The Taylor TurboChaser

by David Baddiel

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Jack. “If your phone’s on, they’ll be able to trace us.”

  “But I never turn my phone off!” Janet said, looking as anxious as she possibly could.

  “What about when it runs out of power?” said Jack.

  “I make sure it never runs out of power!”

  “How?”

  “By keeping it plugged in!”

  “Where?”

  “In a power point!”

  “Right. Janet … how can I put this?” said Jack. “Right now, are we in a house? With power points? Or are we in … a ridiculous contraption, sort of a car, sort of a fish tank on wheels, but definitely without power points?”

  “Actually …” said Rahul, “I could probably fix up a—”

  “DON’T OFFER HER A POWER SOURCE!” said Amy.

  “OK,” said Rahul.

  “Seriously, Janet, you’re going to have to turn your phone off,” said Amy.

  “ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT!” shouted Janet.

  She held her phone up in the air. Her thumb hovered over the “off” button. Her eyes appeared to fill with tears.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered.

  “Really,” said Jack. “I think it’s au revoir.”

  “I don’t speak German,” said Janet.

  “It’s—”

  “Jack!” said Amy. “Let her turn it off!”

  “Let her turn it off,” he repeated, in his most stupid voice.

  Janet held up the phone again.

  “Goodbye … I love you …”

  “Oh my days,” said Jack.

  “Shh,” said Amy.

  Closing her eyes, Janet pressed her thumb against the side of the phone. The screen went to a smiley-face icon, with little hands, waving goodbye. Janet, who had clearly never seen it before, waved back, brushing away the tears that had now come.

  The screen went black.

  “AAARGH! AAAAAARRRGGH!” screamed Janet. “MY PHONE, MY PHONE!”

  “WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?” said Jack.

  “Anyway,” said Amy, looking ahead. “We’ve got another problem.”

  They all looked up. They had driven into a village. It was a rather lovely place, called, unfortunately, Great Little Piddlington.

  “Ha ha ha ha!” said Jack. “Great Little Piddlington!”

  “Yes, hugely funny,” said Amy. “But also, hugely long traffic jam, up ahead.”

  Amy put the brakes on. The TurboChaser stopped.

  “Well, not up ahead any more. We are in the traffic jam.”

  Rahul rummaged under his seat. He got out a pair of binoculars with a telescope stuck to them.

  “What’s that?” said Jack.

  “It’s called a Binocuscope.”

  “When did you make that?”

  “I didn’t. I bought it off Sam Green. He made it.” Rahul put his head through his cat flap and put the Binocuscope to his eyes. Then he came back in again.

  “I think there’re some sort of roadworks in the middle of the village. It looks like they go on forever!”

  “Try the sat nav. Maybe there’s a different way?”

  “Or I could turn my phone back on and look at the map?”

  “No, it’s OK, Janet,” said Amy. She hit the sat nav screen.

  “YOU’RE IN A TRAFFIC JAM! TURN ROUND! PLEASE! SAVE YOURSELF! ETA AT YOUR DESTINATION IS NOW MONDAY AFTERNOON!”

  “Monday afternoon?” said Jack. “That’s far too late!”

  “Yes. Also, what is that voice setting?” said Amy, and she hit it again.

  “Hi,” said the sat nav smoothly. This voice sounded a bit like a middle-aged DJ on a local radio station.

  “Oh, this is a new one,” said Jack.

  “Lovely to be directing you. I see you’re in a bit of a pickle. No worries …”

  “It’s a nice voice. It’s making me feel like everything’s going to be OK,” said Amy.

  “That’s great! So … what you need to do, OK, is take the next right, and continue to Large Bottom.”

  “HA HA HA HA!” went all the children in the car.

  “Please don’t laugh – I mean, I get it, Large Bottom …”

  “HA HA HA HA!”

  “… Ha ha ha, funny – but really it’s just the name of the next village. So from Large Bottom …”

  “HA HA HA HA!”

  “… take a left towards Little Smell Hole …”

  “HA HA HA HA HA!”

  “… then go straight up the Wobbly Nud-Nuds …”

  “HA HA HA HA HA!”

  “It’s a series of hills! I mean, really! Come on!”

  The children quietened down.

  “Thank you. Yes. Good. And then … everyone fine? … OK. Take the A312 all the way to Stinky Nickers,” it continued, “via Big Fart Moor, Nappy Town, Thrice-Widdle, Lower Widdle, Widdle Widdle, Last Little Widdle and Plopton.”

  “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, find your own stupid way!” said the sat nav, and turned itself off.

  “Hmm …” said Amy. “I think we might have to find a different method of beating this traffic jam.”

  “Have we moved in the last ten minutes?” said Jack.

  “Only with laughter.”

  “Oh no,” said Amy, who suddenly remembered it was now Saturday, and they needed to be there by Sunday. “It’s getting on for midday. Time is slipping by.”

  “We could try this,” said Rahul.

  “What?”

  “Here.” His finger was over a button. “I created it as a parking thing, if we needed to narrow the car up a bit to get in a small space. But I guess we could use it here.”

  He turned round to Jack and Janet. “Um … it might get a bit cramped back there when I do this …”

  Jack and Janet frowned. Rahul pressed the button. The car made a kind of grinding noise. And then the chassis began to move, expanding forwards and backwards, but getting, as it did so, thinner.

  “Argh! What’s happening?” said Janet.

  “Crushed!” shouted Jack. “I’m getting crushed by the inside of this car! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”

  “You’re not going to die!” said Rahul. Which was correct. The internal movement of the car stopped, leaving it less like a square, and more like a diamond, with Amy at the front and everyone else sitting behind her. The steering wheel had changed too – two tubular handles had popped out of the sides of it. The whole thing now looked more like …

  “A motorbike … you’ve made it into a kind of motorbike!” said Amy.

  Rahul looked pleased. He pointed at the button, which had a drawing on it of a motorbike.

  “That’s amazing,” said Jack.

  “Thank you. By the way, Jack … because you know I’m not very good at spotting it – when you were screaming, ‘I DON’T WANT TO DIE!’ – was that you being sarcastic?”

  “Oh yes, Rahul,” said Amy, interrupting, and seeing Jack go a bit red, “I’m sure it was.”

  Jack gave her a small smile.

  She smiled back.

  Meanwhile, the traffic jam had continued to stand still.

  Amy looked at the new handles.

  “What do I do?” she said. “Driving-wise, I mean.”

  Rahul shrugged. “It’s just changed the shape a bit. So more or less what you’ve been doing.”

  “But more dodgy-inny-outy with the cars in front,” said Janet.

  “‘Dodgy-inny-outy’?” said Jack. “Is that a thing?”

  Amy gripped the direction lever.

  “We’re about to find out!”

  She pushed the lever. The Taylor TurboChaser shot forward. Amy swerved it to the right. Cars and trucks were stuck all over the road, so it wasn’t easy for her to understand which direction to head for.

  Not only that, but all the other drivers – in the way that drivers do when they’re in traffic jams – were constantly moving their vehicles about, trying to gain small little bits
of ground.

  Plus there were cars coming the other way.

  So, once again, Amy slalomed.

  “INNY!” shouted Janet, as Amy went to the inside of the lorry in front.

  “OUTY!” shouted Janet, joined by Rahul, as Amy swerved back across the bus in front of the lorry.

  “INNY!” shouted Janet and Rahul, as Amy went left again, and this time Jack, with a face and voice that said “I’m doing this sarcastically”, joined in.

  “DODGY!” shouted Janet and Rahul and Jack, as Amy’s weaving in and out of the traffic continued.

  Within a few minutes, Amy was at the front of the traffic queue. She looked round. To her side sat an old man and an old woman in one of those cars that have a normal car front and a wooden back. There were indeed some roadworks that were causing the jam. A not-very-proper-looking set of traffic lights sat in front of them, where nobody was working.

  “Hello!” said the old man. He had on a flat cap. “You seem a little young to be out driving on this fine day, but perhaps it’s just my eyes.”

  “They aren’t what they were, are they, Mr Hancock?” said the old woman.

  “Ooh! Who said that?” said the old man, looking round.

  “Ha ha! Very good, Mr Hancock. You’re as funny as you ever were!”

  “Ha ha! Many thanks, Mrs Hancock.”

  Amy smiled back at them.

  “What a lovely smile, Mr Hancock …”

  “I agree, Mrs Hancock.”

  “What kind of car is this, young lady with the lovely smile?”

  “He built it,” said Amy, pointing at Rahul, who was blushing. “From my wheelchair.”

  “Ha ha, we’ve got another joker here, Mr Hancock! Young lady says her car is a wheelchair.”

  “No, it really is,” said Amy. “Actually the wheelchair is still in here. But Rahul … added to it.”

  “Golly,” said Mr Hancock. “What an ingenious fellow.”

  “I agree, Mr H.”

  “Hey …” said Jack, who was looking behind them at the rest of the traffic jam. “I hate to break up the love-in with the married couple from Up, but …”

  “What?” said Rahul.

  “Can I borrow the Binocuscope?”

  “Yes,” said Rahul, handing it over. Jack put it up to his eyes and looked out of the back of the TurboChaser.

  “OK … I’m pretty sure … that’s Mum’s van.”

  “Where?” said Amy.

  “At the back of the traffic jam!”

  “Oh my days …” said Janet.

  “Oh look, Mrs Hancock,” said the old man. “I think the traffic lights are finally about to change. I can feel it in my water.”

  “Your water’s never wrong, Mr Hancock.”

  Amy looked over at the old couple. “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you do us a small favour?”

  “They’re near here, Suzi. I’m sure of it.”

  It was Prisha speaking.

  “Yes, well,” said Sanjay. “We were able to track them on Janet’s phone for quite some time. But now I can’t see it on my map.”

  “I think …” said Suzi, screwing up her eyes, “… that might be it? Right at the front, is it? Next to that Morris Minor Estate?”

  Prisha, Sanjay, Colin and Norma all leant towards the front of the van to see.

  “It looks a bit … thinner …” said Prisha. “And more like a … motorbike, than the photograph you showed us.”

  “Perhaps it’s lost a bit of weight!” said Norma. “You should take a leaf out of its book, Colin!”

  “I should. Hey! Perhaps I should go on a … Low-Car Diet!”

  “HA HA HA HA!”

  “I really hope we catch up with them soon,” sighed Sanjay.

  “But do you think that’s them?” said Prisha. “That’s the … Taylor TurboChaser?”

  Sanjay looked out. “It might be.”

  “But … the thinness?”

  “Yes. Thing is, Prisha … now don’t get cross, darling …”

  “It’s never good when you say that, Sanjay.”

  “I know. But … don’t get cross, darling …”

  “WHAT IS IT?”

  “I helped Rahul to build it, the TurboChaser … and …”

  Suzi and Prisha looked at him.

  “Go on …” said Prisha, eyes narrowing.

  “Now, as I said, don’t get cross, darling.”

  “GO ON!”

  Sanjay started speaking very fast. “And we worked and worked on it so as to make it really really fast but we also built in lots of gadgets and tricks including the ability to shift its shape and loads of other things we may have got a bit carried away I’m sorry I should have told you earlier please don’t get cross darling.”

  Prisha looked at him. She took a deep breath. She smiled.

  “Of course not, darling.”

  “Thank you.”

  Then she hit him across the top of the head with her handbag.

  “OW!”

  “You stupid idiot! You great big fool!” She swung her handbag once more.

  “OW! AGAIN!”

  “Never happy being a wholesaler, were you, you always thought you should have been an inventor! And you’ve passed that on to our son! And for what? Just to make the job of catching him when he runs away in this stupid jalopy that much more difficult!”

  She tried to hit him again. But this time he ducked.

  “OW!”

  “Sorry, Colin!” said Prisha.

  “HA HA HA HA HA!”

  “Stop laughing, Norma, that actually really hurt!”

  “Shut up, everybody!” said Suzi. “We’re moving! The lights have changed! It’s all fine, because I’m sure we’ll catch up with them soon. We know they’re not far away.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Prisha, regaining her composure.

  “Thank you, Suzi,” said Sanjay, cowering.

  “HA HA HA HA!”

  “No, really, it still stings!”

  There was then a pause of about thirty seconds when everyone in the car looked out, expecting the chase to begin in earnest.

  “When you say … ‘soon’, Suzi,” said Prisha, “doesn’t our car have to move a bit for that to happen?”

  “Yes. Well. I suppose a big traffic jam like this … once it starts to move, it takes a while to reach the back …”

  “Yes. But I’m not sure it’s moving at all.”

  HONK! HONK! BEEP! HONK! went the traffic.

  Because Prisha was correct. The traffic jam was not moving. At all.

  HONK! HONK! BEEP!

  The noise from the cars continued, only now with louder and longer honks and beeps. And people leaning out of their windows shouting, “OY!” and “MOVE IT!” and other things that I can’t write in a book for children.

  “Thank you so much!” said Amy through the cat flap window of the TurboChaser. Not to the people swearing – that would be odd – but to Mr and Mrs Hancock.

  Who were sitting in their car at the front of the traffic jam, very much not moving, despite the lights having turned to green.

  “Pleasure!” said Mr Hancock.

  “The people behind are going to be cross …!”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that! I’m deaf, aren’t I, Mrs Hancock?”

  “As a post, Mr Hancock.”

  Amy frowned. “How can you hear what I’m—”

  “Lipreading. Best in the business, Mr Hancock is.”

  “Thanks for the compliments, as ever, Mrs H! Now, don’t worry. I’m an old person, you see … more importantly, an old driver …”

  “You’re only as young as you feel, Mr H!”

  “A truer word was never spoke, Mrs H! But my point is, these folk behind will see an old man at the wheel and just assume we never go over ten miles per hour. They’ll still be cross, but they won’t think it’s all part of a –” he tapped his nose – “secret plan.”

  “Thank you again!” said Amy.

  HONK! BEEP! HONK!

&n
bsp; “DRIVE, YOU DECREPIT OLD IDIOT!”

  “I think you’d best be off, my dear,” said Mrs Hancock to Amy. “Particularly if you don’t want to hear some words not suitable for children.”

  “Bye!” said Amy, and she let go of the direction lever.

  “Send them our best at the Crazy Car Rally!” shouted Mr Hancock.

  The TurboChaser, still in motorbike shape, shot forward and then round the corner, leaving Great Little Piddlington behind.

  Meanwhile, at the back of the traffic jam, Suzi said: “Hmm.”

  Prisha said, “Ugh.”

  Sanjay said, “Sorry.”

  Colin said, “I can’t believe it still hurts.”

  And Norma said, “HA HA HA HA HA!”

  “Wow …” said Janet. “That was nice of Mr and Mrs Hancock.”

  “One of the good things about being disabled, Janet,” said Amy. “People are nice to you.” She paused. “Well. Sometimes, anyway. Sometimes people are pretty horrible. But nice people are nice to you.”

  “Nice people are nice to you,” said Jack, in his teenager voice.

  “Which obviously rules out you, of course.”

  Rahul turned the button that had changed the TurboChaser into its motorbike shape back the other way.

  “AAAARGGGH!” said Janet. “The car is moving weirdly! Inside!”

  “No, do you remember, Janet? This just happened.”

  “But it was the other way round. AAAARRGHH!”

  “Yes, I’m just changing it back.”

  “Oh, OK,” she said, suddenly calming down.

  They drove for some time, leaving the traffic jam far behind. The countryside changed. They started driving through some very pretty places, with a lot of lakes everywhere.

  For a while, there were no problems outside – no roadblocks, no diversions, no one in sight chasing them. But there were some problems inside.

  “What’s that smell?” said Amy, sniffing suddenly. “Is it the car?”

  “No,” said Rahul, “it’s not the car. Nothing I put in this car could smell like that.”

  “Is it the countryside? Sometimes the countryside smells a bit like that.”

  “I don’t think cows ever get that ill,” said Janet.

  “Jack …”

  “What?”

  “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “No.”