Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

“So this is a famous historical engine you have under the bonnet there. If you don’t mind my asking, though”— she placed a red-painted fingernail on Dad’s cheek and turned his face toward her and continued in a low voice —“since this is the Zborowski engine, where is the Zborowski Lightning?”

  “What’s the Zborowski Lightning?” said Dad.

  Nanny stared at Dad for a while, then smiled as though she’d solved a puzzle. “I see,” she said. “You don’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry. I should have guessed. You’re right, I’m inexcusably nosy, but you’re too nice to say so.”

  “I never said that. Did I say that?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “No, really. We don’t know what it is. What is it?”

  “The Lightning is the Zborowski insignia. It goes on the front. A Jaguar has a silver jaguar. A Rolls-Royce has a flying lady. The Zborowski engine had the Zborowski Lightning. It’s just a pretty decoration, that’s all.

  People who love cars get fascinated by things like that — like those old-fashioned indicators that were actually little luminous paddles that popped out of the sides of a car, or the 1973 Austin Allegro, which had a square steering wheel. Turn right here.”

  Dad drove the van onto a dusty road. Ahead of them they could see water and a little bridge leading to an avenue of palm trees. “Over the bridge,” said Nanny, “and then straight through the gates . . .”

  “Just to go back to the subject of your mobile . . . oh, wow!” said Dad as they drove through the gates.

  “Whoa!” said Lucy as the gates closed behind them.

  “Goodness!” said Mum as she held Little Harry up to the window.

  “You live here?” gasped Jem. “This is a palace.”

  “Welcome,” said Nanny, “to Château Bateau.”

  Graceful white towers and delicate minarets rose from behind a screen of palm trees and fig trees. Through the branches of an orange grove, Jem saw water rippling and flickering in the sun. “Is that a swimming pool?” he asked. “Can we go in?”

  “Jem,” said Mum sternly.

  “Not at all,” said Nanny. “You’re all welcome to swim for as long as you like.”

  “No, no,” said Mum. “Really you’ve done so much for us already.”

  But Nanny insisted. She said that she was sure the little boy she looked after would love to see their extraordinary camper van and that in the meantime they really must use the pool. She showed them to the changing rooms, which were little log cabins right by the pool. Each one had a pile of fluffy white towels inside. She pointed out a shower hidden under a spreading grapevine.

  “Oh! A shower! I haven’t had a shower for ages!” Lucy sighed.

  “I guessed,” said Nanny with a smile.

  “You mean we smell?” Mum was horrified.

  “I mean you’re on a great adventure. You deserve a little pampering and a rest. You look as if you’ve been up all night, Mr. Tooting. Come on, let’s park your van while the others spoil themselves. Jem, maybe you’d like to see the garage, too.”

  The garage at Château Bateau was not like other garages. As they drove in through the elegant marble archway, fragrant soapy water poured over their van, washing the desert sands away. The ramp was carpeted with deep spongy material that cleaned and polished the tyres. Perfumed breezes circulated from hidden recesses, blowing away the soapy bubbles and drying the windscreen and the mirrors. Instead of a parking space, each car had a sort of bedroom, with its own door to shut out the rest of the world.

  “I think Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be quite comfortable here in room twenty-three.” Nanny smiled again.

  “The word today is car heaven,” said Dad.

  “Take a peek inside the other rooms — why not?” said Nanny. “We do have some very nice vehicles here. Go on, pick a door. . . .”

  Jem opened the door next to Chitty’s and gasped. Inside was a vast Rolls-Royce with headlamps like new moons and bodywork that shone with a soft, buttery light.

  “Yes,” said Nanny, “it’s made of gold. It belonged to the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir. I sort of persuaded him to give it to my little boy.”

  “Wait . . . this belongs to a little boy?” said Dad.

  “I know. I know. I spoil him. But honestly, if you’d seen his little face. It made him so happy.”

  “I’d be happy, too,” said Jem, “if my dad bought me a gold-plated Rolls-Royce.”

  “It’s not gold-plated. It’s solid gold. That’s just it, you see. My poor little chap doesn’t have a daddy. Or a mummy. All he has is me.”

  “Oh, he’s an orphan?” said Dad. “How sad.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. His parents are very wealthy. They put all their assets in his name for tax purposes, and then . . . Well, I can’t say any more for legal reasons. Let’s just say they’re not available. It’s just the two of us. Jeremy, don’t go too close.”

  Jem had wanted to look inside the Rolls-Royce, but Nanny pulled him back. “We didn’t want to fit an alarm to such a beautiful old machine,” she explained, “but we don’t want anyone to steal it. So we’ve had to make special security arrangements. There they are, look . . .”

  She pointed a perfect red fingernail at the front tyres. Two thick, sinewy snakes had slid out from under the car and were wriggling toward Jem. One of them reared up. Its hood flashed open, and its tongue flicked in and out between its sharp fangs. Jem jumped back.

  “King cobras,” said Nanny. “They belonged to the maharajah, too. He threw them in with the car. Very kind of him. So much more effective than one of those noisy electric alarms.”

  “Quick,” said Dad. “Shut the door.”

  Jem slammed the door of the little room just as the snake hurled itself toward him. They heard the dull thunk of its body hitting the wood. This narrow escape from the jaws of a deadly snake didn’t seem to concern Nanny one bit. She was busy scrolling through the photographs on her jelly-baby phone. “Look,” she said, “there’s my little chap the day he got the Rolls.”

  It was a tiny figure sitting on a chair. His feet didn’t come to the end of the cushion, and his shoulders did not come up to the armrests.

  “He’s really tiny,” said Jem.

  “He’s tiny, but his heart is huge. Can you see? A gold Rolls-Royce is a small price to pay for a smile like that, don’t you think?”

  “I remember Tiny Jack,” said Dad suddenly. “He rang me. He tried to buy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang off me.”

  “Oh, the naughty boy,” tutted Nanny, snapping her phone shut. “He knows he’s not supposed to use the phone without permission. How did he know your number?”

  “He didn’t. I was on a French television programme called Car Stupide. . . .”

  “Oh, he does love that programme. Were you really on it? He’ll be so excited to talk to you about it. I can’t wait for you to meet him. . . .”

  Something about all this was making Dad feel uncomfortable. Tiny Jack wanted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Now Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was in Tiny Jack’s house. But Tiny Jack was just a little boy with a nanny to look after him. . . .

  Dad was still trying to figure all this out when he was distracted by the swimming pool. To be fair, anyone would be distracted by the swimming pool at Château Bateau. It wasn’t just the cool clear water or the little island in the middle with big jugs of icy lemonade and black-currant juice. It wasn’t just the lovely little waterfall of warm water that splashed and bubbled in the shallow end. It wasn’t even the big inflatable lobster that you could climb on and paddle like a boat. Or the slide that spun you in a spiral through palm trees before it chucked you in the deep end. No, the best thing about the pool was the bottom. It was not made of tiles or stone slabs. It was sand with urchins and purple sea anemones. Little silver fishes chased each other in and out, tickling your feet as they sped by.

  “Come in!” yelled Mum, bobbing about by the waterfall. “It’s not a swimming pool; it’s a centrally heated rock pool.”
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  “Can we stay here for a while?” asked Lucy from the inflatable lobster’s back. “Like, maybe the rest of our lives.”

  “I,” said Dad as he slid into the water, “could definitely live like this.”

  All those little niggling worries he had about jelly-baby phones and tiny-boy car dealers? They all popped like bubbles.

  Later that day, Lucy and Jem were still in the pool. Mum and Dad were dozing on sunloungers.

  Nanny appeared on the edge of the diving board in her smart red shoes, her own reflection staring up at her. Jem could see the reflection of her reflection reflected in her big red sunglasses.

  “I’ve had an idea,” she said. “Mummy and Daddy Tooting have driven their lucky little children halfway around the world. Isn’t it time that they had a night off? Why don’t you both go out tonight? Cairo is so exciting. You could leave the children here with me. After all, I am a highly trained professional nanny.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t,” Mum said. “Really, you’ve done enough for us already. You saved Little Harry’s life. You let us have a shower. You are too kind.”

  “Nonsense, Mrs. Tooting,” said Nanny, “you’d be doing me a favour. My little charge sees so few other children. He’d love to play with Lucy and Jeremy and Little Harry”— she glanced at the children —“and I’m sure they’d enjoy that, too.”

  “We’d love it,” said Lucy, sliding into the water from the top of the inflatable lobster.

  “Definitely,” said Jem.

  “Hide-and-seek!” shouted Little Harry.

  “We sleep in Chitty,” said Mum. “If Tom and I are out late, that means the children have to stay up late. After the day we’ve had . . .”

  “I did think of that,” said Nanny, “and I have a solution. Come and see. . . .”

  Dad and Mum followed Nanny through the palm trees to the gravel drive at the front of the house. This was the first time they’d seen the house properly. The flight of steps that ran down from the front door like a marble waterfall, the fountain splashing in the drive and the carp flashing in the fountain, the cloisters that spread on each side behind their groves of slender white pillars — Dad didn’t notice any of this. Because Dad was staring at the car in the drive. It was sleek and small and silver and so streamlined that it looked like it was speeding even though it was standing still.

  “It’s an Aston Martin,” said Nanny.

  “Aston Martin DB5.” Dad sighed. “I used to dream about this car.”

  “I know it’s very fast and sporty, but it’s also got some excellent safety features. For instance”— she leaned inside and flipped a switch, and a metal panel rose slowly out of the rear —“adjustable bulletproof armour.”

  “That could be useful,” said Dad.

  “This button is for the ejector seat, just in case. And there are two guns housed under the front headlights. You probably won’t need them. . . .”

  “Probably not. We were thinking of just going to get a pizza or something, weren’t we?”

  “Then I won’t bother explaining the smoke screen or the rocket launcher. Just enjoy the drive. . . .”

  Dad climbed into the car in a happy daze. Then Mum made him climb out again and sit in the passenger seat.

  “But I really want to drive it!” he complained.

  “Well, you can’t. Look at yourself. You’re much too happy to drive. You’re practically floating. I’ll drive.”

  So she did. Once around the fountain and off down the gravel path. At the gates, Dad looked back, suddenly worried about the children. “You know, Julie,” he said, “I’m not sure we should be doing this. There’s something strange going on. When I spoke to Tiny Jack on the phone in Paris, he was very, very keen to have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And Nanny has this phone that looks just like —”

  Mum winked at him. “You worry too much. Let’s hit the town.”

  As soon as the Aston Martin slipped out through the gate, Nanny returned to the children and said, “Right. Now that the grown-ups are out of the way, let’s all have some real fun.”

  Jem frowned. He thought they’d been having some pretty real fun already, lolling around in a centrally heated rock pool, drinking lemonade, while fish nibbled their toes. But then Nanny said, “To begin with, would you mind if I called you Jem instead of Jeremy?”

  “No. Oh. No, I’d like that.”

  “I thought so. I have no idea why grown-ups like those long curly old names.” As she said this, she bent down and pressed a hidden button, and suddenly all the water in the pool was a churning riot of bubbles.

  “Swim!” shouted Little Harry, and jumped right in, not realizing he couldn’t swim.

  Jem had to rescue him. “This is nice,” he said, “but it must be bad for the fish.”

  “The way I see it,” said Nanny, “if you like it, then the fish probably like it, too.”

  “Good point,” said Lucy.

  “Enjoy it now, and maybe in a little while Tiny Jack will come and play.”

  So Lucy tried to swim to the bottom while the bubbles streamed into her face, pushing her up again. She flipped over on her back, and the bubbles propelled her across the pool like a rocket. It was then that she came to the conclusion that this was so much fun that everything that had happened before was only a fraction of fun. This was complete fun. Jem and Little Harry agreed.

  When the sun sank lower in the sky and they grew chilly, Nanny lit a little bonfire at the side of the pool and gave them sausages and showed them how to cook them in the flames using toasting forks. Afterward she did the same with marshmallows.

  “Having fun?” She smiled.

  “So much fun,” said Jem. “But what about Tiny Jack? You said he might like to come and play.”

  “Silly me! I was having such a nice time,” said Nanny, “I forgot all about him. What a bad Nanny! I’ll go and ask him if he’d like a game of Monopoly. Or Snakes and Ladders.”

  “Does he only like old-fashioned games?” said Jem, feeling a stab of disappointment for the first time since entering Château Bateau.

  “Old-fashioned?”

  “It’s just . . . a house like this — I thought he’d have PlayStations and Xboxes and a Wii. I thought he’d want to play Mario Kart.”

  “Mario Kart? What’s Mario Kart?”

  “It’s a game — a racing-car game. We each have a steering wheel and you choose a car from all kinds of different designs. . . .”

  “Wait. Are you talking about a computer game?” said Nanny. “Because I never let Tiny Jack play with computer games. I think they’re bad for children. I like him to play real games. If that’s old-fashioned, call me old-fashioned.”

  “Well . . .” said Jem, “I just thought . . .” He felt a bit guilty. He didn’t want to appear ungrateful when they were having such a good time.

  Nanny didn’t seem to notice. She carried on. “So if he wants to play a motor-racing game, for instance, I let him use a real car. On a real racetrack.”

  It took a moment for this to sink into Jem’s and Lucy’s brains.

  “So . . . if we wanted to play a motor-racing game right now . . . ?”

  “Of course. Let’s go and see what we’ve got in the Toy Box.”

  The Château Bateau Toy Box was a building the size of a small church stuck on one side of the château itself. The floor was paved with huge versions of board games. There was a Monopoly board that you could walk around. It had playing pieces big enough to sit in and pedal, and a massive oak trunk full of money.

  “Excuse me, Nanny,” said Lucy, “isn’t this real money?”

  “Yes, of course. Now, this is one of Tiny Jack’s favourites.”

  “It’s just squares with numbers on —”

  “Snakes and Ladders!” yelled Little Harry.

  “Clever boy, Little Harry,” said Nanny. “The ladders are over there . . .” She pointed to a copse of stepladders propped up in the corner. “And there are the snakes.” She waved her red-painted nails toward a tan
k of pythons, twisting around one another, sliding up and down the glass.

  “Snakes and Ladders with real snakes,” said Lucy. “Now that is stylish.”

  “LEGO,” said Nanny, pointing to what looked like a building site strewn with mounds of the stuff — hods and trucks and wheelbarrows full of the coloured bricks. There was a half-built LEGO house that would easily sleep a family of four, and a helicopter that looked like it might really fly, but much as he loved LEGOs, Jem looked at Nanny when she said, “We also have racing cars. Jem. You love to play with racing cars, don’t you?”

  Jem didn’t want to be rude, but the last racing cars he’d seen were the ones that Dad had installed in his bedroom. Why couldn’t people just be happy with nice, safe, tidy computer versions that didn’t whiz past you or send electric sparks up your nose?

  “We’ve got a blue one and a red one,” said Nanny.

  Just like Dad’s, thought Jem.

  “They’re in here. . . .” She led them into a bright, airy room, and there were the cars. They were exactly like Dad’s ones. The only difference was that Dad’s were little plastic models and these were real racing cars.

  “Who’s going to be red, and who’s going to be blue?” asked Nanny.

  “Me red!” shouted Little Harry, and toddled off toward the blue car.

  “No, no, Harry, you’re too little,” said Lucy, picking him up. “So are we,” she added quickly. “We can’t drive.”

  “I actually can,” said Jem. “I honestly think I can. Really.” He couldn’t bear the idea of not getting into one of those racing cars.

  “Yes, but we’re not allowed to drive. We don’t have licences.”

  Nanny shrugged. “Neither does Tiny Jack.”

  “Of course not,” said Jem. “He’s too little.”

  “Exactly.” Nanny pointed a remote-control device at the door. It flashed and beeped and rose to reveal a black racing track, smooth as satin, snaking off through the gardens of Château Bateau.

  “What if we crash?” said Lucy.

  “You almost certainly will. It’s half the fun,” said Nanny, smiling. “Don’t worry about the cars — they’re pretty indestructible.”