Free Spellbound Falls [5] For the Love of Magic by Janet Chapman

tootle around in the resort carts all the time.”
    “But those aren’t automobiles.”
    “Same concept, just different applications.” Peg pushed a straw into a juice box and handed it to her son in the backseat, then faced forward and fastened her seat belt. “They all have a throttle, a brake, and a steering wheel. Well, except
water
is the brake on a boat.” She reached over and turned the key to start the engine, making Rana scramble to fasten her own seat belt. “You have to press on the brake to put the truck in gear, which you do by using this lever,” Peg continued, touching the lever jutting from the right side of the steering column. “Pull it toward you and down while watching the letters below those larger dials, and you’ll see the light move from
P
for park,
R
for reverse,
N
for neutral, and
D
for drive. You can ignore the numbers because this is an
automatic
transmission,” she said with a cheeky grin, “meaning the truck knows which gear it should use. Okay, go ahead and put it—no, wait. Before we start, get a feel for the gas pedal by pressing down on it a few times.”
    Rana leaned to the side to see her feet. “Which pedal is the gas?”
    “Oh, sorry. The tall one on the right is the throttle and the wide one is the brake, just like on the resort carts. The setup is almost always the same on anything with an engine—gas on the right, brake on the left.”
    Rana pressed on the right pedal, only to yank her foot away when the engine roared loud enough to shake the truck.
    “Gently,” Peg said with a laugh. “A truck is a lot more powerful than a resort cart. Just think of it as squeezing a horse’s sides when you want to move forward. Pressing hard is like kicking it into a gallop.”
    Rana pressed softly on the gas pedal. “If we’re not moving, why is that needle moving?” she asked, pointing at one of the larger dials, which resort carts did
not
have. “See, it drops back when I take my foot away.”
    “That’s the tachometer. It tells you how fast the engine is turning over. You don’t need to pay attention to it today, but you will in your pickup. It’ll help you decide when to shift to a higher gear. The only dial you should keep an eye on is the one beside it. That’s the speedometer.”
    “Then why does your truck have a tachometer?”
    “It’s a guy thing,” Peg said with a dismissive shrug. “Okay. Press your right foot on the brake, pull the lever down until the
D
lights up, then transfer your foot to the gas.”
    Rana frowned through the bottom of the wheel at the pedals. “I have two feet, so why wouldn’t I use one on each pedal?” She looked over at Peg. “That’s how it works on a snowmobile, only with my hands.”
    Peg shook her head. “You’re going to need your left foot to work the clutch in your pickup, so you might as well start training your right foot to work two pedals.”
    Rana pressed down the brake with a deep sigh. “This is far more complicated than I was expecting. There are so many dials to watch, how does one pay attention to the road? And all the buttons! The resort carts have a key and a light switch.” She gave Peg a sheepish smile. “I thought it would be relatively simple, since I’ve seen your daughters driving with Duncan on the tote roads, and they’re only twelve and ten.”
    “That’s a safety thing,” Peg said. “Out here we teach our kids to drive as soon as they can see over the steering wheel, because they could be our only means of getting help in an emergency. Don’t worry, driving will become second nature just like your smartphone did. That took you what . . . all of two days to learn? So okay,” she said, rubbing her hands together, “let’s go see if we can find some grange ladies to run over.” Her smile turned sinister. “Extra points if you take out their ringleader.”
    Rana stilled with her hand on the shifting lever. “You can’t mean for me to drive on the main road for my very first