Frank Cottrell Boyce - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time

Most cars are just cars. Four wheels. An engine. Some seats. They take you to work or to school. Then they bring you home again. The Tooting family car was not one of these. The Tooting family car was different. The Tooting family car was a beautiful, green, perfectly restored 1921 Paragon Panther, the only one ever built. Her wheels flashed in the sunshine. Her long, majestic bonnet gleamed. Her seats were as soft as silk, and the instruments on her walnut dashboard sparkled like summer. The glossy ebony handle of her Chronojuster glowed invitingly. Most cars dont have a Chronojuster. Its a special handle that allows you to drive backward and forward in time. Thats how special Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is time travel is fitted as standard.

If an ordinary car breaks down, it might end up in a lay-by with steam coming out of the engine. When the Tooting family car broke down, it ended up in an ancient steaming jungle being eyed by a hungry dinosaur.

Dinosaur! yelled Little Harry. He seemed to think that the rest of his family might not have noticed the gigantic head swaying over the treetops, drooling spit, and bellowing its hunger.

Dinosaur! yelled Little Harry again.

None of them had ever seen such a creature before. No living being has ever seen such a creature. But all of them even Little Harry knew what it was.

Tyrannosaurus rex.

Hang on, everyone, yelled Dad. Jem, watch the back. Were going to reverse.

Dad pushed hard on the accelerator and yanked the gears around. Black smoke billowed from the exhaust. Sludge splattered into the air. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang moved. Six inches. Down into the mud.

Then her engine stopped.

Why has the engine stopped? asked Mum.

Its just stalled, said Dad.

No one said a word. They were all thinking the same thing. To start the engine, someone would have to get out of the car and turn the crank handle.

If we just sit tight, maybe it wont see us and well be safe.

Or maybe it will see the car and think, Oh, tinned Tootings! muttered Mum.

Or maybe it will crush us underfoot, said Lucy, burying us in mud so that over the years we turn into fossils, and in millions of years, we will be one of the great mysteries of science a family of humans that somehow managed to get themselves fossilized in the age of dinosaurs. Well be the Great Tooting Conundrum. Except they wont know our name was Tooting.

The head loomed closer. It was so vast that Jem felt like he was staring at something through a microscope. He could see the bits of mud and twigs caught in the folds of its pebbly skin; the stains of blood on its white dagger teeth. Its tongue was as rough as a gravel path. Its nostrils were a pair of wet, grungy bin lids; its eye, a tiny, twitchy rivet.

Maybe it wont see us, thought Jem.

But just as he thought that, those bin-lid nostrils twitched. They closed up. They opened again. The tyrannosaur had sniffed, and its sniff was so powerful that every leaf and branch rattled and Lucys hair went flying round her head. It was sniffing for food. It had definitely sniffed out the Tootings.

Fascinating, said Lucy. For years now, there has been a debate about whether Tyrannosaurus rex was a true predator able to move fast and catch and kill its prey or whether it was just a very big scavenger, eating only animals that were already dead.

Why is that interesting? said Jem.

Because if it is a scavenger, it will leave us alone; but if it is a predator, it will kill us.

Actually, that is quite interesting.

There was a sound like the sound that a house might make if someone picked it up and dropped it from a great height. It was the creatures foot, landing a few yards in front of them. Its curved, cruel claws dug into the earth as it steadied itself. Its toes stretched like leathery bridges. Its leg was a tower of meat. Under the skin, chains of muscle shifted like the gears of a terrible machine.

On balance, said Lucy, Im going to say predator.

Everyone leaped out of the car and into the undergrowth.

No one looked up.

No one looked back.

No one stopped running. Until they were all standing, breathless, inside what felt like a big green bus shelter. It was a single giant leaf, bent toward the ground by a raindrop the size of a melon. Jem found himself staring at the changing patterns on its surface. He could hear his father and mother discussing what to do, but for some reason he couldnt tear his attention away from those patterns.

We need to get far away from that tyrannosaur as quickly as possible, said Dad. Not a sentence hed ever expected to have to say.

But what if theres another tyrannosaur round the corner? said Mum. What if theres a HERD of them?

Opinion is divided, said Lucy, but its definitely possible that they moved in herds.

Suddenly Jem realized what the fascinating pattern on the surface of the raindrop was. Little Harry! he gasped. For the pattern was the reflection of Little Harrys bottom as he crawled back into danger.

Dinosaur! giggled Little Harry correctly as he toddled through the undergrowth.

Without pausing to think, Jem ran after him. Surely he would catch him in no time. But it was amazing how quickly his little brother could move on his hands and knees. Unlike Jem, Little Harry did not have to push leaves and branches out of the way or clamber over roots and stones. He just kept shuffling forward, singing, Dino-saur. Dino-saur... until he crawled out into the sunlight where the huge, savage, drooling creature was now examining the bonnet of the car with its nose.

Dinosaur! yelled Little Harry, and waved at it merrily.

The dinosaur turned its mighty head toward him as Jem burst through the undergrowth and swept his little brother into his arms. He was about to turn and run back to safety when something stopped him. The eye. That tiny, dark eye was staring straight at Jem. The tyrannosaur was looking at Jem, and Jem could not look away. Not even when that wide mouth opened, not even when that fence of cutlass teeth flashed in the sun, not even when that giant foot unhooked itself from the ground and swung into the air.

Then there came a terrible noise, an earsplitting, tree-shaking noise, a noise that made Jem jump, a noise that went... Ga gooo ga!

Ga gooo ga? thought Jem. Thats not a very dinosaury noise.

Ga gooo ga!

That sounds like...

Ga gooo ga!

It was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sounding her unbelievably loud original 1921 motor Klaxon.

Ga gooo ga!

There was only one thing that the tyrannosaur wanted to know about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: namely, could you eat her? She put her mighty foot down and turned to look at the Thing That Went Ga Gooo Ga.

The standard Tyrannosaurus Test for Whether You Can Eat a Thing or Not is: Does it try to run away? If it doesnt try to run away, its probably not fresh. The Thing That Went Ga Gooo Ga didnt try to run away. On the other hand, it didnt smell off. It smelled sort of interesting. This tyrannosaur was not a fussy eater. Interesting was nearly as good as fresh in her book. Another standard Tyrannosaurus Test for Whether You Can Eat a Thing or Not is: Does it beg for mercy? Does it scream, Please, dont eat me! or Run, children, run!? The Thing That Went Ga Gooo Ga hadnt said a word until now, but here it was saying, Ga gooo ga! This did not sound like a plea for mercy. It sounded more like a warning or even but this was impossible a