The Taylor TurboChaser. David Baddiel
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Название: The Taylor TurboChaser
Автор: David Baddiel
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Учебная литература
isbn: 9780008334185
isbn:
Quite a long while.
“It’s like a dodgem car …” echoed Jack, Amy’s fourteen-year-old brother, who was standing – or at least slouching, his back against the door – in their front garden, pretending not to be interested.
It was one of the things he did all the time now, repeating back anything that anyone said, in a bored, taking-the-mickey voice. Amy sometimes wondered if, when he was about twelve and a half, her brother had been secretly replaced in the night by a sarcastic echo chamber.
“Well, it is, a bit,” said Amy. “Remember when Dad took me on the dodgems, Mum?”
“Of course! He took both of you in one car. You both drove it.”
“Yes, but he let me do the steering wheel by myself after a bit. And I swerved through all the other cars. We didn’t even bump once!”
“Ha. Yes, that’s right! What age were you then?”
“Seven. And then he bought us candyfloss!”
Suzi nodded, and looked down. Amy’s dad, Peter, didn’t live with them any more. He lived a long way away, in Scotland.
“He said I was a natural driver, didn’t he, Mum? ‘You’re a natural, Amy,’ he said!”
“You’re a natural, Amy …” said Jack. In his bored, taking-the-mickey voice.
“Yes. Unlike his son, who always loses to me when we play Formula One: Grand Prix!”
Jack made a rude gesture at her. “Grand Prix,” he echoed sarcastically.
“Anyway, Amy …” Suzi said, coming out of her little trance, “is that enough practice now?”
“Not quite, Mum …” Amy said, turning round again. “I do love it, but I just want to see if I can do a bit more with it … just want to see how it corners … how it steers … what’s its top speed …”
“How it corners … how it steers … what’s its top speed …”
“Jack, stop doing that,” said Suzi. “It’s tiresome.”
“Well,” said Jack, finally speaking in his own voice, which sounded to Amy, as ever, like someone who was convinced he knew everything, even though he was only actually two and half years older than her. “Come on. It’s a wheelchair. It’s not like it’s fast or anything.”
“It’s a Mobilcon XR-207,” said Amy. “It uses technology from their go-karts. It has a five-horsepower engine!”
“OK, show me top speed, then,” said Jack.
Amy pushed the lever on the right-hand arm of the chair forward. The chair went down the drive.
Not, it must be said, very fast.
“See?” said Jack. “It’s not exactly an Aston Martin DB5, is it?”
This made Amy stop. She looked down.
“I know it’s not an Aston Martin DB5,” she said quietly.
Suzi frowned. “Oh shush, Jack. If Amy wants to have fun pretending her new wheelchair is like a car, let her.”
This did the trick – it shut Jack up. But actually – even though her mum didn’t mean it to – it also made Amy feel kind of worse. It made her feel that what she had been doing with her chair in the drive was maybe just that: a babyish game of pretend.
And, at the end of the day, Jack was right: it wasn’t a car. It was just a wheelchair.
But then Amy had an idea …
“Hmm …” said Rahul. “I don’t know.”
“Come on. You know you can. If anyone can, you can.”
Rahul scratched his head, and took his glasses off. This was something he did a lot when he wanted to look closely at something. It made Amy wonder what the point exactly of him having glasses was.
“What is the point of you having glasses?” she said (because when Amy had a thought, usually she couldn’t stop herself from saying it). “When you always take them off anyway to have look at—”
“Shhh,” said Rahul. “I’m thinking.”
He bent down and stared closely at Amy’s new wheelchair. It was, Rahul thought, stylish. It was black and shiny and the wheels were silver and looked like they came from quite a cool bike.
“What’s it called?” he said. “This wheelchair?”
“The Mobilcon XR-207.”
“Mobilcon!” said Rahul. “They make the coolest stuff. I wanted one of their amazing drones for my birthday, but my parents said it was too expensive. Your chair must have cost a fortune!”
“Yeah …” said Amy. “My dad helped pay for it.”
Rahul nodded. “It’s pretty slick,” he said. “XR-207, did you say?”
“Yes,” said Amy. “But I prefer to call it …”
Amy pulled the lever on the arm of the chair backwards, and the wheelchair went back, faster than you might think.
“… The Taylor TurboChaser!”
“Hey!” said Rahul, chasing after her. They were in the playground of their school, Bracket Wood. Amy and Rahul were in Year Six. Amy was the only kid in a wheelchair at the school. The teachers sometimes tried to make her feel OK about this. Which wasn’t necessary, as she felt OK about it already.
Her form teacher, Mr Barrington, had once said to her, with an awkward smile on his face, “The way to think about being in a wheelchair, Amy, is that it makes you very special.”
And she had told him to bog off. Which she didn’t get punished for. Probably because she was in a wheelchair. So in a way, Amy thought later, he was right.
Rahul caught up with her. She pulled the lever to the right – the chair moved smoothly off in that direction. Rahul went towards her, but with a smile she jerked the lever to the left, and the chair went left, dodging him. She stopped and looked up.
“You see? The steering’s already as sharp as a Ferrari.”
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