Free Suzy P and the Trouble with Three by Karen Saunders Page B

we’re going. Why don’t I go in front, because I’ll probably be a bit slower than you, and we don’t want to lose each other?”
    “Sure,” says Clare, shrugging. “Whatever you want to do. Who’s coming with us? Suzy? Isabella?”
    Isabella takes one look at the caravan, registers Dad’s apprehensive look, and her sense of survival clearly kicks in. “We’ll come with you,” she says.
    “Do you want the front or the back seat?” I offer, kindly.
    “I’ll go in the front,” Isabella says, hopping into the MPV’s passenger seat.
    “Okay, I’ll get in the back with you, Mills,” I say.
    Clare peers into the car. “I’m really sorry, but I’d forgotten I dumped all our stuff in the back. We’ve not got much boot space because of Murphy. I’m not sure there’s going to be enough room for both of you…”
    “Couldn’t we rearrange it a bit?” I ask. “Your car’s massive. I’m sure if we jiggle some things around I’ll fit.”
    “Suzy, get in, we need to leave,” Dad bellows, revving the engine.
    “I’ll see you when we get there,” Millie says. “Sorry, Suze.”
    Despondently, I trudge over and get into the car with the rest of my family. I’m squished in the middle between Mum and Harry.
    “Ugh. It’s raining,” Harry says as we wave goodbye to Mark, Jamie and Danny.
    Dad drives off nervously, the caravan snaking dangerously behind us.
    Something tells me this is going to be one long journey.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    “Are you ever going to go at more than twenty miles per hour, Dad?” Harry asks, peering at the speedometer.
    “Shhh,” Dad says, straining to see out of the windscreen. The rain is lashing down, like someone’s chucking a bucket of water at the car over and over again.
    “Harry, don’t be so distracting,” Mum says. “Can’t you see Dad’s concentrating?”
    “But it’s going to be dark by the time we get there,” Harry says. “And I’m bored. I’ve been sitting in this car so long the blood’s stopped flowing into my bum.”
    For once, Harry is right. This journey is taking forever. Six hours and counting. We were supposed to be there for lunch. It’s now approaching teatime.
    Turns out, towing a caravan is not Dad’s forte. After we set off, every time we picked up speed the caravan juddered and shook, making Dad turn all kinds of pale, so he immediately slowed down again. When we gotonto the motorway, things got even worse. He stayed in the slow lane, but lorries kept overtaking us and every time they did, the caravan weaved and wobbled worryingly, shaking the entire car, and causing Dad to curse violently. I had to put my hands over Harry’s ears for a whole minute at one point. Mum had her hands over mine.
    Dad’s so shaken we’ve had to stop at every other service station on the way for a cup of tea and a soothing biscuit, and so that Mum can issue words of encouragement to keep him going. Any service station he didn’t feel the need to stop at, Amber did, because she needs to pee all of the flipping time. And now we’re off the motorway, somewhere in mid-Wales, on the tiniest, windiest roads I’ve ever seen, and any minute now I think Dad’s going to start hyperventilating.
    As if all that wasn’t bad enough, I suspect we’re lost. Amber’s a terrible map-reader and Dad’s sense of direction abandoned him somewhere off the M5.
    Not that he’ll admit it, of course. No way.
    “Keep that rat on your side,” I say to Harry as she lifts a box up to examine Hagrid.
    Several hours into the journey, we discovered Harry had snuck Hagrid into the car under her jumper, but has no cage or anything for him. The rat’s currently residingin a Tupperware box with one corner of the lid left open so he can breathe.
    “Do you think he’s all right?” Harry says anxiously.
    “He’s stuck in a plastic box, what do you think?” Mum says. “Honestly, Harry, I don’t know what you were doing, bringing him along. We told you not to. Mark said he was