Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  “That exhaust . . .” Mr. Bucklewing sniffed in admiration. “It looks as though it was always meant to be there.”

  “It looks,” said Jem, “like a shark’s tail on the back of a duck.”

  “The radiator, oh, the radiator . . .” Mr. Bucklewing sighed.

  “Like a shark’s jaws in a kitten’s face.”

  “No keys,” said Dad. “I’m always losing my car keys. But this”— he held up the hand crank —“is far more practical. It’s going to be a lot harder to lose this. Jem, you can be in charge of it.” He handed Jem the long twisted metal rod.

  “Thanks,” said Jem.

  “No problem. Wait till you see . . . this. . . .” He opened the bonnet and showed Jem a tiny metal plaque screwed to the top of the carburettor. “I didn’t notice it at first because it was covered in oil. But when I wiped the carburettor, there it was. See . . .” The little plaque had just one word on it: Zborowski. “This engine has got a name. And it’s the same name as our street. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

  In fact, Zborowski wasn’t the name of the engine at all. It was the name of the man who had owned the engine — Count Louis Zborowski. He had bought the engine from an aeroplane company (Jem was right about that) in 1921 and built a car around it, a really, really fast car.

  One day the count was out driving dangerously fast, when up ahead he saw a little girl run out into the road with her toy pram. The count slammed on the brakes and shot off the road into a field. The skid marks he made were so deep and straight that the council decided it would be cheaper to turn them into a road than to try to get rid of them. They called that road Zborowski Terrace. They even put a helpful diagram under the name on the road sign so that people would know how to pronounce it: ZB-OR-OV-SKI.

  “Zborowski engine,” said Dad, “Zborowski Terrace. It’s a sign. We are meant to have this engine.”

  “The thing about signs, Dad,” said Jem, “is that people misread them. That’s how car crashes happen.”

  “I’ll take extra care when I’m driving.”

  “Dad, this engine doesn’t want to drive the Tooting family off to France. It wants to go screaming around racetracks and setting land-speed records.”

  “This engine doesn’t want to do anything,” said Dad, “because it’s just an engine. It’s the Tooting family that wants to do things. The engine will do as it’s told.”

  How wrong can a dad be?

  When Dad crank-started the camper van, Mr. Bucklewing stood back and said, “At least you won’t have to think of a name now. It’s called Rory, isn’t it? Because it roars so loud.”

  “No,” said Jem. “Rory is a boy’s name, and this is a girl.”

  “A girl?” said Dad. “It’s not a girl. It’s a van. Honestly! What do they teach in biology these days?”

  “It’s called Rory,” growled Mr. Bucklewing, clenching his fist. “Say hello to Rory.”

  “Hi, Rory. OW!” said Jem.

  “Ow?”

  “That hurt. Look. . . .” Jem had stepped on some kind of ornament that was sticking up out of the mud. It was a little silver plane, with two sets of wings, an open cockpit, and a big propeller. Mr. Bucklewing picked it up and, rubbing the mud off, blew on it. The propeller went round. “Lovely,” he said. “They don’t make planes like that anymore.”

  “That’s because planes like that were cold and noisy and dangerous. You had to fly them yourself,” said Jem.

  “Mr. Tooting,” said Mr. Bucklewing, “your son has no soul.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. . . .”

  “Here. Keep it.” He thrust the little silver plane at Jem. “One day you will come to appreciate the romance, the glamour, the fineness of things that have outlived their moment.”

  “Right. Well. Thanks a lot.”

  When Dad and Jem pulled up outside the little house on Zborowski Terrace, Mum came out to greet them. “Those spark plugs have made quite a difference,” she said. “The van seems a lot louder. Also bigger. Even the exhausts seem to have grown.”

  Jem wanted to tell her all that had happened, but Dad just raised his hand and said, “Tooting family, we are ready to go. The word today is adventure.”

  “What?” said Lucy when she heard. “Now? I have to leave all my friends and the places and people I love right now? I will be one of the homeless. Which I wouldn’t normally mind. But in this case, I’m not sure I can cope with the colours. The bodywork, the paintwork, the curtains. They’re all bright, too bright.”

  “I’ve thought of that, and I bought you this.” Dad smiled, producing from behind his back a little pot of black paint and a paintbrush. “Now wherever we go, wherever we stay, you’ll be able to make it look as gloomy as you like with just a lick of paint.”

  “Oh,” said Lucy. “Thanks.”

  She climbed into the van.

  Really, what else could she have done?

  Little Harry was strapped into his car seat. Jem spread Dad’s map out on his knees. The Tooting family was ready to go. “Fasten your seat belts,” said Dad, “and get ready for the ride of your life.”

  “Dad,” Lucy said, sighing, “it’s a camper van, not a jumbo jet.”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” said Dad. “After all, Rory’s just an old camper van. Let’s not get overexcited.” Then he winked at Jem.

  Jem jumped out of the van with the crank handle in his hand.

  “Where’s Jem going?” said Lucy. “What’s he doing?”

  Jem was turning the handle, which was hard work and completely embarrassing. Who’d ever heard of a camper van that you had to wind up like a clockwork toy? What if anyone saw him? Then the engine coughed. The crank seemed to snatch itself out of his hands. He had to admit it was a good feeling, when it all suddenly came to life like that. Like the feeling when you get a bonfire to light. The engine growled, then it bellowed. By the time Jem climbed back inside the van, the seats were throbbing and shaking as though they were trying to break free.

  “Earthquake!” gasped Mum. “Stay calm, children.”

  “That’s no earthquake.” Dad smiled as Jem got back on board. “That is our engine.”

  It was only a little blue-and-cream camper van, but it sounded like an unexpected invasion of tanks as it turned onto the high street. People looked up into the sky, expecting to see helicopters or spaceships.

  “Listen to that throaty roar!” yelled Dad.

  “Throaty roar?” said Mum. “It’s more like a dying man’s cough.” She was right — if you listened carefully, the engine made a sound like two sneezes and two coughs.

  “Sneezy Sneezy Cough Cough!” yelled Harry.

  “This isn’t a mode of transport,” said Lucy. “This is a viral infection on wheels.”

  “Sneezy?” said Dad. “Now, that’s a good name. Maybe we’ll call him Sneezy.”

  “Does anyone else feel that their bones are turning into powder?” said Mum. “Is that supposed to happen?”

  “At the traffic lights,” said Jem, “take the left-hand lane.”

  “What?” yelled Dad. “You’ll have to shout!”

  “LEFT-HAND LANE!” yelled Jem.

  “OK.”

  There were two lanes at the lights. Left was for straight ahead and the motorway, and right was for turning right. There was already one car waiting in the left-hand lane.

  “Slow down, Dad. You’re going to bump that . . .”

  Dad didn’t slow down. Instead the van picked up speed, then at the last moment swerved dangerously into the right-hand lane and screeched to a halt alongside the other car.

  “What are you doing?” shouted Mum.

  “It wasn’t me! Slow down, Sneezy, you stupid thing!”

  “You mean, you’re not in control of this vehicle?”

  “No, no. It was me. I just changed my mind at the last minute,” Dad lied. “I thought it would be nice to go right, that’s all.”

  “It’s a good job you didn’t hit that car,” said Jem. “It
would have cost a fortune. Look.”

  The car next to them was a sports car — low and red and gleaming, with thick black tyres and the top down. The driver was a young man in sunglasses. While everyone was staring at his car, he didn’t even glance at the camper van. Until suddenly the engines revved.

  “What on earth are you doing?” said Mum.

  “The engine has a tendency to race a little,” said Dad. “It’s part of the design.”

  “Hmm,” said Jem, listening carefully, “it feels as though it’s misfiring.”

  “It feels like a mad dog pulling at its leash, and I’m holding the other end of the leash,” said Dad. “Will you slow down, Sneezy.”

  The engine revved again, so loud this time that the young man’s sunglasses fell right off. He stared at Jem.

  “He thinks you want to race him,” said Jem. “I’d better explain.” He wound down the window. “Sorry about the noise. I think it’s a problem with the camshaft. We need to fiddle with the timing. The engine hasn’t really bedded in —”

  Suddenly the light had changed. The camper van leaped forward, like an arrow from a bow. It was so fast that they were all thrown back into their seats. It did not turn right. It barreled onward, bouncing in front of the sports car and blocking its way. The back end of the van wiggled from side to side, as if to say, Ha-ha, I won.

  “I think,” said Lucy, “that you are behaving in a very immature way. And I’d like you to stop.”

  “I’d like to stop, too,” yelled Dad, “only Sneezy seems to disagree.”

  “Please stop calling it Sneezy,” said Mum. “I really don’t want to be killed by something called Sneezy.”

  By now they were on the ring road. The sports car slid into the fast lane and accelerated until it was alongside the van. The young man shook his fist at them. The van slowed down a little, allowing the sports car to speed by.

  “Thank goodness that’s over,” said Mum.

  Except it wasn’t over. No sooner had the sports car gone past them than the van lurched across into the outside lane and went thundering after it.

  “Race!” shouted Little Harry.

  The fields and trees were just a green blur. The cars in the middle lane flicked by as if they were standing still. The sports car look as if it was reversing toward them. In seconds they were bumper to bumper. The van’s headlights flashed. Its horn blew.

  “Dad!”

  “Honestly, it’s not me.”

  “I think,” said Jem, “that this is not just a problem with the camshaft.”

  “I think this van is possessed!” Mum screamed.

  “This is actually more interesting than I expected,” said Lucy.

  The Zborowski engine had been designed for racing, for breaking records, but for nearly a hundred years it had been stuck up a tree with no wheels, no petrol, no purpose. Now that it was back on the road, it seemed to want to make up for lost time. The Tooting family closed its eyes and screamed as the van hurled them into bends and swung them in and out of traffic. Only Little Harry kept his eyes open. He giggled and waved and shouted, “Me drive! Me drive!” He had spent the last few weeks playing with the steering wheel while the van was parked safely outside the house. He couldn’t see why he wasn’t allowed to do the same now that it was hurtling crazily through queues and congestion. The little blue camper van dodged and skidded and fishtailed while all around, other drivers honked their horns in anger and blinked their eyes in consternation, until finally it screamed onto the motorway.

  “It was terrifying when the speed limit was forty,” said Mum. “What’s going to happen now that it’s seventy?”

  The moment they joined the motorway, however, the camper van slowed down.

  And down.

  And down.

  “Now what are you playing at, you insane internal combustion engine?” said Dad, as the lorry behind him menaced his bumper. “We’re almost stopped. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” said Mum. “Dead slow is my favourite speed.”

  Jem listened carefully to the engine. It sounded as though all the power was draining from it. Yet the tank was full of petrol, and the parts were moving smoothly. Nothing was stuck. Nothing was rusty. “It sounds . . . tired. Or sad,” he said.

  “Tired?” said Dad. “Sneezy doesn’t get tired. He’s a man of steel.”

  “Van of steel,” said Jem.

  “In fact,” said Lucy, “there is such a thing as metal fatigue. Maybe it’s fatigued.”

  “We’ll have to come off at the next exit,” said Jem, “and take a proper look.”

  The camper van crawled along the slow lane to the next exit. Even with his foot flat on the accelerator, Dad could only make it chug slowly up the slip road. “There’s a lay-by just a few yards along here. We’ll pull in there and see what’s wrong.”

  They didn’t pull in. As soon as they were clear of the motorway, the van picked up speed again. Dad tried to turn into the lay-by, but the wheel just twitched out of his hands and the camper van plunged back into the traffic, following the open road round a great curve, into the hills.

  “I thought you were stopping?” shouted Mum.

  “I . . . errm . . . the engine trouble seems to have cleared up,” said Dad, trying to sound in control.

  “The engine sounds just the same as before,” said Jem, “only faster.”

  They were bowling along the A-road now as it dipped and climbed through the rolling Downs. Sheep looked up as they rumbled by.

  “I know this sounds a bit strange,” said Jem, “but I get the feeling the van just prefers this old-fashioned kind of road.”

  “Sneezy does not have any preferences about what road it goes on. Sneezy is a machine. I am the driver of Sneezy,” insisted Dad. “I decide which way Sneezy goes.”

  “OK,” said Jem. “Well, if you go right at the traffic lights, that brings us back to the motorway.”

  “Maybe we’ll do that, then.”

  The closer they got to the lights, the faster the van went.

  “Dad, the lights are on red. . . .” said Jem. “You’re not in the right-hand lane.”

  “No,” said Dad, “not yet. Plenty of time.” He was tugging at the steering wheel and pounding on the brakes, but the van stuck to the left lane and went faster and faster.

  Thankfully the lights changed to green as they streaked through, hugging the curves of the road as it swerved up and down and around the Downs, and threaded through the hedgerows and skipped over streams.

  “The word today,” said Dad, “is spontaneity. After all, we’re in no hurry. Let’s just see where the road takes us.”

  “We really want it to take us to Paris,” said Mum.

  “Puddles! Puddles!” Little Harry yelled, pointing at the wide blue English Channel. The sun was dropping down behind them, and its rays rolled across the waters like a vast golden duvet as they pootled along the cliff-top roads. Sometimes a rabbit would run out in front of them. Once they saw a deer. At a gap in the hedge, the van slowed down and turned onto a gravel path.

  “Now what are you playing at?” hissed Dad.

  The van didn’t answer, but Mum demanded to know where they were going.

  “I thought we’d just take a breather,” said Dad, still trying to create the impression that he was in charge of the van and not the other way round. The path led across a field and through a gate, and when they passed through the gate, all the Tootings gasped and smiled. For the path was lined on both sides by camper vans! Dozens and dozens of them. Battered ones, gleaming ones, vans painted in wild and crazy psychedelic colours with surfboards strapped to the roof, vans with lace curtains and plants in the window, vans that looked as though they had just crossed the Gobi Desert, vans that looked as if they had rolled off the production line yesterday. As the Tooting van passed by, the other drivers flashed their lights and parped their horns, greeting them in Camper-Van-ese.

  At the end of the line, Dad pulled up onto some grass, but
before he had time to turn off the engine, a woman with a clipboard came running up, shouting, “No, no, no, not there. You can’t park there.” She was wearing a high-visibility jacket and a baseball hat shaped like a camper van.

  Dad wound down the window and asked if there was a problem.

  “Yes, there’s a problem. You need to park in your correct category. What category are you?”

  “Well . . . we’re the Tooting family, and we’re going on holiday.”

  “To Paris,” said Mum.

  “And Cairo,” said Lucy.

  “And dinosaurs!” yelled Little Harry.

  “Yes, I’m afraid those are not proper categories. Over there, for instance, we have Classic Campers, then there’s Customized Campers and Camping Crazy, and what are you? You seem to have a beautifully restored 1966 chassis: popular with adventurous families for over half a century, beloved by all because the split windscreen makes it look like a face.”

  “Absolutely correct,” said Dad.

  “Yes, I know,” said the woman, “but that rather beautiful bodywork is resting on what seems to be a 1920s twelve-cylinder twenty-three-litre aero engine.”

  “A hundred percent correct again.” Dad smiled.

  “I know that,” said the woman. “What I don’t know is your category. You must have a category or you can’t park. I can’t have you messing up the lines, d’you see? Classic body. Racing engine. You’re a contradiction — that’s what you are.”

  “Couldn’t that be our category, then?” suggested Mum. “Couldn’t we be in the contradiction category?”

  “You can’t just go around making categories up. Where would the world be if people just went around making categories up?”