Chapter 18

Chapter 18 How can we ever escape?" I cried. "They're too fast!" "Big hill," said Nina, turning my skateboard so we went down a side street. William and Wanda did the same. I looked ahead. It was the steepest hill in the whole city. "NO, NINA!" I shouted, but it was too late. She hopped on my skateboard, and William hopped on

Wanda's. I felt gravity take over, pulling us down, down, down. Faster and faster! Just before we started to plunge down the hill I saw a street sign. It said ONE WAY. And it was pointing the other way! A huge busload of ostriches was coming right at us. "Duck!" yelled Wanda. "No, ostriches," I said. "NO! DUCK!" We both got our heads down just in time as Nina and William steered us under the bus. A huge tire roared by, just inches from my pot.

"Big wheel," said Nina. We came out from under the bus and saw a whole fleet of taxis coming up the hill right at us. The taxi drivers honked and yelled. We dodged and swerved. A taxi's bumper bumped my pot, but Nina kept me from falling off.

We barely squeaked between the last two taxis. We shot out into an empty lane. There was open road ahead of us, which was good since we were now speeding out of control! I looked back and saw Lulu Emu's bus, Koko Dodo's motorcycle, Mimi Kiwi's pickup truck, and the sloth's bicycle all stuck in a huge traffic jam. The giant pegleg pirate had bumped his shin on the ostrich bus and was sitting on the ground, crying like a baby. "Look out!" yelled Wanda. I turned around. "Look out!" I screamed. The street was ending. We were going so fast we couldn't stop. We were headed straight for a restaurant. It was Penguini's Linguini.

"Do you have a cell phone?" I asked Wanda. "Here you go," she said, handing it to me. I dialed the number and waited. "We're going to crash!" yelled Wanda. Penguini answered the phone. "Hello, Penguini's Linguini. Today's special is—" "HEY, PENGUINI! OPEN THE DOOR!" I yelled. The door swung open and we zoomed through. Penguini called, "Hey, Inspector Flytrap! Nina, you're looking good! I see you brought friends."

We crashed into his kitchen. Pots and pans and goats and skateboards and linguini went everywhere.