Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car by Fleming Ian

Author:Fleming, Ian [Fleming, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Classics, Childrens, Adventure, Young Adult, Humour
ISBN: 9780763666842
Goodreads: 17472060
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Published: 1964-10-22T08:00:00+00:00

“Now we’ll just have to push against his knees, so don’t be worried by his feet dragging across the car,” and he started the engine and moved slowly forward.

Well, as you can imagine, it wasn’t very pleasant pushing against the dangling skeleton, feeling its feet scraping over the bonnet of the car and up over the windscreen and flopping down almost into Mimsie’s lap and then over the front seat and scraping between Jeremy and Jemima. But they squashed up against the sides of the seats to avoid being touched by the bony toes, and with a last rattle on the boot, they had left the skeleton behind. Only the silly Jeremy and Jemima would look back, and I must admit that they both gave quite a gasp to see the back of the skeleton swaying to and fro and all lit up by the red tail-lights of CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG! Then it really did look at its very spookiest, and they quickly swivelled round and gazed firmly ahead.

Now there was no more sand and pebbles on the floor but just beaten-down earth, and there was quite a slope upwards as the cave wound on and on, but you can imagine that the whole family was absolutely agog to discover where the cave led to and what they were going to see round each bend.

Suddenly Commander Pott seemed to listen carefully, and again he stopped the car and switched off the engine. And now they could all hear what he had heard — a frightening, eerie moaning that rose and fell and rose and fell and sent shivers down the spine.

“What’s that?” they all asked, trying to keep their voices calm.

Commander Pott leant forward and undipped the spotlight beside the windscreen. It was one of the useful spotlights you can use at night as inspection lights and to read high-up road-signs. He shone the light carefully up and along the roof of the cave until the beam came to a sort of contraption strung with shiny copper wires that was fixed into the chalk.

Commander Pott laughed. “That’s an old trick,” he said cheerfully. “Someone really does want to scare people away from the cave. That’s a musical instrument called an Aeolian harp. It’s much the same as an ordinary harp, only the strings or wires are much thinner, so that even this small breeze blowing along them can make the strings sound this sort of moaning noise. It can get really spooky when the breeze varies and blows hard and soft in turns. I’ve seen them used before this — in ruined castles in Germany, to give the tourists a fright. Well, it hasn’t given these tourists a fright, has it?”

And the others all said, “Oh, no. Rather not,” a bit doubtfully, and Commander Pott started up the engine and on they went again, hoping that that was the end of the nasty surprises and wondering all the more who it was who was trying to guard the secret of the cave

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