Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10 Dan had no idea that dying felt so bad on the tongue. "OWWWW… ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" he screamed, blood trickling over his bottom lip. His eyes opened. The Yugo was in the ditch, slanted to the right. Nellie gunned it forward, her left tires just gripping the ditch's upper ridge. "HANG ON!" With a loud bump, the car lifted upward onto the lip of a downhill exit ramp. It swerved, straightened, and picked up speed. Dan sucked back the blood from his bitten tongue, which was beginning to swell. He watched the dust settle around them. Nellie had managed to backtrack to the exit ramp she'd passed, and they were headed into a bleak-looking area just

short of the city skyline. How did she learn to drive like that? "You did it!" Amy cried out. "You got away!" "Why did oo haf thoo do that?" Dan said, his tongue thick and throbbing. "I bit my thongue!" Nellie was staring angrily forward, leaning on her horn. "Hey, who taught you idiots how to drive?" There was a car headed directly toward them. "The left side of the road, Nellie!" Amy shouted. "They drive on the left!" "Oh, right. Brain fart." Nellie adjusted into the left lane and gunned it. She zoomed through an intersection, not stopping for any of the cars. Hugging the left side of the road, Nellie sped past whitewashed buildings and chicken-wire fences, past women balancing buckets on their heads and men three-to-a-seat on motorcycles. A screech of tires made Dan spin around. Through the rear window he spotted the Hummer stuck in the intersection, surrounded by honking

motorists. Nellie pushed the Yugo to its limits. The town was small, and the four-lane road soon narrowed to two. Outside the town, the countryside was flat and green, with distant outcroppings resembling enormous stone fists. Cattle grazed in pastures, and the land was dotted with tin shacks and wood huts. "We really lost them," Amy said. But Dan had his eye on the back window. A faint hum grew louder, like an approaching plane. And then, through the dust, a wide black silhouette purred its way up the street. Dan's tongue felt like a wad of paper towel. "Hummuh!" he said. "HUMMUH!" As Nellie sped over a hill, a flock of goats ambled across the road. The goatherd was a craggy old man singing to himself and beating the ground rhythmically with a staff. Seeing the car, the goats lifted their heads as if to say, Sorry, WE were here first. "YO, GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Nellie screamed.

"They're goats!" Amy said. "They don't understand English!" "NO-O-O-O-O-O!" Dan shouted. Nellie slammed on the brakes. The Yugo arced to the left, onto the parched plain. Dan listened for the sound of goat massacre but heard only the crunching of rock underneath them. Then, from behind them, a hollow, unearthly EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE… Dan opened his eyes. The Yugo was careening across open ground. Goatless. The smell of burning rubber reached him from behind. He turned to look out the back window. The goats were thick in the road now, still chewing, still bleating, still alive and safe. The Hummer had narrowly missed the flock and disappeared headfirst into a chicken coop. A cloud of white feathers plumed up around it, and some very angry birds were expressing their disapproval. A farmer drove up to them in a purple-painted pickup and hopped out, yelling. Dan sat back and let out a sigh of relief. He rubbed his tongue against his lips, trying to stop

the pain, as Nellie aimed the car back onto the highway.