“Hit the accelerator!” said Barry. “Floor it!” Elliott did as he was told. The bus moved forward – very fast (for a bus).
“Moo! Moo!!” went the cows. Whimper slurp, whimper slurp, went Neil, which suggested quite strongly that he was frightened but comforting himself with occasional sips from the udder.
Barry looked over. Despite the bus’s speed, it was still a bus, and the Rolls-Royce was still a car, and so it was getting ahead. He could see Jeremy, Teremy, Meremy, Heremy, Queremy, Smellemy, Sea Anemone, Dave and a number of sheep sticking their heads out of the electric roof, waving scornfully at him. (The sheep weren’t waving scornfully, they were just sticking their heads out, although one of them was going Baa! in what Barry took to be a mocking manner.)
“Faster!” said Barry.
“It won’t, like, go any faster?! It’s, like, a double-decker bus?!”
“Moo!!”
Barry tightened his hands round the wheel and turned it sharply towards the right. The front side of the bus banged against the back side of the limo. It knocked the limo off its path, spinning it round. And round and round and round, like a top.
“AAAAAAHHHH!!” Barry could hear faintly, under the roar of the bus engine.
And also: “BAAAAAAAAA!!”
“OK,” said Barry. “While they’re out of control – head for the finishing line!”
“Like, OK?!!!” said Elliott, who suddenly looked as if he was enjoying himself. He pressed down hard on the accelerator again.
The finishing line was a trail of Mung Bean Muck-Muck that Barry had made Mama Cool drip out with a spoon. They went past it easily. Barry looked behind: the limo had ended up marooned in the middle of the field.
“Hooray! We’ve won!” said Barry.
“Hey…” said Elliott. “Cool!”
“OK!” said Barry. “Now, hit the brakes!”
“I am!” said Elliott.
“Harder!”
“I’m, like, pressing down as hard as I can?!”
They looked through the windscreen. Rushing towards them was the cliff edge and, beyond that, the sea.
“Why won’t the brakes work?!” screamed Barry.
“I think a combination of going too fast, hitting the limousine and getting the wheels covered in Muck-Muck means we can’t, like, stop?!?!” screamed Elliott.
“Moo!!!”
“Whimper whimper whimper slurrrppp!!”
“Oh my God!!” shouted Barry. “Come on, Elliott… don’t lose your cool!!”
“I’ve lost it, man! Completely, like, gone?!! THIS IS, LIKE, NOT COOOOOOOL?!!
“Mooooooooooooo!!!”
“Not coooooooool!!!”
They were skidding closer and closer to the edge. Barry looked round. Mama Cool was chasing after them, waving her arms, perhaps in the hope of creating enough wind to suck them back. Behind her, Peevish, Jeremy, Teremy, Meremy, Heremy, Queremy, Smellemy, Sea Anemone, Dave and the sheep had got out of the limo and were pointing at them. (None of the sheep were pointing, but they were watching.)
Even Lord Rader-Wellorff had arrived to see what was happening. And, beyond him, Barry thought he saw two other faces – that man, and that woman – looking at him. The ones he’d seen at Bottomley Hall and the after-party with Vlassorina and the football match. As their faces receded away from him at some speed, he couldn’t see them properly, but could somehow make out their expressions, of concern and hope and… something else.
But before Barry could screw up his eyes to try and see them more clearly, Elliott screamed again. Barry turned round. All he could see was the oncoming cliff edge.