Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce Page B

belts.
    Florida was looking around the inside of the car. “There’s something missing,” she said. “It’s got hardly any levers or buttons.”
    “It’s an automatic. My dad drove one once when he was covering for someone else. He said it was like driving a bumper car.”
    Florida said, “Bumper cars are easy to drive.”
    It was hard to disagree with this. I’ve driven loads of bumper cars. Not one of them stretched my abilities. And this car seemed so helpful.
    While I was trying to come to a decision I touched one of the buttons on the dashboard. Florida yelped, “Don’t! It could be the ejector seat or something!”
    The windshield wipers started banging over and back across the windshield. We both laughed. At least we knew what one of the levers was for. And the one with the picture of the headlight on was probably the headlights, so the one with the numbers on must be the one to make it go. I pushed it down one notch very gently and the noise in the engine changed to an angry roar. And the satnav said, “That’s my accelerator. Don’t forget my handbrake.”
    It wasn’t even me. It was Florida who found the handbrake and slipped it. The car rolled forward, purring. Suddenly there was a different noise—a big honking noise, and some squealing and lights flashing. Another car was driving up behind us when we pulled out. Other cars! I’d forgotten about other cars. This one swerved out past us and honked us again. Another one squealed and honked just behind us.
    “This is brilliant!” whooped Florida inexplicably.
    The hardest part about driving a car is keeping it in the right place on the road. You mustn’t go too near the curb (your tires make a weird screaming noise) or too far over to the middle (drivers coming the other way look frightened and angry).
    At first I tried to stay pretty much in the middle. When I looked in my rearview mirror there was a line of cars behind me doing exactly the same, so it must’ve been right. There was nothing at all ahead of us.
    “Kings of the road!” yelled Florida.
    We did everything the satnav told us and soon, instead of driving past neat lawns and white bungalows, we were bumping along a narrow cinder track through a field full of tents and huts. Little kids kept running up to the car, banging on the window and smiling at us. There were donkeys and ponies tied up at the side of the road. A camel evenwalked in front of us. I said, “This can’t be right.”
    But the satnav said, “Yes, this is right. Stop worrying.” Now that’s what I call an impressive level of interactivity.
    Then we saw it. Beyond the tents and over to the left, the Possibility Building. It really was big. And red. Like a huge unopened present. I was trying to imagine what was inside, which is probably why the car drifted slightly off the side of the track, which is probably what led to the sirens and flashing lights going off all over the place and Florida shouting, “Stop! Stop!” I did stop. I stopped surprisingly completely. When we looked up there were two policemen coming toward us with guns.
    “Well, game over,” said Florida. “They are going to ask to see your license. They’ll find out you’re not a grown-up and they’ll send us home.”
    Her theory was much more optimistic than mine. My theory was that they were going to shoot us.
    The police in fact bowed to us, got on their radios, talked in Chinese for a while, then bowed again and one of them said, “Honored guests?” in English.
    “Yes,” said Florida, “honored guests. That’s us.”
    Then he did this mime which I think meant, Follow-us-in-your-car-even-though-you-blatantly-can’t-drive. And they led us all the way to the Possibility Building car park. This was the best thing ever according to Florida, becauseit was a police escort and even Madonna doesn’t get a police escort.
    “That’s because Madonna doesn’t have a dad like yours,” I said.
     
    Dr. Drax was waiting for us with the other