Desert Disaster (2 page)

Kako gave off a high-pitched scream as the scorpion scuttled under the classroom tables.

Chip jumped on his chair and started tucking his trousers into his socks.“Where’d it go? Where’d it go?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s in the corner!” said Jimmy, who could see it heading for the door. “Actually, I think that it’s more afraid of us than we are of it.”

“I don’t think so!” Horace shouted.

Sir Rupert sighed, and tried to continue with his lesson. “Come on, now, settle down,” he said. No one paid him any attention. “Let’s get back to the matter in hand, shall we?”

The scorpion scurried a different way, and the students all shrieked.

“
Stand still!
” said Sir Rupert with such force that everyone stopped panicking and stood to attention. “That’s better,” he continued in a quieter voice. “Now, if you’ll all kindly take your seats, we shall continue.”

They did exactly as they were told. They climbed down slowly from their chairs and sat down, except for Horace, who refused to budge from on top of his chair, his face red with fear. “Sting is a deathstalker scorpion,” said Sir Rupert, ignoring Horace. “They usually live in the Sahara desert, where they feed on insects. The tail ends in a sharp spike, which contains a poison.”

“You brought a deadly scorpion into our classroom? Are you mad?” squealed Horace.

“Now then, he’s hardly deadly. A sting from this little fellow would not be enough to kill a full-grown adult,” said Sir Rupert with his thin smile. He thought for a moment and the smile dropped. “Hmm. A child might be another matter, however...”

Horace moaned to himself and scrambled up on top of his desk.

Sir Rupert carried on as if nothing had happened. “A fascinating area, the Sahara. Did you know that it gets less than twenty-five centimetres of rain each year?” he repeated himself. “You’d think that it is so dry that nothing can live there, but many animals do, such as scorpions, camels and goats. There is even a type of antelope that can go for a whole year without water.”

“Get it out, get it out, get it out!” whimpered Horace as the scorpion crawled under his desk.

“All in good time,” Sir Rupert replied with a withering look. “The desert itself is almost entirely composed of sand which forms in dunes. These are large hills or even mountains of sand made by the strong winds, known as the
sirocco
, that whip across the desert. The dunes can be very dangerous, especially when driving over them.”

Horace was practically jumping up and down on the table now. “Please! Take it away!”

Missy rolled her eyes and stood up. “Keep your pants on. I’ll get it.”

She calmly grabbed her metal pencil case and emptied it on the desk. Then she walked over to the scorpion and trapped it under the tin, as easily as if she was dealing with a fly. Carefully she took it over to Sir Rupert, who took the case with a warm smile. “Thank you, Missy. You weren’t scared?”

“Nah,” she said, sitting back down. “Not really. I’ve seen bigger. Once I woke up to find a forest scorpion on my pillow. Big as a dingo, that critter was!”

“Excellent! Everyone should take a leaf out of Miss McGovern’s book. Keep calm, keep cool, and if possible keep away.”

Horace jumped down from the desk. “You’re insane! You’ll never work again! Releasing a scorpion into a classroom? My father will hear of this!” he said, hurrying to the door.

“I don’t know what Horace is complaining about –
he
smashed the glass,” said Chip.

“Well, what’s done is done,” said Sir Rupert, packing Sting away in his rucksack. “We’ll call it a day, I think. Good luck to everyone for the next race!”

“Wherever
that
might be,” said Kako.

Sir Rupert smiled, and Jimmy saw the glint of mischievousness again. “Well, if you’ve been paying attention in this lesson, you should know everything you need to about the location of the race.” Then he tapped the side of his nose as if to say, “y
ou didn’t hear it from me.”

Jimmy smiled and felt his heart pumping faster. He looked into the faces of each of the four remaining racers in the room and in a breathless whisper said, “I think I know where we’re going.”

At that moment they heard a
bing!
through the airship’s speakers, followed by the robot co-ordinator Joshua Johnson’s clear voice saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing in approximately ten minutes. That’s ten minutes.”

Jimmy and the other racers burst out of the classroom like they’d just heard the starting pistol at the start of a sprint. Jimmy felt the slight turn of the airship, the floor tilting underneath him.

“Last one to the observation deck is a rusty wheel nut!” Missy yelled, and sped off down the corridor with a whoop. Jimmy and Sammy caught each other’s eye and smiled, before charging off down the corridor after her.

The racers ran as fast as they could down the length of the ship, passing Horace on their way to the observation deck, a room at the very bottom of the airship that was entirely made out of glass – even the floor!

Jimmy gasped when he saw the vast landscape below him. Looking down past his dirty trainers and through the transparent floor, he could see the huge yellowy-orange carpet of desert. His stomach lurched a little as he realized that there was just a piece of glass between him and a huge drop to the earth below.

“
Sugoi!
” said Kako, which Jimmy had learned meant “Awesome!” in Japanese.

“Woah!” said Chip, stepping out onto the deck.

“I knew it,” Jimmy gasped. “We’re racing across the Sahara!”

Jimmy tore out of the observation deck and back into the corridor.
I’ve got to tell Grandpa about the location of the next race
, he thought. Cabbie would need to be adapted for the sandy terrain.

He ran to the workshop, where technicians and engineers were going crazy, running about and falling over each other in a mad panic to try and get their robots ready in time.

“Looks like someone’s already told them about the desert!” Jimmy muttered to himself. He walked over to Grandpa, who was hopping and dancing around Cabbie like someone had dropped a lit firecracker down his trousers.

“You’ve heard, then?” said Jimmy, ducking out of the way as Grandpa whizzed past him carrying a giant antenna. Grandpa turned to smile at him, his moustache bobbing up and down excitedly.

“Of course I have! The word got around in seconds!” he beamed. “The Sahara desert! Just think of it, Jimmy!”

“We’ve just been down to the observation deck to take a look, Grandpa. It’s so
big
!” Jimmy said. “It’s massive! Vast! Enormous!”

“Brilliant!” said Cabbie, cheery as ever. “I love a bit of sand surfing. Bring it on!”

Grandpa continued rushing around Cabbie, making last-minute checks. Jimmy kept getting in the way, so Grandpa chucked a parcel at him. “Here, open this. Came this morning on the post plane.”

Jimmy recognized the address label. “Great! It must be my new race suit.
That’s Shallot!
promised me one ages ago.” It was the first good thing that his rubbish sponsors had done for him. While all the others had cool sponsors like
Luke’s Lasers
and
Robotron Rocket Boots
, the only people that had wanted to sponsor Jimmy and Cabbie when they started racing were a fruit and vegetable shop,
That’s Shallot!.
Jimmy struggled to unwrap the large box, and wondered why it was so bulky. The jumpsuit he had wanted was made of flame-retardant, heat-reflective foil microfibres. It was super-shiny and extra lightweight, but the suit that eventually popped out of the box wasn’t what he had been expecting.

“What the...?” he muttered, mystified.

“Try it on, then!” said Grandpa.

Jimmy pulled on the suit, which was large and made of plastic. It was completely brown, with some black stripes and a small tag that said ‘pull here’. He tugged at the tag and a loud hissing sound came from somewhere inside the suit. It was expanding!

By now everyone in the workshop had heard the strange noise. They had stopped work and were looking at Jimmy in his strange new suit, which was inflating by the second. It stopped, leaving a perfectly round suit with his legs, arms and head poking out.

“It’s ... it’s ... an onion!” he said, baffled. The technicians around him gave a laugh and even Grandpa and Cabbie couldn’t stop their giggles. Grandpa reached into the box and pulled out a strange leafy green helmet, which he placed on Jimmy’s head. Jimmy wasn’t impressed.

“Aw, come on Jimmy! It’s nothing to cry about!” said one of Horace’s NASA technicians through the laughter.

“He’s not crying – that’s the onion making his eyes water!” joked another.

Jimmy took off the suit, pulled out the stopper and chucked it into his locker in disgust. The onion deflated with a slow farting sound. “There’s no way I’m wearing
that
on TV,” he mumbled.

A few minutes later, they landed in the heart of the desert. Jimmy could feel the heat rising already as he made his way to the exit hatch with the rest of the racers and their teams. He was glad to be back in just his everyday clothes – an old grey T-shirt, shorts and tatty trainers – rather than that horrible, hot vegetable suit.
At this temperature, I’d have been a roasted onion!
he thought to himself as the gigantic hangar doors began to inch their way open.

“Everyone gather round!” Joshua Johnson, the robot co-ordinator yelled. “Lord Leadpipe has a special announcement to make.”

“What does Loonpipe want now? Is it not enough that he steals us away from our homes—” Grandpa muttered.

And makes us live in the lap of luxury
, thought Jimmy.

Jimmy knew Grandpa hated Lord Leadpipe. They had worked together as inventors when they were young men. But when Grandpa had invented the first-ever robot, his designs had been stolen and Leadpipe had set up his own robotics company. Lord Ludwick Leadpipe had gone on to become a multi-billionaire, while Grandpa had spent years as taxi driver, before he dusted off his workshop to make Cabbie for Jimmy.

They stepped through the exit hatch onto the ramp that took them down to the desert floor. Jimmy was hit by the dry desert heat as he moved out of the air-conditioned atmosphere of the airship. It struck the back of his throat, making him instantly thirsty.

Lord Leadpipe stood at the end of the ramp on a small stage that had been hastily set up. Somehow he was still wearing his usual formal suit and tie, even though Jimmy was roasting in just a T-shirt. As the racers came down the ramp, Leadpipe welcomed them all in his usual jovial manner.

“Come, come! Gather around! I trust you have had a good trip?”

“I’ve had worse!” Missy answered back.

“Good, good!” Lord Leadpipe waited until everyone was silent and a couple of Robo TV camerabots were hovering in front of him. He liked an audience, especially an audience of hundreds of millions, eagerly awaiting his every word. “Welcome, one and all, to the Sahara desert, among the harshest environments on Planet Earth! Tomorrow’s race promises to begin one of the toughest events of your lives.”

“Can’t wait,” whispered Missy.

“You will travel from this point across the sands to a finish line that we have set up on the other side of the desert. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed a difference in this leg of the competition.”

Horace surprised Jimmy by being the first to notice. “Where’s the track?” he asked.

“Precisely, Mr Pelly!” yelled Lord Leadpipe. “This time there will be no track! Your robots will have to trek across the sands to the finish line at a beautiful little oasis I know of. In fact, it’s where Lady Leadpipe and I had our honeymoon. The water is crystal clear and the palm trees are just lovely at this time of year—”

Joshua Jackson coughed and Lord Leadpipe seemed to remember they were all there.

“Anyway,” he continued. “The finish line is nearly twelve hundred miles away, but this race there will be no pit stops
and
no communication with your pit teams!”

The assembled racers and teams murmured in surprise and panic.

“Your robots will have to be fully adapted to carry all the fuel they need. Our own robot teams will check over the vehicles and rewire the Cabcoms so you can only communicate with each other. One of the checkpoints will act as your overnight stop, but you will not be allowed to change anything on your robots while you are there.”

Horace looked up at his dad, Hector Pelly. Hector looked exactly like his son, with perfectly aligned white teeth, a straight nose and glossy hair.

“This should be a piece of cake, Father. Zoom’s laser guidance system will work out the quickest route in no time!” he boasted.

“Ah! That reminds me,” Lord Leadpipe overheard. “To make things a bit more interesting, our technicians will be removing any automated navigation systems.”

“What?” said Horace and Mr Pelly in unison.

“All Global Positioning Systems, sat-nav, mapping software and laser-guidance systems will be removed before the race. Instead, competitors will follow a set of clues from checkpoint to checkpoint, which will then lead you to the finish. You’ll be able to find the checkpoints by looking for the usual Leadpipe Industries’ logo, and following the clues you’re given. Each clue will provide you with a set of co-ordinates to the next checkpoint, and eventually lead you across the finish line at the other end of the desert.”

“
What!
” exclaimed the Pellys again.

“What sort of race do you call that?” added Horace.

Jimmy grinned with delight and exchanged a look with Grandpa, who was looking a little smug. “I know what I call it,” said Jimmy to Grandpa. “A treasure hunt!”

Jimmy woke up to the sound of engines. But it wasn’t the low hum of the airship’s hyperdrive engines which he was used to, but the roar of petrol motors coming from the centre of the ship. With a burst of excitement, Jimmy remembered about the race. As he swung down from his bunk, he noticed Grandpa had already left the cabin they shared. Jimmy threw his clothes on and went down to the workshop to see what was happening.

As he walked through the doors, he was hit by a wall of noise. Teams of mechanics, engineers and technicians were shouting and stamping their feet as groups of Robot Races’ officials swarmed all over the machines with spanners and screwdrivers.

“Morning, Jimmy,” said Grandpa.

Jimmy went over to Cabbie’s side to join him.

“Morning. What’s going on?”

“They’re taking out the navigation systems,” Grandpa explained, handing Jimmy a cup of tea and a jam sandwich.

Jimmy looked over to the other side of the workshop where Horace was beside his robot, Zoom. He was in full tantrum mode.

“You won’t get away with this! If you so much as scratch that robot I’ll report you!” Horace complained.

A team of five technicians were around, inside, underneath and behind Zoom, fiddling with hardware. Every so often, they would extract a gadget from the robot and toss it in a heap outside the car.

Zoom didn’t take kindly to this interference, and revved his engine menacingly. “
Error!
” he bleeped at them. “Unauthorized hardware removal!”

“Looks like we might be a while here,” said Joshua Johnson, peering more closely at the masses of electronic equipment on Zoom’s dashboard. He left the technicians to it and walked across to Jimmy.

“Our turn,” said Grandpa cheerfully.

“Good morning, Mr Roberts,” said Joshua. “I’ll need to remove any navigation systems from Cabbie.”

“Be my guest!” said Cabbie.

A white-coated man came across and sat in the driver’s seat. Jimmy recognized him as Cyril, the same technician who had installed Cabbie’s Cabcom. He looked around Cabbie for a second, frowned, then aimed his electric screwdriver at the one piece of gadgetry on the dashboard. He turned it on and it buzzed for a moment.

“Woo-hoo!” giggled Cabbie as his Cabcom was rewired and his radar screen went blank. “That tickles!”

Cyril stepped out and dropped a small microchip into Joshua’s hand. With a curt nod he moved on to the next robot. The whole process had taken less than ten seconds.

Joshua peered into his hand at the tiny circuit Cyril had removed and frowned, unimpressed. “Hmm. I thought that would take longer,” he said. He shrugged and smiled at them. “Oh well. Good luck for the race!”

Grandpa took his automatic tea-maker out of his toolkit and dispensed some thick brown liquid into his mug. “It should be an interesting one,” he mused.

“I’ll say!” chipped in Cabbie. “With Zoom and the others stripped of their navigation gadgets, we’ve got a level playing field!”

“Are you feeling lucky, Cabbie?” said Jimmy. “This could be our best race so far!” He patted Cabbie on the bonnet excitedly.

“Just you be careful, you two!” said Grandpa, sitting down and stirring his tea with a spanner. “I don’t trust Leadpipe as far as I can throw him.”

“Don’t worry, Wilfred! I’ll take care of Jimmy!” said Cabbie.

“And I’ll take care of Cabbie,” Jimmy grinned.

Grandpa smiled, but he still looked concerned. “OK,” he said finally. “Now let me show you something new I added.” He leaped over to Cabbie’s dashboard.

“I want to show him! I want to show him!” said Cabbie like a little child.

“All right! Keep your roof on! Take it away.”

Cabbie revved his engine excitedly. “Wilf’s been hard at work. He was up all last night making me ready for the sandy terrain. Just look at this!”

There was a
beep
from inside the cab, and Cabbie’s bodywork started to whir and creak. Two sets of caterpillar tracks quickly wrapped themselves round Cabbie’s tyres, making him look like a tank. They were perfect for the desert environment.

“Check me out!” said Cabbie in a fake American accent. “I look a whole lot like Dug!”

They all laughed.

“The tracks should keep you stable on the sand, and spread the weight of the car more evenly when you need to get up those slippery sand dunes,” explained Grandpa.

“But what about fuel?” Jimmy asked after a moment. “Will Cabbie make it all the way?”

“I was just coming to that,” replied Grandpa. “I was a bit stumped about how to get more petrol in without making Cabbie too heavy. But then I remembered what you and Cabbie did in the Grand Canyon. So that’s when I fitted
this
.” He pointed to a fat metal tube fixed to Cabbie’s engine block.

“It’s the sonic-booster Lord Leadpipe gave us back in the Arctic!” Jimmy exclaimed.

“That’s right. But I’ve programmed it for a slow release. Instead of giving you a burst of speed over a short distance, it’ll help Cabbie go for an extra thousand miles. Clever, eh?”

“It’s brilliant!” Jimmy said.

HOOOONNNNKKKK!
In the workshop, a giant horn sounded.

“That’s the five-minute signal.” Grandpa looked at his watch. “Better get in, Jimmy lad, it’s nearly race time.”

“Here we go!” Jimmy said. He gave his grandpa a hug, took the battered old helmet from his outstretched hand and hopped inside Cabbie.

As they trundled slowly down the ramp to the starting line, Jimmy marvelled once more at the beautiful golden desert. He tore his eyes away from the curving dunes and shimmering heat to take in the grandstand, which had been erected overnight. Thousands of fans had come out in the hot sun to see the race. He saw waving flags and banners being bounced up and down, while the crowd chanted the names of their favourite racer.

“WE LOVE CHIP! WE LOVE CHIP!”

“KA-KO! KA-KO! KA-KO!”

“COME ON, JIMMY!”

Jimmy took his position at the starting line as safetybots buzzed around the track. Next to him, Horace sat in Zoom, with a large box now welded to his dashboard. Jimmy was about to complain that he had somehow re-installed his laser guidance system when he realized it was an air-conditioning unit to keep him cool. It must have been a gift from Horace’s sponsor,
Gleam Toothpaste
, because the unit had the picture of a pearly white tooth on it.

As he looked about, Jimmy saw that most racers had been given something cool and useful from their sponsor. Chip had electronically tinted windows to keep out the desert sun from
Luke’s Lasers
. Missy was quickly checking over her robot with the help of a flashy new tool kit provided by
Robotron Rocket Boots
, while Sammy was sporting a new extra-lightweight breathable racing suit – just like the one Jimmy had wanted.

Jimmy looked to his side at the gift from
his
sponsors – a giant carrier bag of fruit with the slogan,
‘your easy way to your five a day!’
on the side.
Oh well
, he thought.
At least I won’t starve in the desert.

The technicians cleared the track, which meant that the race was about to begin. Jimmy looked back to the edge of the airship’s ramp where Grandpa stood with other family members and crew. While the crowds were going wild around him, and the other parents hastily tried to shout extra instructions to their racers, Grandpa simply looked straight at Jimmy and gave a quiet thumbs-up.

Then Grandpa and the other crews were herded up the ramp and back into the airship, which would take them to the halfway point.

“Ready, Jimmy?” said Cabbie as the starting lights lit up.

“Of course!” said Jimmy. His nerves had now turned into excitement. When he heard the voice of the announcer lead the crowd into a countdown, he felt his fingertips start to tingle. His body rushed with adrenaline once more as the engines revved and roared.

Three!
The crowd chanted.

His foot hovered over the accelerator.

Two!

Sand started to fly as the robots spun their wheels on the ground.

One!

“Here we go!” Jimmy shouted as the crowd around him went wild.