Читать книгу Class of '79 - Chris Rooke - Страница 8

I suddenly had a brainwave. I swapped the HT leads (the wires going to the spark plugs) over between the two cylinders that were running badly, and immediately the engine roared into life and ran like a dream!!! I realised that the reason the engine had been running so badly was because someone had sabotaged our car by swapping the HT leads over between two of the cylinders!

It all began to slowly fall into place. I realised that during the party I’d gone to the car with Kit and showed him the engine bay for some unearthly reason, whilst the disgruntled friends of girl looked on. From this they must have seen that mine was a very early Mini and so the bonnet was opened by a catch from the outside - no need to get into the car to open the bonnet, the whole operation was done from outside. At this point, I can only assume that one of them had therefore thought that it would be a merry jape to re-open the bonnet on my Mini after we'd gone back inside, and swap the HT leads over. I remembered that I’d found the bonnet not quite fully closed when I’d gone to load the car the morning after the party, but hadn’t really thought anything of it at the time.

I was furious! The fact that someone, a fellow Mini owner and supposed mutual friend, had lowered themselves to deliberately sabotaging my car was beyond me. That’s why it had taken me so long to figure out the problem – the fact that someone would stoop low enough to actually do something like that for no reason at all simply never entered my head - we’d not had an argument with anybody or anything, or been abusive - someone just felt like being mean. I was annoyed with myself for not realising the problem sooner, and pictured the other boys laughing when they got to hear how I’d taken half the engine apart trying to fix it.

Anyway, mother was quite delighted that the car was finally running, but not ecstatic, as by this time it was too late for us to set off and we had to spend another night at their house (although girl never showed up again). I did explain to mother what had happened, and the level of betrayal – I was always brought up to believe in the sanctity of guests, no matter what, and to ignore this unwritten rule was a betrayal – think Macbeth and The Glencoe Massacre. However, I got the impression that she was more annoyed at us, for being there in the first place, than she was at the perpetrators of this heinous crime. She bought us Pizzas, turned the TV on, and shut the living room door.

The next morning, not for the first time, we loaded the gear back into the Mini and set off, actually leaving this time! Mother and girl waved us off, but their forced smiles were very thin and I saw their body language in the mirror, clearly showing their sense of relief as the boys left town. Anyway, we were on the road again, at last!