Desert Disaster Read Online Free PDF

ground.
    One!
    “Here we go!” Jimmy shouted as the crowd around him went wild.

Chapter 6 - The First Clue
    The noise reached a crescendo as the lights turned green and the robots around Jimmy lurched forward onto the sand. Some made it further than others. Monster’s massive tyres made it easy going for her and Missy as they sped off across the sand. Jimmy felt a blast of air nearby as Maximus’s air cushions inflated and the hovercraft slid forward.
    Jimmy put his foot down on the accelerator. Sand sprayed out behind them, but Cabbie wasn’t moving!
    Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Princess Kako was also having a disastrous start. After travelling about ten metres, Lightning hit a bump in the sand and Kako was thrown clean off her robot. She landed with a thud on the ground, but quickly shook herself off and climbed back onto Lightning, shouting angrily in Japanese. She hit a button on the bike and a small robotic arm extended from the bodywork. It reached over the front wheel and whizzed over the tyre faster than the eye could follow. It was spraying a thick coating of rubber onto the tyres, converting it from a thin racing tyre to a fat off-road one. It finished the front and moved onto the back, and Lightning soon had two chunky pieces of rubber underneath him. Kako was soon driving clumsily across the dunes.
    “This is awful!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Cabbie, our normal tyres are useless, we’re going to have to break out the caterpillar tracks early.”
    “Don’t worry, Jimmy! I’ll take care of it!” said Cabbie. There were two loud noises from underneath the robot – CLUNK! CLUNK! – followed by a clackety-clack , clackety-clack sound as the tracks appeared over the wheels and began to grip the soft sand.
    The crowd oooh ed and aaah ed in appreciation.
    “That’s better!” said Cabbie, sounding a little smug. “Now let’s move it!”
    Jimmy felt better as they started to whip across the sand in pursuit of Missy and Sammy. They passed Horace and Zoom, who had sped off in a shower of sand, but now looked like they were struggling. As Jimmy passed them, Horace was yelling and banging the steering wheel, and Zoom’s engine was making a horrible grinding noise.
    The one person who didn’t seem to be worrying about the terrain at all was Chip. His huge digger, Dug, had been built with this sort of surface in mind, and once he’d got moving he was soon eating up the ground on the leaders. The yellow giant overtook Sammy, and Jimmy did the same just moments later when Sammy and his hoverbot chose a longer route round one of the mountainous dunes.
    Five minutes into the race and the race order had settled down.
    “How are we doing?” asked Cabbie.
    “OK, I think,” said Jimmy with a shrug. “We’re not first, but we’re not last either. Sammy, Horace and Kako seem to be behind us.”
    “That leaves Missy with Monster and Chip with Dug in front of us. We’ll soon catch them up,” said Cabbie positively.
    “I’m glad Grandpa fitted those caterpillar tracks, otherwise we’d still be stuck on the start line,” said Jimmy. “Now that would be embarrassing.”
    As they travelled forward, the first checkpoint came into view, a large pole with the spinning ‘L’ of the Leadpipe Industries logo. Jimmy could already see two robot racers – Dug and Monster – pulled up beside it. From the checkpoint hung six compasses and six maps made of delicate papyrus.
    As he approached, Jimmy saw Dug’s robotic arm reach out and gently pluck a map and compass off the pole. Dug dropped them into the cab, where Chip quickly studied them. Jimmy watched as Chip looked over the map, played with the compass for a second, and then sped off to the east.
    Missy, meanwhile, had to jump down from her driver’s seat and collect the items herself. By the time Missy had made it back up to her driver’s seat in the tall monster truck, Jimmy was nearly alongside. Missy must have been worried about slipping