Teen Angst? Naaah ... Read Online Free

vroomed
backward
, smashing into the stadium wall. It was quickly sandwiched by a Pontiac. The Beavismobile’s driver jumped through his windshield—the glass had been removed “to prevent injury”—and yelled at his car as it burst into flames. The blaze licked the stadium wall, obscuring other cars, spreading a stench of burnt-rubber smoke.
    Derby clowns—like rodeo clowns, except with hoses—ran out and extinguished the fire. Everyone cheered. In another corner, two cars were going at it like mechanical elk: backing up, smashing into each other, backing up again. Each confrontation produced a metallic groan and thick black fumes. Six-year-old Nora was going through her environmental phase. She stood on her seat and yelled, “This is pollution!”
    The crowd around us told her to sit the hell down. The mothers in back of us shot especially fiery looks.
    Mom had had enough. “Jim,” she said. “This is not an appropriate place for children.” She grabbed Nora’s hand and left the stands. Dad said we’d see her when the derby was over.
    By now it was clear: the two best cars were “Dickhead” and “Bonehead.” Bonehead was a big old black station wagon, covered with decals of skulls and crossbones. He was a brute; he smashed smaller cars easily. Dickhead—that’s what it said right on the side in huge brown letters—was a gray two-door with oversized wheels. The driver was wily; he didn’t do much smashing, but he avoided hits and outlasted his competitors. Dickhead and Bonehead seemed to have a pact that they wouldn’t clash until all the other cars were out.
    There was so much to watch. Number Forty-one lost all its tires and was driving on hubs. Number Twenty-two leaked so much oil that it couldn’t move—no traction. * Suddenly the announcer called, “Halftime!” The still-mobile cars were driven to a pit-stop area, where the drivers got out and daintily stretched. Nonmoving cars were towed away to become scrap-metal cubes in a Pennsylvania junkyard.
    Halftime began. Two derby clowns, dressed as firemen, drove into the stadium in a little red firetruck. They circled the racetrack, tooting a shrill horn and drenching each other with a hose. For a really big laugh, they stuck the hose between their legs and pretended to pee on the crowd. The patrons were not amused. They yelled, “What the hell is this?
Sesame Street
?” and threw empty food containers. The clowns flipped them off and continued their act.
    As the clowns did their thing, I muttered something to Dad about how AC/DC * would have made a much better halftime act. This attracted the immediate attention of one of the mothers behind us.
    â€œAC/DC! I love them!”
    â€œYeah?” I said, turning around. “So do I. I have all the CDs with Bon—”
    â€œHighway to hell!” she began singing, rather well actually, bouncing her toddler on her knee. ** “Highway to
hell!
I love that song! Highway to hell! That’s my favorite!”
    â€œYou know what would be really cool?” Daniel chimed in. I smiled. My little brother looked like a smaller version of me, and he tended to come up with warped ideas like me as well. “It would be really coolif AC/DC was playing on little harnesses, like, flying over the derby as the cars crashed into each other.”
    â€œWow,” one of the mothers said. The other one was still bouncing her child and singing. “That is a really,
really
cool idea.”
    â€œNot exactly,” I said, challenging my brother. “How are you going to suspend the drummer over a demolition derby?”
    â€œThey could suspend the drums, too!”
    â€œOr they could use electronic drums.” This from my dad.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be the same,” the singing mother said. “Highway to hell! Dun, dun! It would be a lot better than these clowns, y’know?”
    The second