Read Canyon Chaos for Free Online Page B

up. Pull the one on the right.”
    Jimmy quickly pulled on the gear paddle and heard a deep growl coming from the engine. Cabbie seemed to flex his mechanical muscles, then all of a sudden he flew forwards. Jimmy hunched himself down over the steering wheel and focused on the road ahead as they whizzed back past the two racers just in front of them.
    “Eat my dust, soggy bonnets,” Cabbie cried as they left them in their wake. “You see, Jimmy. We’re going to win this race. Now, show me what you’ve got.”
    They entered a tricky section of the course with sharp bends and tight corners, but with Cabbie handling the braking and Jimmy controlling the wheel they flew onwards, with the tyres screeching and the wind whipping at the windscreen as they weaved left and right.
    “We’re doing really well,” Jimmy said. “We’ve left the others behind.”
    “Of course we have,” Cabbie replied. “We’re robot racers, and that’s what we do!”
    In the distance they could make out the cloud of dust that billowed into the air behind Zoom’s jet engine.
    “We’ve got to catch Horace and Zoom,” said Jimmy. “What should we do?”
    “See the small red button with the picture of the flame on it?” Cabbie replied. “It’s flashing. Push it.”
    “What does it do?” asked Jimmy.
    “You’ll see,” replied Cabbie.
    Jimmy pressed the small red button.
    For a moment nothing happened. And then the world seemed to explode. Jimmy was pinned back against his seat as Cabbie accelerated so fast that his front wheels left the ground. Before he knew it, Jimmy was whooping with excitement. He was really doing it: he was really a robot racer. At school, he was just a shy, quiet boy who only had one proper friend, but out here he could see hundreds of people cheering for him. He could feel confidence whizzing through his body like petrol through an engine, causing his fingers and toes to tingle. He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t being laughed at. And he was in second place!
    “Wow!” he cried. “We could actually win this, Cabbie!”
    “Of course we can,” said the robot. “We’re gaining on them. They’re—” Cabbie paused, checked, recomputed. “Yes,” he said. “They’re slowing down!”
    “Why would they do that?” Jimmy asked. But before Cabbie could reply, the answer became obvious. Horace had begun to show off.
    Zoom’s roof was folding away and disappearing. Zoom was going open-top! Jimmy could see Horace sitting casually in the driver’s seat with one hand on the steering wheel, his hair flying in the wind. The other hand was waving at the crowd and a group of TV cameras that had gathered. A moment later, Horace was standing up and steering with one foot. The crowd were going wild.
    Then Horace turned round and saw Jimmy. “I’ve won this race already, Jimmy Roberts. You haven’t got a chance,” he shouted above the roar of the engines. He dropped back down into his seat and twiddled a couple of knobs on the dashboard.
    The motor on Zoom’s roof whirred loudly but nothing happened. Horace punched three more buttons and the whirring started again, followed by a nasty crrruuuunnkk!
    “No!” screamed Horace over the noise of the wind. “We can’t reach top speed with the roof down! Zoom, do something.”
    “System malfunction,” the robot replied. “Roof pod not responding. Unable to override.”
    “Noooo!” Horace yelled again.
    “This is our chance, Cabbie,” Jimmy said excitedly. “Let’s get them.”
    The race was on!
    Zoom slowed to round a bend in the road. Jimmy swerved Cabbie wide and tried to fit through a gap between the black robot racer and the crash barriers, but he could see Horace gritting his teeth and moving across to squeeze him out of room.
    “We’re going to hit them!” yelped Jimmy.
    “No, we won’t,” Cabbie shouted back. “Watch this.” And before he knew what was happening, Jimmy felt the whole world tip sideways. Cabbie had thrown himself onto two