SPLAAAAAAAASH!
An entire puddle is thrown at my dad as the tractor speeds past him.
Dad stands there in disbelief, totally soaking wet.
Well, at least we won’t have to spend any money on expensive hotel showers now.
‘You all right there?’ says the farmer to Mum as he spots the car and stops. ‘Stuck?’
When Dad caught up, the farmer asked him if he’d swum here. It was a joke about him being wet. Dad had to pretend to find it funny but I could tell he wanted to shout, ‘It was you that soaked me!’
Anyway, the farmer helped pull the car out of the hedge, then told Dad how to get back to the road we need. So that was fine, but then we realized the new problems.
Something has happened to one of the wheels and we’re now slightly bouncing along, like we’re driving over bumps all the time, even though we’re not.
The car is still honking.
That puddle did nothing cos Dad is still honking too.
Everyone is just pretending things are completely normal, especially Dad, who is just grinning weirdly as the car goes hooooonk every three seconds.
As soon as he started the car, Dad put the heating and fans up to 100 per cent to try and dry himself off, but that kind of heat just makes the smell unbearable for the rest of us.
‘Let’s not worry,’ he says, as we bounce in the beep-mobile, holding our noses. ‘We’ll be there in a little under ten hours.’
That’s when I see Teddy is starting to look a bit car sick.
‘Why does everything stink of STINK?’ he wails.
‘Do not be sick,’ I tell him, sternly, and he nods at me and holds his mouth.
Mum keeps asking Dad if he’s sure he knows the way. Mum explains to me and Teddy that before the Sat Nav lady and GPS you used to have to stop by the side of the road and ask a stranger directions. And then when they started giving you those directions you would immediately stop listening. She said it was like a brain freeze. You would really want the information but the second you heard them you’d just start to ignore them. You’d just say, ‘Oh thank you!’ and go off in the vague direction they pointed towards in the full knowledge you had no idea what you were doing and then half an hour later just stop and ask someone else.
‘I know which way I’m going,’ Dad tells her, sternly, as the car becomes hotter than the sun.
So, half an hour later, we’ve stopped a total stranger by the side of the road.
Thankfully, the car isn’t beeping any more, but now it’s started making a sort of wheezing sound from the air vents, I suppose like beached whale might.
‘Have you got the time?’ asks the stranger, a grandma in a bobble hat. ‘I don’t know if I’m late or early.’
‘No,’ we all say.
‘Do you know how to get to the A30?’ asks Dad.
‘You don’t want to do that,’ says the lady, suddenly noticing my dad is caked in dried mud. ‘They’re saying on the radio that everybody should stay at home. Essential travel only. So back home with you!’
‘This is essential,’ I tell her. ‘We’re rescuing my grandma.’
‘Well, that does sound essential,’ says the lady. ‘Is she nearby?’
‘She’s in a mansion in a forest,’ I say.
‘Best place for her,’ she says, and I wonder what she means by that. ‘I’d stick to these smaller roads for now,’ she tells Dad. ‘Don’t go through the cities. You know, I heard it’s the new mobile-phone towers that did this screens business. They pump out shockwaves. Some people are saying it’s alien technology.’
She winks at my dad and walks off. Dad gives Mum a confused look.
‘Should we put the radio on?’ I ask because that lady’s made me a bit concerned.
‘No,’ says Dad.
‘Well, maybe just for a second,’ says Mum, and she switches it on and finds the World Service.
‘Rising panic in London… fights outside betting shops…’
‘How about we try and find some music instead?’ says Mum with a smile, but Dad reaches over and switches it off.
Our car has started to rattle now, on top of the wheezing. I heard someone on a medical TV show once talk about something called a death rattle. I think that’s what our car has. Like all the other disasters, Dad is completely ignoring it, but he is gripping the steering wheel so tightly it looks like he is trying to strangle it. I wonder if you can go to prison for strangling a car.
Mum is humming a happy tune and I know it’s to try and cover the rattling.
I have no idea where we are but I am pretty sure it is nowhere near where we need to be.
‘I’m hungry,’ says Teddy. Dad grips the wheel even tighter.
I know he doesn’t want to stop the car and I think it’s because he’s worried it won’t start again.
‘It is past lunchtime,’ says Mum.
We didn’t bring sandwiches because we were supposed to go to the service station as a treat, remember. Which means all we’ve had is a packet of cheese-and-onion Pom-Bears and a melted Twix.
‘Do we really need food right now?’ says Dad.
‘I’m hungry!’ shouts Teddy. ‘I’m hungry! Hungry! Hungry!’
‘He looks pale,’ says Mum.
I get a bit jealous of Teddy sometimes. If I misbehave, I’m told to control my behaviour. If he misbehaves, there’s always a reason to feel sorry for him, like he’s ‘tired’ or ‘hungry’ or ‘looks pale’.
‘We wouldn’t want him to be sick,’ says Mum, doing a grimacey sort of face. ‘That might only add to the… smell.’
‘What smell?’ asks Dad, and no one wants to say.
Then we all gasp because we spot an old pub called The Rose up ahead. It looks like a little old cottage, with pink flowers in baskets and a sign saying
This is an incredible piece of luck.
