Kuwahawi Drift

WE NOW RETURN TO THE MAIN ZFRP-VERSE!

~KUWAHAWI PELE-PELE FREEWAY~ 

"This is probably a bad idea," said Stephen over the engine's impatient growl.

He wasn't totally inaccurate. The car in question was a beat-up Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno, a relic of the 80's that had somehow lumbered along into the present day in defiance of time itself. The question of where or how it had been acquired had never been answered, since the person who'd purchased it - Murdoc - had responded with "never again" and then buggered off to get drunk. The engine made weird knocking noises if it went above fifty, the clutch was a little sticky and somebody had drawn a penis in Sharpie on the bonnet. It was not an ideal car to race in.

But then Murdoc had made a bet with some shark-man that he could beat their time in the mountain road that connected Kuwahawi's central city with the coast. And then an even more pissed Noodle had announced that her Wendigo boyfriend could trash both of them. Stephen, who was nowhere near as drunk, had tried to be polite about it, but the glint of the shark's teeth in the sunlight had shut him up long enough for Murdoc to slam two thousand dollars onto the table. And by the time he realised what had happened, Noodle had already downed her eight can and dragged him off to do practice laps.

Which was why he was here now. And reiterating that he thought that this was a bad idea.

In the passenger seat, Noodle turned her head and grinned at him.

"But do you care?" was her question. She'd become smitten with the car the moment it arrived. She'd gushed over it as though she'd been Richard Attenborough with the baby raptor, and kept calling it a "zenki", whatever that meant. Stephen's grasp on Japanese, whilst much stronger than before, was still flimsy enough that she had no idea what she was talking about. Something about this manga series that involved people drifting in old cars like this.

Stephen paused, considering the question.

And then he looked out of the window to see Murdoc in the band's Chevvy Impala, engaged in a slanging match with the shark-man in what looked like a dirt buggy with teeth. It occured to him that despite all the stuff he'd been doing for the band and how he'd helped exorcise a demon bear from their house, Murdoc still didn't seem to respect him. The bassist continued to view the Wendigo as a non-entity, and that annoyed him far more than the insults and jabs at his expense. There was only so much of that one man could take before it got to be too much, and right about now the Canadian had more than had his fill of the Londoner and his jackass behaviour.

Thus, those two seemed to have forgotten about him. As far as they were concerned, this was a race between them and them alone. The Toyota, beat-up and aged as it was, didn't factor into their half-drunk logic. Which meant that...

Stephen tightened his grip on the wheel.

"No," he said.

"Subarashi." Noodle reached over and ruffled the blonde hair as though she were petting a puppy. "Now put the radio on, bae. I want some kickass tunes to go with the six thou we're gonna fleece out of ol' Pickle-dick." Stephen had to hold back the laughter at that one, baring his teeth in a grin as he reached down and fiddled with the radio controls under the dash, ignoring the middle fingers the other competitors were flinging at each other.

He found the right station just as 2D, the starter, fired and dropped the pistol.

-------

Russel had not been expecting anyone to cross the finish line at all. He'd been expecting a smoking fireball to come around the final corner.

So imagine his shock when, exactly five minutes after the start, the Toyota drifted around the corner like a metallic ballerina, to the banshee-shriek of protesting rubber. It curved easily over the level crossing that served as a finishing line, levelled out after about eight metres and braked to a stop, smoke trailing from the tyres. The sunlight glittered off the silvery paint as if to puctuate the moment, and Russel's jaw dropped as he stared at the impossible sight before him.

Behind the wheel, his hair a mess, Stephen blinked.

He looked over at Noodle, who was equally dishevelled.

And then both burst into a fit of adrenaline-fueled giggles.

"Noodle," gasped Stephen at last, "did we just drift round a freakin' roundabout?"

"Yep!" crowd Noodle. "And there was Murdoc saying we couldn't do it! 'Ooh, nobody's held a drift all the way through the Round'! Suck it, Pickle!"

"And then," the Wendigo went on, "did we-"

"Maui's Corner? Yep!"

"And the waterfall?"

"Faster than anyone's ever done it!"

The two stopped, grinning all over their flushed faces. Then Noodle reached over and pulled Stephen in, and the two celebrated in the usual way. They didn't need to look at Russel's stop watch to know that they'd crushed the time. The heat radiating off the car's bonnet and the quiet, satisfied purring of the engine was all they needed to hear.

"We need to name this car right now," said Noodle, once they parted.

"I was thinking Pele," replied Stephen.

"My thoughts exactly."

And then they heard the explosion, followed by the yelling and screaming. Turning their heads, they watched, bemused, as a fireball slowly rose up behind the trees on the mountain side of the road. It was soon accompanied by a soot-blackened Murdoc and his opponent tumbling and wrestling through the undergrowth, cursing and throwing punches. Behind them, the smoking wreck of both cars gently rolled along behind them, locked together by the twisted wrecks of their bonnets.

Without a word, Stephen put the car in gear and drove off.

-------

And that was how Murdoc ended up in jail for property damage, dangerous driving and illegal possession of napalm.

Nobody was sorry.