Speed Freak (16 page)

WE WERE ON
the road by seven next morning, arriving at the track just after it opened. The grandparents were waiting for us.

‘You’re a real trooper,’ said Gran, giving Erica a hug. ‘We’re so grateful.’

Erica said, ‘You’ve got a good family, Janet. The best.’

Felix and I got busy helping Grandad with the tent. Gran moved out of the way, took Erica’s arm and said, ‘We’ll leave you to get on with it.’

Erica looked worried, but Gran was firm. ‘We’d only get in the way and clutter up the tent.’

No more argument from Erica.

Sel ambled up as I was getting into my overalls. ‘Mr Big is here, all bright and shining. Probably thinks the grand apology fixed everything.’

I’d been too busy to think much about Craig.

‘You watch out for him, Archie,’ Felix said. ‘I bet he tries cheating again.’

‘Not much I can do about it if he does. But he’d be mad to try anything now. The stewards will be watching him.’

‘His father must have found him a mechanic,’
Grandad said. ‘I wonder if we’ll get to meet him before he gets fired.’

Lucky for Craig, he behaved himself for the whole day. He pretty much kept to himself, too, though we did find out who his mechanic was — Dave Higgins, who owned a kart business in Christchurch. He told Jack’s dad that Mr Bateman had made it worth his while but it was just for this one event. According to Jack, he’d said, ‘Three days of that stuck-up little twerp are going to be all I can stomach.’

But we had more important things to think about. The track, for starters. It was a very technical track — the longest in the country. It was the fastest too and not one for the faint hearted. You had to keep your foot on the throttle, and winning often came down to a question of who had the most guts. We practised hard out all day, and nobody got in anybody else’s way — not even Silver Adams. Could be she’d got tired of whatever game it was she’d been playing.

Grandad kept the kart perfectly tuned, Felix bounced around handing him tools and running errands. The two of them were having a ball.

When we were packing up for the night, Grandad said, ‘Well?’

‘Not too bad, I think. I’ve got the track pretty much in my head. I reckon I can post a good time in qualifying.’ I refused to give head room to the knowledge that Craig raced regularly on this track.

Grandad drove us to the motel. It had its own private hot pool in the garden. Felix beat me into it, but not by much. I sat with water up to my neck, soaking out the soreness in my body. Heaven couldn’t get better than this.

Felix wanted to eat his dinner in the pool. Not a happening thing apparently, so we both hauled ourselves out. Worth it, too. Some sort of casserole — more heaven. Then I went to bed. Soaking in a hot pool can make you tired. So can a full day of racing.

FELIX WAS THE
first one awake in the morning. I know this because he was shouting before I’d even got my eyes open. ‘It’s raining. Archie, it’s bloody raining!’

‘Felix!’ Erica called from her bedroom.

Oops. Guess who forgot his mother was on this trip?

Over breakfast, Grandad scowled at the weather, then did his best to reassure Felix, who wouldn’t shut up about it. ‘We’ll handle it, Felix. Archie’s first heat’s not till this afternoon.’

Yes, we feckin’ would handle it. I fired off a text to Dad.
On wets. Sure rains here.

The sky was still tipping it down when we pulled out of the motel, and was even worse when we got to the track. We got to work swapping the tyres to wets and took the kart down to the grid, rain dribbling down our necks. Got to hand it to Felix — he didn’t moan about it.

That bloody rain didn’t let up. Even allowing for the wet track, I wasn’t as quick as I should have been. ‘It’s probably the tyre pressures,’ Grandad said. ‘We’ll put a bit more in the back. See if that makes a difference.’

It helped but it still wasn’t right. We spent the morning tweaking it. Got it perfect for the first of the qualifiers.

I positioned myself in the middle of the field, aiming to let those in front of me get well ahead. I didn’t want
to drive with spray kicking up in my face. I made sure Silver was behind me, though. She’d been very low key all day so far — not her normal style at all. If she broke out, I didn’t want to be anywhere near her. I kept away from Craig, too, but that was because I didn’t want to have to talk to him.

It took a couple of wet, spray-filled laps before I got into the clear space I was after.
Time to drive
. I kept my foot on the throttle, then hard down on the brakes into the corners. All I had to do was make sure I was faster than any other bugger. Especially Craig. There was no way any of us would equal the course record today — 53.3 on a dry track. My best lap time was well short of that.

I cruised into the pits, hoping the rain would stop in time for the first heat.

I texted Dad at lunchtime, ending with:
Still raining. How you?

Bored rigid.
He must have been feeling better.

I handed the phone to Felix when the grid positions went up. ‘Tell him I’m on pole, will you, Felix?’

Craig was on two, and three-tenths of a second slower.

My crew plodded through the puddles with the kart.

‘Shit,’ Felix said. ‘It’s raining harder.’

Grandad gave a bit of a grin but didn’t growl at him for swearing.

Craig arrived just after I’d pushed my kart on to pole. We didn’t talk, but it’s easy not to chat when a waterfall is coming down on your head.

The starter, all dry and cosy under his big umbrella, let us go. Round we went until the lights gave the start signal. I accelerated, making sure I got the inside ahead
of any fancy tricks Craig might try to pull. I had the lead and I kept it, lap after drenching lap. God knows what was going on behind me. The peripheral vision wasn’t a lot of help in rain as solid as this was. I did see that three karts were off in the infield but gone by the time I came round again. Nothing major then.

Craig hassled me the entire race — just a bit more than was polite and gentlemanly. It made me more determined to keep him shut out from the lead. He popped up alongside me on every straight, steering in close, trying to make me change my line. But each corner, he had to fall back or take the inside line, which today was slippery as hell.

It was a bruiser of a race. Thump, bash all the way round. We came out of the high-speed ninety-degree last corner, accelerating down the straight to the finish line. He was right there beside me, rocking backwards and forwards to urge more speed. I crossed the line a nose in front.

Craig didn’t speak to me when we got out. Grandad did, though, and loudly enough for Craig to hear. ‘Got a bit rough out there, did it?’

‘Nothing I couldn’t handle.’ I winked at Felix, who looked like he wanted to murder somebody, and no prizes for guessing who.

He shoved the phone at me. Dad’s text read:
Good result. Get to bed early.

‘Good advice,’ Grandad said.

Yeah. It was. I was tired, wet through, cold and amped. Me and my bro hit the hot pool as soon as we got back to the motel.

THE FIRST THING
I heard in the morning was Felix hassling Erica. ‘Mum, you’re coming to the track today, aren’t you? You have to see Archie race.’

Good luck with refusing that.

I got to the kitchen in time to see him do the forlorn puppy. She didn’t look happy, but she said, ‘Yes. I’ll be there, darling.’

I said, ‘Erica, you don’t have to come. You’ve been brilliant. I’ll never forget it.’

Felix wasn’t impressed. ‘You’ve got to come, Mum. You do. It’s awesome. You’ll love it.’

Gran said, ‘We’ll be there, Felix. We’re just going to pick up something for lunch, but don’t worry. We’ll be there in time for Archie’s heat.’

I looked at Erica.

‘Don’t worry about me, Archie,’ she said. ‘Bill’s given me orders to keep him updated. I won’t miss a thing.’

‘Get cracking boys,’ Grandad said. ‘Time we were off.’

We went out into a grey day. It was hard to tell whether the rain was over or not.

We arrived ahead of Sel and Jack, but Craig, Josh,
Lewis and Ollie had got the jump on us. Not to worry — getting to the track first wasn’t what it was all about.

Ollie and Lewis strolled into our tent. ‘Had a chat with Craig yet?’ Lewis asked.

‘Haven’t seen him. You?’

‘He’s hiding out in the van,’ Ollie said. ‘Not talking to anyone, I reckon.’

Fine by me.
We went off to look over the track. We didn’t talk much either. The track held all our attention. It would be fast today, a real test of driving ability.

As I was walking back to the tent, I saw Gran and Erica turning up, and just missed bumping right into Craig. ‘Hey! Watch out!’ he said, a friendly grin on his ugly mug.

I didn’t feel entirely friendly. ‘I’ll watch out, Craig. You can be sure of that.’

He looked like he was going to grab my arm, but then he changed his mind. ‘Come on, man. You’re winning. What’s your problem?’

I shrugged. He didn’t get it. He probably never would. I went into our tent without saying anything else. Grandad chased me out again. ‘Me and my offsider will do a hell of a lot better without you hanging over us.’

I removed myself, but stood in the entrance to take a long, hard look at the weather. Man, that sky was grey.

Sel and Jack ambled over. ‘It’s not going to rain,’ Jack said. ‘Betcha.’

‘Happy to take your word for it,’ I said. He could be right — he was local after all.

‘Hey, have you heard who’s finally decided to turn up?’ Sel said. ‘Silver Adams. Better late than never. Can’t think why she keeps on coming. All she does is get in the way.’

‘You know,’ I said, ‘I don’t think I’ve heard her say a single word all year.’

Jack said, ‘Damn lucky she’s not fast enough to be up the front. She’d be a bloody nuisance.’

We laughed. The two of them were usually side by side on the grid, and both as loose as each other.

‘Canteen?’ Sel asked.

I shook my head. I wanted to be by myself for a bit.

They went in search of chocolate and orange juice, but I didn’t move. I was watching Silver and her father come up from the parking area. It was the look on his face that made me stop. He looked like a man who’d gambled everything, and lost.

‘Archie! What’s wrong? You look like a stuffed dummy.’ Gran prodded me — and hit a rib protector. ‘Ouch! That’ll teach me. Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’ I found a smile and stretched it out to take in Erica as well. ‘Just thinking, that’s all.’

‘You’re not worrying about Bill, are you?’ she asked. ‘He’ll be up and about in a day or two. You’ll see.’

I shook my head. ‘No, it’s not that. I just saw Silver’s father. He looked … I dunno … desperate.’

‘He is, the poor man,’ Gran said. ‘But you won’t help by getting upset about it. Go and hang out with your mates.’ She shooed me away, and I heard her filling Erica in about how Silver’s mother had been killed.

I found a quiet spot trackside where I could tune my mind. Silver’s dad — that look on his face. It had shaken me. The poor guy. It had to be all tied up with his wife’s death and Silver’s craziness.

Enough. Concentrate on the job in hand.

But my thoughts skipped right on to Craig. It wouldn’t matter if he beat me today, because I just had to finish
in the top three for the pre-final and final. If I could do that, the Challenge would be mine, and Dad and I would be on our way to Portugal. But I wanted to beat Craig. I wanted his guts on a plate.

And into my head popped one of Dad’s rules:
Drive your own race. Don’t worry about any other bugger.

Yeah. Good idea. I got down to work, driving each corner in my mind, visualising the braking points, the entries and exits. By the time our heat was called, I was ready.

IT FELT SO
good to be pushing my kart on to pole for the second heat. Craig, beside me on two, wasn’t chatty. Fine by me. Ollie and Lewis were behind us, with Josh back on five. Sel was on seven and stoked to be so far up the field. I didn’t bother checking where Silver was, but she’d be somewhere near Jack, back around eighteen.

‘Start your engines.’ The starter counted us down and let us go. No problems in the rolling laps. I got a perfect start, accelerating the moment the lights went out, leaving Craig scrambling around behind me. With part of my mind, I was waiting for the bumps to start as he hunted me into the corners. There was nothing. I focused on my own race.

Be consistent. Stay on the track.

He was there right behind me, though, and popping up in my peripheral vision on the straights. Lap six, there was an almighty thump on the back of the kart — not enough to shove me off, but bad enough to send the kart shimmying sideways into the exit. And that’s when Craig nipped past me.

Cheating dipstick loser. You won’t get away with this.

Right then I heard Dad’s voice again:
Drive your own race, Archie.

Yes. It’d be the dumbest move ever to throw away my trip to Portugal just for the sake of revenge. So I drove my own race, hard out and back in the state where you don’t make conscious decisions. You just drive.

Craig went wide a couple of laps later on the sweeper, leaving the door open for me to sneak through on the inside. He’d have to stay wide to let me through. That was the rule.

He broke the rule. He turned down across the nose of my kart and sent us both off the track. My kart slammed into the flag stand and came to a shuddering standstill, but he simply drove right back on to the track. I scrambled out, tugging at my kart to untangle it from the wooden stand.

One look was enough to tell me the kart was munted. The nose cone and Nassau panels — both smashed. Worse than that, it looked like the right stub axle was bent and the steering column hadn’t come out of it too well either.

I started the engine. It sounded okay, not that it mattered. I stood looking at the mess, trying to accept that the day was over for me — and all hope of winning the Challenge gone. Sure, we could replace the nose cone and panel, but we didn’t carry stub axles or steering columns.

Craig had taken me out deliberately. He couldn’t win the Challenge, so he’d made sure I wouldn’t either. I thought about putting in a protest. Useless. He’d just have to say his kart hit a patch of oil and he lost control, or some other unlikely story. Even if the protest got upheld, it wouldn’t alter the fact that I was out. I burned
with a cold, savage fury. I knew that soon it would change to biting disappointment. Give me fury any day. I swear if Craig had come near me right then, he’d have got himself every bit as mangled as my kart was.

The race finished. Lewis won, followed by Josh, then Ollie. Craig was fifth, not that I cared.

By the time the truck came to collect me and the bits of my kart, my anger had turned the corner into black disappointment. And my feet were kicking up a fuss where fecking Craig had run over them.

Grandad greeted me with, ‘Can we fix it?’

I just shook my head.

He took a look anyway. ‘Engine okay?’

I nodded. Not that it mattered.

A steward helped him lift the kart on to my trolley. Felix helped too, sobbing his heart out.
Go for it, Felix.

Halfway back to base, Grandad said, ‘We haven’t got the parts, Archie.’

I got my voice working. ‘Yeah. I know.’

Grandad swore all the rest of the way. The good thing was that it made Felix stop crying. I knew my mates were all there, watching us, but they had the good sense not to say anything — except for Jack, who said, ‘Want us to knee-cap him for you, Archie?’

I just waved a hand at him. Nice thought.

We’d just about reached the tent when who should come running up but the last person I wanted to see right then. Actually, scratch that — Craig Bateman would be worse. But Silver Adams was up there on the
don’t want to see
list.

She spoke. Actual words came out of her mouth. And they stopped me dead. ‘Archie. Take my kart. Use what you need.’

I stared at her and I knew my mouth was open. ‘What?’ I managed to say. ‘Why?’

‘Just take it!’ She turned to look behind her. Her father was pushing her kart towards us, his face all sad and despairing.
Man, I know how you feel.

I shook my head. ‘I can’t drive your kart.’

She stamped her foot. ‘Use the parts, you moron. Stop gawping. There isn’t much time if you want to beat that heap of shit.’

Something in me snapped. Everything just piled in on top of me and I lost it. ‘Why?’ I didn’t quite yell at her, but near enough. ‘If it means so fecking much to you to beat Craig, then
you
go out there and do it.’

She reached out, snatched hold of my arm and started shaking it. ‘You don’t understand. Just do it. Take my kart. You can beat him. You can.’

I dragged my arm free. ‘Why? This is all about your mother, isn’t it? Your mind is seriously twisted, sister. Your mum’s still going to be dead even if I do beat him.’ Shit. I wanted to take that back. Too late now. And there she was looking at me, her eyes suddenly stark in a dead white face.

I took a breath to apologise just as she gasped out a few words. ‘My mother … she’s … it was my fault. I shouldn’t …’ Then she collapsed down on to the ground, sobbing out words I couldn’t decipher.

My god, what had I done? I looked at Silver’s father. But he gave the trolley a push in my direction. ‘Take it, Archie. And thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.’

That was enough for Grandad. ‘Come on, Felix. We’ve got work to do.’ The two of them pushed her kart into our tent.

Erica and Gran knelt beside Silver. Erica put her arm under Silver’s shoulder and heaved her up. Gran looked at me. ‘Hop it, Archie. We’ll take over here.’

Well, okay, I guess. I didn’t understand any of it — not why Silver had suddenly got talkative, or why she’d started howling like an engine in pain. Or why her dad was now looking like he’d won something precious.

Hop it,
Gran had said. But my feet ached. Just something else to niggle when I drove, but they’d be bruised, that was all. Could Grandad really get my kart going in time? If he did, I’d be well back in the field, probably around twelve or fourteen. I let in a trickle of hope.

I was still standing there doing my stuffed dummy impersonation when three people showed up. The first one was Dave Higgins, Craig’s current mechanic. He nodded to me but went straight into the tent. I stuck my head in, just a bit curious to hear why he’d come.

‘Dick Bateman said you might like a hand.’

Grandad glanced up. ‘He’s paying you?’

‘Only for today. I’m straight. There’ll be no funny business.’

‘Good. Thanks.’

Another trickle of hope joined the first one. There was a small stream there by now, but it gurgled to a halt as I caught sight of my next visitors. A steward, followed by the first-aid guy.

I got in first. ‘I’m fine.’

‘He ran over your feet,’ the steward said. ‘You know the score, Archie. Boots off, please.’

I had to go to the ambulance, where my feet got prodded and pushed in various directions. All of them hurt, but
every time the first-aid guy asked, ‘Does that hurt?’ I said no it was fine.

‘Liar, but it’s your funeral and nothing seems broken.’ He clapped me on the back. ‘Good luck to you, Archie. You’re a fine driver. You deserve to win.’

A comment like that can make a bloke come over all emotional. I muttered a thank you and got out of there, doing my best not to limp.

I walked slap bang into a posse of my mates. ‘What’s up?’

‘We heard something about Silver.’

‘Craig’s old man is spitting mad at him.’

Jack shouldered his way to the front and held up his hands. ‘Hold it, lads. Let the boy speak, for chrissakes.’

So I spoke, but none of them had any ideas about what made Silver Adams tick either. They all wished me luck, ending with some variation of ‘Nail that fecker’s nuts to the floor.’

They drifted off to their bases, their heads already occupied with the pre-final to come. I was too scared to go anywhere near our base. What if they couldn’t reassemble my kart? Even if they could, how would it go on the track? I wouldn’t be able to try it out. My thoughts chased round and round until Felix came running out, carrying a phone.

‘It’s Bill. He says what the bloody hell is happening and why hasn’t anybody texted him.’

I took the phone. ‘Calm down, Dad. There’s been some drama here.’ I filled him in on the details, then asked, ‘How are you?’

‘Having a heart attack here waiting for news. What the hell’s Erica playing at? She promised to keep me up with the play.’

‘She and Gran took Silver off somewhere. Don’t yell at her, Dad. She’s awesome.’ I gave Felix a grin.

Dad muttered something, then he said, ‘Do your race prep, Archie. Treat it like a normal pre-final. Focus.’

I said goodbye and gave the phone back to Felix. ‘Thanks, mate.’

AS USUAL, DAD
was right on the money. I set about ditching all the drama from my thoughts and bringing my focus to the race ahead. But the knowledge lurked that maybe they couldn’t get my kart fixed in time.

The pre-final announcement crackled out from the speakers. Already? No way would they have been able to reassemble my kart so soon.

I had to force myself to go back to the tent.

The first thing I heard was the engine, running sweetly. I hobbled faster. Three jubilant faces greeted me. ‘You’ve fixed it? Really?’

Dave switched off the engine. ‘It’ll get you round the track, Archie. More than that we can’t promise.’

I stood there, grinning like an idiot. ‘Thanks, guys. I’ll do my best. You’re amazing. All of you.’

Felix shoved my helmet at me. ‘Get moving, Archie. You have to grid up.’

Bossy little rat. He was having the time of his life.

Down at the grid, I pushed my kart on to thirteen, my mind already busy with how I’d drive the start.

The starter flagged us away and I used the two rolling laps to test the kart as much as I could. It wasn’t perfect and would probably be worse at speed. The track was
dry now too, and getting faster with each race.

We approached the start — and I had to laugh. Ahead of me, my mates were all over the track instead of neatly formed up in their positions and ready to race. Round we had to go again. Craig would be furious. They’d done it on purpose to give me an extra lap to test the kart. I made good use of it, throwing the kart into the corners to try to work out how to compensate for the slight drag at the back. The drivers around me kept out of my way.

By the time we came up to the start again, I was feeling more confident. And I had a plan — I’d drive it like I’d stolen it.