“Will the engine be powerful enough to drive it with all this extra weight on it?” Amy said.
Rahul smiled. “I souped up the engine.”
“You put soup into the engine? Chicken, veg or tomato?”
Rahul frowned. “No, it’s a … thing … that people say … when they mean made it more powerful …”
Now Amy smiled. “I know that, Rahul. I subscribe to three different motoring magazines.”
“Oh, sorry. It was a joke, wasn’t it? I’m not very good with jokes.”
Amy shook her head, and then gripped the lever.
“Just one more thing,” said Rahul, reaching across her and fitting her with the seat belt.
“You made these too?” said Amy, as he clicked himself in after her.
“Well, kind of. If you consider using my trusty screwdriver to get them out of my parents’ car to be ‘making’.”
“Er … won’t they, sort of, miss those?”
“Don’t worry. My parents hardly ever use the car,” said Rahul. “And anyway, I’ll put them back. At some point.”
Amy smiled to herself. She wanted to say: We won’t really need those, will we? I mean it’s not going to go that fast. And I’m never going to be driving it that far. But she thought that might upset her friend, and Amy was a good friend. So she just pushed the lever forward. The Taylor TurboChaser moved. Quite slowly. In fact, quite a lot more slowly than it had before. A minute later, they were still in the garage.
“Um …” said Amy.
“Oh,” said Rahul, “do you want to go faster?”
“A bit, yes.”
“Try pushing the lever forward a bit more. I’ve adjusted it so it works like an accelerator pedal now, so you can control the speed properly.”
Amy looked down at her hand on the lever.
“It’s pushed all the way forward,” she said.
Rahul looked at the position of the lever too. He nodded slowly.
“OK …” he said. He pulled open a little door in the dashboard.
“What’s that?” said Amy, looking inside. There was a small box in there with a red button in it.
“It’s the turbo part of the TurboChaser. This button pushes power to the engine, and speeds everything up ten times!”
“Oh great!” Amy said, pressing it. And immediately the vehicle shot forward like a rocket.
“AAAAARGGH!” screamed Amy.
“AAAAARGGH!” screamed Rahul. “Stop! Stop!”
“I don’t know where the brakes are!” screamed Amy.
“Press the—” began Rahul.
But it was too late!
They were heading directly for the corrugated-iron doors of Agarwal Supplies, and Amy didn’t have time to look down at her fingers. The only time she had was what you might call “reflex time” – that is, the split second when the body takes over and does something by instinct.
And the thing that Amy’s body suddenly found itself able to do, despite never having really done it before, was drive.
Amy gripped the steering wheel with both hands and jerked it all the way round to the left. The Taylor TurboChaser, with surprising smoothness, followed, curving away from the warehouse doors and out into the industrial estate.
But now they were heading right for the skip!
So again, instinct kicked in, and Amy lurched the wheel back to the right, just missing the fridge that had been dumped next to the skip.
Which would have meant they were through this sudden and unexpected obstacle race, had it not been for … the dustbins!
“AAARGH!”
The dustbins were arranged in a way that avoiding them completely was almost impossible. Turning away from one would have meant driving straight at another. Amy’s only choice was to slalom! Which, for those of you who have never seen someone skiing, means “zigzag”!
So she did, turning the wheel very quickly this way and that, making the vehicle rock on its sides as it twisted and turned past one dustbin, then another, then another, then all of them.
She brought the TurboChaser back round. It was still powering away from the dustbins.
“—blue button!” finished Rahul.
“What?”
“I’m finishing my sentence from about three minutes ago! Press the blue button! It’s a brake!”
“Oh!” said Amy, and she pressed it.
The Taylor TurboChaser came to an abrupt halt: a very abrupt halt – Amy and Rahul were thrown forward in their seats in a way that made Amy very thankful indeed for the seat belts.
“Wow!” said Rahul, as gravity settled him back into his seat. “Who taught you to do that?”
“No one,” said Amy. “I just did what came naturally!”
“Well, you can really drive!”
Amy looked at him. “I guess I can. And you, my friend, can really invent. Because what you’ve made here –” she said, holding her arms up and taking in the whole vehicle “– is a supercar!”
“Hi, Dad!”
“Amy … how are you?”
“I’m fine, Dad. How are you?”
“Oh, not bad. I’ve got a lot of work on. But you don’t want to know about that.”
Actually, Dad, Amy wanted to shout down the phone, I DO want to know about that. She was sitting in their hallway, speaking to her dad on the landline (she wasn’t allowed a phone yet, which was annoying, as Jack was on his ALL the time).
Peter Taylor, her dad, called about once a week, and Amy really looked forward to it, even if sometimes she looked back afterwards on their conversations as not being quite what she had hoped for. Jack wouldn’t speak to their dad at all.
But, yes, Amy did want to know about her dad’s job, because her dad’s job was … designing cars! Supercars – which are basically very fast cars – to be exact. Some of them even had his name – and therefore her name – on them!
“Are you working on the new GT 500, Dad, or is it—” she began.
“What? Oh yes. The meeting. Of course. Just give me two minutes.” Amy realised he was speaking to someone else on the other end. But then his voice became loud again. “What were you saying, Amy?” And then before she could answer he said, “How’s the new chair?”
“Oh yes, it’s great! Thank you so much!”
“No need to thank me. Although you could send me a photo of you in it. That would be nice.”
“Er … yes. At some point.”
“Pardon, Amy?” He spoke suddenly strictly, which he sometimes did.
“Sorry, Dad, yes. I will. Soon.”
“OK. Can I speak to your mum?”
Amy felt a dip in her stomach. So often when she talked to her dad, the conversation ended sooner than she would like.
“Sure, Dad. Mum!”
“And, Amy?” he said.
“Yes?”
“I’d really like to see you in that chair. Mobilcon’s prices are daylight robbery – I’d like to know it’s worth it.”
Amy nodded. Which was pointless, because he couldn’t see.
And gulped.
Which he couldn’t see either.
Later that day, the Taylors went out for a walk. This was always difficult. Not because Amy was in a wheelchair. But because of Jack.
“Come on, Jack!” shouted Suzi, as she and Amy waited at the door. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” came back from inside the house, in a stupid voice.
Suzi and Amy exchanged glances.
“Your sister can’t walk!” shouted Suzi. “And she’s coming out for a walk!”
“Yeet!” said Jack, shambling out of his room. “Walking is for Normies. It’s a dank meme.”
“Please speak English.”
“He doesn’t want to come,” said Amy.
“He doesn’t want to come.”
“That means you have to come now,” said Amy. “If you’re being sarcastic about not wanting to come, it means you want to come.”
Jack
looked a bit confused. But then said, “OK!” and put his shoes on.
It turned out that there was an Amy-centred problem with the walk, though.
“Amy! Where is your new chair?” said Suzi. “I’m fed up with watching you struggling with that old one!”
“I told you, Mum. I’m still getting used to it. I just want to use it on small journeys.”
“This is a small journey. It’s a walk round the park. But it’s taking a long time. Because you’re going round and round in circles. Because that old wheelchair’s stuck wheel has got even worse.”
Amy – who was indeed completing a circle rather than going forward – stopped and sighed.
“Amy,” said her mum. “Please. I’ve been to your room. It’s not there. So … where is your new—”
“OK, OK. I’ll show you. This way!” said Amy, moving off. Or trying to, at least.
“Sorry, which way?” said Jack, after a few seconds of the wheelchair turning round and round.
“Yeah, yeah, point taken,” said Amy. “Can you help turn me round, please? And then just push me for a bit?”
“OK, Mum,” said Amy, as she sat in her old chair outside Rahul’s dad’s garage. “You remember that inspirational quote you like to tell me …”
“Which one?” said Suzi.
“The one about ‘Don’t dream dreams: make them come true’.”
“Oh yes, I like that one.”
“Well …” said Amy, “I … with Rahul’s help … have kind of done that.”
Suzi nodded. “OK. Well. Good!” But then frowned. “How do you mean?”
Amy looked towards the garage and then back at her mum.
“You promise you won’t get upset?” she said.
“Er … that’s never a good thing when anyone says that, Amy. How can I promise I won’t get upset, without knowing what I’m about to see?”
“No. I get that. But I’d like you to say it anyway.”
“What, meaninglessly?”
“Yes,” said Amy.
Suzi sighed. “Right. I promise I won’t get upset.”
Rahul, who was standing by the side of the garage with a new remote control, pressed the button. The door came up halfway towards Amy, Suzi and Jack. Then stopped.
“Rahul! I thought you said you were going to get a grown-up to fix the garage door?” said Amy.
“I was. But my dad wasn’t bothered.”
“I wasn’t bothered!” shouted Sanjay from somewhere in the warehouse.
“He said as long as it opens eventually, what’s the rush?”
“What’s the rush?” Sanjay shouted again.
“So you made that remote control?” said Amy.
“I did,” said Rahul, pressing the button again. The door shook, but didn’t move.
“Hmm. I’m starting to worry about your inventing capabilities.”
“NOT AS MUCH AS I AM!”
They looked round. It was Suzi who had shouted. It was definitely her, even though they could only see her bottom half, under the garage door. Which she’d crept under while they were talking.
“I think your mum might have found the Taylor TurboChaser …” said Rahul.
“Yes,” said Amy. “I think she might.”
“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!”
“I think your brother might have found it too.”
Amy wheeled herself under the door, followed by Rahul. When they were both inside the garage, they waited, for about a minute, for Suzi to turn round.
Suzi, though, was just staring and staring at what had become of Amy’s new wheelchair. It seemed for so long that Amy began to hope that perhaps her mum had started to like it.
Eventually Amy said, hopefully: “It’s called the Taylor TurboChaser … ZX115.”
This, finally, made Suzi turn round.
Her face was looking very pale.
There was a long pause.
“WHAT ARE YOU THINKING OF AMY WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WHAT EVEN IS IT NOW IT DOESN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE A WHEELCHAIR IT JUST LOOKS MAD WHAT AM I GOING TO TELL YOUR FATHER OH MY LORD AMY YOU ARE THE END OF THE WORLD!”
“Mum,” said Amy, realising that, no, her mum hadn’t started to like it, “you promised you wouldn’t get upset.”
“MEANINGLESSLY!”
“It’s great, Mum! It goes really fast!”
“It does, Mrs Taylor!” said Rahul. “It’s like a wheelchair supercar!”
“Oh, fantastic. Thanks, Rahul. Really. Not only have you made Amy’s new wheelchair look like a mad thing from … from …”
“Mario Kart,” said Jack, very seriously (the only thing he didn’t joke about was video games).
“Mario Kart?” said Rahul. “I think it’s much more like something from Grand Theft Auto.”
“Mario Kart,” said Jack firmly. “Be glad I didn’t say Yoshi.”
“I think there is a bit of an element of Mater, the truck from Cars,” said Sanjay, who had bent himself under the door to see what all these people were doing in his garage.
“That’s what I think Mum’s van looks like,” said Amy.
“Anyway, that is actually a video game as well as a movie,” said Jack.
“HELLO?” said Suzi. “CAN WE STOP TALKING ABOUT WHAT VIDEO-GAME CAR IT LOOKS LIKE?”
“Well, you were the one trying to think of something,” said Amy.
“YES! BECAUSE THERE’S NEVER BEEN ANY WHEELCHAIR THAT’S EVER LOOKED LIKE THAT! BUT NOW YOU TELL ME IT GOES REALLY FAST AS WELL? SO YOU’RE GOING TO KILL YOURSELF IN A CROSS BETWEEN A DUMP TRUCK, A SOFA AND AN AQUARIUM?”
Everyone looked at the Taylor TurboChaser.
“Good shout,” said Sanjay. “That pretty much sums it up.”
“It’s my dream, Mum …” said Amy, her voice wobbling ever so slightly. “I’m trying to make it come true.”
Suzi looked at her. Her face – and voice – softened.
“Oh, Amy. I understand that. But—”
Click!
“What was that?” said Amy. They all turned round. Jack was standing a little way away, having clearly just taken a photo of the vehicle with his phone. Which he was holding out. Then he looked down at his screen and started tapping.
“Jack!” said Amy. “Don’t put it on Instagram!”
“I’m not!” said Jack.
“Oh, OK.”
“I’ve put it on my Snapchat Stories.”
“Oh no!” said Amy.
“What’s the problem?”
“Dad checks your Snapchat!” she screamed.
“He does?” said Jack.
The next day at break, Rahul and Janet couldn’t find Amy anywhere at school. This was odd, as she had definitely been in class for the register.
“Has she gone home, maybe?” said Janet to Rahul. They were walking together down one of the school corridors, looking around.
“I don’t think so. Her mum would’ve had to come and get her, and she works quite a long way away, I think.”
Then suddenly they heard a noise, small but unmistakable – a sob. They looked round, and saw that they were passing the school’s one disabled toilet.
Rahul and Janet exchanged glances.
“Amy …?” said Rahul nervously. “Are you in there?”
“Yes …” came a quiet voice back.
“What’s it like?” said Janet.
There was a pause. Rahul looked at her and frowned.
“Pardon?” said Amy.
“Well,” said Janet, “you know that the standard toilets in this place are terrible. I just wondered if yours was maybe a bit nicer? I know it’s definitely bigger than any of ours.”
“OMG, Janet …” said Rahul. “Can’t you hear she’s crying?”
“Yes, Janet,” said Amy, “it’s like Buckingham Palace in here. I’ve got my own TV and personal butler.”
“Really?” said Janet.
“No,” said Amy, opening the door. “But thanks. I was crying, and now you’ve made me laugh.”
They went
into the playground, where some boys – Barry Bennett and Malcolm Bailey and Alfie Moore and Sam Green and Ryan Ward – were playing football. They were making a lot of noise, which meant that Amy and Janet and Rahul could talk about why Amy had been crying without anyone noticing.
“What happened, Amy?” said Rahul. “Is it something to do with yesterday?”
“Yes,” said Amy.
“And the Taylor TurboChaser …?”
She nodded, but said, “I’m not allowed to call it that any more.”
Janet frowned. “Why?”
“Because after we got home, my dad FaceTimed. He had seen the photo on Jack’s Snapchat.”
“Oh,” said Rahul. “Was he cross?”
Amy went quiet. “He doesn’t really shout or anything, my dad. He just goes very … cold.”
“Do his lips go blue?” said Janet.
“No, Janet. I don’t mean his temperature goes down. I mean he starts speaking very quietly and definitely and slowly …” Her lip trembled as she said this. She took a deep breath. “Anyway, he was speaking like that, and he said he was very … disappointed in me. And that the new wheelchair cost a lot of money and that we had to take off all the things that you put on it, Rahul … and turn it back into an ordinary chair.”
“Did you tell him how amazing it is? I thought he loved cars too.”
“I tried, but he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t want to hear about how fast it can go, or how well it can corner, or anything. He just said that what we had done to it was silly and idiotic and dangerous and probably illegal. He said he wanted to see a picture of the wheelchair with all of the extras taken off. By Sunday.”
“Sunday?” cried Rahul. “That’s in three days!”
“Yes. He’s going away then. To Japan, for the start of the Formula One season. He wants it done before that. Or else he’s going to send Mobilcon to pick it up.”
Rahul went very quiet. Even Janet seemed to understand that this was bad.
“But what wheelchair will you use, then?” said Rahul, looking down.
The Taylor TurboChaser Page 3