The Race Against Time

  “Six months.”

  “Six months?”

  “Yes, but it looks like I’m going to do it in five months, three weeks, and four days.”

  “But these cars go so fast. How has it taken so long?”

  “They do go very fast,” said the Count. “But they will keep on running out of petrol. Then you have to find petrol, and sometimes there are no garages nearby. Sometimes there are no people nearby. In Texas we ended up having to dig for oil. Luckily I found quite a good oil field, so that’s a few more bob in the bank. There were one or two other delays on the way. Kidnapped by bandits in New Mexico, for instance.”

  “Bandits!” whooped Little Harry, causing Jem to look around nervously.

  “Were you in terrible danger?” gasped Lucy.

  “Oh, they were frightfully nice chaps once I’d paid the old ransom. Then there was the whole business with the Grand Canyon.”

  “The Grand Canyon? What happened there?” asked Lucy.

  “Well, the Grand Canyon is surprisingly large. And also quite a few feet deep. As holes in the road go, it must be one of the biggest. They say you can’t miss it. But what if you want to miss it? A sign saying

  might have been useful. Then there were tornadoes, too. Bears in Colorado. It’s been quite a packed five months, three weeks, and four days. But now we’re almost home. Tomorrow we should cross the finishing line. And it looks like we’re the two front-runners. How on earth did you get ahead of me? I haven’t seen you since the Catskill Mountains.”

  “We took a detour,” said Dad.

  “May the best man win tomorrow. Or the best girl of course. ’Night, all. Must get the old head down.” He got up to stroll back to his tent, but before taking a step, he said, “I say! What’s that?”

  “That,” said Lucy, “is the moon.”

  “Do you know, they’ve got a moon exactly like that one down in New Mexico.”

  “That’s actually the same moon,” said Lucy. “You can see it here the same as you can in New Mexico.”

  “Are you absolutely sure about that? New Mexico is a dashed long way from here.”

  Lucy tried to explain lunar orbits to the Count, using a tangerine and an Edam cheese she picked up from the picnic.

  The Count looked deep into her eyes and said, “Lucy, of all the girls I’ve met on all my travels, you are certainly the most . . . what’s the word?”

  Lucy tried to imagine what the word might be —“beautiful”? “mysterious”? “poetic”? “brilliant”?

  “Informative,” said the Count. “You’re by far the most informative girl I’ve ever met. I say, do you fancy taking a spin with me tomorrow in Chitty the Second? With you in the passenger seat, we’d be sure to win the race.”

  “Yes, please,” said Lucy straightaway.

  “I thought,” said the Count, “that you might need time to think about it.”

  “I’m a very quick thinker.”

  Next morning Lucy woke up to the sound of engines. Some of the other cars in the race had finally caught up with them and were thundering past the picnic site.

  “We’d better wake the Count,” she said.

  “Lucy, wait . . .” It was Jem. He was crouched next to her sleeping bag, with Chitty’s logbook open on his knee and a haggard, worried look on his face. He hadn’t slept all night. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  “We’ll be late for the race.”

  “It’s important. Don’t wake the others. Not yet. I was going through the logbook, trying to figure out why Chitty had brought us here.”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? She wants to teach Chitty the Second a lesson. That’s why we went to El Dorado, so she could have her golden makeover and then come back and win the race.”

  “That’s what I thought. I was thinking how terrible it would be if we’d been through all these dangers just so that she could win a race. I was wondering if there was any way we could understand what she was thinking or make her understand what we are thinking, when I found this . . .”

  A page from the Encyclopaedia Britannica had been glued into the logbook and folded over. Jem opened it. It was a page about Count Louis Zborowski.

  “Commander Pott must have put it there. I think he was trying to find out as much about the history of Chitty as he possibly good.”

  “It’s Louis! That’s a terrible photograph of him. Ha! His middle name was Elliot. Who knew?” She tried to take the book from him, but Jem nudged it away from her. “What else does it tell you?”

  “It says here,” he said, “that he died.”

  Lucy swallowed hard. Then she shrugged. “Well, of course he died. Everyone dies. If he’d lived until our time, he’d be . . .”

  “A hundred and twenty,” said Jem.

  “Exactly. Who lives to be a hundred and twenty? Who’d want to live to a hundred and twenty? You know one thing I like to do while we’re time travelling is look at all the people we meet and think about the fact they’re all dead. That they’re sort of ghosts. It’s really melancholy, which is great. I look at the Count and think: You probably died in the war doing something heroic, or maybe you were killed in a duel or something.”

  “Or a race.”

  “Exactly. A high-speed collision as he broke a world speed record.”

  “A race like this one.”

  Lucy stared at Jem and then at the paper in his hand. Jem offered it to her, but she wouldn’t take it. Jem had to read it to her: “Count Zborowski died tragically while competing in the final day of the Prix d’Esmerelda’s Birthday Cake motor race in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the Second. He lost control of his vehicle when his lucky cuff links got caught in the gear transmission.”

  “So you’re saying . . . he dies today?”

  “That’s what it says here,” said Jem, “but it’s all right because we can save him. We can warn him not to wear his cuff links, or just tell him to take it a bit slower or . . .”

  Lucy was quiet for a while, then she looked at her brother. “We can’t,” she said.

  “Why not? Don’t you want to save him?”

  “Of course I want to save him. More than anything. But if we did, it would change the whole course of human history.”

  “But how? It’s not like the Count is anyone important . . .”

  “Everyone is important. Everyone is connected.”

  “But maybe if he’d lived, he’d’ve done something really amazing, like found a cure for global warming or something.”

  “Jem, we can’t go round changing the course of history just because you think someone’s got kind eyes.”

  “I never said anything about his eyes.”

  “It was a synecdoche. Look it up.” She left the tent.

  Outside, Dad was cranking Chitty’s engine. “Come on, you Tootings!” he called. “Let’s show that newfangled Chitty what the Original and Best can do!”

  On the other side of the picnic site, Lucy saw the Count getting ready for the race, as Crackitt began loading everything into the biplane. As the Count pulled on his goggles, she saw the flash of his lucky cuff links.

  “We’ve got to tell him,” cried Jem, coming up behind her. “We can’t just stand by and watch him be killed.”

  “You’re right. So let’s get going. Let’s make sure we’re miles ahead when it happens.”

  She and Jem climbed into Chitty, where Mum and Red and Little Harry were already waiting.

  “Lucy!” called the Count. “Are you riding with me?”

  Jem looked at her. He could see that she wanted to say yes. “Lucy, you’ll be killed,” he whispered.

  “No, thank you, Count,” called Lucy.

  “But I thought . . . Oh. You changed your mind.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Girls do that a lot. See? I’m learning about girls. See you at the finish.”

  “At the finish,” agreed Lucy, sniffing back a tear.

  “Couldn’t we at least tell him not to wear his cuff links?”
pleaded Jem.

  But Dad had already slipped Chitty into reverse to get a better angle for joining the road. When Chitty was facing the right way, he slammed on her accelerator, and she tore off down the highway.

  At the first bend, she came up behind the two cars that had rumbled past in the morning. The sun shone so fiercely on her golden bodywork that the drivers in front were dazzled by their own rearview mirrors and had to pull over to let her pass. She bowled along the empty highway, her engine humming. So it was quite a surprise when, on the second bend, the shark-like silhouette of Chitty the Second sailed silently by.

  “Ga gooo ga!” roared Chitty. The Count gave the Tootings a triumphant wave. And so did his passenger.

  “Who’s that riding with the Count?” said Mum.

  “Oh, no!” shrieked Jem. “It’s Lucy! She must have sneaked out of Chitty while Dad was reversing. Dad, you’ve got to catch up with them!”

  “I realize that,” said Dad. “This is a race, after all.”

  “It’s a lot more serious than that,” gasped Jem. He explained the terrible danger that Lucy was in.

  But Chitty the Second was already disappearing into the distance.

  “The booster engines. Remember the switch!” shouted Jem.

  Dad tried to flip the switch that had made Chitty go so fast the day before, but now it wouldn’t budge.

  “What are we going to do?” sobbed Mum. “Can we make her fly?”

  “We never really found out how to do it except by driving off something high.”

  “The falls. You could drive into the waterfall.”

  By now Chitty the Second had all but disappeared into the distance. Dad saw that there was no alternative but to try to get Chitty to fly. At the next bend there was a slip road that led straight to the lake and the waterfall.

  “Hold on, everyone,” called Dad, swinging the steering wheel to the left. But as quickly as he pulled it left, the wheel swung itself back to the right, keeping Chitty dead centre in the middle of the road, heading straight after her rival.

  “She. Won’t. Budge,” gasped Dad, still using all his strength on the wheel. “We just have to drive after them.”

  “Maybe,” said Mum, “Chitty doesn’t want to catch up. Maybe she’s worried that if we race too hard, we’ll make the Count go faster and crash.”

  “But he’s going to crash anyway. It’s in the history books.”

  “I think we have to do what we can,” said Mum. “And try to trust Chitty.”

  On they powered, through the lanes and woods. By late afternoon they could see the towers and skyscrapers reaching into the sky. Then the air was filled with the sound of sirens. Blue lights flashed in the road ahead.

  “It looks like there’s been an accident,” said Dad.

  No one else spoke.

  But there hadn’t been an accident. Two police cars were blocking the road. One policeman was talking to the Count. Another flagged down the Tootings.

  “Sorry, lady, you can’t go no further. Take a look at the sign.”

  The sign said, “NEW YORK CLOSED DUE TO CATASTROPHE.”

  Mum jumped out of the car and hugged Lucy, who was standing at the side of the road. “Oh, Lucy, how could you do such a thing?” she sobbed.

  “I’m sorry, Mum, I just couldn’t bear to see him drive off to his doom like that.”

  The Count looked perfectly cheerful. “Sorry about the delay,” he said. “Anyone fancy a glass of champagne?”

  “That would be illegal, sir,” said the policeman.

  “So it would. You’re quite right. Thanks for reminding me. Well, perhaps this obstruction is all for the best. No offence, Mrs. Tooting, but although your daughter may be very informative, she’s not the ideal companion for a racing driver.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “She doesn’t appreciate the technical details of motor racing. For instance, she kept telling me to slow down, which of course is exactly the wrong thing to do in a race. But which I had to do — what with her being a lady and asking politely. Also, she tried to get me to take off my lucky cuff links. I did try to explain that without my lucky cuff links, I wouldn’t be lucky.”

  “Oh, dear. Perhaps she should finish the race in Chitty, then, instead of in Chitty the Second.”

  “I hate to disappoint a lady,” said the Count, “but I’m afraid that seems the only way.”

  Red and Dad had meanwhile been asking the police about the roadblock.

  “What kind of catastrophe is it, anyway?” asked Red.

  “The catastrophic kind,” grunted the first policeman.

  “We can’t give any details for fear of creating a national panic,” said the second.

  “Dad! Look out!” called Jem.

  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was somehow rolling backward down the hill. All the Tootings and Red ran after her. One by one they managed to clamber on board, while Dad struggled to gain control of the wheel.

  “Deer!” yelled Little Harry.

  “Where?” said Mum. “Oh, no!”

  A pair of beautiful young deer were standing in the middle of the road, not moving, just staring as though hypnotized by the sight of Chitty rumbling toward them. Any minute now she would hit them. Dad snatched at the wheel, and Chitty bounced off the road and tumbled down an embankment. Seconds later she flicked out her wings and swooped over the trees. She banked and turned back toward the line of the road, flying low over the heads of the police and the Count.

  “I say!” shouted the Count. “I hate to make a fuss, but isn’t that cheating? This is supposed to be a road race, not a sky race . . .”

  Lucy waved down at him and watched him get smaller and smaller as they flew toward New York City. She felt in her heart that she would never see him again.

  “Oh, if only he’d take off his cuff links,” she said. “But I don’t think he will.”

  The New York catastrophe certainly did seem to be catastrophic. As they flew toward the city, they saw below them crowds of people and columns of cars pouring down the highways, heading out of town. Little Harry kept leaning out and shouting, “Hello, people!” Jem was worried that he would lose his balance and plummet to his doom, so he tied one end of the prehistoric spider’s web around his wrist. Chitty sailed elegantly between the cliffs of glass and concrete along Wall Street and came in to land just outside the Bank of America.

  “Well, at least you’re safely home, Red,” said Mum.

  “Home?” said Red. “I don’t want this to be home. I want to go back to El Dorado. We are going back to El Dorado, aren’t we? That was the only place anyone ever played with me.”

  “But what about your mother?” asked Mum. “Won’t she be missing you?”

  “I ain’t got no mother. Nor no father. And no grandmother now, neither. Nearest thing I ever had to family was you. We’re going back, aren’t we? Say we are. All I do here is work. All I did there was play.”

  “But this is your hometown.”

  “You sure?” said Red. “It’s normally a lot busier than this.”

  Wall Street was completely deserted. Nothing was moving. Not a person. Not a car. They could hear water gushing from a fire hydrant a whole block away. The pavement glittered in the sunlight. They could hear birdsong — a flock of starlings tumbled past them just above their heads.

  “Nice and peaceful,” said Dad.

  “Peaceful?” said Red. “Don’t you ever notice anything? See that fire hydrant spouting water? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about that? How did it get knocked over? See the way the pavement is shining? Can’t you see why? Broken glass. Nearly every second-storey window here is broken.”

  “Oh,” said Mum. “Goodness. Maybe there was a tornado.”

  “A tornado goes from air to ground, doing damage all along the way,” said Lucy. “It would have messed up the cars and mailboxes, not just the second-storey windows.”

  “Some of the cars are messed up,” said Jem. “Look at that one.”

  At the s
ide of the road were three cars: a beautiful cream-coloured Buick, a gorgeous navy-blue Pierce-Arrow, and, in between these two, a twisted pile of scrap metal and shattered glass with some bent wheels sticking out of it.

  “It looks like someone stood on it,” said Jem.

  “Something that could crush a car like a biscuit tin,” said Lucy.

  “And what,” said Red, “was with the birds? What was their hurry? Like they were scared of something.”

  There was a sound like a giant foot crushing a half-ton biscuit tin.

  “That sound reminds me of something,” said Dad.

  “Me, too,” said Mum. “What is it?”

  The sound came again.

  “I’ve never heard anything like that in my life,” said Red.

  “But we have,” said Jem. “I remember what it is now. I really think we should run.”

  “Is this a new game?” asked Red.

  “Dinosaur!” cried Little Harry and — right on cue — the head of a very hungry-looking Tyrannosaurus rex swung around the corner. Its vast yellow eyes scanned Wall Street, searching for food.

  “Now, this is what I call a game!” said Red. “What’re the rules?”

  There was no answer. Everyone had run.

  They ran toward the Stock Exchange. It looked like the perfect hiding place. The doors were too small for a tyrannosaur. There were hardly any windows to poke its head through. The walls were too thick to smash down. Perfect but for one thing: the doors were locked. Dad rattled at them, but they wouldn’t budge.

  “We’re trapped!” he gasped, turning round to see that the great beast was already trotting toward them, its huge tail balancing out its massive, swaying head.

  “As a predator,” said Lucy, “the tyrannosaur is incredibly sensitive to movement. We need to stay out of its sight line and stay very, very still. Quick, behind here! Where’s Red?”

  Red came running toward them. At the top of the steps was a statue of a fat man in a top hat. The Tootings crouched down behind it, hardly daring to breathe.

  Something tugged at Jem’s wrist. He looked down and saw the special sticky spider’s web leash he had tied to Little Harry’s wrist. It was stretched tight.