14At last! An SP fic to call my own...
Which, I guess, isn't technically mine because Derek Landy and copyright and, er, okay... Let me know what you think of it? I'm always willing to improve.
"Today's the day, my dear," declared Skulduggery as they left his house.
Valkyrie shrugged on her jacket, frowning, "the day for what?"
"It's time you learned to drive."
"Really?! Finally! Where are the keys?"
"In the car," he said, head tilting towards the driveway.
Her smile was wiped clean off her face. "What is that?"
"A car."
Skulduggery climbed into the passenger's seat, but Valkyrie just stared. "This," she said, "is not a car."
A shrug. "It's an operable vehicle with all the necessary requirements for learning how to drive." He gestured, "steering. Four wheels. Gas. Pedal. Key." He held up his hand jingling said item. "Questions?"
"Where's the Bentley?"
"I'm not letting you drive the Bentley."
"But this doesn't even have windows!"
"It has a windshield."
"It also has an ice cream cone on the roof."
"Most ice cream trucks do."
She scowled. "I'm not driving this."
"Do you want to learn to drive or not?"
Her scowled deepened, but she climbed into the driver's side and snatched the keys from him. "Where did you get this, anyway?" She asked, placing the keys in the ignition.
"I borrowed it."
The car started up. She took a deep breath and smiled. "Alright, I guess this won't be too bad."
Skulduggery nodded. "I am an excellent teacher. Now, put the car in reverse. A drive through town is exactly what you need to get your sea legs."
...
CRASH.
"Okay, try avoiding the road sign next time."
...
CRASH.
"Lighten up on the pedal."
...
CRASH. Glass shattered.
"Er... It's fine. A windshield isn't that important."
...
"Left! Left!"
Tires screeched as the car jerked sharply to the side.
"That's not left!"
Another screech of rubber, this time accompanied by screaming. "This is harder than it looks!" Valkyrie shouted, eyes wide as she avoided yet another pedestrian.
"It wouldn't be so difficult if you stayed on the road!" Skulduggery Pleasant's fingers twitched and Valkyrie got the distinct impression that he was about to abandon ship.
Another woman screamed, her groceries flying out of her hands, and she dived as the car skidded over the sidewalk, narrowly missing her.
The bag of groceries sailed through what remained of the windshield and slammed into Skulduggery's face. Valkyrie laughed.
"Pull over," he hissed, angrily throwing a head of cabbage out the window. They happened to be zipping around a corner and said cabbage bounced off the building's wall. Before they could get out of dodge, it came back, ripping off the rearview mirror and flying into the back of the truck.
"How-!" She cut off abruptly when a young man down the street saw them, screamed, saw Skulduggery, then screamed even louder as they passed. "Dammit! We need to get out of here!"
She glanced towards her designated driving instructor and did a double take. "What the Hell?!"
"Left!" He shouted, voice muffled.
Valkyrie jerked her eyes back to the road, swerved right - "that's not left!" - and couldn't help but glance back towards him several times.
"Why," she dodged another pedestrian, "do you-"
"If it works, it works. Now, please, for the love of God, pull over."
"It's a bag." A father was walking in front of them(on the sidewalk) holding a little girl and a tub of cooking fat. Valkyrie swerved to avoid them.
"Yes, I-" The truck went the wrong way, veered towards a fruit stand, she swerved back, and the father shouted. Deciding that his kid was more important, he let go of the tub and lunged out of the way, arms wrapping around his screaming daughter. The lard container - beautifully convenient, in Skulduggery's opinion - swung towards them.
Maybe he was annoyed or this driving thing was getting dull, but a little elemental manipulation and the lid "slipped" off as the tub sailed over the truck. Fat, a gallon or two's worth of greasy fat, flew right out onto his young friend.
The container clacked off the bonnet and she blinked. For once, their vehicle zoomed in a straight line.
"Oh. My. God."
He tried not to laugh.
She turned. "I hate you and I don't care if this isn't your fault. I'm blaming you."
Skulduggery nodded, saving his confession for later. "Fair enou- LEFT."
And she jerked right, directly towards some incoming traffic - which they had somehow managed to avoid up until now.
"Pull over!"
"How?!"
"Try taking your foot off the pedal!" Valkyrie immediately did so and they drifted to a halt. The vehicle bounced a little when the front half ended up on the corner part of the sidewalk and a few cars swerved around them with screeching tires.
For a moment, neither detective said anything. People were still screaming in the distance and the sound of running water came from somewhere down the street.
"I think I broke a fire hydrant," muttered Valkyrie.
"No, I think you decimated a fire hydrant. Every inanimate object in town is going to have PTSD because of you."
She turned towards him scowling. "It w-"
Sirens rang out and Skulduggery craned his head to look out the window, fidgeting slightly with the paper bag he still wore over his head. In a flash, he whipped around. "Time to go."
"I can't drive!"
"You can drive fine. A few bumps, but that's the road's fault."
"Skulduggery-"
"Valkyrie."
She groaned, but slammed her foot down just as the nose of a police car came into view.
Skulduggery clamped a hand onto his hat - which he still had on despite the bag - and the wind plastered the object firmly against his skull as they narrowly missed a bus bench, but took out a bicycle instead. "Left!" and Valkyrie turned right.
There was a crash as one police car slammed into the corner building, but the second rounded the corner without trouble and was already gaining on them.
"Okay, brace for turn-" The truck clipped a phone pole and the battered vehicle jerked and spun.
"Oh God," moaned Valkyrie, wheel clenched in a death grip, "I'm going to be sick."
"Yeah, I'm out." And, the car still spinning, Skulduggery darted through the glassless windshield and out of sight.
"Skulduggery!"
The truck drifted to a halt, lightly bumping into the lip of the sidewalk. She sagged in relief, breathing deeply as she sunk into the seat and began cursing the Skeleton Detective - "him, and his stupid hat, too". Just as she'd really started getting into it, the screech of tires and a wailing siren sledge-hammered into her slice of peace.
Literally.
...
Kenspeckle can't say he was surprised when Valkyrie and Pleasant showed up. (Those two - Valkyrie especially - were too reckless for their own good.) But, well, he'd certainly expected them to look... different.
"Care to explain?"
Valkyrie scowled, shooting her companion a narrow-eyed look. "We went driving," she growled, crossing white and brown feathered arms over her chest.
"She went driving. I was merely her guide."
"And you sucked."
"I said 'left', you're the one who went right. Repeatedly," he added pointedly.
"There were walls to the left."
"How do you know? You were covered in lard."
Valkyrie jabbed a finger at his chest, "and you had a bag on your head!"
"I needed to hide from the pedestrians you were running over," he retorted, swiping at the offending finger. "Besides, the bag had holes in it."
"Do you know how many stares we got?"
"Ah, so that's what it was. You didn't have your eyes on the road."
"That is not the problem here!"
"It certainly feels like the problem."
"But it's not the problem."
"Which is..." Prompted Kenspeckle.
Valkyrie's eyes flashed and she turned to the doctor, pointing an accusing finger with a cry of "he left me!"
"I was going to come back," he said, a frown in his voice.
"I almost died!"
He waved a hand dismissively, "nonsense. They were the police, they wouldn't have killed you."
"They crashed right in front of me! A few inches closer and I would've looked like one of those mashed cats!"
"You would have adjusted."
"No, I would have been dead."
Kenspeckle was scowling and blatantly confused in regards to what was going on, head jerking between the two with increasing bemusement.
Skulduggery shook his head and mournfully declared, "we could have been grave-mates."
"I wouldn't share a grave with you!" She huffed, "I'd have kicked you out."
"Both our names would be on the lease."
"So?"
"So, that would be illegal or, at the very least, legally impossible without my agreement on the matter - which you wouldn't get."
"You stole an ice cream truck! You can't complain about what's illegal and what's not."
"It was borrowed," he said, slightly defensive.
"And destroyed."
"Valkyrie, my dear, you were the one who crashed it."
"You were the one who set it on fire!"
"That was an accident."
"You shouldn't have been throwing magic around in the first place!"
"That goat was insulting me. I wasn't going to let him get away with it."
Kenspeckle quickly interjected. "A goat?"
The skeleton waved a dismissive hand, "At a farm."
"Farm," he repeated, disbelieving.
"The police were chasing us-"
"And Valkyrie has no sense of direction."
"You were giving me the directions!"
"You weren't following them."
She made a strangled sound, throwing her hands up. "I shouldn't have let you back in the truck!"
Skulduggery paused. "You didn't. You almost ran over me. I climbed back in out of self-preservation!" He muttered, "as ridiculous as that sounds."
"Well, maybe you should stop standing in the middle of the road!"
He straightened. "I was in a building!"
The younger detective's mouth opened, but the poor doctor just couldn't take any more. "Okay! Enough! Both of you! Pleasant, go get all of that," he paused, "lettuce?"
"The farm had a garden," he sounded defensive again.
"Well get it out of your clothes and head and I'll tend to you when I'm finished here." Skulduggery grudgingly left for another room as Kenspeckle turned to Valkyrie. "Anything serious?"
"Er, these feathers won't come off and I think I broke some fingers... Oh, and my leg hurts."
He blinked.
"A lot."
Kenspeckle sighed, "go have a seat." A pause as he followed her to the exam table. "Are you sure you two didn't kill anyone during all this?" He asked, the recent conversation playing over and over in his head.
A myriad of emotions transversed her features. She shifted and looked away. "I, uh, did hit Solomon Wreath."
Clearly, he must have heard her wrong. "Excuse me?"
"He's fine," she said quickly, "but Skulduggery didn't know that - or maybe he didn't care? - and, he kept trying to bury him. That's why I'm covered in chicken feathers and dirt."
Kenspeckle blinked.
The girl glance towards him, clearly uncomfortable. "He was trying to do it under a chicken house. I wouldn't let him and, erm... At some point, it just sort of," she curled her fingers and then stretched them back out, "exploded."
"..."
"But Solomon is fine."
"... I'm teaching you to drive and Pleasant is not allowed in the vehicle."