Ride

Chapter 6- The Call

"Ah, yes!" Luigi repeated, still laughing. "He came back to town with only one headlight and when Doc asked him about it, he came up with that crazy story!"

The tow truck shook his hood completely seriously. "It's a true story! It really happened! It did!" he added at the many sceptical faces around him. "I swear! I done flew so high in the air, I could see all the way to Crankshaft County!"

The utter ridiculousness of this statement got everyone laughing even more.

"Mater, where do you come up with these stories, man?" Ramone wondered.

"Same place he came up with the stories about seein' a UFO and bein' a rock star and a private eye!" Sheriff teased, naming just a few of Mater's many tall tales.

Nobody could stop laughing.

At that moment, Sally's phone rang. She smiled as she was quick to answer it. "Hey, Stickers! What's up?" A second later, her smile vanished. Her voice sounded surprised, confused, very concerned and even a little scared as she asked, "Hey... sweetie? What's wrong?"

All chatter and laughter stopped and Flo paused in her task of serving the others as everyone tried to hear what was going on. Immediately, they all became concerned as well.

"Uh-oh..." Sarge murmured.

"Oh, no!" Flo gasped softly.

"Oh, no! What happened?" Sally questioned. "Oh, no... Oh, no!... Oh, my God!" Her voice sank to a whisper as she dared to ask, "How bad is it?" As Lightning talked, Sally's eyes filled with tears and she got choked up. "Oh, God! Oh, God... Oh, God... This is just unbelievable! I... I... And they won't tell you anything?"

By then, Flo's was dead silent. The only sound being the gentle rainfall as the storm came in, but hadn't gotten too bad yet. All of the patrons were listening to Sally's end of the conversation fearfully, knowing that something was very wrong. What could Lightning possibly be telling Sally? Whatever it was, they knew it was serious.

"Oh, Stickers, no! No! Listen to me! This is not your fault!" the Porsche insisted and her friends could tell she was trying to stay calm. "These things happen. I know it's sad, but they do. It's not your fault... Look, we're gonna come down there. Where are you?... Okay... Okay... I'll tell the others what's happened and we'll be there as soon as we can, okay?... I will... Okay... Okay. We'll see you soon... Thanks for telling me... Love you too... Bye."

Sally hung up and expected everyone to pounce on her, demanding to know what was going on. Yet nobody did. They all just stared at her anxiously, watching as tears poured down her hood, knowing that this did not look good.

"Sally?" Sheriff ventured after a couple of seconds. He, like the others, didn't want to know, but they all felt that they had to.

Sally took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She just couldn't look at Luigi and Guido as she announced just above a whisper, "It's Fudge..." She trailed off, sobbing.

Everyone froze. They had all assumed that something had been wrong with McQueen, or maybe even Francesco; after all, they were racing together. Something could've happened on the track to make Lightning feel guilty. Yet, not a single one of them had anticipated that the "something very wrong" would be with Fudge, especially not Luigi and Guido. The two Italians' eyes widened as their faces took on wounded looks. Immediately, worst case scenarios entered their brains. Was their daughter okay? What had happened to her?

"Fudge?" Sarge broke the silence. "Is she okay?"

"Do... Do you remember the other day when Lightning took Fudge for a couple of laps by Willy's Butte and she fell off his roof?" the Porsche quizzed the others. "And... and Luigi said he was worried because the next time, she might not be so lucky?"