Lucky Seven

by Matt Christopher

  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 straig
htaway 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.

  “You can have it,” he said. “It’s been sitting here collecting dust. It needs a new paint job and a driver and, of course,” he added, smiling, “a chassis, and motor!”

  “What make body is it?”

  “A Stingray. And it’s ½4th scale.”

  Chick took it. “Thanks, Ken. You sure you don’t want anything for it?”

  “I said I’m giving it to you, didn’t I?

  ” Chick grinned. “Yes, you did.”

  On his way home he met Butch Slade. He and Butch hadn’t said more than a dozen words to each other in the last week. That silly argument had created a void in his life, left a hole so big he didn’t know what he could do to close it again. He had missed Butch. They’d been buddies as long as he could remember.

  “Hi,” said Butch. “You still sore?”

  Chick stared in surprise. “Sore? Heck, no. Why should I be sore?”

  Butch shrugged and grinned a small grin. “Are you going to enter the events at Mort’s a week from Saturday? He’s giving some good prizes. You can have a chance to build up your equipment.”

  “I think so. Matter of fact, see this?” Chick held up the shell of the Stingray. “I’m going to dress up this bomb, put a chassis in it and enter it in the Concours.”

  “Man, you have a lot of dressing up to do on that one.”

  “I know. But I’m going to do it, anyway. I’ve got that brass tube frame that I won and I’ll use the motor from the Ferrari. It’ll be almost like a second car.”

  “More like a first!” Butch laughed. “Well, good luck.”

  They parted and Chick felt much happier. How do you like that? Neither had to apologize to the other. They were friends again, just like that.

  10

  The next evening Chick began soldering the pieces for the chassis in the basement. A week from Saturday were the Heat Races, the Semifinals and the Main events. A week from Saturday!

  He began to sweat and had trouble holding the tip of the soldering iron on the joints. He put down the strip of solder he had cut from the spool and wiped his forehead. He’d never get the car done in time to enter it in the Concours and Semis. Never!

  He felt like giving up then and there. There would be other Concourses. Other races with prizes.

  He set the iron aside, pressed his fists tightly against his eyes and swallowed hard. His left elbow struck the soldering iron and knocked it off the table. It banged against the leg of the bench and fell to the floor.

  He picked it up and heard footsteps on the stairs. Who was it? Mom? Dad?

  “What fell, Chick?”

  It was Dad.

  “The—t
he soldering iron.”

  Dad came beside him. Chick was holding the iron and strip of solder above the joint he wanted to solder.

  “You’ve been down here quite some time,” Dad said. “What have you done so far?”

  For a second or two Chick was quiet. Then he answered, “Nothing.”

  “That’s what I thought. What do you have to do?”

  Chick told him. “But I can do it,” he added hastily. “You don’t have to—”

  “What do you want soldered, Chick?” interrupted Dad.

  Chick swallowed, then explained. Dad soldered the pieces of the chassis and secured the motor while Chick painted the body a royal blue and the white circle and figure 8 with their respective colors.

  The next night, while Dad worked on the axles and wheels, Chick drew an instrument panel on a file card and painted it. Then he cut two small pieces of wire and dabbed one end of each with cement and fitted both of them to the windshield. By now the paint on the file card was dry. He cut out the instrument panel and glued it in place.

  “Wipers and instrument panel,” said his father, smiling. “A nice touch. The chassis’s all ready, Chick.”

  Chick fitted the body to it, then set the finished model on the bench.

  “A beauty, son,” said Dad. “Keep this up and you’ll wind up being an automobile designer.”

  Chick laughed. “They make a lot of money, Dad?”

  Dad chuckled. “More than a clerk like myself.”

  The next evening he put the revamped Stingray through its paces at Mort’s Pit Stop. Dad was with him.

  “Only fifteen laps,” said Chick in disappointment after a two-minute trial run. “That’s not enough. It has to do at least eighteen or it won’t have a chance.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Rewind the motor. But I don’t know how…”

  “That’ll increase its gear ratio, won’t it? I’ll help you.”

  Dad rewound the motor. The next day they took the Stingray back to Mort’s. This time the Stingray hit eighteen laps and three sections.