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Authors: Matt Christopher

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“Thanks, guys,” said Chick proudly.

He entered the first two-minute Crash-and-Burn race with Ken, Butch, Jack and four other guys—including fellows much older.
Since there were only eight lanes on the track, not all the entries were able to race at the same time. The winner would race
the three remaining cars.

Chick gooped the Ferrari’s rear tires on Butch’s goop pad, set the car on the Number 4
blue lane which was assigned to him, then waited for the count from Eddie Lane, the race director. Jack’s Lola T-70 was on
the red lane on his right and Butch’s black Porsche on his left. Somehow he wished Jack’s car were in another lane.

The race drivers started with their thumbs down on the controllers. At the count of “Three!” the race director turned on the
switch and the race was on.

Chick kept the Ferrari at full throttle down the long straightaway and was careful as could be at the curves and bends. One
deslotment in a Crash-and-Burn and you were eliminated.

He eased around the curves, noticing other cars speeding by him. But he ignored them. Two years of slot car racing had taught
him never to look at the other cars. You had to watch your own. It was often at that fraction of a second, when you took your
eyes off your car, when it would spin out or deslot.

One car stalled before it completed its first lap, eliminating it from the race. Another spun out on its second lap. Down
the straightaway,
around the bend, under the overhead, up and around the S-bend, down the long stretch near the wall in back, then the wide
banking U-curve, the sweeper, that led once again into the long straightaway. Around and around they raced, the best drivers—and
the luckiest ones—staying in there.

“One minute’s up!” announced the race director.

Chick’s hopes climbed. He was still in there. So were Ken, Butch and Jack.

“Track!” someone yelled. The power was shut off. The cars stopped dead. And Chick saw that Ken’s Ford GTP had overshot the
sweeper and gone sailing off into space and to the floor.

Five cars left on the track. Chick felt his pulse speed up as the race started again. The controller was hot in his hand.
Hot and wet from his sweating palm.

Stay in there, you little red bomb!
he pleaded.
Stay in there!

Then it happened. On the sharp S-curve past the overhead at the left side of the track.
The red Ferrari was making the sharp turn when up from its right side a yellow Lola T-70 came bursting at breakneck speed.
Its tail spun out just enough to hit the Ferrari’s nose, de-slotting the flag.

Chick jerked his thumb up but it was too late to save the Ferrari. It skidded over the lanes, crashed against the high wall
and shuddered to a dead stop.

“You—you—!” Chick glared at Jack Harmon. “You nerfed me! You nerfed me on purpose!”

7

Chick drew back his fist, but Ken grabbed his arm. “Hold it, Chick, or Mort will throw you out for good.”

Jack’s attention was on the Lola T-70 speeding around the track.

“It was an accident!” he said. “I didn’t mean to nerf you!”

“Like heck you didn’t!”

Someone came and stood at Chick’s elbow. Someone big and authoritative. “Just let me see your shadow get into a scrap and
you won’t race her again, Chick,” came Mort Yates’s stern warning.

Chick looked up at him. “But he nerfed me, Mort!”

“There’s no law that says you can’t,” said Mort. “Why don’t you try nerfing him?”

“Because I don’t like it, that’s why,” answered Chick hotly.

“I said I didn’t do it on purpose,” insisted Jack, the Lola T-70 still under his complete control. “Can’t we drop it there?”

Just then Butch’s black Porsche spun out on the sweeper and lay still. “For crying out loud, you guys!” he yelled. “Why don’t
you keep your traps shut?”

The Porsche was out of the race too. Butch picked it up, shooting an angry look at Mort and Chick.

Chick managed to control his tongue and
temper and hung around until the race was over. Jack’s car had won the first race, and then had won over the other three
drivers, too.

Butch snapped at Chick outdoors, catching Chick by surprise. “You’re always shooting off your mouth, Chick. Why couldn’t you
have waited till you were outside? I had a hot race going.”

“Oh, yeah? How about me? What would you do if Harmon had nerfed
your
car?”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t have yelled my head off like you did and thrown all the drivers off. Man!”

Chick clamped his lips and ran down the street. He expected—hoped—that Butch would yell for him to slow down, but Butch didn’t.
A lump rose and stuck in his throat.

He almost bumped into Police Officer Tom Duffy as he rounded the corner onto Carbon Street. “Hey, watch it!” Tom yelled, holding
out a ham-sized hand.

“Oh, sorry, Mr. Duffy.”

“What happened? Get into another scrap?”

There you go. You didn’t even have to tell people any more.

“Guess so,” said Chick, catching his breath. “Guess all I do is get into scraps.”

“Jack Harmon again?”

Chick nodded and explained what had happened. He also told about Butch.

“Don’t worry too much about either of them,” advised Mr. Duffy. “I know both boys just as well as you do. And I know you too,
Chick. You can’t take a ribbing. You fly off the handle like an angry hornet when you’re picked on. That’s why they pick on
you. They enjoy seeing you get hot under the collar. The only thing to do is learn to take it. Show ‘em you’re not bothered
by their foolishness. Before long they’ll get tired of sticking those pins into you.”

Chick walked the rest of the way home, feeling a lot better. Guess policemen like Tom Duffy were made especially for kids
like himself.

In math class the following day Mr. Wood
row gave a fifteen-minute speed test. It was, in Chick’s opinion, tough. He skipped some problems, guessed at others. He was
finished in ten minutes and spent the rest of the time drawing a racing car. It was low-slung, with narrow round wheels in
front and wide flat ones in back.

After the papers were handed in Chick put the drawing away. He finished it in history class, adding the driver, the circled
numbers and the windshield wipers. It was pretty snazzy, he thought.

Mr. Woodrow returned the corrected papers on Tuesday. Chick hated to look at the grade, but Mr. Woodrow’s blunt forefinger
directed his eyes to it: 49.

“It’s not quite, but almost, the lowest mark in class, Chick,” announced Mr. Woodrow not too kindly. “I want you to study
that chapter of problems again, then do the test over.”

Chick looked up. “You mean you’re giving me a chance to get a better mark?”

“Not at all, my boy. What I want is for you to do them all over again, but with one difference: They’re to be one-hundred
percent correct. Do you understand that, Chick?”

Chick gulped and looked away. “I understand,” he said.

He was aware of every student in the room looking at him. One pair of eyes, in particular, drew his attention. The taunting,
teasing eyes of Jack Harmon.

Chick remembered Mr. Duffy’s words of wisdom. Sure, he felt like giving Jack a dirty look back, but he wasn’t going to. He’d
ignore Jack completely. He owed Mr. Duffy that much, to give his words of wisdom a chance to work.

8

“How about a race at Mort’s in half an hour?” asked Ken Jason. “I’d like to try out my Cooper Ford.”

“Fine,” said Jack. “How about it, Chick? It’ll give you a chance to even up on me. Or are you afraid I’ll nerf you?”

The skin on Chick’s neck crawled. “You did nerf me on purpose, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t. I told you that. What you can’t seem to get through your thick skull, Chick Grover, is that my Lola T-70 can
hold the track around curves better than almost any car around.”

They got their cars and went to
Mort’s Pit Stop.
Only three guys were racing their cars. Jack asked Mort if he and Ken and Chick could run a Crash-and-Burn. Sure, said Mort,
as soon as the other three guys were finished.

About seven minutes later the track was clear. Ken, Chick and Jack paid their fee. Eddie Lane agreed to act as race director.
The boys gave their cars a once-around-the-track trial run, then set them on the starting line.

Jack had No. 3, the orange lane; Ken, No. 5, the red lane; Chick, No. 7, the yellow lane.

“Thumbs down!” announced Eddie Lane.

The boys pushed down their controller
plungers. Eddie counted, “One! Two! Three!,” yanked the switch, and the cars took off as if shot from rifles. They reached
the first hairpin curve almost at the same time, Chick thumbing off and on to slow the Ferrari. The cars sped to the second
curve, left again to the underpass, then right on the straightaway next to the wall. Ken’s Cooper Ford edged out Jack’s Lola
and Chick’s Ferrari as the cars reached the sweeper at the right.

The Cooper Ford led at the finish of the first lap. The Lola was second, the Ferrari third. Chick kept the plunger down as
the Ferrari zipped to the first hairpin, then thumbed up and down, up and down, to slow the little red car. He full-throttled
it again as it headed for the next curve. Up on the plunger. Down again. The Ferrari swept past the Lola and came up even
with the Cooper as they swept around the wide bend. Thumb all the way down, the Ferrari dashed past the Cooper and into the
lead.

Caution forced Chick to thumb off again
at the first hairpin. He did it just in time. The rear of the Ferrari whipped around slightly and would have spun out if
he had waited an instant longer. As it was, the rear tires spun briefly before traction took hold and the little racer was
on its way again. Chick held his breath. A stall would’ve meant elimination.

The slowdown gave Jack and Ken the chance to pass Chick. The Lola T-70 and the Cooper Ford were almost body to body as they
roared around the sweeper. The Lola took the lead as the car finished their third lap.

Chick full-throttled the Ferrari around the wide bend and the straightaway, eased briefly on the hairpin, full-throttled again,
eased on the second curve, then shot the Ferrari up to the underpass, letting up at the last instant. The Ferrari made the
turn all right, then sped down the upper straightaway, passing the Cooper Ford and catching up with the Lola T-70 at the wide
bend.

It kept the lead for the next three laps, going into the eighth section when the race director called out: “One minute!
Yellow,
seven laps, eight sections! Orange, seven laps, two! Red, six laps, eighteen!”

Chick hid a pleased grin. Six sections ahead of Jack wasn’t too safe a lead. Jack could make good time on the sharp curves
and be way ahead of him before the two minutes were up.

Chick kept the Ferrari at full throttle as it roared down the upper straightaway and whipped around the sweeper. It zipped
past him, ending the eighth lap.

Seconds later it ended the ninth lap, almost ten sections ahead of the Lola and a full lap ahead of the Cooper Ford.

Chick was ahead of Jack by fifteen sections at the end of the tenth lap. He grinned as he breezed the Ferrari around the two
sharp curves and then through the underpass. He had it made now. The Lola was lost in his dust. It could hold the track at
sharp curves better than most cars around? What a laugh!

“Thirty seconds!” announced Eddie Lane.

Chick full-throttled the Ferrari down the upper straightaway and into the steep bend. He passed Ken’s Cooper Ford, placing
it two
laps behind his Ferrari. What’s happened to Ken? wondered Chick.

Man, am I hot! I can make that little red Ferrari do anything I want it to!

The car finished the eleventh lap. Just a few seconds left, thought Chick. A few seconds…

Be careful going around the curve. Ease up a little. Now down to the next curve. Ease up again. There. Now full-throttle it.
That’s it. Watch it! You’re at the underpass! Thumb off! Thumb off! You’re going too fast! Too fast!

The Ferrari spun out. Stalled.

“Oh, no!” cried Chick, cupping his head between his hands.

Jack Harmon won.

9

On Tuesday, after school, Ken invited Chick to race on his home track. Chick cleaned the tires of the Ferrari first with oil
of
wintergreen, smoothed the brushes, then he and Ken ran their racers a few laps to warm them up.

“Let’s run a Crash-and-Burn for two minutes,” suggested Ken.

“Okay.”

They lined up the racers—Chick his Ferrari and Ken his Ford GTP. Ken set the timer and at his count of “Three!” the cars took
off. Chick full-throttled the Ferrari down to the first curve, eased up sharply, then sent it whirring down the long stretch,
its rear end vibrating as if it tried to shake something off. Chick frowned. Now what?

He thumbed off and on at the doughnut curve, but too late. The flag deslotted.

Chick examined the tires again and found a cinder lodged on the right rear tire. He wiped it off.

“Say,” said Ken, “a week from Saturday Mort is holding a Concours d’Elégance, then Semi and Main racing events. Want to sign
up?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Ken reset the timer and the boys started to race again. This time the little red Ferrari roared down the track with barely
a shimmy. Ken led in the first two laps by inches, then crept steadily ahead. Chick tried to catch him on the straightaways
but wasn’t able to. Neither could he gain on the curves. Ken knew what his car could do on these curves and used his knowledge
to the hilt.

When the timer banged at the end of the two minutes, Ken’s Ford GTP had completed twenty-six laps to the Ferrari’s twenty-two.

“Let’s race again,” said Chick. “Make it five minutes this time.”

“Okay.”

This time Chick did better but Ken still won, sixty-one laps to Chick’s fifty-seven.

“You going to enter the Ferrari in the Con-cours again?” asked Ken.

“I don’t think it’s got much of a chance now,” said Chick truthfully. “It’s pretty banged up again.”

Ken took a low, sleek body with curved
fenders, headlights, tail lights and long raindrop roof off a shelf. The blue paint was partly scratched off. The number
on its sides was 8.

BOOK: Lucky Seven
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