Dad gulped. Even the hardened criminals Fingers and Thumbs were looking worried.
Frank had watched his father race for years. He’d marvelled as the champion banger racer manoeuvred himself out of the most impossible situations. There must be some way to escape.
“Dad, you can drive us out of anything,” urged Frank.
“It’s too dangerous, mate. We need to give ourselves up. This is the end.”
“It’s all this little runt’s fault for slowing us down,” snarled Fingers.
“I want to rip his head off and use it as a football!” growled Thumbs.
Despite becoming distracted by the unsavoury thought of his head being detached from his body, the boy was determined that they’d escape. Many years ago he’d seen his father do a terrific stunt in Queenie when he’d flipped the car on to its back wheels.
“Dad, you can jump those police cars!”
“No, I can’t!” replied the man.
“You can! Do a Queenie wheelie!”
“A WOT?” demanded Thumbs.
“You can’t do a wheelie in a car,” sneered Fingers.
“My dad can!”
“Not now he can’t,” replied Dad. “When I did that stunt, Queenie was specially weighted. I had this huge heavy barrel in the back.”
“You’ve got a huge heavy barrel in the back now,” replied Frank, nodding towards Thumbs.
The henchman leaned into the boy. It looked for a moment as if he might eat him.
“That’s not enough, mate. All three of us grown-ups would have to squeeze in the back.”
“What are you waiting for?” exclaimed the boy.
“Who’s gonna drive?” asked Dad.
“ME!” replied Frank.
“YE HAVE TEN SECONDS OR I DOTH USE CONSIDERABLE FORCE!” announced Sergeant Scoff over the loud-hailer. He spun his truncheon round in his hand, looking eager to use it.
“You can’t drive!” said Fingers mockingly. “What are you? Ten?”
“I’m nearly twelve! Now do what I say if you want to get out of here!”
“TEN!” came the voice.
“All of you bundle in the back!”
Fingers and Dad looked reluctant, but did what the boy said.
“NINE!”
As the pair scrambled into the back, the boy scrambled into the front.
“EIGHT!”
“Budge up!” shouted Fingers to Thumbs as he squeezed himself on to the back seat.
“I can’t budge up,” moaned Thumbs. “I can’t help it if I have a big bottom.”
“SEVEN!”
With the three men all in the back and the boy in the front, the front of the Mini began to rise.
WANG!
“SIX!”
Frank couldn’t hide his smile. In spite of all the danger, he was now sitting in the driving seat of Queenie, something he had waited his whole life to do.
“FIVE!”
The boy put his hands on the steering wheel. He’d never felt so cool.
“FOUR!”
He reached his feet down to the pedals.
DISASTER!
His legs were too short!
“DAD! I CAN’T REACH THE PEDALS!” shouted the boy.
“THREE!”
“I AM GOING TO THROTTLE HIM!” shouted Fingers.
“AND WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED THROTTLING HIM I AM GOING TO THROTTLE HIM SOME MORE!” added Thumbs.
“TWO!”
They had one second to go.
“Here, mate!” cried Dad. “Use this!”
The man pulled off his wooden leg and passed it to the boy.
“ONE!”
As quickly as he could, the boy hooked his foot into the elastic strap at the top.
“RIGHT! CHARGE!” announced Sergeant Scoff. He began down the steps, waving his truncheon. A one-man crusade.
The boy put his foot down on the wooden leg, which pressed the accelerator pedal.
The Mini roared forward. With its front wheels off the ground, the car the bonnet of one of the police cars.
The Mini crushed the bonnet.
DUNK!
The back wheels of the Mini rolled over the police car’s windscreen.
“SPIN THE WHEEL LEFT!” shouted Dad.
Frank did what his father said, and the car started driving over the next police car in the circle. All the police officers leaped out of their cars just in time.
“NOW EVERYONE LEAN FORWARD!” shouted Dad, and all three men in the back threw their weight frontwards.
The Mini then slammed down on to four wheels.
BASH!
Frank drove over the top of the next police car. And the next. And the next.
As the Mini zoomed over them, it left a trail of destruction. The glass in all the windscreens exploded as the Mini’s wheels rolled over the cars.
And the weight of Queenie crushed the police cars’ roofs.
Frank had only once been in trouble at school – for sneezing loudly in class. Now he was his very own DEMOLITION DERBY!
Scoff looked on in horror as the whole fleet of police cars was turned into scrap metal.
As soon as Frank had completed his lap, his dad shouted, “HARD RIGHT!” The Mini rolled down the back of a police car and landed on the ground with a loud…
Sparks flew as the bumper scraped the tarmac.
Then the Mini flew down the open road.
“WHOO HOO!” screamed the boy. Frank had never to his knowledge screamed “whoo hoo!” before, but this seemed like the perfect time.
Dad looked on as the speedometer was nudging out of its range. The car was going well over one hundred miles an hour.
Overhead, the police helicopter was giving chase.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Dad. “Let me take over now, mate. I can outsmart that chopper!”
“Of course, Dad.”
The boy tried to move the wooden leg over to the brake pedal, but it had become jammed on to the accelerator.
“DAD!”
“What, mate?”
“I CAN’T STOP THE CAR!”
The excitement immediately turned to terror as Frank realised they were heading to their doom. With Dad’s false leg stuck on the accelerator pedal, Queenie was going faster and faster and faster.
“HOLD ON, MATE!” said Dad as he clambered over the back seat into the front.
As he did so, his stump bashed Fingers’s long, pointy nose.
“Watch what you are doing with that thing!” snapped Fingers.
“Sorry!” called out Dad.
He this way and that to heave himself forward.
Frank swerved the car as it went round a roundabout faster than lightning.
This caused Dad to tumble back. His bottom squashed right into Fingers’s face.
“EURGH! WATCH WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH THAT THING!” shouted the henchman.
“SORRY!” called out Dad as he thrust his bottom back on to the man’s nose so he could launch himself forward into the passenger seat. “OOF!” he cried, sliding down into the front of the Mini. Still the car just kept going faster and faster and faster. Frank was clinging on to the steering wheel, staring forward into the dark road ahead of him. He didn’t dare blink. Now they’d reached the countryside. There were no streetlights – it was that real country darkness. The road had narrowed into a single lane with high hedgerows on each side. If there was a car coming the other way, they would all be done for.
Overhead they could hear the police helicopter still following them.
“Kill the lights!” ordered Dad.
The boy flicked a switch and the car’s headlights were turned off. Now no one could see them, and they couldn’t see anything, either.
Soon the sound of the helicopter overhead became fainter.
“I THINK WE’VE LOST THEM! NOW, FOR THE LAST TIME, STOP THE CAR!” shouted Fingers.
“I’m trying!” replied Dad, and he bashed at his own wooden leg with his fist. But it just wouldn’t budge.
Way ahead in the distance the boy could make out something on the road. Something pink. Something fat. Something piggy.
It was a pig!
“PIG!” shouted Frank, not sure what else to say on seeing a pig.
“How dare you!” cried Thumbs.
It must have escaped from one of the farms by eating its way through the hedge. Perhaps the sound of the helicopter whirring overhead had startled it.
“No. Not you! There’s a pig on the road!”
“RUN IT OVER!” said Fingers.
“I CAN’T KILL A PIG!” shouted the boy.
“You eat pork, don’t you?” yelled Fingers.
“Yes.”
“Well then, you can run over a pig!”
Thumbs looked bemused. “Fingers? Does pork come from a pig?”
“YES!” shouted Fingers.
“Oh, you learn something new every day!”
“I’ve done it!” said Dad as he whacked the wooden leg off the accelerator pedal. He then scrambled down into the footwell, and thumped the brake pedal as hard as he could.
It was too hard.
The car’s back wheels shot up and the Mini somersaulted through the air.
WHUF! WHUF! WHUF!
“ARGH!” screamed everyone as they flew for what seemed like minutes but must have been seconds. Through the windscreen Frank looked down and stared into the pig’s eyes. Both his eyes and the pig’s were wide open with horror.
The car was flying upside down through the air. Of course, what goes up must come down.
The car skimmed over a hedge.
SKISH!
Before landing in a field on its roof.
All four passengers were dangling upside down as the car skidded backwards across a field full of cattle.
WHUZZ!
The cows were all lying down asleep, until the sight of an upside-down Mini speeding along the wet grass rudely woke them up.
“MOO! MOO!” mooed the cows as they desperately clambered up to get out of the way.
All four inside the car stared out of the back windscreen. A tall tree was fast approaching.
“TREE!” shouted Thumbs.
“Yes, we’ve seen it!” said Fingers.
“Slam the brakes!” shouted Thumbs.
“We’re upside down!” said Dad.
“Oh yeah!” replied Thumbs.
“HOLD TIGHT!” shouted Frank as he realised they were half a second from impact.
The back end of the car crashed into the tree, and Queenie came to an abrupt halt.
Dazed and confused, the four hung upside down for a moment before scrambling out of the car.
As Frank lay on his back in the grass, he could feel something rough and slobbery licking his forehead. Looking up, he saw that it was a huge cow’s tongue. The herd had gathered around the upturned car, and were now licking the people back to life.
“MOO! MOO!”
“Get off me!” shouted Fingers, pushing the cow’s face away, which only seemed to make the animal want to lick him more.
“So what meat comes from these things?” asked Thumbs innocently. “Is it chicken?”
Fingers sighed loudly.
“I need everyone’s help now!” announced Dad.
“Lamb?” guessed Thumbs.
“Listen! We all need to work together to roll the car back up the right way. Now, Frank, you and I can take this end, and Fingers and Thumbs—”
But before Dad could finish giving his orders, Thumbs pulled the car up and righted it without any help. It landed on the grass with a THUD.
“Oh, thank you, Thumbs,” said Dad. “You seem to have done it all on your own.”
“Right!” snapped Fingers. “After you two nearly killed us, I’m going to drive from now on.”
“I never get to drive!” huffed Thumbs.
“Well, I bagsied it first!” snapped Fingers.
“I will drive!” announced Dad.
“NOT FAIR!” grumbled both Fingers and Thumbs.
Dad reattached his wooden leg, and got into the driver’s seat. “Look, I’m the getaway driver so I’m going to drive.”
“Can I sit in the front seat this time?” pleaded Thumbs.
“No!” said Dad.
“Can I sit in the front seat this time?” pleaded Fingers.
“NO!”
“WHY NOT?” the two henchmen asked.
“Because if I let one of you sit in the front seat then the other one in the back will moan and then I will have to stop the car again so you can swap. It will all take too long.”
“Let’s get a move on, then. We need to be at Mr Big’s house by midnight,” said Thumbs.
Fingers whacked Thumbs round the back of the head.
“Ow! What was that for?” whined the big man.
“Don’t tell the kid where we’re going. It’s top secret.”
“Mr Big’s house?” asked Thumbs.
Fingers whacked him again, harder this time.
“Ow! I never told him that Mr Big masterminded the robbery!”
Another whack.
“OOOWWW!!!”
“Stop it! The pair of you. Or you will both have to walk!” said Dad.
Both men got into the back seat and began to sulk. No one likes being told off, especially not hardened criminals.
Frank slid into the front seat. The boy was enjoying all this greatly. “Don’t worry. I didn’t hear that we are going to Mr Big’s house or that he masterminded this and all your other robberies,” he said with a smirk.
“That’s good!” said Thumbs. “See?”
Fingers shook his head.
“Quiet, everyone!” said Dad as he tried desperately to start the car.
GRRR… GRRR… GRRR…
Instead of shuddering into life, Queenie let out a low, grinding noise.
“Oh no,” said Dad.
“What?” asked the boy.
“The engine must have flooded when she went upside down. The poor old girl won’t start again now for hours. We’re going to have to walk.”
“Maybe we should call the police?” suggested Thumbs. “See if they can tow us.”
“We’re escaping from the police, remember!” shouted Fingers.
“Oh yeah.”
“See what I have to deal with?” said Fingers to anyone who would listen.
“Come on,” said Dad. “The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll get there.”
At that moment a bolt of lightning lit up the sky.
After a few seconds, a roll of thunder could be heard and rain poured down from the skies.
TAT! TAT! TAT!
“I think it’s raining,” observed Thumbs.
Fingers picked up the brown suitcase stuffed with cash. He threw it at Thumbs a little too hard.
“OW!” cried the henchman.
“You can carry it! Come on! This way!” announced Fingers, and the four began the long march to Mr Big’s house.
Dad and Frank took a last look back at poor Queenie. The rain was pouring down, and the yellow paint was running off on to the field, revealing the Union Jack underneath.
“What about Queenie?” asked Frank.
“We’ll come back for her, mate,” said Dad. “Don’t you worry.”
After trudging across fields covered in cowpats in the pouring rain, the group arrived at a set of huge iron gates. A sign outside read “Pilfer House”.
“This is it!” said Fingers. He pressed a buzzer, and leaned into an intercom.
“Mr Big residence?” came a voice from the speaker.
“It’s Fingers and Thumbs. We’ve got a present for the guv’nor,” said Fingers.
“He’s been expecting you. One moment, please.”
Slowly the gates whirred open and the four walked up the long driveway. At the end of it was an enormous country house. In all his eleven years, Frank had never seen a home so grand. It looked like a palace with its thick Roman-style columns, tall windows and stone steps leading up to a huge wo
oden door.
Looking at all this in awe, Frank muttered, “Crime does pay.”
They passed an ornamental fountain, which had at its centre a giant marble statue. It was a likeness of Mr Big himself, striking a heroic pose with his dressing gown flying in the wind like a cape. He’d made himself look like a superhero, rather than the supervillain that he really was.
The four climbed the stone steps to the imposing wooden door. Fingers knocked with the solid gold knocker.
After a few moments a butler in a bow tie and tails answered the door.
“My master is waiting in the study for you,” he announced. He was a short, thin man with an unsmiling face. From his accent and appearance, Frank could tell he was Chinese.
The butler led them down a long corridor, and into Mr Big’s study.
“You’re late!” snarled Mr Big. The little man was seated behind a large desk in his office, chomping on a cigar. At his feet were two fat black cats, with diamond-encrusted collars. The room was an embarrassment of gold. Gold desk, gold chair, gold lamps, gold frames around gold paintings of Mr Big wearing gold. One even depicted Mr Big as a Roman emperor with a crown of gold leaves on his head. This was a man who loved gold nearly as much as he loved himself.
“Sorry, guv’nor,” said Fingers. “We ’ad a little problem with the getaway car.”
The henchman shot a look to Dad, who bowed his head.
“And who is this little worm?” demanded Big.
“My son, sir,” replied Dad.
“Oh, so I finally meet the little squirt. Your mum has told me a bit about you.”
“My mum?” said the boy, trembling.
“Didn’t your daddy tell you?” said Mr Big with a smirk. “She’s my woman now.”
Frank looked back to his father, desperately confused. “Dad? Please tell me this isn’t true!”
The man took a deep breath. He’d protected his son from the truth for so long. Now he had no choice but to tell him the whole story.
Bad Dad Page 7