‘Record them?’ I say.
‘You used to have to get a tape and stick it in a cassette player and then press play and record at the same time when the song you wanted came on. So you’d always miss the beginning and there’d always be some random DJ talking over the start of it.’
It’s nice that Dad is sharing but I have literally zero idea what he’s going on about. Why would some random DJ start talking over your favourite songs?
‘I used to record my own radio shows,’ says Dad. ‘All my favourite music, with me in the middle saying things like, “The weather today is tremendous!” ’
Then a song comes on the radio that Mum loves. It’s got a man saying mad stuff. Honestly, like bizarre stuff, like ‘You’re twistin’ my melon, man!’ and somehow Mum knows all the ridiculous words, which is just cringe. And now Dad is smiling, and he’s raising his arms, and the two of them now start singing about twisting melons, which is just about the worst thing I have ever been through in my life. Even Teddy looks embarrassed.
But then they look at each other and it’s like it’s just the two of them and this time Dad squeezes Mum’s hand. And the moment is only spoiled about five seconds later.
‘How hard can it be to change a tyre?’ says Mum, opening up the boot and realizing that she’s going to have to take all our stuff out before she can find the spare one.
We’re in a small lay-by and Dad’s leaning on the bonnet of the car, staring at Uncle Tony’s map. It’s quite a complicated-looking map, full of unusual notes and strange doodles. There were some rules he’d put at the bottom, including: AVOID BIG ROADS, DON’T GO DOWN NOTHING WITH AN ‘A’ IN THE TITLE and THERE’S A CRACKING PORK BREAKFAST AT THIS CAFÉ.
Dad wasn’t exactly sure where we were. We could see the names of places on small road signs, but without anything to check them against we might as well have been in space. Still, the sun was shining, the radio was working, and Mum reckoned changing a tyre was easy. Or it better be because it wasn’t like we could look up a number or call anyone. But Mum said she used to have to do it all the time when she got her first car back in 1890 or whenever it was.
‘Right!’ she says, pulling out the spare from a secret hidden compartment I had no idea was there. That’s like a magic trick in itself.
This is the first time I’ve seen Mum holding a tyre. It’s funny when you find out your parents can do special things, or have hidden skills. Charlie Fennel’s mum calls herself an ‘experimental hairdresser’, but she’s not allowed to do it any more because of a court case.
Mum gets this thing called a jack out, slides it under the car, and starts to crank it. The car immediately gets higher! How does she know how to do this? Is there some Mum School or something?
‘Stand back, Teddy,’ I say, as Mum moves on to part two: undoing the bad wheel.
‘Right, lug wrench,’ she says, holding her hand out and looking at Dad, expectantly.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he says.
‘Do you have the lug wrench? For the wheel nuts? Because it’s not in there.’
‘You think I just walk around with a lug wrench? I don’t even know what a lug wrench is!’ says Dad.
Mum looks at me and Teddy, and we just shrug because why on earth would we have a lug wrench?
‘Right,’ says Mum.
Then I hear something. A slow, growling, engine-like noise.
It gets louder and we all stop what we’re doing.
Teddy takes a step back in case it’s one of Uncle Tony’s dragons or whatever.
And around the corner it comes: a massive, hulking, fuming truck.
A thing like that shouldn’t be on a road like this.
But down the road it squeezes, like a giant rat somehow getting through a drainpipe. Its huge wing mirrors brush against the trees and bushes.
As it gets closer to us, it blocks out the whole sun.
And then it stops.
And a window slides down.
I get the feeling whoever this is will be helpful. Maybe they’ll be able to fix our tyre. Or maybe they’ll be able to tell us the quickest way to Grandma’s!
Then this man leans out and goes, ‘Don’t suppose you know where we are, do you, cos I am proper lost!’
Dad is sharing Uncle Tony’s map with Trucker Terry, and they both look confused.
‘Why does it say there are dragons on the A12?’ he asks, and Dad tells him not to worry about it.
Terry tells us the government have said people are only allowed to do local journeys right now. That sucks for us because we are definitely not local. Terry says they’ve shut the motorways because they’re worried about not spotting accidents on the broken CCTV and to keep people in their homes. Apparently, there were supposed to be big demonstrations in Birmingham and Glasgow today called ‘Scream 4 Screens’, but no one could find out the right information about where to meet and scream so they all went home again. That’s what Terry says anyway.
Meanwhile, Mum has borrowed a lug wrench off Terry and is busily swapping the wheel over while Teddy pretends he’s helping by handing her small pieces of gravel or leaves.
I really want to take a picture of Mum being awesome right now, but of course I can’t. Apparently, before you could take photos on your phone or your tablet or your memory card or whatever, you had to go to an actual shop to have your pictures printed out for you. And you only printed out like twenty of them. And you didn’t even get to see them before you printed them.
