The Grand Prix-asco

The weeks rolled on. The last three courses of the Infernal Series were already over. No one from the CIB had said anything about my father. I couldn't understand it. Minx said they would call me.

"I hope he didn't get away," I said one day. Suddenly, the phone rang. I ran to it and screamed, "Hello!?"

"Trixie Shimura?" asked the strange English accent.

"Minx!" I declared. "Have you found my father!?"

"We presented him with a search warrant, and we've found enough evidence to convict both him and Jack Rival," she said.

"Really!?" I asked in disbelief. It was all too good to be true!

"Unfortunately…" she continued.

"'Unfortunately' what?" inquired I. Of course. If it feels too good to be true, it has to be. Story of my life!

"Unfortunately, they seem to have vanished," she replied. I sighed, defeated, "No way."

"Trixie, we've been working day and night on this," she said. "We will catch them."

"By then it will be too late," I said, fighting back tears. "Too late."

And I hung up.

"TRIX-IEEEE!!!" yelled Speed. He was apparently at the bottom of the staircase, but I could hear him anyway. That was how loud he was. The voice was followed by trotting steps and louder shouts as he got closer to my room, "TRIX-IEEEE!!!" He burst inside and handed me an envelope.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Open it!" he laughed. I broke the sticker seal on the back and slipped the piece out. It was an invitation to compete in the 92nd annual Grand Prix. My eyes widened as I read it. I wondered aloud, "I'm in? I'm in the Grand Prix!?"

"You're in!" he screamed. "We're in!!!" He picked me up, put me over his shoulder, and twirled me around.

"You can put me down right now, because I'm not going," I said.

He dropped me. As I pushed myself back to my feet he asked, "What? You're going to decline!?"

"Yep," I nodded.

"Why?"

"It's all just gotten so complicated," I mumbled. I turned away from him and wiped a stray tear from my face. "So needlessly complicated."

"Trixie, this kind of opportunity doesn't come around all the time!" he reasoned. "You're really going to give it up?"

I turned back to him and asked again, "What would you do if I won it all?"

"The Prix?"

"Yes, Speed," I said. "What would you do if, by some miracle of God, I won the Grand Prix?" In response, he came over to me, put his hands on my shoulders, smiled, and said, "Well, I'd be the happiest loser in the WRL."

Staring into his bright green eyes, I smiled. "Okay, okay, I'll go."

"Oh, Trix!" he cried, throwing his arms around me. "This is gonna be great!" I patted his back and, knowing he couldn't see me, frowned.

"Promise me you'll be careful," I whispered into his hair.

"Naturally," he responded. He squeezed me tighter, let me go, and started running around the house, screaming with joy. I flopped on my bed and sat there. At least he was happy. I couldn't lose this horrible feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

"You're just nervous," said Speed as we got dressed in the locker room. Being that both the males and females had the same locker room, Speed felt the need to stand in front of me while I was getting dressed. He was holding his Racer Motors work shirt around me like I was a bull and he was a matador.

"Whose bright idea was it to make a co-ed locker room?" asked he.

"I don't recall hearing you complaining about this last year," I commented.

"Well, uh, that's because … I didn't even notice there were women in the locker room last year," he lied. "I was so, um, absorbed … in the moment. And so all about you."

I shook my head. Did he honestly believe I fell for that?

Suddenly, he threw his shirt over me and yelled, "Turn your peepers elsewhere!" Never mind that I was fully dressed by this time. My phone started ringing, and I dug my head out from the blue material to find it in my purse. "Hello?"

"Trixie, we've found him!" said Inspector Detector.

"Who is it?" asked Speed.

"It's Inspector Detector," I said, covering the bottom half of the phone. I lifted my hand and asked, "You found my father?"

"Yes," he assured me. "And he will be taken into custody."

"Where was he?"

"In the blocks," he replied.

"The blocks? Here?!" I asked.

"It's fine," said the Inspector. "We seem to have caught him before he could do any damage."

"It's over?" I asked. I repeated it, answering my own question, "It's over."

"I wish the best of luck to you and Speed," he said. I closed the phone and hugged Speed, "They got him!"

"That's great, Trix!" he declared.

Then my phone rang again. We broke apart, staring at it with expressions of equal shock on our faces. I picked it up again, unsure of who it might be this time, "Hello?"

"I'd be happy if you visited me, Patricia," said my father's voice. "You come see me whenever your boyfriend happens to cross that finish line." He laughed a demonic chuckle and hung up.

"Trixie …?"

I grabbed his hand and pulled him aside. He glanced, bewildered, from the phone to me, "What's up? Who was that? Are you okay?"

"Speed, don't go out there," I said. "My father is trying to kill you …"

"Somebody seems to try to kill me whenever I do anything," he shrugged.

"That's it?" I asked. "That's all you're going to say!?" He brushed a piece of hair behind my ear, "I promise everything will be fine. Okay?" He walked back over to the lockers to put on his helmet.

"I guess I have to be," I sighed.

When Speed competed in the Grand Prix last year on the Cosmopolis, I couldn't figure out what was more beautiful, the scenery or the track. It was the moment that I started to wonder if it was time for another member of the house to get in on the action.

I stared around as we rolled our cars out of the blocks. The neon lights were even prettier than my dream had made them out to be. Advertisements and world flags spotted the scenery. There were also giant hippo balloons. I couldn't remember seeing those last year, and I'm not sure what they were for, but they were pretty funny.

"Last year's Prix winner, Speed Racer, has returned this year," said the commentator. "And with him is the Pink Queen, Trixie Shimura. The favor for these two of winning is spilt nearly down the middle. Let's see how it plays out."

The family was sitting in the stands smiling and waving. Chim-Chim was clapping.

Please don't let it all go wrong, I prayed. We slipped into our cockpits and prepared for the countdown.

"10…" the female voice began.

Why ten? I'd never encountered a countdown that started at ten before. It felt like hours.

"3…" she finally came to.

Even the butterflies in my stomach were vomiting.

"2…"

I hit the accelerator and noticed my teeth chattering.

"1!"

The word 'GO!' illuminated in the air. All forty cars took off. A crowd of ten put us in the middle. I glanced at Speed. He nodded. Together we accelerated out of the pack. Speed veered right, I went left. The ten cars crashed into each other.

"Only thirty more to worry about," I snorted to myself. Then I remembered who one of that thirty was.

"I mean twenty-nine," I revised my statement. S. Storm, one of those twenty-nine, came at me. She was a pretty blonde woman with a tight white suit and a white and green car called the Nukeshot. I had heard of her, but this was our first encounter

"There's only room for one beautiful girl on this track!" she yelled.

"How weird," I said. "I was just thinking the same thing." I Jump Attacked her. She bounced off in a Kwiksave bubble. Her car was left with a huge dent for the cockpit.

"Heh, heh," I chortled.

Suddenly, another car rammed me from behind. I was sent off a ramp, twisting and rolling. It was almost uncontrollable! The car flipped through the air again and again as I tried to get it back it its right position for landing.

As I continued to flip, I saw, just for a glance, the Mach 6 take off the ramp. The Royalton GRX seemed to be wrestling it. But I had no chance to see the end; the TRX-1 landed on the other side of the ramp, the sound of crushing metal obvious as I hit the track. I continued to drive. A voice came over the PA.

"Speed Racer is OUT!"

"What?" whispered I. The crowd was gasping in shock. I glanced in my rearview mirror. The Mach 6 was upside down, laying on the very end of the landing strip. Speed was lying on the track, knocked out, his white jacket open, and his helmet on the other side of the track. Where were the Kwiksaves?!

"In the blocks." Inspector Detector had told me he'd found my father in the blocks … with the cars!

I stared at Speed, pinned under his car. The words echoed in my head: "Speed Racer is OUT! Speed Racer is OUT!!" They got fainter and fainter, but didn't vanish.

I stopped. Right in the middle of the track, I stopped. My hand instinctively moved to the gear to pull myself into reverse. Then my own voice blasted through my head, "GET YOUR HAND OFF THAT GEAR!!"

I moved my hand.

"He'd want you to finish!" I chastised myself. "He'd want you to win! Forget Racer X! This is your time. Don't let them take it away from you. Finish … for you and for Speed."

"Right," I chanted to myself, nodding. I looked at my boost bar. It was full. I suppose it was from all that flipping and rolling I did. I pressed the boost button and went into the Zone.

"I'm coming for you, Cannonball."