Chapter Eleven: Goodnight

Wow. That was aaaaawkward! Why did I go and do that? AND WHY AM I STILL BLUSHING?! To say the least, Sally had a lot on her mind. She sat in her office for the next part of the day, too nervous to go out in case Lightning was out there. Then finally, around sunset, she decided to go find him and ask him if he was going to stay at the Cozy Cone or not. She drove out to find him, but he was no where around. Sally went to Flo's and noticed that Sheriff was there, but Lightning wasn't.

"Sheriff, where's Lightning?"

"Oh, Mater is watching the prisoner tonight."

"Hmph," Flo said, "the prisoner has a name, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Sheriff replied, annoyed.

"Well, do you know where they went?" Sally questioned.

"With Mater, who knows!" Flo said. "Why do you want to know?" she asked, suspicious.

"Oh, I just wanted to know if he was going to stay at the Cozy Cone or not." And with that she left, before Flo could question her anymore.

For what felt like hours, Sally waited. She flipped through magazines, and got so caught up with things, she almost forgot about Mater and Lightning being gone. Almost.

While she flipped through a magazine, she saw the light from headlights shine through her windows.

"Huh!" she gasped, "Customers!" She quickly drove over to the lightswitch to turn on her sign. First she got it on, but it said 'No Vacancy' ("Ooooh!"), then the entire sign went out ("Ugh!"), then just the 'no' came on ("urgh!"). Finally, she got the sign on the right way. She prepared herself to greet customers, but then heard a familiar voice.

"Tommorow we can go out and look for the ghost light!"

"I can't wait Mater," came a sarcastic reply.

Sally chuckled to herself and drove back into her office. But she made sure to be close enough to the window to hear the conversation. Sally, you shouldn't be doing this, that little voice in her head pestered. Why are you so curious anyway? Sally decided to ignore the little voice and listen anyway.

"You gotta admit, that was fu-un!" Mater said.

"Oh yeah, yeah."

"Well we better get you back to the impound lot."

"Actually, Sally's gonna let me stay at the motel," Lightning said awkwardly.

"Oh, getting cozy at the cone, is we?" Mater teased.

"Oh, what? No! Are you kidding me? Besides she can't stand me. And I'm not too fond of her to be honest."

Sally's heart dropped like a stone. Why should you care? It's like he said. You can't stand him anyway. Right?

"Yeah, you're prolly right" Mater said. Then with a sly grin, Mater said "Hey look there's Miss Sally!"

Lightning spun around quickly and said excitedly, "Wha…where?!" He then realized what he did and his face sunk into a grim look while Mater laughed.

"You're in love with Miss Sally."

What?

"No I'm not."

"Yes."

"No way."

"Way."

"Oh, come on."

"You're in love with Miss Sally, you're in love with Miss Sally." Mater taunted while driving backwards facing Lightning.

Huh?

"Oh yeah, that's funny Mater. Yeah real mature." Lightning said, clearly embarrassed.

No way…

"You love her, you love her, you love her, love her…"

Love? Wait, LOVE?!

"Wait…wait…Mater….Mater…enough! Will you stop that?" Lightning asked.

"Stop what?" Mater asked.

"That driving backwards stuff, it's creeping me out. You're gonna wreck or something."

Mater stopped dead in his tracks. "Wreck? Shoot, I'm the world's best backwards driver! You just watch this right here lover boy." And with that, Mater took off driving backwards and dodging the motel cones and various other things. Sally watched, amused, as Mater drove by her office and as Lightning yelled.

"Whoa, take it easy Mater!"

Mater didn't even hear him. He dodged trees and other things and jumped so high his shadow was in the center of the moon. By now Lightning was more laughing than worrying.

"He's nuts!"

"Ain't no need to watch where I'm going," Mater said as he came full speed at McQueen and then flipped around and skidded to a halt just in front of him. "Just need to know where I've been."

"Whoa! That was incredible! How did you do that?" McQueen asked.

"Rear-view mirrors," Mater explained. "We'll get you some and I'll teach you if you want."

"Yeah," Lightning said, amused, "maybe I could use that in my big race."

"What's so special about this race of yours anyway?" Mater asked. Sally strained extra hard to hear what was said to this. What was so important about this race he needed to get to?

Lightning stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face Mater.

"It's not just a race. We're talking about the Piston Cup. I've been dreaming about it my whole life! I'll be the first rookie ever to win it. And when I do, we're talking big new sponsor with private helicopters, no more medicated bumper ointment, no more rusty old cars…"

"What's wrong with rusty old cars?" Mater asked, sounding hurt.

Lightning turned to face him again. "I don't mean you, Mater, I mean other old cars, not like you, I like you."

"Ah, its ok buddy" Mater said. Brightening up, he said "Hey you think maybe one day I could get a ride in one of them fancy hel-i-copters? I mean I've always wanted to ride in one of those fancy hel-i-copters!"

"Oh, yeah sure," Lightning said coolly.

"You mean it?"

"Oh yeah, anything you say."

"I knew it. I knowed I made a good choice!"

"In what?" Lightning asked.

Mater replied "My best friend."

Sally saw Lightning smile, and again began to wonder about him. Is he really sincere, or is he just putting it on until he leaves?

Mater's voice snapped Sally out of her thoughts. "See you tomorrow, buddy! McQueen and Sally parked beneath a tree. K-I-S-somethin-somethin-somethin-T!"

Sally couldn't help but laugh, and it sounded like Lightning did, too. Then he went into reverse and drove backwards toward the cones.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Haha. Number one…Number one…ahhh, number one."

Sally drove up to cone number one, where Lightning was looking at one of the decorations.

"Hey Stickers?" At the sudden sound of her voice, Lightning jumped into the air and spun around, which also caused Sally to jump and scream.

"Whoa!"

"Ahhh! Oh, I'm sorry, I was just…"

"I didn't see you there! You gotta be careful…"

"I scared you scaring me scaring you!"

"Well I wasn't like scared, scared, I was just…"

"No, of course not," Sally said. "It's just I overheard you talking to Mater."

All of a sudden, he looked very uncomfortable. "When? Just…just now? What…what did…what did you hear?"

Sally decided to lie. "Oh, just something about a helicopter ride."

Lightning looked immediately relieved. "Oh yeah, he got a kick out of that, didn't he?"

"Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"That you'll get him a ride?" Sally questioned.

"Oh, who knows. I mean first things first I gotta get out of here and make the race."

"Uh-huh. You know…Mater trusts you."

Lightning looked uncomfortable again. "Yeah, okay." he said, backing into his cone.

"Did you mean that?" Sally asked.

"What?"

"Was it just a yeah ok, or a yeahhh ok, or a yeah, ok?"

"Look I'm exhausted," he said, "It's kinda been a long day."

"Yeah. Okay. Night." Just as she was driving away she heard his voice again.

"Hey. Thank you."

What? Did he just say…? Sally hit the brakes and turned around to face him.

"What did you just say?"

For the third time that night, Lightning looked a little embarrassed. "I mean thanks for letting me stay here," he said, rubbing his tire on the ground. "It's nice to be out of the impound, and this is…it's great." Then he smiled. "Newly refurbished, right?"

Did he just give me a compliment? A real compliment? Maybe he's not so bad after all.

"Yeah." she replied, amazed.

"Night" he said, still smiling. Oh, that smile!

"Good-night." she answered back. Sally then turned around and headed back to her office, while the door on cone number one closed.