Driving Across the Stringers; More of the Phantom Drummer’s Dirty Tricks; A Bottle of Waipiro; the Runaway Wheel; a Daniel Come to Judgement; “Explain Yourselves!”
As we backed away, the bridge blew up. Our steering wheel flew high in the air and out of sight.
“How are we going to get across the river?” we all wept. Uncle Chris bawled loudest of all.
“I put this in just in case,” said Peter. He pulled a cross-cut saw out of the big black box on the back. We felled two huge pine trees across the river, and jacked them so they lay a few feet apart. Almost out of sight below, the Waihou roared in its gorge.
“Where are we going to get the planks from to make the rest of the bridge?” asked Daisy.
“Jump on,” said Peter, “and sit still. If you move, you’ll tip us over!” Uncle Chris pulled his fireman’s helmet down and drove the front wheels on to the two stringers. Inch by inch we edged across. Daisy started to have hysterics but, fortunately, they turned to the vapours, and she slumped unconscious.
“The stringers are giving way behind us!” Marie shouted.
“Open her up!” Uncle Chris said to Peter. “Give her all the steam we’ve got!” We had just enough speed for our front wheels to get on to the bank. We all leaned forward, and our back wheels grabbed and held, then spun and drove us up the Springs Hill.
Daisy woke just in time to look back and see the two stringers falling towards the river. “Oh!” she said and turned up her toes again.
Halfway to the Springs Corner, we saw the Model T stopped, Banana Bob changing a wheel, and the Sideshow Man pouring a tin of motor spirits into their tank. As we laughed and swept past, our old steering wheel came down out of the sky and thumped Banana Bob on his pointy head.
“Hooray!” we yelled, and Alwyn shouted, “Serves you right!” The dried mud cracked all over his face as he laughed.
“Shut up, Alwyn!” we all cried.
“Cheats never prosper, Banana Bob!” he yelled, and just then the Stanley Steamer slowed.
“We’re nearly out of steam!” Marie tapped the gauge. “The boiler’s empty.”
“And no more water all the way to the Tower.” Daisy spoke gloomily.
“We’re beaten,” said Ann.
“I’m eaten,” Alwyn cried.
“I saw something on the way out,” Jazz whispered. “Green and white. A weeping willow, and a – a white goose, I think.”
“You’re right, Jazz!” Uncle Chris drove off the road and across a paddock. “I’d forgotten it: the duck pond!”
The last steam just got us to a weeping willow by a pond where a white goose stood on green grass. We’d lost the kerosene tin, so we knelt, filled our mouths from the duck pond, ran, and spat the water into the boiler. Then we remembered our motoring caps and Uncle Chris’s brass helmet and filled them. That was much faster. The burner roared, the water heated up, and the gauge read 500 lb p.s.i.
It reached six hundred. We had enough pressure to cross the paddock very slowly, and to drive up on to the road. Clank! Ah-oogah! Ker-rang! The Model T shook and trembled past.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!” The Phantom Drummer smashed a bottle on the road in front of us.
“Ha, ha, ha!” Uncle Chris laughed and drove on. “Our tyres are stuffed with grass, so we can’t get any more punctures!” But Daisy insisted that we stop and pick up the broken glass.
Half a mile along the Turangaomoana Road, we caught up again. The Model T lay on its back like a black beetle, wheels spinning in the air.
“Too much side-sway again,” said Peter. “Model Ts do that.”
The three gigantic gorillas were lifting it back on to its feet. We shot past shouting, yelling, holding our hands over Alwyn’s mouth. Whooo-ooop! went the boa constrictor. Whooo-ooop! We laughed and took our hands away.
Alwyn laughed. Before we could grab him again, he yelled, “Hooray, Banana Bob! We’re going to beat you!” At once, the Stanley Steamer slowed down, fluttered, and sounded as if it was going to be sick.
“The burner’s gone out!” yelled Uncle Chris. “Give us the matches.” But Alwyn had used the last of them lighting his acorn pipe and smoking dried dock leaves.
“Get two dry sticks out of the hedge!” Peter cried. We knelt in a circle. He rubbed the sticks together, puffing, grunting, sweating. Something shimmered above them. Haze. A thin line like a thread of white cotton floated and untwisted on the air. Peter rubbed harder, faster. The thread of white cotton thickened to smoke.
The powdered wood glowed as Marie breathed on it. Isaac held a dead leaf against the glow. It flickered. Just long enough for Jane to light a straw. Ann got a bundle of dry reeds going from the straw. Becky lit a twig from the reeds. With his pocket knife, Jazz carved a splinter of totara off a strainer post, and got it going from Becky’s twig.
“Hurry!” said Uncle Chris. Jazz handed the burning totara splinter to Becky who handed it to Ann who handed it to Jane who handed it to Isaac who handed it to Marie who reached up and handed it to Uncle Chris. He lit the pilot light, the burner thumped, and the boiler began to heat up.
The needle swung around the pressure gauge. Three hundred, four hundred, five hundred pounds per square inch. Six hundred pounds! We’d just started when, Ah-oogah! Ah-oogah! Ker-rang! Clank! Clank! the Model T shot past again.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!” the Phantom Drummer beat his fists on his chest. The Sideshow Man leaned out, stuck his fingers in the corners of his eyes and his mouth and poked out his tattooed tongue. “Gruff! Gruff!” Banana Bob patted his enormous puku and licked his lips splashily at Alwyn.
We drove after them, catching up faster and faster. Steam belched from under the Stanley Steamer. A few more yards and we edged past. The Phantom Drummer sucked in his mouth, but we dodged and his spit went over the top of us. “Kreeg-ah!” he shrieked.
“Silly old Phantom Drummer!” Alwyn stood up, beat his chest, and yelled, “Boom! Boom! Boom!”
There was the Tower, the finishing line, the ribbon. There stood Mr Firth ready to wave the big black and yellow chequered flag. “We’re first!” Alwyn shouted. “We’ve beaten them!” and one of our front wheels came off.
“Everyone lean left!” Marie yelled. We hung on and leaned out until the Stanley Steamer balanced on two wheels, but the Model T raced ahead of us for the finishing line.
“Ha! Ha!” Banana Bob stuck his pointy head out the side and looked back. The Sideshow Man stuck his head out the other side. “Ha! Ha!” he shouted and poked out his tattooed tongue. The shadowy gorilla on the back ran his finger around the white collar he wore backwards. “Boom! Boom! Boom! Kreeg-ah!” he went and snapped his fangs at Alwyn.
“The Phantom Drummer must have loosened that wheel while we were all down at the Waterfall Creek,” said Uncle Chris. “It’s just the sort of dirty trick he’d do.”
We leaned even further to the left as the Stanley Steamer slowed. We cried and watched our front wheel bounce on by itself.
It picked up speed and whizzed past the Model T, even though the Sideshow Man leaned out and tried to push it over with the tea-tree stick and the lady’s hand mirror tied on the end. The wheel slid on its side, hit something, bounced, landed upright, and shot through the red ribbon that marked the finishing line. The Model T clanked across the line behind it. Mr Firth waved the black and yellow chequered flag, looked at his stopwatch, and blew his trumpet. The cannon roared on top of the Tower.
The three gorillas capered and shuffled around their Model T, shook each other’s hands, and slapped each other on the back. “Gruff! Gruff! Boom! Boom! Kreeg-ah!”
Our runaway front wheel bounded down Tower Hill towards Matamata. The Stanley Steamer was still skidding along on the right side where the wheel had come off. The bumper bent backwards; the mudguard crumpled. We turned end for end three times. Metal screeching. Steam hissing. The whistle blew, Woe – owe! and we climbed off, just short of the finishing line. The gorillas jumped up and down, beat their chests, and reached out their powerful hands for Alwyn.
Uncle Chris turned around crying and saying, “Sorry!” but Alwyn dived through a fence and ran away across the next paddock. He didn’t get far before the Phantom Drummer and the Sideshow Man caught him. They carried him back upside-down, dropped him head first into a banana crate, and Banana Bob nailed him inside.
“Give me your bottle of water,” Mr Firth said to Banana Bob, took a swig, and spat. “Are you trying to poison me? That muck’s not out of Waterfall Creek! It’s swamp water!”
“We think they filled it out of a drain,” said Daisy.
“Shh!” Uncle Chris whispered. “Don’t try to tell Mr Firth his job. He’s a very proud man.”
Banana Bob said, “The rules say first across the finishing line.”
“Line finishing the across first,” sobbed a sad little voice from inside the banana crate.
Mr Firth took our bottle and sniffed it.
“We filled the kerosene tin from Waterfall Creek,” said Jessie. “And we filled the bottle from that.”
“That’s why it smells of kerosene,” said Mr Firth. “Ugh!”
“But the conditions of the challenge didn’t say the bottle had to be filled from Waterfall Creek,” said Lizzie who wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. “They said it had to be filled with water out of Waterfall Creek.”
“You’ll be a lawyer when you grow up.” Mr Firth took another swig. “I can taste something else,” he said, and his nose turned red.
“It’s one of Aunt Effie’s Old Puckeroo bottles,” Peter told him.
Mr Firth took another swig. “I know good water when I taste it!” He took another mouthful and smacked his lips. He put the cork back in and stuck the bottle in his pocket.
“The rules say the winner is the first one across the finishing line,” said the Sideshow Man.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!” rumbled the Phantom Drummer, and flames came out of his ears.
“Kreeg-ah!” said Banana Bob and kicked the wooden crate so Alwyn squealed.
Mr Firth unrolled the scroll and read the challenge aloud. When he came to the bit at the bottom, he slowed down and read it very loudly and very precisely, like Daisy. “The winner will be the first car or part thereof to cross the finishing line. The driver must give the Judge a bottle filled with water out of Waterfall Creek. The Judge’s decision will be final.
“I hereby rule: the Stanley Steamer brought a bottle filled with excellent water out of Waterfall Creek.” Mr Firth took out our bottle and had another swig. “The Model T,” he said, “brought a bottle of waipiro – filled from the swamp.” He stopped and bowed to Lizzie. “The gorillas,” he said, “are disqualified.”
“An excellent decision! A Daniel come to judgement.” Daisy never lost a chance to show off her knowledge of Shakespeare.
“The first car or part thereof to cross the finishing line was the front wheel that came off the Stanley Steamer,” said Mr Firth. “I therefore declare the Stanley Steamer the winner! The Judge’s decision is final!”
“Final is decision Judge’s the!” called Alwyn.
Uncle Chris’s face went red. He giggled. His giggle turned to a splutter. His splutter to a laugh. We all giggled, spluttered, and laughed.
We pulled out the nails and tipped Alwyn, laughing, out of the banana crate. We laughed and laughed. We were still laughing, our sides were aching. We were begging Uncle Chris to stop laughing, but he was making us laugh even more.
“You owe us a case of bananas!” he giggled and told Banana Bob. “For winning.”
“Daisy-Mabel-Johnny-Flossie-Lynda-Stan-Howard-Marge- Stuart-Peter-Marie-Colleen-Alwyn-Bryce-Jack-Ann-Jazz-Beck-Jane-Isaac-David-Victor-Casey-Lizzie-Jared-Jess! What’s going on?”
Aunt Effie was carrying our runaway wheel. She was followed by Caligula, Nero, Brutus, Kaiser, Genghis, and Boris wearing pack-saddles and carrying a huge wooden crate. They panted from the climb up Tower Hill.
“I said, what’s going on?”
Without even giving us the case of bananas, the three gorillas, Banana Bob, The Sideshow Man, and the Phantom Drummer leapt for the Model T. Banana Bob cranked it and jumped for the passenger seat, his pot-belly swinging. Aunt Effie clouted his pointy head a good one with her umbrella. She walloped the Sideshow Man a beauty behind the ear. She swiped the Phantom Drummer across the backside.
Banana Bob reached across the top of his puku and took the wheel. His pointy head stuck up under the canvas roof, and Aunt Effie thumped it down with her umbrella. The Model T shook and took off down Tower Hill. Ker-rang! Clank! Clank!
“You don’t fool me with those disguises!” Aunt Effie shouted after it. I know who you are!”
A voice shouted something back. It sounded like, “We love you, Euphem–!”
“Don’t you dare call me that name!” Aunt Effie shouted so loud the Model T backfired.
She spun round. “Explain yourselves!” Her voice was quiet but cold.