l.o.v.e. spells trouble (and a horse)

chapter thirteen

“Oh my GOD!” screamed Walker a few hours later. “I need to get out of this friggin’ house before I go crazy and start waxing my bikini line or something!”
His two eldest daughters had been playing the Nintendo at top volume whilst his four sons had been building a fort under the kitchen table, using every clean towel in the house as the “carpet” in the fort and with enough noise to bring the police ‘round asking if anything was wrong. To make matters worse, Taylor’s idea of a joke had been to scream in an exaggerated feminine voice, “RAPE!!! Help! They’re raping me! Don’t believe a word he says!” just as the policemen were about to leave. Walker had just managed to get rid of the cops without making them too suspicious of the extremely overdue library book lying provocatively on the hall table, when he heard a huge crash from the kitchen. Walker groaned when he saw the bag of two thousand marbles lying empty on the lino, it’s contents strewn casually among the remains of the destroyed fort.
“Gotta go do... chores, Dad,” said his sons in unison and ran out. Walker heard sounds of a basketball being thrown at the ring in the driveway. He snarled the snarl of a captured animal, ferocious and wild, and began to pick up the two thousand marbles, most of which seemed to have hidden themselves purposely behind the refrigerator and in the flour drawer.
That job done, a flour-covered Walker headed upstairs for a shower. Tough luck that every towel in the house was lying in a dirty heap on the kitchen floor. And that little Zoe had eaten the soap, then promptly thrown it all up into the bath. Walker was very disgruntled as he tramped back downstairs and into the TV room, where a recovering Zoe was watching cartoons. Trying to ignore the screechy voices of Ren and Stimpy as they went for a Christmas holiday in the snow, Walker wondered why that particular episode was being shown when it was Easter time and a sweltering 38 degrees Celcius outside, and picked up the newspaper. Ah, poor Walker. Just as he was opening the Sports section, young Mackenzie came running back inside and tripped over Belinda’s mother’s new Ming vase. The poor lad banged his head, and sat there crying as Diana whipped out the vacuum cleaner and turned it on. Unfortunately for Walker, the vacuum cleaner was over thirty years old, and had a broken valve. The roar of the air being sucked up became the back-beat to a mingling of harmonies as the whining broken valve mixed with Mackenzie’s howls. Walker’s naturally musical ears protested; it was at this point that his frustrated bellow echoed through Belinda’s house.
His family came running.
“Well, where do you wanna go?” asked Taylor. “If you wanna get out of the house, that is.”
Belinda’s father stepped out of his study. More than anything, HE wanted the Hansons out of his house for as long as possible. “There’s some very nice bush country just a couple of hours’ drive away. Have you seen much of the Australian bush? You could hire a four-wheel drive car and take a picnic.”
“That’s a great idea!” said Walker cheerfully, his sanity returning. “Where’s the nearest car-hire place?”
“I’ll get the phone book and look it up,” offered Zac.

The Hanson family looked at the hire car.
“At least it’s original,” said Taylor. “You don’t want any of those run-of-the-mill SAFE cars nowadays. A little danger makes life much more exciting. I think...”
The hire car was painted red. Zac looked more closely; no, that was the rust, or at least, what you could see of it under all the bumper stickers. “What are all the stickers for?” Zac asked the car-hire-man.
“Yeah,” said Jessica. “Why are they all over the car, not just on the bumper?”
“Well,” said the car-hire-man earnestly. “It’s because they’re actually holding on the rust...”
“Why do you want the rust?” asked Taylor. “Wouldn’t it be better to file it off or something?”
“NO!!!” yelled the car-hire-man as Avery reached out and picked off a bit of rust with her fingernail. It was too late. The left headlight fell off. The car-hire-man sighed. “The rust holds the car together, you see. This car is a very special model. A valuable antique. You have to make allowances for the eccentricity of the manufacturer.”
Mr Hanson looked closely at the bonnet. “‘Nineteenth Century Motors, Years of Experience’,” he said. “Weren’t they closed by the Health and Safety Department in 1887?”
“Ah,” said the car-hire-man with an oily grin, “A man who knows his facts!”
“Well,” said Walker hotly, “If the company was closed in 1887, and the four-wheeled car was only invented in 1886, how can the company have ‘Years of Experience’?!”
“Well done, sir!” said the car-hire-man. “You’ve spotted the other reason they were forced to close: dishonest, unreliable, and blatantly false advertising!”
“And we’re entrusting our lives to something these people made?” muttered Zac.
“Daddy,” said Avery, tugging at Walker’s sleeve. “Are we really going to ride in a hundred and eleven year old car?”
“Yes, darling,” said Walker. “It will be an experience to tell your grandchildren about.” He turned to the car-hire-man. “Where are the keys?”
“Ah...” the car-hire-man laughed nervously. “There aren’t any, as a matter of fact, but there’s this nifty little handle on the side of the car that you wind up every five miles! Oh, and here’s the water bucket. You need to fill up the radiator with water every four miles or the engine blows up.”
“Right,” said Walker. “Hop in, kids and wife.” His family climbed gingerly into the car. Walker gripped the handle and prepared to turn it. The thing fell off in his hand.
“Never mind,” said the car-hire-man blandly, quickly sticking the lever back on with some sticky tape. “Remember, don’t go over ten miles per hour; and you have to get out and push if you want to go uphill...”

The journey went like this:
Four miles: Stop. Top up radiator.
Five miles: Stop. Wind up handle.
Eight miles: Stop. Top up radiator.
Ten miles: Stop. Wind up handle.
Twelve miles: Stop. Top up radiator.
Fifteen miles: Stop. Wind up handle.
“Guess what,” said Zac excitedly after several minutes scribbling on a piece of paper. “Every twenty miles we get to top up the radiator and wind up the handle AT THE SAME TIME! That’s once every two hours,” he clarified.
“Wow,” breathed Taylor. “How do you do really complicated math like that, Zacky?”
“Natural talent, I guess,” murmured Zac, melting in the awed smile Taylor bestowed on him.
The whole family started to get excited as the counter on the dashboard crept towards twenty miles. Except for Walker, that is. He was too busy driving.
Sixteen miles... (Stop. Top up radiator.)
Seventeen miles...
“Where are we going, Dad,” asked Taylor.
“Some place called Cottles Bridge,” replied Walker.
Eighteen miles...
Everyone held their breath. Walker prayed the car wouldn’t fall apart as they went over the speed bump.
Nineteen miles...
They passed a sign, ‘Welcome to Cottles Bridge’.
“Here we are, kids,” said Walker. “It was only nineteen and a half miles away!”
His wife and kids sighed with disappointment.

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