With a metallic groan, it began to rise.
Unfortunately, Rahul’s big reveal didn’t work that well, as the door creaked and stuttered and, halfway up, got stuck.
“Have you thought about inventing something to make the garage door open easily, Rahul?”
“No, Dad. You need to get that fixed by a grown-up.”
“OK. Try pressing the button again.”
Rahul did. The door creaked and stuttered again, but then jerked up, opening all the way –
– to reveal Rahul standing by something.
Actually, it wasn’t quite recognisable as anything at first.
Somewhere in there – definitely – was Amy’s wheelchair. But it was hard to see, as three more chairs had been fastened to it (not wheelchairs – ordinary chairs: one next to Amy’s chair, and two behind it).
There was a series of pipes and wires connecting all the bits of it together. And over the whole thing – to make a roof and glass windows – had been placed what looked like two enormous upside-down fish tanks.
“The Taylor TurboChaser …” said Rahul proudly, gesturing to it with a big arm movement. Amy and Rahul’s dad looked on, open-mouthed. “… ZX115,” Rahul added.
“You really must get on with the Robotic Returning-Cup,” said Sanjay eventually.
“Don’t you like it?” said Rahul. “I got all the stuff from the disused bits of the warehouse. I mean, it’s not finished. I want to add loads more things.”
“Um …” said Amy.
“That means no,” said Rahul, looking sad.
“No. I mean, it doesn’t,” said Amy, wheeling herself into the garage. “It’s amazing. But I thought you’d just be … making my wheelchair … more flash.”
“It is a bit more flash.”
“Yes, but I mean, I thought you’d do: some lights … maybe painting it silver … boost the engine a bit … a few accessories … I didn’t think you were actually gonna make it into a …”
“Car.”
“Yes …” said Amy. She wheeled slowly, all the way round it. Then she turned to her friend, shook her head and laughed. “Well … all I can say is thank you!”
“Don’t say that,” said Rahul.
“Why not?”
Rahul smiled. “Because you haven’t driven it yet …!”
It took a little while to get Amy into the driver’s seat of the Taylor TurboChaser – Rahul, with a lot of difficulty, had to hold up one of the fish tanks, and Amy had to crawl out of her old chair and lift herself into her new one – but her arms were strong from so much wheeling, and eventually she got there.
Rahul sat in the seat next to her – the passenger seat – and then brought the roof down again. They sat side by side, looking out through the garage door, where there was a tarmac drive leading up to Agarwal Supplies. On one side of the drive sat a full skip with a fridge standing next to it; on the other, six or seven dustbins.
Amy looked down at the direction lever – still there, still part of her original wheelchair.
“So … do I just press the lever forward as normal?” said Amy.
“Wait a minute …” said Rahul, who was rummaging around in a box underneath his seat. “I have a few add-ons yet.”
He sat up, holding a steering wheel. He leant across Amy and attached it to a metal bar in front of her.
“Wow … is that from …” she began.
“An Xbox, yes. But it’ll work. And here on the dashboard I’ve added some buttons …”
Amy looked down. There was a series of switches with pictures on them: one looked a bit like a motorbike, another like a teepee. She shook her head, assuming she would work out what they were when she needed them (which, to let you in on a secret, is also what all grown-ups do when they see buttons with strange designs on them in cars).
“Will the engine be powerful enough to drive it with all this extra weight on it?” Amy said.
Rahul smiled. “I souped up the engine.”
“You put soup into the engine? Chicken, veg or tomato?”
Rahul frowned. “No, it’s a … thing … that people say … when they mean made it more powerful …”
Now Amy smiled. “I know that, Rahul. I subscribe to three different motoring magazines.”
“Oh, sorry. It was a joke, wasn’t it? I’m not very good with jokes.”
Amy shook her head, and then gripped the lever.
“Just one more thing,” said Rahul, reaching across her and fitting her with the seat belt.
“You made these too?” said Amy, as he clicked himself in after her.
“Well, kind of. If you consider using my trusty screwdriver to get them out of my parents’ car to be ‘making’.”
“Er … won’t they, sort of, miss those?”
“Don’t worry. My parents hardly ever use the car,” said Rahul. “And anyway, I’ll put them back. At some point.”
Amy smiled to herself. She wanted to say: We won’t really need those, will we? I mean it’s not going to go that fast. And I’m never going to be driving it that far. But she thought that might upset her friend, and Amy was a good friend. So she just pushed the lever forward. The Taylor TurboChaser moved. Quite slowly. In fact, quite a lot more slowly than it had before. A minute later, they were still in the garage.
“Um …” said Amy.
“Oh,” said Rahul, “do you want to go faster?”
“A bit, yes.”
“Try pushing the lever forward a bit more. I’ve adjusted it so it works like an accelerator pedal now, so you can control the speed properly.”
Amy looked down at her hand on the lever.
“It’s pushed all the way forward,” she said.
Rahul looked at the position of the lever too. He nodded slowly.
“OK …” he said. He pulled open a little door in the dashboard.
“What’s that?” said Amy, looking inside. There was a small box in there with a red button in it.
“It’s the turbo part of the TurboChaser. This button pushes