Speed Freak

by Fleur Beale

  ‘We’ll stop at Waiouru for dinner and stay in Taupo tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it’ll mean an early start in the morning.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘That’s absolutely no problem.’

  Felix said, ‘Mum, you’re driving the trailer. I didn’t know you could do that.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ she muttered. ‘You realise I’ve never even towed a tiny trailer before?’

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ I said. ‘And I don’t care if you want to crawl along at 30 ks. Just so long as we get there.’

  She didn’t go that slowly and her confidence improved once we hit the open road. Felix did his usual commentary throughout — names and kart numbers flying out of his mouth. Eventually, Erica asked, ‘Is he always like this?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Sometimes he goes to sleep.’

  She took a peek at him via the rear-view mirror. ‘Felix, honey, you’re going to have to explain who all these people are. Why might Craig not turn up? Why does Archie have to watch out for Silver? Why do you think Jack will take a picnic on the grass? Why would he do that?’

  He didn’t need any more encouragement. She listened, every so often shaking her head, but she looked happy enough and her hands relaxed on the steering wheel.

  We stopped for burgers at Waiouru. Erica flexed her shoulders and drank two cups of coffee. We got back on the road. Felix stayed awake until just before we pulled up at the motel in Taupo, where Erica and I carried him inside and dumped him on a bed.

  ‘He’s getting heavy,’ she said, tucking him in. ‘He’s come out of his shell so much since we moved in. A lot of that’s thanks to you, Archie.’

  ‘Looks like we’re even then.’ But before things could get too mushy I said, ‘You must be tired. How about I make us a cuppa?’

  I was going to race. I was still in the Challenge. Erica — she was going to make it happen. It was hard to get my head around.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  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 ha
ssled 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.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  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.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  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 r
ight 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.