Justine marched over and stood, legs firmly apart, in front of the waiting racers.
“You’re under arrest, the lot of you!” she barked. “I’m booking you for speeding, driving without due care and attention, not possessing a licence and taking cars without consent! You’re coming down to the police station right now!”
“Oh no, we’re not,” snarled the cats.
And without warning, the red Siren Sprinter took off like a rocket. It charged straight at Justine.
The police dog hurled herself to one side and rolled across the tarmac. The sports car missed her by a whisker.
“Go, Horace, go now!” shouted Tickety. “Don’t get left behind!”
“But–”
Horace didn’t get the chance to finish. Boo had already jumped on the accelerator. The lawnmower trundled sedately after the Sprinter.
“Faster! Faster!” cried Tickety.
“Faster!” growled all the dogs, making engine noises as loudly as they could.
“It’s working!” said Horace.
Certainly, without the doghouse on top of it, the lawnmower was faster than it had ever been. But it was still not fast enough. The Sprinter was pulling away from them, further and further...
And then it wasn’t.
It was slowing down. It wasn’t smoking this time, or leaking oil, or making grinding noises – but it was definitely slowing down.
And then it stopped altogether.
“Overtake! Overtake!” screamed Tickety, jumping up and down.
Horace pulled alongside the Sprinter. “What are those things attached to its back bumper?” he wondered. “They look a bit like–”
The Sprinter moved again.
It did not go forwards this time. It went backwards. It hurtled like a bullet in reverse.
“–bungee ropes,” finished Horace, an instant before the Sprinter hit the bollards. The black cat leapt clear just in time.
There was an almighty smash like a thousand greenhouse windows breaking: and the gasp of a hundred horrified cats.
“Oh, YES!” Boo turned a cartwheel. “What a bang! What a crash! What a smash!”
But Justine clambered to her feet.
“You’re all under arrest!” she thundered. Dogs and cats alike cowered at the force of her fury. “You’re under arrest for speeding and smashing and everything else!”
“Hang on,” mewed Pibbles, sprawled on the tarmac. “I wasn’t speeding. I stopped! Someone and their elastic stopped me!”
“You were speeding backwards,” bellowed Justine.
Kimi slid out from the shadows. “Ahem,” she said.
Justine leapt back like a kangaroo. “Deadly snake! Deadly snake!”
“Only to mice,” said Kimi. “I’m so sorry I accidentally struck out at you the other day, Inspector. I thought you were one of those nasty cats. I wouldn’t dream of threatening an officer of the law.”
“You’re under arrest too!”
“Excuse me, Inspector,” said Kimi silkily. “But Horace wasn’t speeding. You saw him. He can’t have doing more than twelve miles an hour.”
“I was going faster than–” began Horace, before Tickety jumped on his nose.
Justine frowned. “Maybe he wasn’t speeding. But he was driving carelessly!”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Kimi. “He didn’t crash. It was Pibbles who crashed.”
“He was driving without a licence!”
“You don’t need a licence for a lawnmower.”
Justine glared at her. “A stolen lawnmower!”
“It belongs to me,” piped up Ragbag. “I lent it to him.”
“I think you’ll find that under Paragraph 34, sub-section 2A of the Road Traffic Act of 1988, Horace has done absolutely nothing wrong,” said Kimi. “But of course you’ll know that.”
Justine clenched her jaws. She looked as if she badly wanted to bite something.
Then she whirled round and snapped at the cats. “You lot! Don’t tell me those are your cars. You’re all under arrest for speeding, theft and criminal damage!”
She began to line the cowering cats up against the wall to take their names.
Kimi nudged Horace. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“What? I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t won the race yet,” protested Horace. “I still have to drive twice round the supermarket to win!”
“Oh, for goodness sake!” said Kimi. “Well, do it quickly. No, no! On second thoughts, do it very, very slowly.”
So Horace climbed back onto the Houndmobile. Boo perched on his shoulder and waved to the crowd of dogs as Horace began, very slowly, very carefully, to drive. With Justine so close by, he dared not go at more than three miles an hour.
The Houndmobile crawled around the supermarket like an exhausted snail. Ragbag and Silverside ran ahead, and then had to stop and sit down while Horace caught them up.
Justine paused in lecturing the cats to watch.
“Very good,” she said approvingly. “At least someone here knows how to drive properly!”
Horace blushed with pride as he began his second circuit. The dogs began to howl “We are the Champions.”
Eventually, he reached the finishing line to a huge barrage of barks and cheers.
“We’ve done it!” declared Horace, as Silverside brought down the chequered flag. “I knew we could! Driving Dogs forever!”
“And High-speed Hamsters!” added Tickety.
“Lap of honour! Go, Horace, go!” yelled Boo.
So with all the dogs cheering him on, and the cats yowling in disgust, Horace proudly began a very slow, sedate and sluggish lap of honour in the Sensational Staggering Houndmobile.
THE END
Have you read the first book in the WHEElers series? Petrol Paws is a free ebook about Horace and his car-mad friends!
The third book in the WHEElers series, Flying Fur, will be coming soon.
To find out more, please visit Emma Laybourn’s website,
www.megamousebooks.com,
where you can find lots more free children’s e-books, online stories and printable puzzle pages.
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