Chapter Four: Saving Face, Meeting New Ones
"And now, our last competitor." Miles introduced. "Number 95: Lightning McQueen!"
Lightning drove up onto the stage, flashing a headlight and saying his usual "Ka-chow!" He approached Miles and smiled warmly. "Thank you so much for having us, Sir Axlerod. This is a great opportunity." He cast a glance to Harley, standing at the bottom of the ramp to the platform, and the teenager gave him a thumbs-up. Doc taught him that brief speeches should be given eloquently and with modesty, a lesson Harley firmly implanted in Lightning's head.
"Oh, the pleasure is all ours, Lightning." Miles complimented. "You and your team bring excellence and professionalism to this competition."
A sudden scream rang out, bringing the proceedings to a grinding halt. Harley turned and gasped at the sight of Mater tearing through the crowd, his tongue hanging out as he screamed in pain. He even shot straight up to the platform and to the waterfall behind Lightning and Miles, sticking his tongue underneath the running water. He seemed to calm down considerably after that, but Harley became forced to slap her hands over her mouth to hide her laughter. At the sight of Lightning looking downright mortified, she cleared her throat and stood up tall. Oh Mater's really gonna hear it from him after this. She thought, a small smile on her face.
Lightning wished the ground would just swallow him whole. "Sir Axlerod, I can explain. This is Mater. He's…"
"No, I know him." Miles assured, still looking surprised but smiling broadly. "This is the bloke that called in to the television show. I must thank you for convincing McQueen to enter."
"No, thank you." Mater said graciously. "This trip's been amazin'."
Miles' eyes widened a bit and his face fell at the sight of something wet and inky black suddenly appearing on the floor. "He's a little excited, isn't he?"
"Uh oh." Harley winced a bit.
"Mater!" Lightning scolded.
Mater stumbled a bit over his words. "Oh, shoot."
"Mater." Lightning jerked his hood to one side, gesturing to Mater to follow him down to the bottom of the platform ramp. He glared at the tow truck and whispered in a stern voice. "Mater, you're making a scene!"
"But I never leak oil." Mater protested.
"Yeah, relax." Harley said soothingly. "It was kind of funny."
"It was not!" Lightning hissed, still glaring at Mater. "Go clean yourself up right now!" Mater looked down shamefully as he drove off in a hurry. Lightning caught sight of the look on Miles' face, and he grinned sheepishly.
"Okay, just calm down." Harley said calmly to the stock car. "You're only making a bigger scene by yellin' at him."
"I wasn't yelling." Lightning protested.
"You kinda were."
"Harley—"
"Wait a minute, aren't you Harley Hudson?" Miles suddenly piped up, looking excited again. "The daughter of the Hudson Hornet! Why don't you come up and talk for a bit?"
Harley ducked her head shyly. "Oh, I don't think—"
"No, Harley, please go up there." Lightning practically begged in a quiet voice. "It'll be good for the team's image and it'll help everyone forget about what happened. You're good at that. Please, Harley, please!"
Harley giggled. "Okay, okay! I'll do it."
"Great! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Miss Harley Hudson!" Miles said into the microphone, eliciting cheers from the crowd as Harley rolled up beside the Rover. "Welcome, Miss Hudson. It is such an honor to have The Fabulous Hudson Hornet's legacy with us for this event."
"Well it's an honor to be here." Harley said. "It's given me quite an amazing opportunity to travel the world. And learn a bit of Japanese, although my language skills are a bit rusted. Can't wait to get to Italy; much better with that language."
"Speaking of rusted, that tow truck must make traveling interesting, huh?" Miles chuckled, causing laughter from many of the patrons.
Harley kept her warm smile to hide her disdain at that last comment. "Yeah, that's Mater for ya. But you know, everyone makes mistakes now and then and might look a bit silly. But nobody's perfect; embarrassing things happen to everyone." Harley made a small move closer to Miles when her skate suddenly hit a patch of oil still on the ground. She yelped as she slipped and hit the ground, much to the amusement of everyone at the party. Lightning groaned, frowning at the sound of Francesco's chuckles. But he blinked in surprise when Harley started laughing. "See? Even the daughter of the Hudson Hornet can't be smooth all the time."
"Are you quite all right?" Miles chuckled.
"Yep." In a swift movement, Harley managed to twist and push herself back to her feet. "My father always taught me that when you fall down, the only other way to go is up again."
"A wonderful philosophy to live by." Miles nodded, and several of the patrons clapped or honked their horns.
Lightning perked up, sighing in relief. Thank you, Harley.
"You must've learned quite a bit from your father." Miles guessed. "I mean, you're the youngest crew chief in all of the world, in all of racing history. How does that feel?"
Harley sighed softly. "Wonderful. I never imagined my life would lead to having a position like this. But really, I can only thank my father for that. He's the one who taught me about being a crew chief, about everything related to racing. There are times when I wonder if I'm really living up to the legacy of The Fabulous Hudson Hornet. But every time Lightning wins a race, every time we come home with a new trophy or leave with a new skill learned, I know I must be doing somethin' right. I know that if he could be here, he would. I'd even dare to say I think I'm making him awfully proud." She turned out to the audience before her. "Win or lose in these races, I know the entire team of Lightning McQueen will show the world that we know what we're doin'. And I thank you, Sir Miles Axlerod, for giving us this opportunity to show what we can do." She gave a small bow to the Rover, one he returned as the audience clapped and cheered for the girl. Harley rolled down the ramp, feeling heat rising in her cheeks and glad she left her jacket at the hotel. Something wet on her hand caught her attention, and she discovered some of Mater's oil on her palm. But as she sniffed the liquid and rubbed it between her fingers, she realized it wasn't anything like Mater's oil. Harley glanced a little back towards Miles, but shrugged and pulled a cloth from her pocket to wipe the oil off.
"Oh Harley, thank you!" Lightning cried happily as he approached the brunette. "Thank you thank you thank you so much! I owe you big time. Whatever you want, you got it."
Harley laughed. "It's okay, Lightning. We'll just call it part of my job. But tomorrow I'm giving you a personal checkup before the race."
"What? Why?" Lightning whined. Doc always insisted on doing Lightning's health checks himself and then taught Harley how; but no matter who did it, Lightning always hated them.
"Because I want to make sure you're not the one leaking oil." Harley explained.
"What?" Lightning gaped. "You gotta be kidding me."
"Lightning, I just fell in some of that oil. It's not Mater's." Harley reasoned. "I know because I've had to help Doc with working on Mater's oil lines before. If there's something wrong with one of your parts, I want to make sure we have time to fix it before the race."
Lightning sighed. Hard to argue with that. Harley was so much like her father, and one of the ways it showed was through her attentiveness to the health and safety of her family, especially Lightning. "Fine. But there is no way I'm the one that was leaking."
"Whatever you say." Harley rolled her eyes, laughing.
"You okay?" Lightning asked. "You looked like you took quite the hard fall."
"I'm fine." Harley nodded. "I'm just glad I didn't have my wrench or paintball gun in my pocket."
"I still can't believe you packed that paintball gun." Lightning rolled his eyes.
"Hey, if some guy tries to mug me in an alleyway, I want them to think I'm armed and dangerous." Harley shrugged.
"You're always armed and dangerous just for carrying a wrench around." Lightning laughed. "And when are you going to end up in an alleyway anyway?"
"You never know." Harley shrugged. "Now what are you doing hangin' around a teenage girl? Go have fun, talk to the other racers. I'm going to find Mater and make sure he doesn't get into any more trouble."
"You're the best, Harley." Lightning said gratefully. "See ya around!" Harley waved as she skated off, trying to figure out where Mater could've disappeared to.
Harley thought for sure it would be easy to spot a rusted tow truck amongst the party goers, but it turned out to be easier said than done. She managed to get directions to the bathroom and discovered a set of doors. Checking her Japanese-English dictionary, she opened the door on the right and peered inside. Only a small hallway, with the stalls around the corner no doubt. She heard squealing tires and a loud POP that sounded suspiciously like a gunshot. Then it sounded like someone crashed into a wall. But Harley hesitated in the doorway. No way would she risk going inside the men's room and getting caught. Besides, she could just be hearing a drunk person running into the wall.
"Hey Mater?" Harley called. "You doin' okay in there?"
Rod, Grem, and Acer froze in the middle of their fight, waiting with baited breath. Rod had a split-second idea to call out for help, but that idea was immediately squashed out. Dragging a civilian into a spy matter was suicidal, dangerous, and utterly stupid. It couldn't be done unless absolutely necessary, and he could handle this.
"Mater?" Harley called again. "You in there?" Unfortunately, Mater was too busy struggling with the toilet controls to hear her. Harley shrugged and skated away from the door.
The minute the door shut, the fight started up again.
Harley decided to try the second floor, looking all around for her surrogate brother. "Oh Mater. Marco Mater." She called softly. She began muttering under her breath as she skated, not exactly looking where she was going. "Okay, this is where you say 'Polo Harley' because I'm tryin' to find you. How in the heck do you lose sight of tow truck any—oof!" Harley grunted in pain as she hit a car and face planted right onto the vehicle's hood. She groaned in pain, briefly feeling something like a static shock. She readjusted her glasses and glanced down to the silvery-blue metal of the car she still leaned against. Harley looked over and her crystal blue eyes locked onto the aqua green eyes of the Aston Martin she ran into. The teen straightened quickly. "Oh! Sorry about that. Uh, I mean, gomenasai."
"Iie, daijoubu desu." Finn said smoothly, keeping a calm demeanor in front of the human brunette.
"Um….." Harley held up a finger in a "one moment" gesture before pulling out her dictionary. She flipped through it a bit. "Um…tow truck….o mimasu…..ka?"
Despite her broken Japanese, Finn could understand. He shook his hood, replying, "Iie. Mimasendeshita."
"Dang it." Harley groaned. "Well, arigatō."
"Jya ne." Finn nodded as Harley skated off.
The brunette made a "hm" sound as she rolled away. "British Aston Martin. Nice models." She mused.
What an interesting young girl. Finn thought.
"You've got to be joking." Holley said over the radio.
"What's the problem, Shiftwell?" Finn asked.
"He's in the loo!"
"So go in!"
"I can't just go into the men's loo!"
"Time is of the essence, Shiftwell!" Finn urged.
"All right." Holley said reluctantly.
"Yeesh, could you be any more of a priss?" Emily huffed.
"Miss Largo!" Finn scolded. "Just keep a lookout."
"Yes, yes, I got it." Emily said dismissively.
Finn rolled his eyes. I don't know how much more of that woman I can take.
Harley caught sight of Lightning, Luigi, Guido, Sarge, and Fillmore near the doors, ready to leave to return to the hotel. "Hey guys! Have you seen Mater?"
"We thought he was with you." Lightning said. "Weren't you going to find him?"
"Yeah, but I've looked all over the place and haven't seen him." Harley said. "I'm getting a little worried about—" Harley paused when she noticed Mater finally rolling up to them. "Oh. There he is."
"There you are. Where have you been?" Lightning asked, confused at the look on Mater's face.
"What's a 'rendezvous'?" Mater asked, a slightly dreamy tone coming to his voice.
"Er…it's like a date." Luigi explained.
"A date?" Mater asked, shocked at first but quickly growing excited.
"Mater, what's going on?" Lightning asked, chuckling a bit. It was clear he wasn't too angry anymore about what happened earlier.
"Well what's goin' on is I got me a date tomorrow." Mater said proudly.
"Non ci credo." Guido said, crossing his forks.
"Guido don't believe you." Luigi translated with a similar deadpan look as his forklift friend.
"Well believe it." Mater said. "My new girlfriend jus' said so. Hey, there she is. Hey! Hey, lady!" Everyone followed Mater's gaze to a sleek purple Jaguar across the room. "See ye tomorrah!"
"Non ci credo." Guido repeated.
"Guido still don't believe you." Luigi translated.
"Dang, Mater." Harley laughed. "You got game."
A/N: Japanese translations:
Gomenasai – sorry
Iie, daijoubu desu – No, it's all right
Tow truck o mimasu ka – Did you see a tow truck?
Iie. Mimasendeshita – No. I did not see.
Jya ne – see you later; bye