Free Public Enemy Number Two by Anthony Horowitz Page B

out two of the five police cars. That still left three and already they were moving up on us. Ma Powers let off a hail of bullets. I heard a windshield shatter but they kept on coming. Two of them surged ahead. One stayed behind to keep the back of the bus covered.
    The road was wider now. The two police cars had edged forward and separated, so there was one on each side, with us sandwiched in the middle.
    “Nick . . .” Tim muttered.
    There wasn’t much traffic about at that time of night, but looking ahead, I saw a truck thundering toward us. But with the two police cars on either side, we were taking up all the road. Somebody would have to give.
    The truck gave. At the last second, with its headlights dazzling us and the blast of its horn deafening us, it swerved away, left the road, and jackknifed into a field. The truck had been carrying eggs. I know because some of them splattered into our windshield. With the horn still blaring, the truck hit a tree stump, somersaulted, and burst into flames. Later I heard that nobody had been killed. But between us we’d cooked up a fifty-thousand-egg omelette.
    We were doing nearly seventy miles an hour by now. Ahead of us, cars were vacating the road as fast as they could—and they didn’t seem to care where they ended up. But they weren’t our problem. We were down at ground level. The two police cars were only inches away, racing alongside us. They had rolled down their windows. Two shotguns were pointing at us, one on each side. Two blasts and Tim and I would have more holes than a colander. We couldn’t slow down, not with the third police car behind us. We were going as fast as we could. We were stuck.
    I stared at the nearest policeman, watched his finger tighten on the trigger. For a moment our eyes met and we were trapped in a blue-and-white nightmare. There was nothing I could do.
    Nothing? At the last second I slammed my hand down on the controls. The bus rose into the air again. Simultaneously, the two shotguns fired. But now we were above them. The bullets passed underneath us. The police car on the left hit the one on the right. The police car on the right shredded the tires of the one on the left. Both cars went careering off in opposite directions.
    Four down. One to go.
    But it seemed that I’d pushed the lever a little too hard. Something had shortcircuited. We were no sooner up at the end of the hydraulic arms than we were on the way down again. And that was how we continued, up and down like some crazy jack-in-the-box.
    “What are ya doing?” Powers called out.
    “It’s broken,” Tim cried.
    That was the understatement of the year. Sparks were flashing all over the control box. There was a smell of burning rubber and a wisp of smoke crawled into the air. Up and down. I could feel my stomach protesting. It was trying to go the other way.
    Then the fifth police car pulled out and began to overtake us. It was the last one left and perhaps the driver thought he could cut us off. Ma Powers opened her handbag, pulled out a spare cartridge, and reloaded the machine gun. Johnny followed her as she staggered forward to get a better aim. The control box was on fire now. The engine was howling at us to stop. The hydraulic arms were creaking and shuddering as they pumped us madly up and down. I reckoned we had only a few minutes left before the whole thing either broke down or blew up.
    Those last few minutes happened very quickly.
    One moment we were up. The next we were at the same level as the police car. It was edging ahead, about to overtake us. Ma Powers raised the machine gun. Then I saw the two passengers in the backseat.
    “No!” I shouted.
    It was Snape and Boyle. I had no idea what they were doing there but it was definitely them. I could even swear that Snape winked at me before Ma Powers opened fire. But I was still shouting when the machine gun drowned me out. I saw the windows of Snape’s car frost over in a thousand cracks. I saw the tires cut