quick!

- Oh, Mum!

- You'll wait till your father hears about this.

You'll get it.

Poor things at laying time, too.

It's a wonder they can contain themselves.

- Ernest, is that you?

- Yes, Mom.

- Come up here a moment, will you?

- All right.

Don't touch.

Oh Mum, what are you doing?

- Now, what does it look as if I'm doing?

I'm cleaning your father's study.

- He won't like that at all.

- Don't be silly.

Can't have him coming back from America

to a dirty hole like this.

- But Mum, all these papers, suppose you got them maggled?

- Oh, they can soon be sorted out again.

- And all the information's so secret.

That's why it was locked up.

How did you get in anyway?

- Key of the dining room fitted the door.

- Anyone knows that.

- Ernest, you haven't been coming

in here yourself, have you?

- From time to time.

But I didn't do any harm.

- Now what have you been up to?

- Studying atomic research that's all.

- Ernest.

- Well, just some preliminary work

on the angular correlation

of scattered annihilation radiation.

It's from Wampimpsky's theory you know.

- No, I didn't know.

Well, I don't know

what your father's going to have to say about it.

- Don't tell him, Mum, please don't.

- You're a very naughty boy.

You know this is where he keeps some of his secret papers.

You had no right to come in here.

- Nor had you, Mum.

- And using the dining room key

was both artful and deceitful.

- Wasn't it?

- Ernest, over here in the corner,

there's some rubbish.

It's some old fossils and rocks and stuff

I want to get rid of.

Do you want it?

- Oh rather!

But grandfather collected these while he was at sea.

- I have no idea where they came from

but they've been here for far too long.

- Won't Dad mind?

- Now, why should he mind?

If you have them, they'll still be in the family.

I shan't have to dust them, shall I?

- They're jolly interesting.

I'll put them in my museum.

Hey, Horry, give us a hand with these.

- Cralls, what a windfall.

- There must be something valuable among this lot.

My dad's completely ignorant when it comes to geology.

We'll take them to my museum.

I built a new machine since you were here last.

- Oh goody.

Cralls, take a look at that!

- Hey, can't you see this is private?

- Linda can't read.

- You've got him awfully wet, darling.

Take him out in the sun to dry.

Good girl.

It's simply a matter of understanding them.

Ooh, this old stone doesn't doesn't half feel funny.

- Funny, what do you mean?

- I don't know.

Sort of prickly, like it's giving off an electric shock.

- Let's feel.

It does, too.

Krakatoa!

- Kraka-what-a?

- Krakatoa, look.

Let's see now.

- Turn it over.

- I'd better put on my asbestos glove.

- What for?

- You never know what might happen with a thing like that.

I suppose you know what Krakatoa was?

- Of course.

Ooh what a stink.

- Let's see now the K-40 disintegration.

This ought to be interesting.

Run over the proton energy ranges.

Set scintillation counter for two mu time base.

Horry, we've got something extraordinary here.

- Is it dangerous?

- Maybe.

- Look, I've got the gunpowder.

Look, I've got it.

I've got it.

Look, I've got it.

What's that old stone you're mucking about with there?

- This is probably the rarest specimen in the world.

It came from Krakatoa.

- Krakatoa?

Never heard of it.

- You tell him, Horry.

- Mmm, no you.

- Well, it was an island in the Pacific

that blew itself up about 70 years ago.

- How could it?

- Like a volcano only much more violent.

- That's right, my grandfather was there in a rowing boat

and if he hadn't put his umbrella up--

- There he goes again.

- No, honest, cross my heart.

- Is that all that was left of it?

- More or less.

- Well, what's all the fuss about?

- Can't you see, it's radioactive like uranium and polonium.

- Don't you want the sulfur and saltpeter?

- Oh, anyone could get those.

- Anyone couldn't without getting found out.

You couldn't.

- It takes all sorts to make a world,

doesn't it, Horatio?

- Are you taking the Mike out on me?

- Sorry, chief.

- You wanna blot Nosey Parker, don't you?

- Rather.

- Okay, we'll make the gunpowder this afternoon.

- Good oh!

- We can have a trial explosion.

- Yes, nearly everyone will be at Mill Green

for the cricket match this afternoon.

- Sounds as if your dinner's ready.

- Lunch.

- Thank God for my good meal.

Please can I get down?

- Not yet 'cause now you're gonna have the presents

Daddy sent you from America.

- Good oh!

- There's some popcorn for you both.

And look what I've got for Linda.

A lovely doll.

Look, shuts its eyes

and it talks.

It even drinks from a bottle.

- I suppose it cries in the night, too.

- This is for you, Ernest.

It's a little bit larger.

I better put it over here.

It's a toy atomic set.

- Toy atomic set?

How absolutely smashing.

- Doesn't seem to me a very nice idea

for a toy.

Goodness knows what they'll think of next.

- Hey, super.

- Mind you don't make too much mess there, Ernest.

- Ingenious, making the mu meson factors equal

on a logarithmic scale.

No, should be cubed I think.

Oh, that'll be Hans signaling.

Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dot.

Dash, dash.

Hans' mother wants to know if you'd like to come to tea.

- You tell her I should be delighted.

- Delighted?

I'll just say yes.

- Look what I found on the floor.

It's the baby's stomach.

Come on, put it in the mouth.

- Can she come?

- Yah, she can come.

Mum?

- Mm hm.

- Ernest has a toy atomic bomb set from America.

- Oh no, Hans, that's too much.

A toy atomic bomb set?

- What's wrong about it?

Sounds super.

- Oh why aren't you and Ernest like other boys

playing cricket or something?

- Because they're too civilized.

- Mum, can I have Hans and some of the rest of the gang

over to play this afternoon?

- Yes, I suppose you can as long as you behave yourselves

and don't blow up the house or anything while I'm out.

- Oh, I doubt if there's any danger of that.

- Dot, dash, dash, dash, dot.

- Dot, dot, dash, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash dot.

Dot, dot, dash, dot, dot, dot,

dash, dot, dot.

- Hello there, Parker.

What are you up to?

- Dot, dot.

There's something mighty fishy going on over there, Sarge,

by the atomic station.

Morse code, look.

- Well, I don't see anything.

- Well, it's stopped now.

It was coming from that house where them foreigners live.

I smell a rat.

- Ah, you and your rats.

What did it say?

- Well, I still have to look it up.

- Here, let me see.

- B-L-O-W, blow up,

Nosey the Narc.

- Nosey the Narc?

That's highly suspicious.

Sounds like a Bolshevik agent.

Nosey the Narc.

I wonder who he is.

- Investigate it, my lad, investigate it.

I'd do so myself only I'm playing cricket.

- Cricket.

- Yes, cricket.

Funny how at great moments of our history

English people go off to play cricket or balls or something.

Sergeant Butler's my uncle, well, sort of.

He's captain of Barley Cricket Team.

Played at Lord's ever so often.

Honest.

So that afternoon, most of the villagers

went over to watch him in the match

against Mill Green.

The place was deserted

except for a few people like Miss Goslett.

And she had to rest her poor feet.

Old Bob Crouch, he had a floating kidney

and the doctor said he had to keep it floating.

Honest.

And, of course, PC Parker.

He was investigating.

We met at Ernest's place for a high-level conference.

- Could tell this is American all right,

mass produced plastics.

They've soldered everything together

instead of using rivets.

- Technologically backward lot, aren't they?

- Fall over backwards you mean.

It wouldn't stand up to any sort of strain.

I've had to replace a lot of the junctions.

- I suppose in America the kids just play with it,

don't put it to any use at all.

- Don't you think it'll work then?

- Now I fixed it it should.

- Perhaps it'll say cuckoo and lay a wooden egg.

- Do you want for me to stop?

- No, no, Hans, only pulling your leg.

- Where?

- Don't take any notice of him, Hans.

How are we getting on?

- Will it make a big bang?

- Shouldn't think so but we may get a surprise.

You see, I'm doing something very unorthodox.

I'm putting in a chip of Krakatoa rock.

- Tom.

- Ernest, Tom.

- Ernest.

- Pipe down, this is a secret society, isn't it?

Hey, what's the idea of bringing them nippers with you?

- We've got to look after them.

- Aw.

- Have you made the gunpowder?

- Gunpowder, forget it.

- But aren't you gonna blow up Nosey Parker?

- This is the atomic age, isn't it?

Come on in.

Members only.

- Cooer!

Isn't it complicated?

- Is it dangerous?

- Is it dangerous?

You bet it's dangerous.

It's the most dangerous thing ever happened in Barley.

- Goody.

- We'd better get the museum evacuated, just in case.

We'll all have to lie down behind a barricade.

- You think it's a safe distance?

- Yes, I should think so.

We'll check it when we get back to the museum.

- Do you want everything out, Prof?

- Yes, there's a lot of valuable stuff still there.

- I'll stay here and be supervisor.

- You couldn't be a super anything.

- I could.

- What then?

- Well, I could be a um--

- Supercilious?

- Super silly ass you mean.

- Ha ha ha.

- Come on, another couple of trips will finish it.

But press on regardless.

Bang on with ho.

- There, it will go now.

- Oh, bless you, Carl.

- It was simple.

Hans could have done it.

- Hans takes after you, doesn't he?

- Possibly.

And little Ernest after his father.

- No, they grow up too soon, that's the trouble.

Always the engineering, always the science with them.

- Well, it keeps them out of mischief.

Ernest enjoys studying so John and I encourage him.

- When do you expect your John back from America?

- 'Bout the end of the month.

- Aren't you tired of being what you call it,

a grassy widow?

- Very.

Oh, by the way, John has just sent Ernest

the most frightful present, a toy atomic set.

Children love it.

I expect that's what they're playing with this afternoon.

- It's not dangerous is it?

- No, no, Lea.

Probably just an elaborate firework that's all.

Always she worry.

Good boys your Ernest and my Hans.

Perhaps one day they make big noise, eh?

- Now the big moment.

In goes the Krakatoa.

- Good, media ready.

- Just think, an atom bomb.

- Boom, boom!

- Pity we haven't got a goat to test it on.

- Goat?

- Yes, stupid.

They always try it out on goats.

- Well, listen to this a piscatorial vertebrate.

- Mm, that'll do.

Mary, do you mind bringing out

my protective clothing, please?

It's down there on the floor.

According to my computations,

30 feet should be a safe range.

The blast, of course, will follow the law of pumpernickel.

We needn't worry about that.

Come on, we're all set

and almost ready to start.

Come on!

- Come on!

- That's it.

You operate it.

- Right.

- I'll give you the signal for exactly 5:00.

- Keep down all of you.

Ready, steady, go.

- In this bounch in here.

- Look!

Look, an atomic explosion!

- Golly!

- Smashing!

- Did you hear that bang?

- Explosion, square up.

- Now nip off home, all of you.

And remember it was only fireworks.

- Awful noisy.

- It's fairly safe.

There's not much radioactivity

and it's passed enough already.

I suppose it'll get so it.

You don't want any gettin'.

- Remember everyone, gunpowder, gunpowder, gunpowder.

- Now then, now then, what's going on here?

- There's been an explosion.

- Explosion?

Anyone could see that.

But what kind of explosion,

that's what I wanna know?

- Oh, just an ordinary one.

- Eh?

- Gunpowder.

- In its simplest form.

- And what are you all dressed up like that for?

- I thought it was going to rain.

- And where did you get this gunpowder from?

- We made it.

- You did, did you?

What out of?

- Elementary, my dear constable.

Sulfur and saltpeter and charcoal--

- Elementary?

Where did you get 'em from?

- My dad's shot.

- Pinched it, eh?

- You're always accusing us of doing something wrong.

- Fen Parker, don't bully them.

- Now look here, Emily Goslett, the law's the law.

You know that.

- Fiddles, can't you see they've had a fright?

- Fright.

- Are any of you hurt?

- No, Miss Goslett.

- I saw a great big mushroom go up.

- Mushroom?

Are you suspicious?

- Oh Bob Crouch is always seeing things.

He wouldn't know the difference between a mushroom

and a toadstool.

Ought to be

ashamed of himself.

- It were a mushroom.

I knows a mushroom when I sees one.

Mushroom.

- Not much, not much.

- Ernest, are you all right?

- Yes, Mum.

- What happened?

- There's an explosion.

- Where's Linda.

- Oh, she went home with the others.

- No, no, don't hurt me. - You naughty boy,

you naughty!

- What happened?

- There's been an explosion.

- What sort of explosion?

- That's what I wanna know.

- Gunpowder.

- Ordinary gunpowder?

- Yes.

- They just wouldn't believe us.

Mr. Blotz and old Nosey kept on asking us questions.

We were as close as oysters.

I had a bit of a job keeping one or two of the gang quiet

but I managed it.

The cricket match finished early

and soon the rest

of the village came home.

Old Bob Crouch soon told them the news

and they rushed to see what it was all about.

- The constable wanted to know

about the Morse code flashing.

I told him it was only little Hans playing with a mirror.

- Gunpowder, ridiculous.

- What do you mean?

- There's a field of radioactivity,

slight and quickly fading, but undoubtedly there.

It was an atomic explosion.

- Oh no!

- Do you think that toy atomic set?

- Impossible.

They wouldn't put high explosives

in a thing designed for children.

- Well, there were little bottles

and packets of chemicals with it.

- Harmless enough I'm sure.

Magnesium or sulfur.

No, no, chemicals provided with a toy

don't split atoms.

Somehow they have got hold of a very secret formula.

Margery, Ernest has never had access

to his father's papers has he?

- Yes, as a matter of fact he has.

- But how?

- Well, he's been going into John's study

while he's been away.

He's only been reading things that's all.

- This is serious.

If the atomic commission suspect a leakage--

- They mustn't!

- It will be difficult to keep it from them

and perhaps not wise.

We are foreigners you know.

Perhaps it would be best to go to Sir Charles immediately

and before him lay the facts.

- Already that policeman is suspicious.

- He is a fool.

- But the children all swear it was only gunpowder.

- It was not gunpowder.

- Anyway if they burn up the atomic set,

it can't happen again, can it?

- If they have.

But even so.

- We mustn't do a thing about it until John gets back.

It wouldn't be fair to him.

Might even jeopardize his position.

- Undoubtedly, but if Ernest has stumbled

across a secret--

- He couldn't have done anything about it

without Hans's help, could he?

We must keep this to ourselves.

We really must.

- I don't like it.

If they have accidentally discovered a secret--

- Carl, why don't you talk to them

and find out how much they have discovered?

- Yes, that's a good idea.

He's wonderful with children.

- Ernest, Hans, come here

for a moment. - We'll leave you

alone with them but don't be too technical, darling.

Remember, they're only children.

Come on, come on.

- Well, boys, have you got over your shock?

- Shock, father?

- From the accidental explosion.

It was an accident, wasn't it.

- I think we might say that the result

was not wholly anticipated.

- We should have remembered that releasing excessive energy

in a confined space is always dangerous.

- Well, it is only by our mistakes that we can learn.

In fact, boys, and I don't want this to go any further,

we of the atomic commission may learn something

from your little accident today.

- Really, father?

How?

- Well, it is difficult to put it into simple language

that you would understand.

But briefly, your explosion released

a minor field of radioactivity.

- Radioactivity, father?

- How wonderful!

You mean a real atomic explosion?

- Well, yes.

You see, the Barclay School--

- Father, you don't accept their theory surely.

- They certainly didn't convince me.

- Don't you two try being smart with me.

Here, I'll show you how it could happen.

- Activate uranium from solar sources would never do it.

- You might get away with it from power sources.

- And even then it will be risky.

- All right, you show me!

- Father, you seem upset about something.

- Just because you can't split an atom, Mr. Blotz,

is no reason to shout at us.

You have to make an allowance for risk factor 1.75

on this you know.

- Otherwise you might blow up the village.

- What made you think the explosion was atomic, Mr. Blotz?

- I checked it with my Geiger counter.

- Father, you didn't go into a field of activity

without any protection.

- There was no danger.

- But the high energy alpha particles

could damage your tissues severely.

- However, as you said, Father,

it is only by our mistakes that we learn.

- But such a lesson could be most painful, Hans.

The ionization would still be strong enough

to cause a chronic decay of the internal organs.

- I give up.

- Why did you have to bring her?

- Mother had to go up to town.

- We'll have to co-opt her for this meeting.

- This is a special meeting, see.

And now we've got our new headquarters,

we don't want a lot of women messing about.

- I move Linda to be co-opted.

- She mightn't want to be co-opted.

- This is a free country

and if we want to co-opt her we can.

- Do you want to be a member, Linda?

- Yeah!

- Does she get an equal vote?

- Of course.

Now let's get down to business.

That explosion yesterday

seems to have driven you all cuckoo.

- In Switzerland, the cuckoo--

- Is a very peculiar bird.

- It stays on the side of a mountain.

- And learns to fly in ever-decreasing circles--

- Until finally--

- And around the ruffle--

- Shut up!

- Boo!

- Shh.

I'm gonna keep peace and order at this meeting

if I have to lick every one of you to do it.

- Tom, old Bob Crouch was talking

about mushrooms again last night.

- Mush-ohms, you mean.

- He was exaggerating so much that nobody believed him.

That's what happens when people don't stick to the truth.

- We've got to convince everyone it was

a gunpowder explosion.

Are we all agreed on that?

- Yes!

- No.

- Good, now, what?

- No.

- But why?

- You can't question her vote.

- She's entitled to her own opinion.

- I think they call it a veto.

- Whatever they call it, we're not having any of them here.

I'm the biggest and what I say goes.

Is that understood?

- Yes. - Yah.

- Good, now how are we going to convince everyone

it was a gunpowder explosion?

- One of us must be caught with the gunpowder

and then confess that he blew up the summer house.

- A good idea.

Horatio, you will volunteer.

- Oh no, I don't feel very well.

I may even have to go to bed after tea.

- Then you can do it before tea.

You will got to the police station and confess.

Are we all agreed to accept Horatio's brave gesture

in sacrificing himself for the common good?

- Yes.

- I cannot tell a lie.

I chopped down, I mean, I blew up the summer house.

I searched the village for explosive

but there was none to be found.

Then I remembered the gunsmith over at Raggley Proper.

So while you were having your lunch, I borrowed your bike

and rode for seven miles to his shop.

I knew I only had half an hour to do it and return

but I was determined.

Steel shutters on his shop were tough

but I managed to tear them--

- You're a little liar.

You can't even ride a bike.

- I can.

- Ah, what are you coming in here

telling a string of lies for?

What are you up to?

- It's not lies, Uncle.

I blew up the summer house with this gunpowder.

- Gunpowder?

Do you expect me to believe that?

What is it anyway, soot?

- No, it's gunpowder, Uncle, honest.

- Oh, nonsense.

If it was gunpowder you'd say

that it was something different.

I know you and your stories.

- Please, Uncle, it is really gunpowder.

- Well, I'm going to prove to you that it isn't.

Here, I'm taking you to see your aunt.

- Oh unhand me. She'll teach you

to play your tricks on me. - I told you it wasn't.

Oh put me down, you put me down!

Ow!

Ha, ha, ha.

And do you know what they did?

They put me straight to bed with no supper.

That's a very silly thing to do to someone

as delicate as I am.

Honest it is.

It must've run down my health 'cause the next day

I've got measles.

At first, I liked bed.

Many a redskin bit the dust.

The spots suited me.

It was as if they were painted on.

But I missed the gang.

Every day at noon, I could hear a faraway explosion

only blasting the quarry over Brookford way

but it made me wonder what the gang was up to.

Then one day the chief got a message through to me.

Of course, I went there as soon as I was allowed up.

There is two quarries near our village.

One hasn't been used for ages.

Most people have forgotten about it.

That's the one that's up at Green Lane.

- Oy!

- Mary, was that you making noise like an owl?

- Mm, it's our warning signal.

I do a cuckoo better but Hans is a bit sensitive about them.

- Why is your face painted up like that?

- Camouflaged as a bush, silly.

I'm spyin'.

How's the measles?

- Gone but I've suffered something terrible,

hovered on the brink of death.

- Oh, I hadn't heard.

- It was gonna be a quiet funeral, no flowers.

- It's good you came today.

- Why?

- We're going to try it out.

- Try what out?

- Come and see.

Here's Horatio.

- Good old Horry, in for the kill.

- Isn't it super!

Absolutely super!

- I invented it.

- I made it.

- Under my supervision.

- And I've made all these bandages and things.

- Whatever for?

- In case of accidents.

- Haven't there been any yet?

- Well, Tom sat on a bee but he wouldn't let me--

- Alice, I'll have to liquidate you

if you aren't careful.

- Will it really work?

- We'll soon see.

That's where the explosion's going to be.

- We don't want to blow up our plant this time.

- What's the corrugated iron for?

- So that no mushrooms don't go up.

- That was my idea.

- I fixed it.

- Under my supervisions.

Want to do a bit of work?

- I'm still feeling rather weak.

- Okay, take it easy then.

- Buck up, Ernest, it's nearly 12.

- What's the hurry?

- They always blast over at Brookford dead on 12.

Two bangs will sound like one over at the village.

- Ha ha, that'll fool 'em.

- How's the Krakatoa going?

- Oh, we've plenty left yet.

- And things is too peaceful around here for my liking.

- Eh, how do you mean?

- Those darn kids behaving themselves

too well if you ask me.

Say they go birdwatching now.

Something cooking somewhere.

- Well, it's up to you to nosey there.

- I happen to know that that explosion

at the Cedars was atomic.

- Eh?

- Old Bob Crebs saw the mushroom same as what I did.

Tompkins' cat went bald the next day

and the cows give off sour milk.

- Well, that evidence isn't conclusive.

- You mark my word, Sarge.

Mrs. Chappel and them two foreigners

is hushing something up.

- Oh, ridiculous nonsense.

- You'll see.

- You checked up about that sulfur and stuff, didn't you?

- I did.

Tom Chizzler pinched that from his dad's shop.

But I tell you I smell a rat.

- Rat?

Puff.

- All set?

On the third stroke it will be 12 noon precisely.

Pip, pip, pip.

- Did you hear anything, Sarge?

- No, what?

- An explosion.

- You've got explosions on the brain.

It'll be blasting over at Brookford.

- I'm not so sure about that.

- Well, investigate it then, investigate it.

Don't stand there.

- Come on, quickly.

You keep a lookout for Nosey Parker

while I light the decoy.

- Got the matches?

Take this cannon, it might come in handy.

- Do you think the bonfire will really work?

- Of course.

Hurry up!

He might be on the trail already.

- Did you see that look he gave us?

- Mm hm, I did.

It's always the same.

Carl thinks he's a fool but I'm not so sure.

- How glad I shall be when John gets back.

- You have no idea when that will be, I suppose.

- Nothing definite.

Anyway the children seem to be keeping

out of mischief these days.

- Nosey Parker's just got up the lane.

- Whew!

- Pity we never blew him up.

- I thought he had us that time.

- Whew, that's that.

- Jolly good.

We split the atom again.

- So what?

- We can go on doing it.

- Where does that get us?

We can't use it in the village because they'll make us

pack it in.

It don't seem so interesting now we've got it tight.

- Especially as there aren't any casualties.

- You don't want no one to get hurt do you?

- Course not, silly.

I just want to be useful.

- Blowing up things isn't very useful.

I wonder if it's been worth all the trouble.

- We've split the atom though.

It's a scientific achievement.

- But once we've done it what?

- Yes, the result is basically dull.

- I'd sooner let off a squid.

- I never did think much of atom bombs.

- Me neither.

A bit of fun with gunpowder is one thing

but atom bombs, I wonder what grownups see in them.

All the fuss they make.

- All that work for nothing.

- It's a simple machine, Hans.

- Rather.

- Think of the energy it lets loose.

- But what's the good of that?

- In Switzerland, we harness energy.

Lakes, glaitchers, glaciers, and these things

are making something useful.

- Something useful.

Why not?

- You mean like power station?

- Sort of, more like a factory.

- Could be.

- But what shall we make?

- We could make some dolls for a start.

- Dolls, oof.

I'd rather have a few a bikes and planes.

- Too many components.

Must be something simple and homogenous.

Something that'll repeat itself.

- Popcorn's nice.

Bang Corn would be better.

Why not make that?

- Bang Corn, yes!

- That's a fine idea.

Make that.

- Bet you couldn't.

- Bet we could.

Wonder what its component parts are.

I could analyze it.

- But that'd take ages.

- I know, why not ask Miss Goslett?

- Yeah!

- You go.

- Yes, you go.

- There we are, Bill.

- Goll, they look a bit of all right, don't they?

- They ought to the time they've taken me.

- Mm, could sell all you'd like to make I could.

- I'd like to make a great many more

but I can't.

- Well anyway, thanks.

Cheers. - Cheerio, Bill.

- Mm, export?

- That's right, sir.

Excuse me, sir.

- Bill sells quite a lot of my homemade sweets

on his rounds in the other villages you know.

- Very nice, too.

Can I have something for one of my special patients?

- Yes, now what would you like?

Jelly babies, dolly mixtures, all day suckers,

gobstoppers, sherbet bags,

or just a stick of rock?

- I'll take that.

You know, I've often wondered how they get the name

to stay right through.

- It's quite simple, you know.

It's all done with mirrors.

- Hello, Bill.

- Hello, Alice, how are you?

- Fine, thank you.

- Hello, Alice.

- Oh, hello, Daddy.

- I thought you'd gone birdwatching.

- Well, we had but--

- But you've come back for some sweets, eh?

- Well, no.

- Do you wanna see me?

- Oh, no, Daddy.

- Well, what is it then?

- Well, I wanted to speak to Miss Groslett in confidence.

- Oh, all right, I'll leave you two ladies alone.

Mind you give her good advice, Miss Goslett.

- Now then, what is it?

- Miss Goslett, what's in popcorn?

- What's in popcorn?

- Well, yes, if you were going to make it,

what would you use?

- Well, I never have it.

It's an American thing you know

but I should say it would be corn, blown up somehow

with sugar and raspberry flavoring

and a spot of curry.

- Corn, sugar,

raspberry flavoring, and curry.

Thanks ever so, Miss Goslett.

- Not thinking of trying to make it are you?

- Well--

- Oh, I should try something easier if I were you.

How 'bout fun jaw or treeple toffee?

- Well, no, see they don't have to be blown up.

- Koo, that won't make much.

- We'll see.

- I bet it doesn't work.

- Bet it does.

Bags I try first piece.

- I've been able to eliminate all the smoke

so there's absolutely no danger now.

It won't even make much noise.

- That's where the explosive force goes now.

- Yes, all canalized into useful energy.

- Yah, and the radioactivity

has been absorbed internally.

- Jolly good but let's get cracking.

At your stations please.

- It's worked, it's worked!

- A box of stomach pills please, a large one.

- Oh yes, I'll take one as well.

- Oh, there's been a real run on these

for the past few days.

- My Joyce is over food.

She won't touch a thing.

- Marcel's the same and Eileen.

Had to make her eat up her apple tart today.

She loves it as a rule.

Do you know what she did?

Threw it up.

- Oh indeed. - Yes, my did the same thing.

None of the children in the village seem to be hungry.

- I took my Eileen to the doctor

and he said there was nothing wrong with her.

And now his daughter Alice is the same way.

- Perhaps it's some new disease,

starving diabetes or something like that.

- Oh.

- Oh well, I think I'll try my Joyce with this.

- Yes, you can't beat a good spring cleaning.

- I agree with you.

- You know the doctor asked me if mine were eating

too many sweets.

I said too many?

Why, you can't enough these days.

- Too many sweets?

Why, I've hardly sold an ounce for the past few days.

- Come to think of it, they've all been munching

some sort of popcorn.

- Popcorn?

That's funny.

- Don't feel as though I can ever look Bang Corn

in the face again.

- Me neither.

- And Dad sent Linda and me another box of it.

- Ugh, just look at it all.

- I reckon it's impaired myself.

- Oh, for a nice piece of lovely dried bread.

- What on Earth can we do with it?

- We can't give any more to the other kids.

- No, too many awful questions are being asked.

- We ought to be able to find a real market for it.

I mean, help the export drive or something.

- Miss Goslett might be able to help.

- Oh yes.

- But she's a grownup.

- Not really she isn't.

- I've seen her sucking a sherbet bag.

- She rides her bike no hands.

- She skims flat stones on the pond, too.

- And she hates PC Parker.

- Could we trust her?

- But if she comes in on this,

she'll have to become one of the gang.

- Swear allegiance to you and all?

- Sure, I'm chief, aren't I?

- Well, that's that.

Personal and immediate, Miss E. Goslett.

Secret and confidential.

If you want to know something to your advantage

come secretly to Green Lane

this afternoon at three.

This means money for you.

Six well-wishers.

- Why, say, look at his nims.

- Oh, Tom, you do look lovely.

- Cut it out!

This may mean big business for us.

We've got to look to prosperous haven't we?

- Fancy your mum letting you put on your Sunday suit

on a Wednesday.

- She doesn't know.

- You'll cop it.

- How are we doing?

- We thought we'd give her a cup of tea.

- Nice work.

That may just clinch her.

We mustn't seem too eager, mind.

We don't want her to think we're a bunch of kids.

- And no giggling, Horatio.

- Right oh.

- Alice, you act as sort of hostess,

and you and Hans be ready to give a demonstration.

- We're all set.

- Here we are.

It's in here.

- In here?

Oh, quite yes.

- Here's Miss Goslett.

- Good afternoon, Miss Goslett.

- Good afternoon.

- Good afternoon, my dears.

- Won't you take a seat?

- Thank you. - Yes, but--

- Welcome to our headquarters.

- Here!

- Shut up, Horry.

- May I offer you a cup of tea?

- Oh, thank you, my dear, but--

- Milk of lemon?

- Lemon?

- Oh yes, some people do you know.

But milk for me please.

- How many sugars?

- Six.

I'm very honored by this invitation.

- Really?

- But just a little mystified.

For instance, all this popcorn.

- Bang Corn.

I named it.

- I invented how to do it.

- And I made the atomic power.

- Under my supervision.

- I'm the nurse.

- I'm the spy.

- I am the fat toter man.

- Now, isn't this super.

Thank you, nurse.

- Like to try Bang Corn?

- I jolly well would.

Nice, delicious, terrific.

- Atomic.

- Like to become a member of our gang?

- Rather.

- Swell aware.

- Sell aworkedly.

Ell away swell aware.

- Good a woody.

Now we'll tell you our scheme.

- Bill, sample this, will you?

- Mm, it's good.

- Could you sell it?

- Could I!

- How much could you sell?

- Oh, as much as you could let me have.

- Say a ton?

- A ton?

- Just to begin with.

- Oh, blimey, where is it?

- Hidden in a disused quarry.

- Ah, black market, eh?

- No, no, no, no.

All above board but made by a secret process.

- No questions asked.

- Exactly and no one must be see us getting it away.

- When can we start?

- Tomorrow evening.

- Okay.

- Meet me at the entrance to Green Lane at 6:00.

Shh.

- Here, you can't park out there all day you know.

- Just coming, Inspector.

- He'll do it.

- Good oh.

- But we'll have to be careful.

Public enemy number one's just been in the shop.

- Nosey Parker?

- Yes, I don't know if he saw any of you come here

but he looked very suspicious.

- We've got a plan to keep him away

from Green Lane tomorrow.

- Oh?

- What time will Bill be at the quarry?

- 6:00.

- Okay, 6:00.

- Operation Dead of Night will begin.

- Still smelling a rat, Parker?

- Old Nosey saw a lot of the country in the next few weeks.

When we wanted to get a load of Bang Corn from the quarry,

one of the gang would decoy him miles away.

We did have fun and business grew and grew.

Bill had to get a bigger lorry.

Miss Goslett bought a supercharged motorcycle,

a real dirt track model.

- Open the bag,

get out the line.

Come on, come on, get it.

- Bang Corn, lovely Bang Corn.

Get it right here, come on now.

- Got to step back.

You don't want corn.

Pass yourself back.

Don't let dried, don't let dried all you children

and the best grown.

- Mm, this is super.

- 'Tisn't super, it's ice creamer.

- This jelly slips down good.

- When are we going to cut the cake?

- After we've drunk the toast.

- You don't drink toast, you eat it.

- Toast, silly, not toast.

- Who's going to propose it?

Oh no, I provide the peaches,

you provide the speeches.

- Ladies and gents, I give you a toast

to good old Miss G.

Good bless her.

- Good old Miss G.

- Thank you.

To us all and Operation Bang Corn.

Tell me, Ernest, something I've always wanted to know.

That first explosion in your garden, was that atomic?

- Rather.

That was the very first time we ever split the atom.

- Jolly big bang, wasn't it?

- Scared the life out of me.

- Blowing up things didn't seem to get us anywhere

so we decided to make things instead.

- Pity everyone doesn't think as you do.

- That's when we built the new atomic pile.

- Oh, I wish I could understand how it works.

- Tell her, Ernest.

- Ah, not too technical, Ernest.

Make it simple please.

- Well, I'm not much good at explaining

but there's the plan of it.

- Hm, it's very complicated.

- Oh, it's quite simple really

once you know that the atom

is the ultimate particle of matter

and viewed with gravity and motion.

The atomic theory

that elemental bodies consist

of different elements-- - Oh dear.

I think I shall have to be content just to know

that we own a machine that splits the atom

and makes Bang Corn.

- So I've rumbled your little game at last.

Atom bombs, eh?

- Fen Parker, how dare you break into my house.

- And you in this up to your neck, Emily Goslett.

Here you are, I'll take that.

- Oh!

- Nice piece of evidence that is.

Now I think better all come along to the station with me

and do a bit of explaining.

- You can cut me out of this.

- Now it'll do no good hiding under the table.

- We're going through with this.

This is going to be good.

You can't arrest us.

We ain't done nothing wrong.

- No?

- If you arrest us, you'll be sorry.

Got any handcuffs?

- Course I have.

- Bet you haven't.

- I bet you I have.

- Show us then.

- There you are.

Now, now. - 'Cause he's never

arrested nobody before and he don't know how to do it.

This is how you do it, chum.

- Here, what do you

think you're doing?

Let go of me, let go of me, unhand.

Now let go of me.

Emily Goslett, you're gonna stand there?

- Are you ready?

- Poor old Parker.

He had to take us to the police station

because he couldn't get his handcuffs off.

He and my uncle were very angry with us

but even they didn't realize what they'd stirred up.

We'd hit on a simple little thing like splitting the atom,

the smallest bang to make atom that ever was.

And though all I could think about was security

and secrecy and their precious bombs.

Huh!

That's grownups for you.

They soon found out you can lead a horse to water

but you can't make it speak.

They could've tortured me

but I wouldn't have said a word.

Huh, not me!

The first thing they did was to telephone

the atomic research station and hurry the plan off to them.

They didn't know where our atomic plant was

but they knew enough to set the ball rolling.

By golly did he roll.

When the news leaked out,

the children laughed like anything.

But the grownups were very upset.

Everyone was getting quite angry by now

but still we wouldn't speak.

Then just as we looked like coming out on top,

they played their trump card

and arrested the grownups.

They discovered our weak spot.

Funny, there's nothing you can do about grownups.

First, Hans' dad was marched off,

then Ernest as he got off the train.

Came on like lambs they did.

Pretty feeble I thought.

Then we knew it was no use holding out any longer.

- Your dad's old enough and big enough, Prof.

Why don't he kid 'em along like we do?

- No imagination, dumb.

Mind you, I won't have anything said about my dad.

- Course not.

- He's the biggest brain you've got down at Marwood.

He's the one that proved Einstein's theory

that E equals MC squared.

But he's no good in a crisis.

- Nor is mine.

Starts to stammer and forgets to speak English.

Next thing they'll think is he's a foreign spy.

- No, we'll have to come clean, that's all there is to it.

Grownups, huh!

They make you sick.

Now listen, everyone,

walla what willa we malla must

doodle woo illawist dillawist.

Gilla wive a dilla wemonstration.

- But awhat willa where?

- Nalla wow.

- At Gilla wood, the salla wank you.

- She knows it.

- She knows it?

- Ooh, goodness.

- They're willing to give us a demonstration, sir.

- Jolly good work, Hopkins.

When?

- Rolla wight, nella wow.

Oh, I'm sorry, sir.

Right now, sir.

- Thalla wank you.

- Very interesting, very interesting indeed

and undoubtedly atomic.

- Undoubtedly.

- But what's the explosive agent you're using?

- This.

- Krakatoa?

Krakatoa.

But that was an island that blew itself up

in the last century.

There's nothing left of it.

- Exactly.

The very last explosive fragment is now disintegrating

in the atomic pilot this very moment.

- So that was the end of Operation Bang Corn.

The people from the atomic station

thought it should be hushed up

and I persuaded the rest of the gang they were right.

So everything in Barley returned to normal.

Even PC Parker gave up investigating.

Like everyone else he know there wasn't a kick

left in the old machine.

We became great friends and he used to drop in unexpectedly

from time to time.

That proves

I never exaggerate.

Honest, cross my heart.