The Outside Groove Read Free

off River and onto Meadow Ridge and shifted into third gear the instant I hit the straightaway.
    Wade took the outside, clinging to my bumper. He drifted in so tightly that I lifted on the gas for a split second to avoid getting rapped.
    It was a trick, an intimidation tactic—and it worked. My “lift,” as Wade and his crew called a quick easing up on the gas, gave my brother the time he needed to pull up even.
    Gripping the wheel and flooring the accelerator, I listened for Hilda to whine up to peak power in third gear then made a quick shift into fourth.
    The Red Snake had automatic transmission, no stick shift, so Wade was all gas pedal, his big American engine roaring at Hilda like the country dogs that sometimes ran out to the roadside to chase me when I jogged by. The only place where I had a chance against the Red Snake’s horsepower was in the swale about one hundred yards ahead. Whenever I pushed Hilda to the outer boundary of what her engine could handle in a particular gear, she never faltered
—performance engineering.
I might get a hiccup out of Wade’s throaty engine on the incline, and that might gain me some ground.
    In the last bit of flat road before the rise, I made my move: quick shift into fifth gear, losing only a nose on Wade. I honked my horn and stayed on it. Wade, startled, instinctively lifted a touch, and I floored the gas at the bottom of the dip and got full power on the rise.
    Just as I expected, Wade’s car needed a second to make the adjustment of the incline, and when I flew over the swale and down the other side, I had him by a car length. It was enough. As we rattled along the rutted mudpack for another hundred yards or so, Wade had to drop behind me as we both slowed to make the arcing right turn up the long, asphalt driveway. He bobbed around in my rearview mirror. I downshifted to third and got ready to shift into second in the turn. I knew I’d squeal my tires around the corner, which would earn a scolding if Mom was home from work and heard it, but I didn’t care.
    I glanced in my rearview mirror one more time.
    Wade was gone.
    And then I saw him again, off to the right. The cheater had driven off the road and across a corner of the front yard. His rear wheels slipped in the damp grass, leaving troughs, but he popped onto the driveway just ahead of me and stole the front spot.
    He was out of his car and spinning his keys on his finger by the time I’d killed Hilda’s engine. Mom’s blue station wagon was in the garage, but she wasn’t looking out the kitchen door like she sometimes did when she could tell we’d raced up to the house.
    â€œYou call that driving?” I said, approaching him.
    He moved away from the car and backpedaled toward the walkway, staying a few steps ahead. “I guess I just really want that pie. ”
    â€œI guess so. That’s some fancy go-cart technique you’ve got there. That going to be your strategy this season?” “Aw, Case, you didn’t think you were going to beat the Red Snake, did you?”
    Stopping in the walkway, I looked into the yard, where Wade’s tracks were filling with ground water. “Red
tractor
is more like it,” I said.
    Down near the end of the walkway, Wade did the taunting, infantile leprechaun dance that I’d longed to capture on video for his fans. Twenty years old, living at home, working for Big Daddy but putting every penny into his cars. Dancing around like a leprechaun.
    â€œGo on,” I said. “Growing boy’s got to have his pie.” Still backing toward the front door, Wade didn’t see a lone patch of ice on the walkway lingering in the shade of the front step. He planted his boot heel right onto it, slipped, and lost his balance. Flailing his arms, he tossed his keys in the air.
    I was just close enough to grab his arm and save him. But I didn’t.
    As he landed in the yard with a delicious squish, I bounded