“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.”
“Yes, OK,” he said, breathing heavily. “But there’s a long way between that, and me making it into an actual—”
“Rahul!”
He looked over. Their friend Janet was approaching, holding something that looked like a motorcycle helmet, with a toothbrush in the middle of it. Which is exactly what it was.
It was, in fact, an old motorcycle helmet, with a little battery-powered motor at the side, attached to a small metal rod. That rod was then glued to a toothbrush, positioned round about where the mouth of the helmet-wearer would be.
“Yeah?” said Rahul.
“This new invention of yours …”
“The Whiter-Tooth-Whiz 503. Yes?”
“Is that what it’s called?” said Amy.
“Yep.”
“So are there … like … 502 other models?”
Rahul thought about this for a second. “No,” he said. “Are there 206 other versions of your wheelchair, the Mobilcon XR-207?”
“I don’t think so. Fair point.”
“Anyway,” said Janet, “it doesn’t work.”
Rahul frowned and took the Whiter-Tooth-Whiz 503 out of Janet’s hands. He pressed a switch on the motor. The rod vibrated: as did the toothbrush.
“Yes, it does work,” he said, looking up.
“No,” said Janet, who had started looking at her phone. “You said it would clean my teeth. Without me having to do anything. But that’s wrong. Because I still have to a) put toothpaste on the brush, and b) move my mouth around so that the brush gets to different teeth.”
When Janet said these two points – a) and b) – she didn’t do what people normally do. She didn’t hold up two fingers, one at a time, or point to two fingers, or anything.
She just said it. This was because Janet was one of the laziest people who ever lived, and preferred, whenever possible, not to do anything except look at her phone.
Which, in fact, was why she had been very keen on the idea of the Whiter-Tooth-Whiz 503.
“It doesn’t work!” said Janet.
“It does!” said Rahul.
“It’s meant to be an effort-saving device.”
“Yes. To save you some of the effort of cleaning your teeth. Not all of the effort!”
“I wanted to be able to clean my teeth and text at the same time!”
Rahul sighed.
“You’re just lazy,” said Janet, which was ironic.
“No, he’s not,” said Amy. “And he’s going to make this wheelchair into something incredible, aren’t you, Rahul?”
Rahul swallowed. “Well … I’ll try,” he said.
Which was good enough for Amy.