So, I decided to delete my original Tales From Radiator Springs document like I said I might do. Don't worry, though. I'm gonna try and make better stories and fix up the ones I didn't like. However, this was one that I was happy with, so I'm gonna keep it here as it was. This is obviously Fudge in the short, Mater and the Ghostlight.
I imagine that the short takes place anywhere between a month and three months after the first movie, so that's when I set it and that makes Fudge six years old in this one.
Enjoy (again)! :)
Mater, Fudge and the Ghostlight
When Mater invited Fudge to spend the night in his junkyard for a sleepover, it immediately raised some red flags. Could the townsfolk really trust the childish, immature tow truck to be in charge of a six-year-old girl, their precious baby, for the entire night? After he lost her when she was only five months old, he hadn't been trusted enough to be left alone with the little girl for more than ten minutes. Then again, she was older now. It was less likely that Fudge was gonna get lost in the small town.
"We'll be good, I promise!" Mater had insisted.
"Yeah!" Fudge had chimed in. "Very, very good!"
Luigi, the overprotective father, had hesitated. "I don't know..." He cast a doubtful glance towards Guido, the other overprotective father.
Mater and Fudge couldn't take it anymore. "Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!" the two of them had begged in unison.
A pause had followed.
"I don't see the harm in one sleepover", Luigi decided after what felt like a lifetime. "As long as you both behave."
The yellow Fiat barely had time to finish what he was saying. Fudge and Mater interrupted by cheering.
"But behave!" Luigi repeated sternly.
"We will", both tow truck and human promised simultaneously. They both looked so innocent. The others wondered who they thought they were fooling. It was obvious to everyone. They were planning something.
Fudge had been planning on behaving. She really had. She hated making her family, especially her daddies, angry. But Mater had other ideas.
It all started when Fudge had fallen asleep. Mater got an idea for a little fun, but first, he needed the little girl to wake up. How could he do that? The tow truck grinned. He had an idea.
Using some random pieces of junk around the yard, Mater was able to start up a rattling sound by clinking them together. Fudge stirred, but didn't wake up. Mater frowned. He needed to go one step further if he wanted to rouse her.
He started off by making the clinking louder. The human girl sat up sleepily and looked around nervously, but found nothing. Mater was gone.
"Mater?" she whimpered.
No answer.
"MATER!"
Still no answer.
Now, Fudge was really starting to panic. "Mater, where are you?!"
Everything was silent except for that constant rattling... until Fudge heard a loud scream as Mater jumped out from nowhere and scared the living daylights out of the poor girl.
She screamed at the top of her lungs.
Mater burst out laughing. "Gotcha!"
"That's mean!" Fudge yelled, sounding close to tears. She slapped him in the fender lightly. "I'm only six!"
Mater didn't answer. He just rolled forward to get a look at the rest of the town.
"Hey, Fudge!" he whispered. "C'mon!"
"Where?" she questioned.
"We is gonna have some fun!"
"But... we promised we'd be good!" Fudge reminded him.
"It's just a little fun!" Mater insisted. "We'll still be behavin'."
"What are we doing?"
"I'll show ya!"
It was a typical, quiet night in Radiator Springs. Fudge still smiled when she saw all of the neon lights of the town. It had only been recently that she saw the town in all its glory and the sight never ceased to amaze the six-year-old.
"What are we doing?" Fudge wanted to know.
"We is gonna scare everybody!" Mater snickered. "Like I just scared you!"
"But... that's naughty!" the child protested. Not only that, but she hadn't liked being scared and she knew the others wouldn't either.
"No it ain't!" Mater disagreed. "It's gonna be fun."
Fudge knew what Mater was like. He wasn't gonna let this go anytime soon. Besides, maybe it would be fun.
"Okay", Fudge agreed reluctantly. "What do we do?"
Red was their first victim of the night. He was parked outside of the firehouse next to the Stanley statue, watering the flowers. Mater shot out his tow hook to grab hold of some flowers growing in a tyre.
"What are you doing?" Fudge whispered.
"You'll see."
Mater waited for just the right moment when Red was just about to water those flowers and the tow truck started pulling them closer towards him slowly. The fire truck was confused as the flowers jumped further and further away from him. Mater laughed and, after catching a glimpse at the scared and puzzled look on Red's face, Fudge found herself giggling along with him.
"See? Wasn't that funny?" Mater asked as he and Fudge ran off to cause more trouble.
"It was kind of funny", Fudge admitted.
"Well, we is just gettin' started!" the tow truck informed her.
"What are we gonna do next?"
"This is gonna be funny!" Fudge proclaimed, giggling.
"Ssh!" Mater hissed. "They're comin'! You're gonna give it away!"
Mater and Fudge were hiding amongst a stack of tyres. Luigi and Guido were creating a replica of the Roman Colosseum made entirely out of tyres. It was almost done and Guido was just putting the last tyres in place. Fudge was crouching behind the pile, trying to muffle her giggles (her adoptive fathers didn't seem to hear) and waiting for Mater's signal.
Finally, Mater gave her the signal. Together, the two of them screamed as they leapt out, sending tyres flying.
Fudge burst out laughing. So did Mater.
"That was fun!" Fudge declared with a big grin on her face. These pranks were funny when she wasn't on the receiving end.
"Yeah!" Mater agreed.
"Let's do that again!" The six-year-old ran off to help Mater find their next victim.
They were both so excited that neither of them had noticed that scaring poor Guido and Luigi had caused both of them to faint. Had Fudge known that, she probably would've been too scared to continue.
Next, the pair decided to prank Sally. She was parked, reading, in the Cozy Cone lobby when Mater slid a cone in the window off to the side. At first, Sally didn't seem to notice, but when it got her attention, from where she was, it looked as if the cone was moving all by itself. Then she heard a noise. It sounded like someone giggling. Was someone there?
The Porsche rolled closer to investigate, only for Mater and Fudge to leap up out of nowhere. What made it look even scarier was that they'd both stuck cones into their mouths to make them look like vampires. Sally jumped and gasped, much to the pranksters' amusement.
Lizzie proved to be their challenge. The old car was fast asleep on her porch when Mater crept up, giggling.
"Boo!" he shouted to try and scare her.
Lizzie didn't even wake up.
"Why isn't she scared?" Fudge wondered.
Mater frowned before trying again. He pulled all the crazy faces and made all the strangest noises he could, even jumping up and down, sending dust flying, but to no avail. The old Model T was still fast asleep.
"Come on. This is boring!" Fudge complained, jumping off Lizzie's porch and running off. "Let's scare someone else!"
"All right." Mater followed her. "Who do ya wanna scare next?"
Fudge scanned the stores and other businesses of the town. "Well, not Doc or Sarge", she decided, spotting the clinic and surplus hut. She loved Sarge and Doc immensely, but sometimes, they scared her. She looked to her right. "What about Fillmore?"
"All right!"
So, the two pranksters tried to be as quiet as possible, making their way over to Fillmore's.
"What are we gonna do?" Fudge whispered.
Mater didn't answer. He was too busy staring at the Volkswagen van as he took cans of his organic fuel in one at a time.
"Fudge, go round the back and take some cans of fuel!" Mater instructed.
"But that's stealing!"
"No it ain't! We is gonna put 'em back! Jus' do it!"
Reluctantly, Fudge tiptoed to the back of Fillmore's dome and grabbed as many cans as she could.
While she was doing that, Mater watched Fillmore carefully. He took one of the three cans in front of the dome and disappeared inside with it. Mater took one of the cans Fudge had gotten hold of and replaced the one Fillmore had moved, so there were three again.
"Oh!" Fudge exclaimed, understanding. "We're not stealing the fuel because he's gonna put them all back!"
"Exactly!"
That was when Fillmore returned and, needless to say, he was confused to find that he still had three cans. Weren't there only two when he went inside? He counted them for a second before, looking afraid, he went back inside.
But when he returned, his eyes widened. His front yard was covered in cans of organic fuel. Poor Fillmore couldn't deal with it, so he went back inside again.
Fudge and Mater laughed like crazy.
"This is so fun!" Fudge repeated for the millionth time. Mater had been the brains of each and every prank they'd committed that night, but he'd still always given her some kind of job to do and she got great glee out of the residents' reactions.
"I know! And I got a good idea for our next one! Come on!"
Fudge grinned and followed Mater back to his junkyard.
It wasn't long before the townsfolk gathered at Flo's like they did every night.
"Gosh", Lightning McQueen whispered as he and Sally stared up at the night sky. "Sure is a nice night."
The sound of an oil can falling over followed by several little girl's giggles attracted Sally's attention. The Porsche chuckled. "It sure is a nice night!" She gestured towards a Mater-shaped stack of oil cans with a tow hook and a little pink and white shoe sticking out. Some muffled giggles came from behind the sign.
"I sure hope Mater and Fudge aren't waiting around anywhere to scare me", Lightning proclaimed sarcastically, rolling closer to the cans. "'Cause I'll freak out."
"Aww!" the pink and white shoe whined. Fudge slid out from behind the oil cans and ran back to her fathers for a hug. "You saw us!"
"Sorry, Fudge", Lightning chuckled. "But you two have gotta do a lot better than that if you wanna-"
He was cut off by the sound of Mater jumping down from the roof and screaming. Lightning jumped a mile, speeding away and crashing into the oil cans, which was revealed to be the sign for Tow Mater's Towing and Salvage, which was the same shape as Mater.
Everyone burst out laughing as Lightning panted.
"If only you moved that fast on the race track", Doc commented.
"It was a trick!" Fudge informed him gleefully, jumping up and down in delight.
"Very clever", Lightning admitted, sounding amused.
"Oh, buddy!" Mater laughed. "You look like you just seen... the Ghostlight!"
"Mater!" Sheriff barked as he pulled up to the café, everyone parting to make room for him to glare at the tow truck. "Don't. Mock. The Ghostlight!"
"What is the Ghostlight?" Lightning wanted to know.
Silence reigned over Radiator Springs. With the exception of Fudge, they all knew what the Ghostlight was and it could be a pretty sensitive topic. Especially with Fudge around. Mater had wanted to tell her the story many times before, but Sheriff (the one who usually told the story) and the others had always insisted that Fudge was too young for the Ghostlight. They didn't want to scare her.
After what felt like an eternity of silence, Red, Fillmore and Lizzie reversed as Sheriff came forward.
"The Ghostlight is a glowing orb of blue translucent light that haunts these very parts", Sheriff explained, stopping in front of Fudge, Mater and Lightning.
"Nah, don't be too scared, buddy. It ain't real", Mater assured Lightning casually.
"IT IS REAL!" Sheriff yelled.
The trio's eyes widened.
Sheriff began the story. "It all started on a night like tonight. The song dogs were wailin' at the moon off Cadillac Range while the summer wind blew hot like the breath of Zozobra. A young couple was headed down this very stretch of the Mother Road when they spotted an unnatural blue glow..."
Fudge whimpered. She really hoped that this wouldn't be too scary. It was bad enough when Sheriff told her that one about the invisible human hitchhiker, who liked to scare people all over Route 66.
"...and all that was left were two out-of-state license plates", Sheriff concluded some time later. "So remember, the one thing that angers the Ghostlight more than anything else is the sound of clanking metal."
That was when Fudge was aware of the aforementioned sound and nearly jumped right out of her skin. The story had terrified her, even though she didn't understand the whole thing.
"What was that?!" she demanded.
It turned out to be Mater, who was shaking in fear from the story.
"Mater, stop!" she shrieked, prompting the tow truck to gasp.
So, Mater moved around a little bit, causing his tyres to squeak. He pressed the front of his body as close to the ground as he could get to get the noise to stop. It didn't work, though. His truck bed was still shaking. Mater was quick to solve this problem by hooking himself to his tow hook and pulling the truck bed down to the ground. Both he and Fudge were alarmed again when his air filter started rattling. Poor Mater had to strain to keep it down.
"As you head home tonight, keep an eye out", Sheriff instructed sinisterly, looking around at everyone. "The Ghostlight could be anywhere..." Then he grinned and sounded far too perky as he exclaimed, "Well, good night!" He sped off.
"I'm bushed!" Sally declared. "Good night!"
"Good night!" everyone called to each other in unison, making a beeline for their homes and switching the lights out.
In about ten seconds flat, Mater and Fudge were the only ones left at Flo's.
"What just happened?" Fudge asked fearfully.
"Uh... Good night!" Mater called.
And the lights at Flo's went out.
Fudge kept her eyes fixed on the shaking light directly in front of her coming from Mater's headlight as the tow truck trembled. Her hand rested on Mater's side near where the headlight was. He was singing quietly to try and calm himself down.
As they walked and drove into the junkyard, they heard some kind of clinking noise.
"What was that?!" Fudge whimpered.
When she and Mater looked, there appeared to be some kind of evil monster claw in the distance. With Mater caught between. Until Mater shone his headlights in that direction to reveal it to be random pieces of junk and the towing business sign in the distance. They sincerely hoped that what looked like a monster eating or crushing Mater didn't turn out to be an omen.
With Fudge clinging to him, Mater reversed into his shack. If the pair weren't scared enough, Mater was shaking so bad that his headlight popped out and smashed to the ground. They were in darkness.
"What do we do?!" Fudge whimpered.
"Let's jus' go to sleep", Mater suggested, his voice quivering.
Both of them knew that going to sleep was gonna be much easier said than done. Mater closed the door to his shack ("to keep the Ghostlight out!" he and Fudge had insisted). Only for it to immediately be opened again.
"Mater?"
Mater was instantly afraid of whatever it was Fudge was gonna say. "What?"
"The Ghostlight isn't really real... Is it?" The six-year-old's blue eyes were wide in alarm.
"I don't know!" the rusty vehicle admitted. "I ain't ever seen it... but that don't mean it ain't real!"
That was all Fudge needed to hear. The poor girl was in tears. "I wanna go home! I'm not staying here!"
"But you was gonna stay the night!" Mater pointed out.
"I don't care!" Fudge shouted, already beginning to collect all of the belongings that she had brought over. "I wanna go home!"
"C'mon, Fudge!" Mater cried. "You can't leave me all alone with-" He stopped and gasped. A yellow light was heading directly towards them. "Oh, no! It's the Ghostlight!"
Although Mater tried to back away from the light, Fudge had another idea. "I'm going home!" she insisted again. She headed straight for the light.
"Fudge, no!" Mater yelled as she ran off. "Why'd I let her go?! I can't watch!"
The tow truck squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could. He could hear Fudge's footsteps and crying. It was soon followed by a loud scream. Then it was silent. No footsteps. No crying. No nothing.
Mater's eyes shot wide open. "Fudge?! FUDGE!"
Fudge was gone!
"Oh no!" Mater yelped. "The Ghostlight done ate Fudge!"
And it was coming directly towards him.
He reversed to get away from it. "Ghostlight, I respect thee! Return from where ye came!"
However, when it got closer, Mater realised that it wasn't the Ghostlight at all. It was a small bug that flew off.
"Oh, it's just a lightnin' bug!" Mater chuckled in relief. "The Ghostlight ain't yeller, anyhow! Sheriff said the Ghostlight is blue!"
As if on cue, a blue light burst to life right behind Mater at that exact moment. He froze in horror before he finally gathered up the courage to glance in his rearview mirror. He spotted an unnatural blue glow. It looked like... It was...
"THE GHOSTLIGHT!" Mater screamed.
He was out of his junkyard in record time, making so much noise in his hysterical state.
When he was gone, Lightning, Guido and Fudge came out of hiding. No. The Ghostlight hadn't eaten Fudge, of course. This was what had really happened:
"I'm going home!" Fudge had been firm in her decision.
"Fudge, no!" Mater yelled as she ran off. "Why'd I let her go?! I can't watch!"
Still crying, Fudge made her way out of the junkyard. She had learned what the source of the yellow light really was, but in her fear and determination to get home, she forgot to tell Mater. She just ran.
Knowing that the light she'd seen had been a mere lightning bug did nothing to calm her down. She was still worried that the Ghostlight was still out there somewhere. And that it was just a matter of time...
It turned out that Fudge chose a bad moment to turn around to see if the Ghostlight was behind her. She ended up smacking into something cold and metal. And when she glanced up, she saw a blue light coming towards her!
The poor girl screamed. "IT'S THE GHOSTLIGHT!" She cried harder.
"Fudge! Fudge! It's okay!" a familiar voice assured her. "It's me!"
The six-year-old glanced up. "Lightning?"
"Yeah, it's me", he confirmed. He had a blue lantern with him. "I'm sorry, Fudge-O! I didn't mean to scare you!"
"What are you doing with that light?!"
Guido approached the two. "Si!" he called to Lightning. "(It looks good!)"
Fudge jumped into Guido's arms. "Guido!" she cried.
The forklift shushed her soothingly and rocked her, causing her sobs to subside a little bit. "(It is okay!)" he whispered. "(Please don't cry, Fudge! It is okay! The Ghostlight is not real! It is just a joke! We are just going to play a little joke on Mater!)"
"(What joke?)" Fudge wanted to know, hiccupping.
Guido smiled and gave Fudge a playful tap on the nose. "(You will see!)"
So, Fudge hid with Guido and Lightning while they got everything ready. By that point, she had stopped crying. Seeing Guido had calmed her down a little bit, but she wasn't relaxed enough to be giggling over the prank. She was just crouched down silently as she watched the two older male vehicles work, still fearing that the Ghostlight would come and get her.
Despite her fear, she'd burst out laughing when Mater zoomed out of the yard, screaming. Lightning tapped Guido's fork with a tyre in a high-five.
Meanwhile, Mater raced through town, completely oblivious to the fact that it was a lantern attached to his tow hook rather than the Ghostlight.
"The Ghostlight's right behind me!" But that's when he skidded to a halt and swung his tow hook. For a second, it seemed like the joke was over, but instead... "Now it's in front of me!" He drove backwards the same way he came, past Lightning, Guido and Fudge, who were now joined by Sally and Luigi to watch. "It's right on my tail!"
Poor Mater was doing anything to get away from the "Ghostlight". He shot through the tractor field, tipping the tractors over and waking Frank. (Luckily for the tow truck, the combine harvester chose to ignore it.)
Then it didn't take Mater long to reach Willy's Butte. He didn't know how he got there. All he was focusing on was the Ghostlight right behind him. He was racing around the track and even drifting at one point!
"The Ghostlight's gonna eat me like it ate Fudge!" Mater hollered as he raced past the crowd of residents, which had formed to enjoy the show (he was still unaware of them watching).
Although, Ramone wasn't all that interested apparently. "Uh... Let me know how it turns out." And with that, he headed off.
It took an hour for Mater to wear himself out. He was practically dragging himself back to his junkyard.
"Ghostlight's gonna... strip my parts", he mumbled to himself, "and sell 'em on the computer auction website..." That was when he finally caught sight of what was on the end of his tow hook all along. He swung the lantern, so it lined up with his windshield. "Hey! Wait a minute..."
Everyone burst out laughing.
"Gotcha!" Lightning chuckled.
"Shoot, I knowed this was a joke the whole time!" Mater lied. Then he gasped as he noticed someone. "Fudge!" He pounced on her and gave her a big hug. "Yer alive! I thought the Ghostlight done ate you!"
"I'm all right!" the six-year-old assured him.
"You done scared me!" Mater insisted, seemingly changing his story of having known it was a joke all along.
"You see, son", Sheriff piped up, "the only thing to be scared of out here is your imagination."
"Yup", Doc agreed. "That and, of course, the Screamin' Banshee. Well, good night!"
"Good night!" everyone called, hurrying home. Luigi even scooped Fudge up and took her back to town with him.
And just like that, Mater was left all alone in the middle of the road. And in the dark. Even the streetlights went out. The only light was coming from the lantern.
"The Screamin' what?" the tow truck whimpered. Immediately, he began shaking again.
"Luigi?" Fudge murmured quietly once everyone was back in town.
"Yes, Fudge?"
"The Ghostlight isn't really real, is it?" she repeated the question she'd asked Mater.
"No, Fudgie", he assured her softly, giving her a kiss. "It is not real. Don't worry."
"I'm still scared!" she insisted.
"Don't be, okay? It is not real, Fudge.
"Okay..." Fudge agreed uncertainly. "Then... what is that?"
Everyone looked in the direction Fudge was pointing. In the distance, there was an unnatural blue glow heading straight towards them.
"I am sure it is just Mater with the lantern, Fudgie", Luigi assured her soothingly.
But as it got closer, it was clear Mater wasn't holding the light. Nobody was holding the light! There was nobody there!
"IT'S THE GHOSTLIGHT!" Fudge yelped.
Everyone's eyes widened and they all darted into their homes, most of them screaming.
"I'm sleeping with you tonight!" Fudge informed Luigi firmly.
Luigi didn't protest. In fact, he would never, ever admit it, but, after the scare he'd just had, he was secretly glad that his daughter wanted to sleep with him. And Fudge would go on to sleep with him every night for the next six weeks.
Meanwhile, outside, the invisible hitchhiker was confused. Didn't they want their lantern back? He shrugged. Guess the Screaming Banshee was wrong.
What did you guys think? Let me know in the reviews! At one point, I was considering having them prank Fudge as well, but I thought that it would be kind of cruel if they did that to a little girl.
I really wish Pixar would do more Cars shorts like this! Maybe half an hour Halloween and Christmas specials. I mean, they have Halloween and Christmas songs at Cars Land (on YouTube if you wanna check 'em out), so I think it'll be cool if they made videos to go with them. Pixar, if you're reading this, I really think you should consider doing that (and maybe putting Fudge in them!). XD
I have a question for you guys. Which short stories did I have in the original collection that you liked? So, I know which ones I should put back up. There are a couple I'm planning on fixing up, though. I really would appreciate some answers here. Thanks.