The Thorn Harbour Road Rally [Or, Macalley Takes the Wheel]

by Robert Dahlen

  Veering right, we drove back on the route and shot towards the town square and the finish line. My foot was one with the accelerator pedal, my hands were stuck to the steering wheel, my heart was going even faster than the engine. Had I clenched my teeth any harder, whether I won or lost the upcoming week would likely had been spent in a dentist’s chair.

  We were within sight of the finish line, close enough to the grandstand to see the crowd on their feet and hear them cheering. Tony Clamour, shouting into his megaphone, seemed to be losing his mind over how close the race was. Over my shoulder, I saw Oakton and Hillsboro coming up on my left, the pointed tip of their motorcar—which had speared a watermelon—trying to edge past me. I loudly and colorfully implored the engine for just one last bit of speed.

  Quick and Goldbloom were flanking the finish line, both holding their checkered flags. Oakton bore down, but I would not be denied, and my motorcar crossed the finish line the merest fraction of a moment before his. The flags were waved, the crowd went mad with glee, and Clamour screamed, “She’s done it! Alice Peavley has won the Thorn Harbour Road Rally! What an amazing, unbelievable finish!”

  I finally gave the poor accelerator pedal a rest and stepped on the brake. And again. “We do not seem to be slowing down, madame,” Macalley said.

  There was no time for a rejoinder. I realized that the Lubricat-O had gotten into the brake mechanism, and we were still at top speed, heading straight for the crash barrier. I spun the steering wheel as far to the left as it could go. The motorcar skidded, turning in circles, kicking up a frightful cloud of dust. We smashed sideways into the barrier. The ropes that held the barrier up snapped, and straw flew everywhere. The motorcar was covered in straw, and some of it must have gotten into the works, as we came to a stop at last.

  I must have lost consciousness for a moment, for when I opened my eyes as I came to, I was in a dazed condition and surrounded by straw as far as I could see. As I closed my eyes again, I assumed that I had passed on when the motorcar crashed, and all the straw meant that either Heaven was the inside of a gigantic barn, or that I had been reincarnated as a goat.

  There was shouting all about, and I sensed the straw being cleared away. “Alice?” I heard from a voice that I couldn’t quite place at first. “Are you all right?”

  “I should think that perhaps it would not be so unpleasant to be a goat,” my befuddled brain replied.

  I heard laughter. I opened my eyes and saw Priscilla grinning devilishly at me. “There! You see?” she said. “She’s just fine.”

  If nothing else, the brief moment of indignation I felt cleared my head. “Thank you for that, I think,” I said as I removed my helmet. The others who had helped clear the straw away smiled, and the photographer ran up to us and readied her camera.

  I glanced at the passenger’s seat. It was empty except for some stray straw. “Macalley?” I said slowly, feeling a knot forming in my stomach. Victory would have been hollow indeed if anything dire had happened to him.

  “Here, madame.” I saw Macalley walking up to the motorcar. I started to smile with relief, but covered my mouth quickly and pretended to be coughing when I saw the straw stuck to his beard. Macalley noticed my gaze and brushed the debris away as he came up to me.

  I thanked him as he opened the door. I stepped carefully out of the motorcar, my legs wobbling from having sat for so long, my calves cramping. I tottered as I stood. For a moment, I wondered why I seemed to be somewhat askew. I glanced down and saw my stockinged left foot. “Macalley?” I said. “Did my boot survive the collision?”

  He dug in the back seat. “It did, madame,” he said as he presented it to me. I smiled and thanked him, as the photographer did her work; I then upended the boot and tapped the sole, emptying out a good portion of straw and a few loose grapes.

  As I put the boot back on, I saw Clarinda, on crutches, and Augustus approaching us. “What the devil have you done to my motorcar!” Clarinda asked.

  “Besides winning a race with it?” I said, my smile widening. Clarinda laughed.

  “Shall we head to the podium?” Augustus said. “They’re waiting to award the trophy.”

  “One moment.” I turned to Priscilla. “By chance, do you still have my hat?”

  “I do,” she said as she handed it to me.

  “Excellent.” I placed it firmly on my head. “At least I have something to wear that’s not covered in straw, dirt and pulverized fruit.”

  “Before we head to the podium, madame,” Macalley said, “there is a matter we need to discuss.”

  “What would that be?”

  “I suspect Oakton might have another scheme in reserve. With your leave, I mean to combat it.”

  I smiled. “Have at it, Macalley.”

  ***

  With help from Priscilla, I staggered to the podium that had been set up near the grandstand along with Clarinda and Augustus. I hadn’t quite realized until then how much energy I had expended during the race, and how exhausted I was. I longed to find a soft chair in a quiet corner somewhere and sleep for several hours, or possibly a fortnight.

  Alas, sleep and chairs were denied me when I saw Quick, Goldbloom and Skedaddle near the podium, having an intense discussion with Oakton as Hillsboro lurked nearby. The two elves were somehow managing to look offended instead of ludicrous even with all the smashed strawberries covering their fine green suits. “What’s all this?” I asked as I reached the group.

  “Lord Oakton is challenging the results of the race,” Quick said.

  “On what grounds?”

  “He’s saying that you were not properly announced as one of the racers due to your last-minute substitution for Topping.”

  “There was nothing in the rules against that,” Clarinda said. “And the switch was announced before she crossed the starting line. It was hardly an advantage for Alice.”

  “We’ve agreed on that,” Goldbloom said, “but there is another matter that Lord Oakton has brought up.”

  I somehow managed not to roll my eyes. “What would that be?”

  Oakton pointed at me and sneered a truly mighty sneer. “You cheated, Peavley!” he shouted, loud enough for the crowd to hear. There was a collective gasp.

  The sneer might have intimidated me at other times, but at that moment I was too exhausted to give a pig’s ear. “I cheated?” I said with all the indignation I could muster.

  “Your valet and co-driver did.” Oakton held up one of the plates from the manor’s collection of fine china. “He threw this at my poor servant!”

  I yanked the plate from his hands and handed it to Priscilla. “It was in self-defense! Your ‘poor servant’ was trying to spray Lubricat-O on the road in front of my motorcar!”

  “A minor misunderstanding.”

  “Trying to cause me to crash is a minor misunderstanding?”

  Oakton chuckled. “As always, Peavley exaggerates everything. What would you expect from such an immature little—”

  “You!” Oakton twisted his head as Monviso walked up to him, dragging what was left of his fruit cart, leaving a trail of blueberries behind him. “You’re the one who did this! You recklessly destroyed my cart!”

  Oakton sneered at the dwarf. “How is it my fault if you were in my way?”

  Monviso was not in a mood to let a sneer slow him down. “How could you?” he said sadly and loudly. “How could you wreck an old dwarf’s livelihood?”

  As the crowd started to boo, Priscilla whispered to me, “Doesn’t he have three other carts?”

  “He does,” I said, “but why spoil his fun?”

  “You’ll be hearing from my solicitor!” Monviso shook his fist at Oakton. “I’ll make you pay for this!”

  “You’re welcome to try,” Oakton responded. “I wasn’t the one who pushed his fruit cart across a race course—”

  He stopped speaking, raising an eyebrow as a once-stylish motorcar, now covered in muck, drove up towards the podium. “What the devil is going on here?”
Talbot said. The mud he had been covered in had dried up and was flaking away, leaving him quite a sight. I felt a twinge of pity for the bathtub he would be soaking in when he returned home.

  “Ah, Rodley,” Quick said. “So glad you could make it.”

  “As am I,” Talbot said as he climbed out of his motorcar. “That was a bit of a sticky wicket back there. Who was the winner?”

  “Peavley crossed the finish line first.”

  “She did!” Talbot smiled. “Good show there!” I returned his smile.

  “However, Lord Oakton is accusing her of cheating.”

  “Oh? Are they saying she dug the ditch on the main road, just outside of Thorn Harbour? The one Clement and I were stuck in?”

  “You drove into the mud?” Oakton asked with a mocking smile.

  Talbot sighed loudly. “No, the motorcar and I wound up like this because we decided to abandon the race and visit an elfish spa for a beauty treatment. The dwarf with the cart provided the cucumber slices for our eyes.” I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Such a shame,” Oakton said. “Peavley was the one who needed that beauty treatment.”

  “I do say!” I shouted.

  “No looks, no brains, no morals…” Oakton shook his head with mock sorrow. “All you have going for you is that valet, and he seems to have abandoned you.”

  “Hardly.” I grinned and cocked my head to one side.

  Macalley, in my motorcar, was driving into the square. He braked as he reached the podium. “I found them near where we last saw them,” he said, nodding at his passengers.

  Vic Fry climbed out of the motorcar. “Sorry about the mess,” he said to Macalley as Bernadette hopped out of the back seat.

  “It was due for a cleaning anyway, Master Fry.” Macalley glanced at Talbot’s motorcar. “I suspect this is still the tidiest motorcar on the scene.”

  I shook off my weariness and walked up to Fry. “I hope you’ll forgive my being so abrupt with you earlier,” I said to him.

  “Think nothing of it,” he said as he smiled. “Macalley explained everything. Congratulations!”

  “Thank you very much!”

  Oakton harrumphed loudly. “She only won by cheating! I am the rightful victor of this race!”

  Fry walked up to the elf, tugging on Bernadette’s lead. “Cheating, you say?”

  “Indeed.”

  “I know who the cheater is here,” Fry said, “and..” He paused for dramatic effect before pointing at Oakton. “It’s you!”

  “Me?” Oakton said as the crowd gasped again.

  “Don’t try to play games. I was walking home last night after spending time down at the pub, and I saw you on the road!”

  “Why wouldn’t I be there? There were no rules about running a practice lap.”

  Fry snorted. “You weren’t running a temperature, let alone practicing. You were sitting in that motorcar of yours while your servant was digging up the road!”

  Oakton chuckled. “Had a few too many last night, did you?”

  “If I may…” Macalley reached into his pocket and pulled out a caltrop. “These were found in the road not far past the turnoff to the Peavley estate. They had been planted in the dirt.”

  “Fitting work for a dirty scoundrel,” I snapped.

  Quick took the caltrop from Macalley. “Am I wrong in assuming it was enchanted?” he said.

  “Not at all,” Skedaddle said as he studied the caltrop. “Quite possibly, the enchantment was crafted to protect horses and carts, so that this would only pierce a motorcar’s tyres.”

  “Which happened to Strahlkogel’s motorcar,” Macalley said. “It quite possibly cost him the race.”

  Talbot frowned. “And perhaps the same sort of enchantment was placed on the twigs that covered the mudhole I drove into!”

  Goldbloom fixed an angry stare on Oakton. “Sir, you’ve been charged with three acts of sabotage,” she said. “Do you refute these charges?”

  “Of course I do!” Oakton snapped. “Are you going to take the word of an impudent dilettante and an old drunkard over that of one of the most respected lords in all of elfdom?”

  “A moment.” Goldbloom huddled briefly with Quick and Skedaddle. After a minute, they turned to face Oakton, arms folded. “Appeal denied,” Goldbloom said tersely. “Peavley is officially the winner.”

  Oakton sighed. “Drat and double drat,” he muttered to himself.

  Priscilla squealed with joy and embraced me as the crowd cheered. “Good show!” Talbot exclaimed as we shook hands. Even Macalley seemed to be, very slightly, smiling.

  “Peavley!” Oakton pointed at me. “This isn’t over! I won’t forget this!”

  “Neither will I. Especially when I look at the trophy.” I smiled.

  Oakton glared at the crowd around the podium. “And as for the rest of you…” He stopped and looked down as he finally noticed that Bernadette had been chewing on his silk cravat. “Stop eating my neckwear,” he finished weakly. He yanked the cravat away from the goat and stormed off for his motorcar, Hillsboro on his heels. Bernadette swallowed and bleated a bleat of contentment.

  ***

  The trophy ceremony was thankfully brief, as my legs were still rather wobbly. The crowd cheered wildly as I accepted the trophy, and even more wildly when I kept my speech down to a simple but mostly heartfelt thank you. I made arrangements to have the prize money deposited in the bank account for the Darbyfield Library, and as the crowd dispersed, I walked over to my motorcar with Macalley, Priscilla, Clarinda and Augustus.

  “What will you be doing with your trophy?” Clarinda asked, pointing to the cup that Macalley was carrying.

  “She probably has a place picked out to display it already!” Priscilla grinned.

  “I do,” I said. “The library.”

  “What?”

  “It would clash with the decor in the manor.”

  “That, we can agree on,” Macalley said.

  “I’ll keep it until Clarinda can figure out how best to display it. Besides, I have two even better prizes.”

  “The satisfaction of defeating Lord Oakton, madame?”

  “Yes. And…” I held up the magnum of champagne and smiled as we reached the motorcar.

  Priscilla laughed. “You’re not going to lock that away as well!”

  “Of course not!” I handed the champagne to Augustus. “Be a dear and take that to the steakhouse. Save us a table for five and have the waitstaff put this on ice.”

  “What about you?” Augustus asked.

  “I am not going to have a celebratory dinner until I get some clean clothes on. Macalley? We’re returning to the manor so I can change and freshen up.”

  “Of course, madame,” Macalley said. “Was there anything else?”

  I opened the door to the passenger’s side of the motorcar, leaned back in the seat, and shut my eyes tightly. “Yes,” I said as the last strength fled my limbs. “You drive.”

  “As you wish, madame.” I could hear the faint smile in his voice, and I smiled in turn.

  Thank you very much for reading this tale of Peavley Manor! We would be most grateful were you to leave a review to encourage your fellow readers to take a chance and purchase this story, and to encourage the author to write more tales of Alice and Macalley’s misadventures.

  To stay up to date with the latest news from Peavley Manor, and other updates from the worlds of Robert Dahlen, sign up here for his mailing list. You can also follow him and his work on Facebook, on Twitter, or on his website.

  Other works by Robert Dahlen

  The Monkey Queen series:

  Of Introductions And Abductions

  The Brigadoon Boondoggle

  Under The Stars Of Faerie

  A Tiding Of Magpies

  Redblade

  The Crown Of Kylthena

  The Skyblade Saga (A Plundered Chronicles Tale):

  Skyblade’s Gambit

  The Peavley Manor series:

  Book Fair Frenzy (O
r, Macalley Turns The Page)

  The Thorn Harbour Road Rally (Or, Macally Takes the Wheel)

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks again to Madame Askew (a.k.a. Jocelynne Simone) and the other members and followers of her Temporal Entourage for all of their support! I do hope this meets with their approval.

  Thanks again to Shei Darksbane for her formatting help and for putting the “awesome” in awesome pal! Go buy her books (and those by her wife Anna as well!

  Thanks again to Amber Goss for help with the cover, for her patience, and for her encouragement. Cheesy fries owed to Amber as of this writing: 8.

  And thanks to all of you for reading this! I appreciate your support, and I hope you’ll stick around for more tales from Peavley Manor.

  About the Author

  Fantasy novelist, all-around wisecracker, nerd music buff and penguin aficionado, Robert Dahlen lives in northern California with numerous penguins, a tablet stuffed with e-books and works in progress, shelves filled with graphic novels and Disney Infinity and other figures, and a very nice hat. He's been having fun telling stories since March 2013, and he looks forward to doing so for years to come. He is hopefully writing another story as you read this, and he thanks you for reading this. (And he pronounces his last name “duh-LANE”, as in “the rain in Spain falls mainly on Dahlen”, which is a call to battle among certain tea duelists.)