Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (3 page)

And Jemima said, "Adorable!"

And Commander Caractacus Pott said mysteriously, "Well, that's good. But I'm warning you. There's something odd about this car. I've put all I know into her, every invention and improvement I could think of, and quite a lot of the thousand pounds we got from the SKRUMSHUS people, but there's more to it than that. She's got some ideas of her own"

"What do you mean?" they all chorused.

"Well," said Commander Pott carefully, "I can't exactly say, but sometimes, in the morning when I came back to get to work again, I'd find that certain modifications, certain changes, had, so to speak, taken place all by themselves during the night, when I wasn't there. Certain—what shall I say?—rather revolutionary and extraordinary adaptations. I can't say more than that, and I haven't really got to the bottom of it all, but I suspect that this motorcar has thought out, all by herself, certain improvements, certain very extraordinary mechanical devices, just as if she had a mind of her own, just as if she were grateful to us for saving her life, so to speak, and wanted to repay all the loving care we'd given her. And there's another thing. You see all those rows and rows of knobs and buttons and levers and little lights on the dashboard? Well, to tell you the truth, I just haven't been able to discover what they're all for. I know the obvious ones, of course, but there are some of those gadgets that seem to be secret gadgets. We'll find out what they're for in time I suppose, but, for now, I'll admit there are quite a lot of them that have got me really puzzled. She just won't let me find out."

"What do you mean?" asked Jemima excitedly. "Is it a she?"

"Well," said Commander Pott, "that's how I've come to call her. It's funny, but all bits of machinery that people love are made into females. All ships are 'she.' Racing drivers call their cars 'she.' Same thing with airplanes. Don't know about rockets or sputniks—somehow they don't seem very feminine to me—but I bet the rocketeers and sputnicators, or whatever they call the sputnik experts, I bet they call their spaceships and things 'she.' Odd isn't it? I used to serve in a battleship. Gigantic great ship stuffed with guns and radar and so on. Called the
George V.
But we called her 'she.' "

Jeremy said excitedly, "We've got to have a name for her. And I know what we ought to call her. What she called herself."

"What do you mean?"

"What was that?"

"When did she?" they all cried together.

Jeremy said slowly, "She said it when she started CHITTY-CHITTY, like sneezes, and then BANG-BANG! So we'll call her that, her own invented name."

And the others looked at each other and slowly they all smiled and Commander Caractacus Pott patted the green-and-silver car on her nose and said in a loud and solemn voice, "Now hear me twelve-cylinder, eight-liter, supercharged
Paragon Panther
. We hereby christen you . . ." and they all chorused, "CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG!" Then they trooped out of the workshop and went happily about all the things they'd forgotten to do for the whole of that exciting afternoon.

The next day was a Saturday and the month was August and the sun positively streamed down. It was a roaster of a day, and at breakfast Commander Pott made an announcement. "Today," he said, "is going to be a roaster, a scorcher. There's only one thing to do, and that's for us to take a delicious picnic and climb into CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG and dash off down the Dover Road to the sea."

Of course everyone was delighted with the idea and while Commander Pott and Jeremy and Jemima went to get CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG ready, fill her up with gas, check the water in the radiator, check the oil, test the tire pressures, clean yesterday's squashed flies off the windshield, dust down the body, and polish up the chrome until it shone like silver, Mimsie filled a basket with hardboiled eggs, cold sausages, bread-and-butter sandwiches, jam puffs (with, of course, like all good jam puffs, more jam than puff), and bottles and bottles of the best fizzy lemonade and orange soda.

Then they all piled into the car, with the top down, of course, and, with CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG'S usual two sneezes and two small explosions, they were off up the lane to the highway that led toward Dover and to the sea some twenty miles away.

But, but, but! And once again, but! !

Twenty-two thousand, six hundred and fifty-four other motorcars full of families (that was the number announced by the Automobile Association the next day) had also decided to drive down the Dover Road to the sea on that beautiful Saturday morning, and there was an endless stream of cars going the same way as the Pott family in CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG.

Well, Commander Pott drove as cleverly as he could, overtaking when it was safe, weaving like a snake in and out of the traffic, and taking short cuts and side roads to dodge really bad lines of cars. But they made terribly slow progress in spite of much polite mooing of the boa-constrictor horn and, I'm sorry to say, an occasional furious GA-GOOO-GA on the klaxon when some booby in a black beetle insisted on hogging it down the middle of the road and not leaving room for CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG to get by. As for doing a hundred miles an hour, there just wasn't any question of it, and they crawled along at a miserable twenty. All of them, Commander Pott, Mimsie, Jeremy, and Jemima, were getting more and more hot and impatient, and even CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG began steaming angrily out of the top of her radiator on which (I'd forgotten to tell you this) there was a silver mascot of a small airplane whose propeller went round and round in the wind, faster or slower according to their speed.

And, although they couldn't see them, CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG's big head-lamp eyes, that had been so gleaming with happiness and enthusiasm ever since the day before, began to get angrier and angrier and more and more impatient, so that the people who had gazed in admiration at her through the back windows of their cars, became more and more nervous about this gleaming green monster behind them who was beginning to look as if she wanted to eat up, with the silver jaws of her radiator, all the line upon line of black-beetle cars that were getting in her way and keeping her family from their picnic by the sea.

But, all the same, they were making steady, though very slow, progress, until, outside Canterbury, they came upon a solid jam of cars that must have reached for at least a mile. And there they were—stuck at the back of the line; it really looked as if they couldn't possibly get down to the sands and the sea in time for their picnic—let alone to have a wonderful swim before it.

Suddenly Commander Pott happened to glance at the dashboard, over on the left, opposite Mimsie, and he said excitedly, "I say, all of you, look at that!"

And Mimsie looked and Jeremy and Jemima peered over the back of the seat and among all the knobs and instruments a light on top of a small knob was flashing pale pink! And it was showing a word, and the word said, "PULL!"

"Good heavens!" said Commander Pott. "I wondered what the knob was for, but it's one of the ones I haven't had time to tinker with. What can it be for?"

"Look," cried Mimsie. "The light's turning red!"

And sure enough it was, and now another word was showing! And do you know what the other word said? It said "IDIOT !" So now the angry red knob read "PULL IDIOT!" And Commander Pott laughed out loud and said, "Well I never! That's pretty saucy! Here's CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG taking control and calling me an idiot into the bargain! Oh, well! Here goes!" And he reached over and pulled down the little silver lever.

The children, in fact the whole family, sat on the edge of their seats and waited excitedly to see what would happen.

And a kind of soft humming noise began. It seemed to come from all over the car from the front axle and from the back axle, and from underneath the hood. And then the most extraordinary transmogrifications (which is just a long word for "changes") began to occur. The big front mudguards swiveled outward so that they stuck out like wings sharply swept back, and the smaller back mudguards did the same (it was lucky the road was wide, and there was single-lane traffic, or a neighboring car or a telegraph pole might have been sliced in half by the sharp green wings). The wings locked into position with a click and, at the same time, though the family couldn't see it from behind, the big radiator grill slid open like a sliding door, and the big propeller of the fan belt, together with the flywheel underneath that runs the gas pump and the electric generator, slowly slid forward until they were sticking right out in front of the hood of the car.

And then, on the dashboard, beside another little lever, a
green
light started to blink and this light said, "PULL DOWN," and Commander Pott, rather nervously, but this time obediently, reached over and gingerly pulled the lever very, very slowly down.

And then, in heaven's name, what do you think happened?

Yes, you're right, absolutely right. The wings slowly tilted and, as Commander Pott, at last realizing what CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG was up to, pressed down the accelerator pedal, the big green car, which was now what I might call an aerocar, tilted up her shining green-and-silver nose and took off! Yes! She took off like an airplane and soared up over the car in front, just missing its roof, and roared away over the long line of stationary cars in the line while all the people stared out of their car windows in absolute astonishment and Commander Pott called out, "Hang on, everyone. For heaven's sake, hang on!" Mimsie and Jeremy and Jemima clutched the armrests beside them and just sat, stiff with excitement and with their eyes and their mouths wide open, thinking, "Heavens above! What is going to happen next?"

Well, what happened next was that there came a shrill whine of machinery and a thump, thump, thump, thump, from under the car and, automatically, the four wheels retracted up into the body so as to be out of the way and let the aerocar go faster without the wind resistance of the wheels to slow her down.

Commander Pott sat gripping the wheel and chuckling with excitement and delight. "I told you so!" he shouted against the roar of the wind. "She's got ideas of her own. She's a magical car. Don't worry! She'll look after us!"

He carefully turned the wheel to see what would happen. And, sure enough, the nose of the car followed what he did and after curving about a bit to get the feel of the steering, Commander Pott made straight for the tall steeple of Canterbury Cathedral in the distance, soaring over the long line of cars in which the poor people were roasting in the sunshine and sniffing up the disgusting gas fumes of the cars in front.

Gradually, as they got confidence, Mimsie and Jeremy and Jemima sat back more comfortably in their seats and Jemima's golden hair streamed out in the wind like a golden flag behind the car and Jeremy's black mop blew about like a golliwog in a hurricane.

Over the solid line of cars they flew—altitude five hundred feet, air speed one hundred miles per hour, engine temperature one hundred and twenty degrees, outside temperature seventy degrees, revolutions of propeller three thousand per minute, visibility five miles—over the river that runs through Canterbury down to the coast, over the houses and over the fields where the cows and the horses and the sheep stampeded about at the roaring noise of this big green dragon they had never seen before, and the shadow of CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG chased after them over the ground.

Over Canterbury, Commander Pott insisted on circling the tall spire of the Cathedral so that the jackdaws and pigeons flew out of their nooks and crannies squawking and cooing with fright and excitement, and then they headed on over the trees and woods, taking a short cut away from the crowded Dover Road, toward the distant majesty of Dover Castle with its Union Jack flying from the topmost tower.

And, of course, at that speed, in minutes they were over the castle, and again Commander Pott insisted on circling round so that the family (and CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG for the matter of that) could have a good look, and all the soldiers drilling on the square inside the castle walls look up, much to the rage of their sergeant major, and the sentries too. And between you and me, I think CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG was lucky to get away without being shot at by the soldiers because, after all, she had no proper aircraft markings, only her GEN II license plates, and, for all the soldiers knew, she might have been some new kind of foreign airplane come to attack the castle, or even a flying bomb, which was really quite what she looked like.

But all went well and they flew on up the coast looking for a place to land to have their picnic beside the sparkling blue sea. But everywhere— St. Margaret's Bay, Walmer, Deal, Sandwich, Ramsgate—all the beaches were crowded with fanlilies who had had the same idea as the Pott family, and CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG'S passengers became more and more gloomy as they saw the beautiful sands with their bathers and paddlers and shrimpers, and the rock pools that were certainly crawling with exciting crabs and eels and valuable shells, all crowded with rival holiday makers. And they all longed for a swim and to unpack the bulging picnic basket full of Mimsie's delicious goodies.

Then a curious thing happened. The steering wheel twisted, actually twisted, in Commander Pott's hands as if CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG realized their disappointment and was taking control herself, and do you know what? CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG turned away from the coast and soared away over the English Channel
straight out to sea
.

The family held their breath with excitement and Commander Pott wrestled with the wheel and began to look rather nervous. But then the green light started to blink on the dashboard, and now, instead of saying "PULL DOWN" as it had said before, it said "PUSH UP."

And gently Commander Pott pushed up the little silver lever and gently CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG began to lose height and plane softly downwards.

"Heavens!" cried Mimsie. "She's going to drop us in the sea! Now we really are in a mess! Get ready to swim, everyone. The cushions will float! Each one hang on to a cushion! The Deal lifeboat will see us and if we keep afloat we'll be all right!"