Driven to Win

Chapter 27- Old School Training

Chapter 27- Old School Training

The following morning, just as the sun was rising over Thomasville, Fudge was still asleep in her motel room, dreaming that she was living in a floating city, surrounded by flying cars. They would flap their wings and honk their horns at her. However, she began to feel uneasy when she got the feeling that someone was watching her. Quickly, she snapped her eyes open to find Herman in front of her, honking and flapping his wings. She yelped in surprise and fell out of bed. Still, Herman didn't back off.

"Help, help!" the human girl yelled.

Thankfully, London came rushing in at that moment. She wasn't dressed yet either.

"Herman! At least let our guest wake up before you say hello!" London laughed, scooping the goose up and smiling at Fudge apologetically. "Sorry about that. Herman can be a little suspicious of strangers. He just cares about Thomasville and its people, that's all. Give it a couple more days and he'll realise you're a friend."

"That's okay. Geese just freak me out", Fudge explained as London helped her to her feet. "They always have."

Herman appeared to give Fudge the evil eye as if he understood what she just said.

"Oh, my God!" Fudge exclaimed. "He looks like he's staring into my soul!"

"Are you all right?" London wondered, muffling a laugh.

"Yeah, but I can't believe I miss the reveille and Jimi Hendrix!"

The older human laughed. She'd been to Radiator Springs before and so, she knew what Fudge was talking about.

"What's he doing here?" the teenager wondered.

"He just peruses the town", London explained. "Thomasville is a place where you can keep your doors open at night, so he occasionally shows up in people's homes."

"I could've been killed, I hope you know", Fudge informed her.

"Oh, no!" London protested. "Herman is just precious! He wouldn't kill anyone, would you, Herman? But if it bothers you that much, I'll make sure to keep the door locked tonight." She petted the goose before giving Fudge a dark green mechanic jumpsuit with the Smokey's Best Dang Garage in Town logo on the front pocket. "Well, Smokey wanted me to give you this and to make sure everyone's ready. We got a busy day ahead of us."

When they met up with Lightning, they could see that he was more determined than before to get to work. Although Thomasville didn't exactly have the latest technology, there was still a TV, so the fact that Jackson Storm had clocked two hundred and fourteen miles an hour on the track failed to escape Lightning's attention.

"Okay. Maybe I'm not gonna be faster than Storm like Smokey said", he informed anybody who was listening, "but I still need to get smarter than him."

"All right", Smokey began, "we got one thing we need to before we get started."

"What?" Lightning asked. While he highly doubted that would be Smokey's training method, he immediately had flashbacks to naps and being suspended on seesaw-like contraptions.

"Actually..." Smokey looked past the 95 racer and was looking at a certain yellow car. "It's not you. It's her."

Cruz was surprised. "Me?"

"I got somethin' in mind for you", Smokey informed her.

It took the combined efforts of Luigi, Guido and Fudge (in her green Smokey's Garage jumpsuits) to get Cruz ready, but everyone was happy with the end result. She'd been outfitted with a new spoiler and racing tyres in exchange for having her muffler removed. In addition, she had the word STORM duct taped to her rear bumper and the number 2.0 duct taped to each of her sides.