BXBX NOVEL Chapter 81 - The Date, Part 2
Our little expedition to discover what the mall had to offer came to an abrupt halt at the seventh and last floor, and by that point, the layout of the shopping complex in its entirety had already become ingrained into our skulls, with much of the three-hour downtime whittled down to a measly one.
One hour left, and the question and answer game that I\'ve so heavily relied on up till now has been milked dryer than a corporate cow.
It served its purpose well enough, more than I could have hoped for actually. Slowly, surely, and gradually, Ash crept out of her little hidey-hole, not minding much anymore on letting her true feelings show without stifling down with a constant air of reluctance.
I\'d very much like to keep this momentum going, but the question was - what else is there to do in an hour\'s time?
We kept our pace slow, keeping light conversation about the intrinsic properties of cheese and its vast potential as an ingredient to be used in pretty much every single food product, which for some reason fascinated her to no end, while in the meantime my head scrounged about itself doing its utmost to come up something worthwhile to do before I run out the capabilities of cheese.
There\'s only so much that curdled milk can do for a discussion after all, and sadly it wasn\'t very good as a conversation piece, gets a bit too cheesy after a while.
Thankfully, God must have been in a giving mood today, for just as soon as I emptied my admittedly short canister of cheese-related facts, the answer to all life\'s problems came barging before my very eyes like a car crash in slow motion.
Literally.
Two vehicles barreling towards each other at high speed - that was my solution.
We came to a stop outside another expansive outlet, and Ash, a slave to her intrigue, slowly approached the sign hung above the entryway, her eyes squinting to better decipher the words displayed in a dazzling glare of neon lights.
She tried.
"Super Bu… hmm, bum - bumper? Whatever is a bumper, I wonder?"
Ash didn\'t let herself wonder for long, a second later, she spun her inquiring eyes towards me and I, the all-knower of all things mundane, could only oblige.
"It\'s kinda like a car," I said.
Her ears perked up at once. "Cars, you say?"
"Yep," With a little a smirk, and a finger pointing forward, I directed her eager eyes onward. "Bumper cars."
Boom went another heavy collision, a reverberating echo of both metal and laughter gracing her twitching, wiggling ears, which further intensified, as she finally sighted the blocky-moving thing in action - spinning, drifting, crashing into walls and other blocky-moving lookalikes alongside with.
If disbelief could be calculated then Ash had already far surpassed any form of measurement it could possibly have.
I don\'t think she was even aware that she was moving again. It was as if the rumble of the bumper car\'s motor naturally compelled her towards its whirring embrace.
Against all odds, she actually managed to catch herself in time, settling herself by the sidelines before she could become an accessory to vehicular manslaughter because let\'s face it, if a car were to hit Ash, it won\'t be the passenger or the driver coming out of that crash scene unscathed…
Anyway, I drew up beside her, leaning my hands against the guardrails, expecting to hear some \'wow\'s and breathless \'ooo\'s of amazement, but no - Ash was too into it to even make a sound. Captivated by the runway of non-stop high octane blitz of motor engines.
Sometimes I could never tell what she was thinking. Other times it was simply clear as day. There were some days where I\'d confused the sometimes with the other times and ended up with disastrous results.
Today, this time, was not one of those times.
It\'d take a bigger idiot than me to mess this one up.
"I remembered one time you asking me if you\'d ever get the chance to ride one on your own someday."
Ash untethered her focus from the chaos, slowly turning her gaze over my way to find that a smile of encouragement awaited her.
"You still feel the same?" I asked.
The glimmer in her eyes, the continuous twitching on either side, they spoke her answer far better than her voice ever could.
"I do."
Bumper cars here were fortunately the two-seater types. One sits the passenger all snug and nice, while the other takes control of the mayhem machine and wreaks havoc in the field.
Instantly I knew which part was tailored for whom. I took my place, buckled in my seatbelt, and looked over past the vacant seat beside me where the steering wheel still sat empty, it\'s driver just over yonder, standing in place, uncertainty filling her emerald eyes.
"Master, I\'m not so sure of…" She slightly adjusted the helmet on her head. "You mention it\'s no different from riding a horse?"
"Practically the same thing," I piped back. "Only just a bit faster… and no saddles."
Despite my assurances, Ash still looked on at me with a dubious stare. "I\'m not sure I believe you…"
"Only one way to find out then, I suppose." I urged her on again. "Now or never, Ash."
An opportunity such as this wasn\'t something she\'d pass up on so easily. Never say never and sure enough, one deep breath later and out surfaced a determined look on her face, braving a march forward, taking her rightful place by my side and gripping the steering wheel with both hands tight.
She was like a mixture of anticipation and trepidation rolled into one. Couldn\'t help but feel a little bad seeing the helpless state she was in. Probably should have given her a refresher course beforehand.
Welp, got a thirty-second countdown - better late than never.
"You got two pedals down by your feet," I said, pointing them out to her rapidly shifting eyes. "See them?"
Ash frantically nodded her head, desperately clinging on to my every word. "Yes, yes, I do… what purpose do they serve?"
"Left one\'s to accelerate, right one\'s to stop and reverse. You use the steering wheel to move around. Simple enough, right? Any questions?"
"This is not a horse, Master!" Ash exclaimed.
"No questions then, alright!" I smiled, faced myself forward, and braced for impact. "Let\'s go!"
The blare of the buzzer signaled our start and Ash, in a state of panic stomped hard on the gas pedal, sending us propelling across the entire arena and crashing into the nearest wall.
If that wasn\'t enough, our little mishap painted a bullseye over our little bumper car, our opponents sensing fresh meat in their domain.
The rumble of many, many engines drew closer and closer to our position.
For our sake, I decided to offer a piece of advice to my fumbling driver. "Think this is the part where you move us out of the way, Ash."
"Pedals!" She spouted out helplessly. "Horses do not have pedals! Master, this contraption is beyond my control!"
"Well yeah it\'s outta control you still got your foot on the go pedal!" I said. "Push it on the other one, Ash. Slam it down - wait no, don\'t slam it down! Do it slow - SLOWLY!"
Again, Ash smashed her foot on the reverse, flinging us so far and so fast towards the opposite direction that I\'m surprised the sound barrier wasn\'t broken yet.
Another solid wall, another rough crash, and another reason why seatbelts save lives. Damn was whiplash a hell of a thing, my poor neck was about to become an unfortunate martyr on safe driving.
Luckily enough, it seems most of our adversaries understand it\'d be more of a risk coming after us than it was a reward, and steered clear of the runaway bumper car doing 360s in the corner.
I\'m starting to regret this decision.
"What is…" I stifled down a gag. "What is \'slow\' in Elf-speak?"
Ash kept the car spinning right round, doing uh… doing her best, I suppose.
"I\'m trying, Master. This beast just refuse to be tamed!"
Forget buses, looks I found my newest form of transport to detest.
"Your foot… pedals, Ash!" I bellowed. "Take them off first!"
"I already have, Master!"
I snapped upright, sudden panic in my eyes threatening to burst them out of my sockets. "What?!"
"I\'ve already refrained from pushing any more pedals!" She shouted again.
So much I wanted to pretend that I did not just hear what I just heard, I couldn\'t have, right? How can we be spinning out of control without any momentum?! It\'s impossible, IMPOSSIBLE.
Freaking Newton would be spinning in his grave if found about this breach in the laws of physics.
But just like dear ol\' Issac himself, we were still spinning, we continued moving, and momentum just kept on momen-ting.
With dread, I glanced downwards, and sure enough… not a single foot of hers was on any of the pedals whatsoever… leaving only one possible explanation for it.
"Ash, did you break the goddamn reverse pedal with your foot?!"
I looked back up and saw pure unbridled shock sweeping past Ash\'s paling expression, her terror-stricken eyes staring back at me with disbelief of her own. "Did I?!"
Oh dear God...