School ended for the summer just before Noon on Friday. Chuck drove Will and Telzey home where they had lunch, then out to the track, where they hopped on the mowers for a head start on the weekend.

They didn’t get finished with the weekly job before it was time to get everything loaded up for their Friday night race. This week they’d decided to forego their usual weekend haunts for the sake of seeing some new countryside, so they wound up going to Mannheim Speedway, a paved quarter mile just north of the state line near South Bend. For whatever reason, the Pony Stocks were called “Hornets” there, and were reserved for drivers under twenty-one, which took away the more experienced adults they occasionally had to race against at other tracks. Will and Telzey both did well, with Will winning the feature and Telzey taking third.

After they hauled home late that night, they got up the next morning and finished the mowing. Building on her experience from the previous week, Telzey took off for a while in the afternoon for a decent lunch and a more decent nap. It must have helped, because she finished second behind d’Lamater in the 17 car, with Will finishing fourth. Susan came to the track with them, and spent most of her time in the Kaufmann pits or on their hauler watching the races.

On Sunday it was time for Moonshine Valley again. Unfortunately for Jack – and most of the other men on the premises – it was overcast, cool, and calm, so Susan had to make do with some short shorts and a crop top instead of her red-flag thong bikini, but it didn’t keep her from hanging around Jack a lot. This weekend it was Telzey’s turn to drive the 4 car in the six-cylinder class, so just to be fair she let Chuck drive her 24 car, which kept her out of the Pony Stocks for once. It seemed strange to her to see someone else driving her little Dodge that seemed to have become a part of her.

Being that it was her first dirt racing in a rear-wheel-drive car, she didn’t do as well as she’d hoped. It took a while to get the hang of racing side by side with another car while both were going sideways through the corners, and no little intestinal fortitude. By the end of the day she was doing better with it, and looked forward to the next time she’d get to drive it.

What with their tight weekend schedule and not having to go to school, the weekly trash pickup at the track slid to Monday morning. As always, it was a slow and grubby chore, but one thing made it especially worth the effort: Michigan’s ten-cent deposit on soda cans. Since they were as close to both the Indiana and Ohio state lines as they were, there tended to be a lot of discarded cans that couldn’t be redeemed for cash, but there were always plenty of Michigan cans, and Ray let them keep the proceeds. Their racing purses went toward expenses, and if something was left over, to their savings, but the can money made for welcome pocket change. Telzey never came out with less than ten bucks on the deal, and a couple times she came out over thirty dollars to the good.

After they ate lunch at Telzey’s house, the two of them settled down on the couch in the living room to watch the videotape of the NASCAR race from the day before. Telzey had recorded it off the air while they’d been out at Moonshine Valley. It made for an efficient way to watch the races since they could fast forward through all the commercials, most of which they’d already seen innumerable times over the course of the season. The only problem with that idea is that they had to be awake to run the remote, and they couldn’t always manage that. The race was surprisingly dull for a Dover race, a Ryan Newman benefit; Will was asleep and Telzey was nodding off when she heard a knock at the door. Reluctantly, she got up to answer it – the idea of dozing seemed quite appealing right then.

The caller turned out to be Kayla. “I wondered if you were home,” her slender classmate said. “I’ve got something for you.”

Telzey explained that they’d just been watching the race from the day before and falling asleep in the process, and asked what Kayla had in her hand behind her back. “Oh, this,” Kayla grinned, showing Telzey a purple toy pony with a long yellow mane.

“Oh, wow!” Telzey smiled. “It’s Buttercup! I had a Buttercup My Little Pony when I was little. I don’t know what happened to it; either it’s boxed up someplace or it got thrown out when we moved.”

“That’s a shame,” Kayla grinned. “Buttercup is special, after all.”

“Yeah, but when you move as much as we have we don’t keep old toys. Where did you get it?”

“Mom and I were out cruising the garage sales Saturday. I saw this on a table and remembered how many times you’ve talked about your little pony, and I decided you needed a My Little Pony for it.”

“A My Little Pony for my little Pony,” Telzey grinned. “Maybe I’ll tie him to the roll cage so he can ride with me as a good luck charm.”

“That’s just exactly what I was thinking,” Kayla smiled.

*   *   *

Ashley Hitchcock wasn’t sure that she was going to be able to confront Matt d’Lamater on this trip, but if the opportunity arose she was going to be ready for it.

It had been hard to get d’Lamater alone to be able to work on him. She really didn’t know much about him, and only last weekend at the track at Bradford had she been able to confirm that he was from Paddington. That came from the track announcer while he’d been out on the track and was something she’d been unable to find out otherwise. It would have been a lot simpler if that fat pig of a girlfriend of his didn’t hang on to him like a leech. She’d come to the conclusion that she was going to have to catch up with him away from the track so the girlfriend might be somewhere else. If she got him alone, she figured it wasn’t going to take her lots of work to get him where she wanted him.

It would have been a lot simpler if her father had just been reasonable. She knew that he hadn’t sold her car – it was sitting in the bank’s foreclosure garage across town, but she had no way of getting to it, and that was that. So a simple trip fifty miles to Paddington was a lot more complicated than it had been when she had her own car.

A lot of the time she could get her mother’s car for a simple trip across town, or one that could be stretched to Hawthorne, but Paddington was farther away, and she figured that she was going to be a while. So she had to resort to lying and evasive tactics to be gone for the day, and had to borrow a car from one of her cheerleader friends to make the trip. She’d have to be back by the time the girl was off work, but that really shouldn’t be a big deal if she managed to gain a little ground on her problem.

Although she now knew that d’Lamater lived in Paddington, she wasn’t sure where – his phone number was unlisted and a quick internet search hadn’t turned up much more information. It had taken her a surprisingly long time to realize that the names of a number of sponsors were on his car, and that one of them might have more information. If she could catch the right person she might be able to zero in on him.

She drove around town for a while, trying to figure out where to try first. His major sponsor was a junk yard a couple miles outside of town, but the grizzled fat woman with the hairs on her face behind the counter just said, “I know who you mean, but I ain’t got no idea where he lives. I just know George cut him a deal on a junk car a while back.”

Taking a deep breath of fresh air once she was outside, Ashley decided she was going to try to not ever go into another junk yard office. The smell hadn’t been very good and the woman had smelled worse. There had to be a better way.

She checked her list, trying to figure out where to stop next – avoiding any place as grubby as a junk yard again if she could. One of the minor sponsors on Matt’s car was “Paddington Pizza,” and as luck had it, the place was right on Main Street as she drove back through town. It appeared to be open, so she decided that was the next place to try.

By now it was after lunch, and the place was dead. There was a chubby girl with blonde hair in a pony tail and narrow little glasses behind the counter, not real good looking, but Ashley decided she could be nice to her. “I’m looking for Matt d’Lamater,” she said. “I know he lives around here and he drives a race car. Do you have any idea where I could find him?”

“Sure,” the girl said. “He works at Hosmer Chevrolet over in Bucklin, so he’d probably be there now.”

Bucklin was a good thirty miles away – not impossible but Ashley was just a touch tight on time. Besides, she probably would have trouble getting to him when he was on the job. “He lives around here, doesn’t he?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, down on the end of Grove Street,” the girl said. “You can’t miss it, it’s the place with all the race cars out in the yard.”

Bingo, Ashley thought. Finally, an honest-to-Pete lead. “All right,” she said sweetly. “And thanks. I don’t have the time to drive over to Bucklin right now, so I guess I’ll have to catch him another time. Thanks for your time.”

“Sure thing, any time,” the girl smiled.

Ashley checked her watch as she got back in her friend’s car. Although she didn’t have time to drive to Bucklin, she had plenty of time to get back to Bradford. She figured she might as well drive down to the end of Grove Street so she wouldn’t have to hunt around the next time she could make it up here.

*   *   *

An hour or so later, Larissa Zoisite walked into Paddington Pizza to start her evening shift. She’d be working till they closed at ten tonight, and that could be irritating – it kept her away from Matt, and who knew what that blonde home wrecker could be doing while she was working. But she had to work some odd hours to keep Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday clear so she could go racing, and that was that. “Hi, Candy,” she said to the girl mopping the floor behind the counter. “Been busy?”

“Just dead slow,” Candy complained. “The only thing that happened all afternoon was some girl came in asking about Matt.”

Larissa’s stomach sank to somewhere around her knees. “This girl,” she asked cautiously, “Long blonde hair, skirt up to about the crack of her butt, no boobs to speak of?”

“Yeah,” Candy replied. “No bra, either. You could see it. I mean, you could really see it.”

Larissa thought some words that are normally banned on family hour television but managed to not say them out loud. It wasn’t bad enough that the bitch was on Matt in the pits at Bradford like stink on manure, now she knew where he lived. That could only mean trouble. “Oh, crud,” is what she said, bearing in mind that Candy was a minister’s daughter.

“Was I supposed to not say anything?” Candy asked.

“No, that’s all right,” Larissa said somberly. “If it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else.”

*   *   *

When Telzey got home after spending much of the day hanging around the Holtz pool with Kayla and her friend, she found Susan there, just getting ready to go out. “Keeping Jack occupied again tonight?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Susan reported. “He really is a pretty neat guy and I like his folks. I’ve pretty well made up my mind that I’m going to apply for a transfer to Western, and see where it goes.”

“Well, good,” Telzey smiled. “Maybe I’ll see a little more of you, then. Or, maybe not, you’ll probably be spending all your time with him. You pretty well are doing that anyway.”

“You should complain,” Susan teased. “After all, you’re the one that got me hooked on hanging out with a racer.”

“I can’t think of many nicer racers that you could be hanging out with,” Telzey grinned. “Except Will, and you can’t have him.”

“So I’m a little surprised that you weren’t with him today,” Susan teased again. “What did you do today, anyway?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Telzey replied. “Will had to go do something for his grandparents, so I just decided to go swimming with some friends.”

*   *   *

The next few days were pretty quiet for Telzey. Kayla had to help her mother with the papers on Wednesday, so Telzey just hung around the house, spending a little time on the internet and writing a long e-mail to her parents, wondering yet again if they’d be home soon. That evening, she and Will went out to the shop and cleaned up the cars, spending some time with a can of polish and making minor adjustments.

Mel had some more yard work for Will on Thursday, and Telzey was glad to give it a pass because it didn’t sound like fun. The day promised to be boring, but then Kayla called and invited her over to spend some time in the pool. It was easy to agree and Rachel was there, so the girls spent much of the day splashing and working on their tans. Casey and JJ were there part of the time, and Telzey didn’t think much about it.

She, Will, Ray, and Chuck hauled the four cars up to M-50 raceway that evening. Ray did exceptionally well, winning the Modified class. Chuck ran third in the Sportsmen. She and Will both got top-five finishes in both the heats and the feature, so they didn’t have much to complain about. Jack won a heat, but had a tire go down in the feature and finished off the lead lap.

Not surprisingly, Susan was there, and with Jack in the pits all evening – as far as they knew she never came over to see Telzey and the Austins at all during the races. Telzey noticed, though, that Susan had taken to giving Jack a good luck kiss when he got in the car, and she suspected that things were even more serious than that.

Saturday night they were back at Bradford. Once again, Matt d’Lamater won the feature. Telzey, a little to her surprise, was a distant second, with Jack third and Will fourth. Chuck put the 15 into the winner’s circle in both his Sportsman heat and the feature, which made him feel like he’d finally gotten a handle on the fast but sometimes tricky car.

Will and Telzey didn’t notice, but Chuck had his eye on d’Lamater’s pit all evening. What with everything, he was much more aware of the tension there than the others, and he noticed that Larissa was paying close attention to Matt, even though Ashley was more or less permanently in view. Things seemed stable there, although their usual strange selves, but Chuck thought he saw that Larissa was much more snappy than normal, and didn’t run well at all. It didn’t take much to see that she was feeling some pressure from the tall blonde and she didn’t much like it. He wished there were something he could do to ease things up for her, but couldn’t think of anything.

Chuck was a little surprised when Matt and Larissa gave Moonshine Valley a pass on Sunday. There was no word about why, but he suspected the two needed a day off together. He hoped that the two would be able to keep it together in spite of the pressure from Ashley, because they were a good couple in a lot of ways. Ashley, though . . . there wasn’t much he could do about her. He still wondered what her interest in Matt was; it didn’t make any sense to him.

It was hot at Moonshine Valley on Sunday, and Susan wore her red bikini again. This time, though, she was “invited” to stay away from the flagman, Chuck this week, so the view didn’t affect the Pony Stock race much. Jack took advantage of the lack of distractions, and won everything the four-cylinders raced going away, although Will did well in the 4 car.

*   *   *

Matt and Larissa had indeed taken the day off, but not quite for the reason that Chuck suspected. Basically, she was so mad at the world in general and Ashley in particular that she was just about to break her head. If she had to use Matt’s head to break it with, so much the better.

Chuck had been busy winning the Sportsman feature at the end of the previous evening, while Larissa and Matt were busy loading their cars for the trip back to Paddington. Larissa had been keeping an eagle eye on Ashley – and thus on Matt – all evening. It was wearing on her, and she was starting to wonder if the hassle had been worth it, because Matt really wasn’t doing much to discourage the blonde. During the Sportsman race she finally couldn’t hold out any longer and had to visit the ladies room. When she came back to the pit stall, what should she find but Ashley all over Matt. There was no real touching going on, but it was close and from what she could see, was going to get closer any instant unless she stepped in. She couldn’t leave them alone a minute without something happening!

Ashley was probably lucky that Larissa didn’t have a heavy object like a wrench in her hand. As it was, a sucker punch from behind knocked her to the ground and Larisssa got in a couple kicks before Matt dragged her off the downed woman. “You stay away from my man!” she snarled in a scream as Matt kept her from hitting the blonde even more.

“You fat bitch,” Ashley snarled as she picked herself up. “Let’s just see whose man he is. Let her go, Matt, we’ll settle this right now. Nobody sucker punches me.”

“Nobody steals my man behind my back,” Larissa snarled. “Matt let me go, I want to kick her ass.”

Cooler heads prevailed, as they say; a couple nearby racers grabbed Ashley and separated the two women. Joe Wolsley was one of them, and he’d raced with Matt enough in the past to know that he and Larissa had had a thing going for a long time. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he yelled at a raging Ashley, “but you get your ass out of here or I’ll call security and have your ass thrown out.”

“She hit me first,” Ashley protested loudly. “Nobody sucker punches me. Why not have them thrown out?”

“I think we better get the hell out of here,” Matt wisely interjected. It still took a couple other people to get Larissa in the cab of the pickup, with Ashley still hurling insults behind them.

To say that the atmosphere in Matt’s pickup on the way back to Paddington was tense vastly understates what really went on. Larissa was bouncing around from frosty to furious, while Matt was mostly trying to figure out what had caused this upset. In his own mind, he’d kind of liked having that Ashley chick hanging around the last few weeks. She was a stone fox, no doubt about that. He had gotten a great deal of enjoyment watching the panty shots she threw him, and being on the receiving end of such attention from a babe like her. As far as he could tell, it was all innocent and casual, almost joking; he couldn’t see what Larissa was so furious about.

He could, however, see that he’d better try to keep his mouth shut about that opinion or he was going to be in more trouble than he already was.

About halfway back to Paddington, Larissa came to the conclusion that it was time to lay down the law: “We’re not going back to Bradford again,” she said. “As long as she’s there I’m not going to have her sniffing around you.”

“Aw, Honey,” Matt protested. “I don’t think it means much of nothin’. Besides, I’m leading the points there, I can’t just walk away.”

That was most definitely not the right thing to say, not that anything would have been the right thing to say just then. Larissa just about had steam blowing out of her ears by the time they got back to Paddington. Just before he dropped her off, though, he had an inspiration: “Honey,” he suggested, “what do you say we skip Moonshine Valley tomorrow and head up to Kay-zoo, and catch a movie or somethin’? Go someplace and have a good dinner, and we can talk this over and see what we can work out.” And if that doesn’t work, he thought to himself, I guess I’m mostly out of luck.

“Let’s not go to Kalamazoo,” she said. “Pick me up in the morning, we’ll go out to Tillie’s or something and talk it over. But I’ll warn you, Matt, you’re getting close to a decision between her and me, and you better make sure you make the right choice.”

“Aw, Honey, I don’t think it’s that serious.”

“Just let her stick those nonexistent tits of hers in your face one more time and you’ll find out just how serious I am. I’ll warn you Matt, I’m just about as serious as a heart attack.”

Matt was a nice guy and walked her to the door, although he could see that she was still upset, and didn’t offer him a goodnight kiss like usual. He was shaking his head as he walked back to the truck; he still couldn’t see that he’d done much of anything wrong, but it sure looked like a good deal was going down the rathole unless he did something. He wasn’t to the point of having a lock on the points championship yet, by a long way, but he was increasing his lead. That didn’t come easily, and was important if he hoped to get out of the little cars and get to something bigger next year; he couldn’t do it without having it on his record. But was it worth losing Larissa? That’s what it came down to.

How the heck did he get into a mess like this, anyway?