“How can you think of food at a time like this?” wailed Mum. “Little Harry is lost.”
“You’re right,” said Dad, closing the lid solemnly. “I’ll just have one of these.” He put one of the sweets in his mouth. It was in fact one of Commander Pott’s inventions: Crackpot’s Whistling Sweets — you suck and they whistle.
“If only we’d never found Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” Mum sighed.
“Tweet tweet,” went Dad.
“None of this would have happened.”
“Toot toot.”
“If only we had carried on living our nice little life in our nice little . . . would you please stop whistling?”
But we didn’t find Chitty, thought Jem. She found us really. Dad didn’t really restore her, she restored herself. Whenever they went on their adventures, who decided on the destination? No matter how carefully they planned, how many maps and sandwiches they took, they always seemed to end up somewhere unexpected. Unexpected to them. But not to Chitty.
But if Chitty was in charge, then why were they here now? Why would she let Little Harry be kidnapped? Why would she allow Commander Pott — the man who created her — to be shot into the sky in a brick rocket?
As his thoughts wandered, so did Jem. He tramped through the grass and branches, without looking where he was going. Suddenly he noticed that his feet were wet. He looked up to see a little lake. Moonlight was already silvering its water. Something was rippling that moonlight. A rowing boat was sliding quietly toward him.
“Jem!” hissed a girl’s voice. “Jem, come on. Get in.”
“Jemima?”
“Shhh. Come on.”
Mud squished into Jem’s shoes as he squelched through the shallows and clambered into the boat.
“I’ve muffled the oars, so no one will hear us.” She lifted the oars out of the water. The blades were wrapped in thick beach towels. “What do you think? Clever, eh?”
“Yes. Really clever.”
“For a girl.”
“For anyone. Where are we going?”
Jemima shook her head and put a finger to her lips. They rowed in silence. Every now and then the water would gulp as a fish swam away from them. Some frogs plopped into the water from the log on which they were resting. An owl shrieked. Skilful and silent, Jemima steered the boat to the far side of the lake. It sliced into the mossy bank. She stepped out and held the boat steady while Jem clambered after her. There was a small jetty, but they didn’t tie the boat to it. Instead, they dragged it in among the trees where no one could see it.
Once they were hidden in the shadows, Jemima whispered, “I thought it was very brave, the way you tried to save Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
“Er . . . oh,” muttered Jem. “Thanks.”
“Jeremy is brave, too,” she whispered. “He would have done the same as you, if he’d thought of it. I’m sorry he was so hard on you. He was sad about Chitty being destroyed. And about our parents being kidnapped. I think he was worried that he was going to blub. Daddy doesn’t approve of blubbing in front of people.”
“Wow,” said Jem. For there in front of them was a lovely white farmhouse, and next to it a big barn of a building with a glass dome on top and huge wooden doors.
“Father’s secret workshop. It used to be some kind of boathouse. He changed it round himself. That’s his observatory up there in the roof.” She pulled a metal handle and the doors swung open on well-oiled hinges. “This is where he does all his secret inventing. I thought if you had a look inside, you might be able to think of something we can do to save them. I’m sure Jeremy would love you to help, but he thinks it’s a bit lame to ask. It’s all right for me to ask, of course, because I’m just a girl.”
Jem stepped inside. Moonlight filtered through the slats in the woodwork and silvered the rows of bottles and racks of tools. “Where’s the light switch?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve brought a flashlight.” The powerful beam split the gloom. The first thing it hit was a grinning skull looking down at her. She screamed.
“It’s all right,” whispered Jem. “It’s just a skeleton. Look, it’s hanging from a stand. We’ve got one in school, in the biology lab.”
“I know,” said Jemima, “but a scream is the proper ladylike response to a skeleton in the dark, don’t you think?” Huge shadows danced across the walls as she swept the whole barn with her flashlight. “I’ve never been in here before. Father and Jeremy do all the inventing. Mother and I make the sandwiches.”
“I see.”
“Oh, look! I remember when he invented these . . .” On the shelf was a row of what looked like square potatoes.
“What are they?”
“Square potatoes,” said Jemima. “Father thought they’d be so much easier to chop and peel. He thought they would revolutionize the great British chip shop.”
“Didn’t they?”
“Each individual potato had to be grown inside its own metal box. It was quite an expensive way to grow potatoes. Also sometimes the box wouldn’t undo properly. The square potatoes were easier to chop, but a lot, lot harder to grow.” Her flashlight wandered over test tubes, blackboards, a huge cooker, bits of engine, piles of wheels. “This is so exciting!” she said. “Oh, look!” She held up something that looked like a green Frisbee with a hole in the middle. “Now, this is really fab.”
“What is it?”
“Edible gramophone records.”
“Edible what?”
“Gramophone records. You know, with music on them.” She placed the green disc carefully on a kind of turntable, and flicked a switch. The disc spun round and round and music came out. Jemima swayed and swung to the music and joined in the chorus: “What’s new, pussycat?”
“Come on,” she teased. “Don’t be so square.”
“I was thinking about your mum and dad,” said Jem.
“Oh! I forgot! I’m so easily distracted, being a girl. Oh, dear! Just think — if we can’t save them, Jeremy and I will be orphans.”
Jem finally spotted the light switch. With the lights on he could see that the “lab” was crazily cluttered. Piles of motor components lay on a big desk next to a collection of birds’ eggs and snake skins. A huge stuffed grizzly bear was peering at a blackboard covered in complicated formulae and diagrams, as though it were trying to crack a difficult equation.
“Cecile!” Jemima gasped. Cecile was the grizzly bear, apparently. “She looks so sad without her brother. Her brother was Charles Henry, but Daddy used him as the test pilot for his antigravity paint.”
“Antigravity paint? Did it work?”
“Of course it worked. All Daddy’s inventions work. How can you even ask?”
“It’s just that I’m from the future, and in the future we don’t have antigravity paint, so clearly it didn’t catch on. You would think that if something as useful as antigravity paint had been invented, people would be using it all the time.”
“I suppose it might have been a bit too antigravity,” admitted Jemima. She glanced up at the roof. There was a big, splintery hole in the ceiling next to the glass dome — just about the size of hole that a stuffed grizzly bear might make if it smashed through the ceiling.
“I see,” said Jem.
“And after all, it’s working for Big Ben.”
“Big Ben is flying on antigravity paint?”
“Daddy used rocket engines to get it off the ground, but it’s staying up there through a combination of antigravity paint and the centripetal force exerted by the Earth. He has so many brilliant ideas. Look at this for instance . . .” She pointed to one of those shopping bags on wheels that you pull behind you. It had a small satellite dish poking out of the top. “That is a phone that you can take on journeys. A mobile phone. Imagine that. Daddy and Mimsie are always trying to think up ways to make the world into a better place. With fewer wars and less traffic and more talking and fun.”
“Hello? Hello, Jemima?”
Jemima’s eyes widened. “Listen,
” she cried. “That’s Daddy’s voice! Where is he?”
“Jemima? Jeremy? Can you hear us?”
“And that’s Mummy! Mummy, where are you?”
“Jemima? Jeremy?”
Jemima followed the voice, pushing over towers of boxes, scrabbling across cluttered workbenches, clambering into the darkest corner of the lab.
“Mummy! Daddy! Where are you? How did you get here? Oh.”
Crouching on the floor, behind a spaghetti of wires and valves, was Jeremy, speaking into a fat microphone that looked like an electric tennis racket. It was connected to a radio the size of a caravan. “Kent calling Big Ben,” he said, without looking up. “Kent calling Big Ben. Do you read me?”
“Big Ben to Kent. Big Ben to Kent. Reading you loud and clear, Kent.” The voice of Commander Caractacus Pott came crackling through the radio.
“Thank goodness you’re alive,” said Jeremy.
“Of course we’re alive! First things first — how did England do at Wembley?”
“I’m afraid we lost three–two. We were distracted by Big Ben flying over.”
“Oh, blow. Never mind. We’re approaching the White Cliffs of Dover at a height of about twenty thousand feet. It’s taken us just one hundred and eighty-eight minutes to circumnavigate the Earth.”
“We’re going ever so fast!”
“Mummy!” called Jemima. “That was Mummy’s voice.”
“Big Ben is officially supersonic.”
“Congratulations,” said Jeremy.
“Jemima, I do hope you’re behaving yourself. No arguments, I hope.”
Jemima assured her mother that there were no arguments. She pushed herself in front of Jem, so that Jeremy wouldn’t see that she had brought a stranger into the lab.
“We saw the sun rise over Japan. And then we saw it again over the Himalayas. Such a nuisance that we don’t have a camera,” said Mimsie.
“Dinosaurs!”
“Little Harry!” cried Jem.
Jeremy looked up at the sound of Jem’s voice. His eyes narrowed but he said nothing yet. All his attention was on the radio.
Mimsie was telling the children not to worry. “We’ve got plenty of your father’s patent whistling sweets. Listen.” There was a long, fruity blast on a whistle. “They’re keeping our spirits up. Only thing we might get short of soon is oxygen.”
“Listen carefully,” said the Commander. “This is what you need to do. Our plan was to land Big Ben safely back in her historic parking space next to the Houses of Parliament. Sadly, when we got to Big Ben we found that a frightful little man with red hair was stealing our retro-engine. So at the moment we can’t slow down. Not to worry. There’s a spare set of retro-engines in Chitty’s boot. All you have to do is start the old girl up, get her airborne. We’ll rendezvous over the English Channel. I’ll open Big Ben’s clock face. You drop the retro-rockets over the side. I’ll fit them. Everything will be tickety-boo —”
“But —”
“We can keep Big Ben up in the air as long as the antigravity paint lasts.”
“But —”
“Sorry, old sport, can’t hear you. You’re breaking up. Don’t worry. We’ll be back over England in another one hundred and eighty-eight minutes. Speak then.”
There was a crackle of static.
Then radio silence.
Jeremy looked at Jemima.
Jemima looked at Jeremy.
They both looked at the Cube of Metal That Had Once Been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
They didn’t say a word, but Jem knew what they were thinking. That cube of metal was once an engine full of hope. Now it was a cube of hopelessness.
“You should have told Father,” said Jemima. “You should have told him that there is no Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Maybe he would have had an idea.”
“You tell him,” snapped Jeremy. “Tell him that we let them crush the most famous car in the world. Tell him he’s trapped in supersonic Big Ben and it’s all our fault.”
“It’s not really your fault,” said Jem.
“This lab is top secret,” said Jeremy. “You shouldn’t even be in here. Please leave. We’re very busy.”
“Busy doing what?” said Jem. “You don’t have any ideas.”
“If we did,” said Jeremy, “they would be top secret. Go now. This is none of your business.”
“My little brother is up there with them,” said Jem. “Of course it’s my business.”
“What are we going to do?” sobbed Jemima.
“I will think of something, if I get some peace and quiet.”
“Fine,” said Jem. “I’ll get out of your top-secret lab.”
But when he got to the doorway, Jem looked back at the two children, standing in the dark, next to the silent radio, and he couldn’t leave.
“You know,” he said, pointing at the Cube of Metal That Had Once Been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, “we can fix this. This is not just a car. This is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She’s not a collection of wires and gaskets and bolts and nuts. She’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Do you think Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will allow herself to be reduced to a chunk of scrap? When all her different pieces were scattered all over the world, we found them and fixed her. When the people in El Dorado took her completely to pieces, we put her back together. We’ll fix Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
“Oh!” said Jemima, her eyes aglow. “Do you really think so?”
“I really do,” said Jem. He really did.
“Fix her,” said Jeremy. “How?”
And although he really did think they could fix her, he really, really could not imagine how. He had to say something, so he said, “My dad will do it.”
Terrible things were happening in Dad’s life. His younger son was thundering around the skies in a tower that was designed to stay still for hundreds of years.
His family was stranded fifty years in the past.
His car had been stolen by an evil supervillain who dreamed of one day ruling the world. England had lost the only World Cup she had ever won.
But when he saw Commander Pott’s Secret Laboratory he forgot to worry about any of these things. “Just look at this place,” he said, his eyes devouring the shelves of gadgets, gizmos, valves, and springs; the walls covered in diagrams and formulae, calculations and sketches; the benches littered with tools and equipment. Best of all, there was the Commander’s old Navy hat and binoculars hanging on the back of the door. “Now, this,” he said with a sigh, “is the workshop of a genius. This is where he built a car that could travel in time and under the sea . . .”
“Don’t forget the square potatoes and edible records,” added Jemima.
“And antigravity paint.”
“This . . .” breathed Dad, “well, I could live like this. Standing here, I feel like I could do anything.”
“But could you,” said Jemima, her voice full of hope, “turn that into a car again?”
Dad looked at the Cube of Metal That Had Once Been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Up close, like this, it looked more solid, somehow more cube-y and less car-like, than it had in the scrapyard. The word “NO” popped into Dad’s brain in very large bold letters, swiftly followed by the phrase “NOT IN A MILLION YEARS” in bright flashing neon.
“Yes,” said Dad. “I believe I can.”
“It’s an unusually complicated car,” warned Jeremy, “and you do have unusually fat fingers.”
Dad screwed up his eyes and tightened his fists. Nothing was more guaranteed to get him going than a disparaging reference to his fingers.
“Jeremy!” gasped Jemima. “You know it’s wrong to make personal comments.”
“Those fingers might be fat,” said Mum, “but they are stuck to the hands of the world’s greatest mechanic.”
“Thank you,” said Dad. He stood over the cube. “Think of Chitty as a sheet of beautiful paper. Imagine that someone — some fool — has crumpled that piece of paper up and thrown it into the bin. All we have to do is take that piece of
paper and smooth it out.”
“Of course!” said Jemima. “It’s simple!”
“Except” — Lucy hummed —“a piece of paper doesn’t have any moving parts. Which is why uncrumpling a piece of paper is different from uncrumpling a carburettor.”
“It’ll just take a bit longer, that’s all.”
A rain of radio static burst into the room.
“Big Ben calling Kent, Big Ben calling Kent. This is Big Ben. Do you read us, Kent?”
“Yes, Daddy,” shouted Jemima, who had got to the radio set first.
“Oh, dear. We were sort of hoping you wouldn’t be there — that you’d be on your way to meeting us.”
“Gosh! Have one hundred and eighty-eight minutes gone already?”
“Sticky thing is, we seem to be losing height. We were at twenty thousand feet earlier. Now we’re down at eighteen thousand.”
“Never fear, Commander,” bawled Dad. “We’ll save you!”
“Who on earth is that? Jemima, have you let a stranger into my top-secret laboratory?”
“No, these people are from . . .”
But she was drowned out by a storm of static. Behind it they could just hear Mimsie’s faint voice calling, “Be good, children. See you in one hundred and eighty-eight minutes.”
“Actually it’ll be quicker than that,” said Lucy. “As you lose height, the distance round the Earth gets smaller. So they’re going to crash earlier than you think.”
Everything went quiet.
“They’re losing height,” said Jeremy.
“They’re going to crash,” said Jemima.
“I didn’t hear Little Harry,” said Mum, biting her lip.
“So sad,” said Lucy, “being able to hear their voices when we all know that they are doomed.”
“Jem, Jeremy,” barked Dad, “it’s time for action. Let’s uncrumple this car.” He’d put the Commander’s Navy hat on and was standing with his hands behind his back like a sea captain. “Lucy, Jemima, put the kettle on. We’re going to need lots of tea.”
“Do what?” shrieked Lucy. “You want me to make tea?”
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Over the Moon Page 4