Desert Disaster Read Online Free Page B

low hum of the airship’s hyperdrive engines which he was used to, but the roar of petrol motors coming from the centre of the ship. With a burst of excitement, Jimmy remembered about the race. As he swung down from his bunk, he noticed Grandpa had already left the cabin they shared. Jimmy threw his clothes on and went down to the workshop to see what was happening.
    As he walked through the doors, he was hit by a wall of noise. Teams of mechanics, engineers and technicians were shouting and stamping their feet as groups of Robot Races’ officials swarmed all over the machines with spanners and screwdrivers.
    “Morning, Jimmy,” said Grandpa.
    Jimmy went over to Cabbie’s side to join him.
    “Morning. What’s going on?”
    “They’re taking out the navigation systems,” Grandpa explained, handing Jimmy a cup of tea and a jam sandwich.
    Jimmy looked over to the other side of the workshop where Horace was beside his robot, Zoom. He was in full tantrum mode.
    “You won’t get away with this! If you so much as scratch that robot I’ll report you!” Horace complained.
    A team of five technicians were around, inside, underneath and behind Zoom, fiddling with hardware. Every so often, they would extract a gadget from the robot and toss it in a heap outside the car.
    Zoom didn’t take kindly to this interference, and revved his engine menacingly. “ Error! ” he bleeped at them. “Unauthorized hardware removal!”
    “Looks like we might be a while here,” said Joshua Johnson, peering more closely at the masses of electronic equipment on Zoom’s dashboard. He left the technicians to it and walked across to Jimmy.
    “Our turn,” said Grandpa cheerfully.
    “Good morning, Mr Roberts,” said Joshua. “I’ll need to remove any navigation systems from Cabbie.”
    “Be my guest!” said Cabbie.
    A white-coated man came across and sat in the driver’s seat. Jimmy recognized him as Cyril, the same technician who had installed Cabbie’s Cabcom. He looked around Cabbie for a second, frowned, then aimed his electric screwdriver at the one piece of gadgetry on the dashboard. He turned it on and it buzzed for a moment.
    “Woo-hoo!” giggled Cabbie as his Cabcom was rewired and his radar screen went blank. “That tickles!”
    Cyril stepped out and dropped a small microchip into Joshua’s hand. With a curt nod he moved on to the next robot. The whole process had taken less than ten seconds.
    Joshua peered into his hand at the tiny circuit Cyril had removed and frowned, unimpressed. “Hmm. I thought that would take longer,” he said. He shrugged and smiled at them. “Oh well. Good luck for the race!”
    Grandpa took his automatic tea-maker out of his toolkit and dispensed some thick brown liquid into his mug. “It should be an interesting one,” he mused.
    “I’ll say!” chipped in Cabbie. “With Zoom and the others stripped of their navigation gadgets, we’ve got a level playing field!”
    “Are you feeling lucky, Cabbie?” said Jimmy. “This could be our best race so far!” He patted Cabbie on the bonnet excitedly.
    “Just you be careful, you two!” said Grandpa, sitting down and stirring his tea with a spanner. “I don’t trust Leadpipe as far as I can throw him.”
    “Don’t worry, Wilfred! I’ll take care of Jimmy!” said Cabbie.
    “And I’ll take care of Cabbie,” Jimmy grinned.
    Grandpa smiled, but he still looked concerned. “OK,” he said finally. “Now let me show you something new I added.” He leaped over to Cabbie’s dashboard.
    “I want to show him! I want to show him!” said Cabbie like a little child.
    “All right! Keep your roof on! Take it away.”
    Cabbie revved his engine excitedly. “Wilf’s been hard at work. He was up all last night making me ready for the sandy terrain. Just look at this!”
    There was a beep from inside the cab, and Cabbie’s bodywork started to whir and creak. Two sets of caterpillar tracks quickly wrapped themselves round Cabbie’s tyres,