The Race Against the Mammoth Car

by Chase Wheeler

  “Speed, why are you so angry?” Trixie whispered to him.

  “You know I’m angry because of what this girl asked me to do!” Speed said.

  “Well maybe she didn’t realize that it was so wrong,” Trixie said.

  After the doctor checked to make sure Eloisa wasn’t seriously injured, Speed and Trixie decided to drive her home. They wanted to be sure she made it back safely, without fainting again. Their drive took them to a small apartment building in a run-down part of the city.

  Eloisa was still feeling too dizzy to walk, so Speed carried her up to her apartment. He was quickly intercepted by her brother, Hap Hazard, who grabbed her from Speed’s arms.

  “My sister!” Hap cried. “What happened?” Hap was about Speed’s age and was dressed in a shabby racing uniform. He must have just come from driving practice.

  “She came to see me and then she fainted,” Speed said. “That’s all.”

  “Fainted? Or maybe you and yourfriends beat her up so I’d have to take care of her and won’t have time to be in the race,” Hap said angrily.

  “I would never hurt an innocent girl!” exclaimed Speed. He was getting angry again, shocked that anyone would accuse him of doing something so cruel.

  “Get out of here!” shouted Hap.

  Hap held his sister in his arms and whispered to her. “Eloisa, speak to me. Tell me you’ll be all right. I’ll win that race and get the money to pay the doctors so they can make you well.”

  Hearing this, Trixie’s heart started to sink. She felt terrible for Eloisa and Hap.

  “Oh, Speed. She’s really not well,” Trixie said on the drive back to the hotel. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Hap won this race.”

  “Hap can win,” Speed said. “He’ll just have to beat me first.”

  Part Two: nothing to Do with Pineapples

  Meanwhile, an angry criminal was trying to get some information. “You’d better tell me what you did with the king’s jewel,” he said to a man he had tied up to a chair.

  The man whimpered but refused to say anything.

  The criminal had a tiny little mustache and beady little eyes. “That diamond is bigger than my hand, and I must have it. I know you used the Pineapple Grand Prix to smuggle it into this country. Now tell me what car it’s hidden in.”

  “I told you, it’s not hidden in any car!” the man who was tied to the chair cried.

  “Then where? Where is it?”

  “It’s in one of the pineapples.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know. All the pineapples look the same to me.”

  “Don’t you worry. I’ll find it. I’ll find that pineapple no matter what!” The criminal twirled his mustache and grinned. He was off to the race.

  Part Three: Keep Your Eye on the Pineapple

  The next day, Speed was deep in the middle of the Pineapple Grand Prix, trying to keep his mind off of his competitor Hap Hazard and his sick sister. As he drove, one by one, the other drivers were dropping out of the race. Speed had seen them on the roads behind him, but then they were gone. He didn’t realize that a helicopter was flying low over the racecourse, and that the criminals were pulling pineapples out of cars using a rope and hook and breaking them open, trying to see if the king’s jewel was hidden inside.

  The criminals hadn’t found the right pineapple yet.

  Then they spied Hap Hazard driving through the Unknown Forest. A criminal was hidden in a tree. He threw a small ax at Hap’s pineapple, catching it and sending it flying out of the car. Hap kept driving without noticing that it was missing from his passenger seat. But when the criminals cracked open the pineapple, they found only the sweet yellow fruit inside. No diamond.

  The only driver left in the race with a pineapple was Speed. He, too, was driving through the Unknown Forest, a dark scary place with low-hanging trees. He came across a fallen tree trunk and stopped the Mach 5 for a moment. Just then a flying ax came out of the trees. He ducked. Someone came to snatch his pineapple, but he grabbed it, hit the gas, and drove away.

  I bet they’re friends of Hap’s, he thought. They don’t want me to finish the race, so they’re trying to steal my pineapple! Hap shouldn’t try to win the race this way. He should try to win fair and square.

  At the edge of the Unknown Forest, getting closer to the Valley of Destruction, Speed noticed a red car stopped in the road. A figure was standing beside it. It was Hap. “Stop, Speed Racer!” he shouted.

  Speed screeched to a halt. “What do you want?” he said. “We’re in the middle of a race.”

  “My pineapple,” Hap said. “One of your men took it from me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Speed retorted. “Your men tried to take my pineapple from me in the forest!”

  “So you still have your pineapple, then, do you?” Hap said. Suddenly he leaped forward, grabbed Speed’s pineapple from his front seat, and took off in his red race car!

  Speed had no choice but to follow. He sure couldn’t win the race without his pineapple.

  The chase led them through the deepest bowels of the Valley of Destruction. The roads weren’t even roads here. They cut through rocks and craters. Chasms opened up in the middle of the path. Avalanches of rock rained down and caused Hap and Speed to take detours, ignoring the map completely just to get through it.

  Speed was determined to catch up to Hap and grab his pineapple back. He had the perfect opportunity when the two racers reached a swamp.

  Hap made a sharp turn, and his car got stuck in a deep patch of mud. The mud started pooling up around his tires, until soon his car was buried in it. A mud slide! Speed used the special controls in the Mach 5 to keep himself afloat, but he saw Hap’s red car drifting in the swamp, coming very close to the edge of a cliff.

  Speed could just jump over, grab his pineapple, and get back in the race. He’d win the race for sure with Hap stuck in the mud.

  But he couldn’t just leave Hap there. Hap’s car could topple over, and he’d drown in mud. Speed had to help him.

  “Hang on, Hap!” he cried. “Stay right there! ” He connected a cable to the Mach 5 and waded into the mud to secure the other end to Hap’s car. Then, with the force of the Mach 5’s engine and the grip of his belt tires, he was able to pull Hap’s race car out of the mud slide.

  “Okay, Hap, I got you out. You can go on with the race,” Speed said. He approached Hap’s window to see if he was okay, and also to get his pineapple back.

  “I owe you my life, Speed,” Hap said. “I will not forget. But I am still going to try to beat you in this race! And I am not going to give this pineapple back.”

  “Yes, you are, Hap. You know that pineapple’s mine. You will give it back.”

  “I will not!”

  “You will.”

  A plane sounded overhead.

  “What’s that?” Speed cried.

  Men leaped out of the plane with parachutes. When they hit ground, they went immediately for the one remaining pineapple. Speed and Hap fought them off, running with the pineapple and throwing it between them, but when Speed saw an opening and had the pineapple safely in his hands, he went for it. He leaped into the Mach 5 and took off, back into the race. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the men stop running. Hap jumped into his car and followed.

  I wonder why someone wants this pineapple so badly, Speed thought. Oh well. I’m not letting go of it until I win this race.

  Part Four: A Prize of Pineapples

  Speed and Hap drove neck and neck all the way to the finish, but Speed was the one to cross the finish line first. He leaped out of his car, cheering wildly. He had won the Pineapple Grand Prix, fair and square! He tried not to look over at Hap, who was staring sullenly at his steering wheel, utterly depressed that he had lost. He put his head in his hands.

  Little did Speed know that as he was celebrating, his pineapple was not sitting safely in the front seat of his car as he’d left it. Chim Chim had snuck into the Mach 5 and stolen the p
ineapple, putting it in Hap’s car instead. Trixie, feeling bad for Hap and his sister, had asked Chim Chim to help Hap win.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer was saying to the crowd, “we must check to make sure that the winner still has the pineapple in his possession. Speed, will you please show us your pineapple?”

  Speed smiled and went over to get his pineapple, but it was gone!

  The racing officials crowded around the Mach 5. “I can’t understand,” Speed said. “I just had it. I don’t know where it went.”

  “If you don’t have your pineapple, you’re disqualified,” the announcer said. “Mr. Hazard, do you have your pineapple?”

  “No, I am sorry, I do not,” Hap said. Then he happened to look at his passenger seat and there, as if by magic, was a pineapple. “I cannot believe it!” he cried. “I do have a pineapple! I do!”

  “Hap Hazard is the winner of the Pineapple Grand Prix!” the announcer said. The crowd cheered. Hap held up the pineapple, but suddenly, from out of the crowd, a man with a thin mustache and beady eyes ran over to him. He tackled Hap, snatched the pineapple, and made a run for it. Speed intercepted him and grabbed for the pineapple. They struggled, and the pineapple flew onto the ground at their feet.

  It smashed open. There was nothing inside but fruit.

  The announcer went on with the winning announcements. “Hap Hazard has won ten thousand dollars, and also a ten-year supply of pineapples!” he cried.

  “Please,” Hap said, ecstatic at having won, “please share the pineapples with the fans.” His sister stood at his side, beaming, as the pineapples rained down onto the racetrack. Everyone in the crowd ran out to grab one.

  The man with the mustache howled. “The king’s jewel must be in one of those pineapples,” he said. He ran for the pile. “Out of the way, brats,” he yelled to some kids. Spritle and Chim Chim were among them. The man with the mustache and his men started hacking through the pineapples, looking for the jewel.

  Suddenly Chim Chim bit into something hard. He spat it out: a giant, gleaming diamond.

  “The king’s jewel!” the criminal yelled loudly. Just as he said that, a police officer grabbed it and looked up.

  “Looking for this?” the officer said.

  Speed stood off to the side, watching as the criminal was arrested by the police. Now he understood why those men were trying to steal his pineapple during the race.

  Trixie approached him. “I have a confession to make, Speed,” she said. “You can blame me for Hap winning the Grand Prix. I told Chim Chim to give him the pineapple. I just wanted him to win, Speed. So he could take care of his sister. Are you mad?”

  Speed didn’t answer.

  “Speed? Speed? Are you mad? What are you looking at?”

  “That,” Speed said. He wasn’t mad at all. He watched Hap and his sister hug each other, now knowing they had the money to take care of her hospital bills. “I know why you did it, Trixie, and it’s for the best. I don’t mind not winning this time.” He gave Trixie a smile. “You know what I want right about now?”

  “What?”

  “A pineapple!” he exclaimed. And they ran over to grab one before Spritle and Chim Chim ate them all.