Mr. Chloe Bunny is almost ready to fly. Between his imagination and his best friend’s engineering skills, their list of inventions includes a remote control sweeping broom and electro-arm dishwasher. Inventing a flying automobile is not only their grandest project, but it will certainly refashion animal travel. And most importantly, Chloe may visit his grandmother without the fuss of using an airplane.
“Its time for a test flight Chloe,” said Simon Monkey, as he closes the hood of the New Beetle. “She is sealed air tight, and I defy rain or snow to blow into the engine, especially at high altitudes.”
“Buzzing bumblebees, you think of everything,” said Chloe, searching for his car keys on the workbench table.
Simon, a mechanical engineer and chemist, removes his welder’s mask and gloves, grinning to show perfectly kept teeth. He grabs a funnel and fresh concoction of Gas Oxymon to fill the fuel tank. Simon’s fuel subsititute, a combination of beet juice, ground radish seeds, and the world’s hottest Tepin peppers, creates a potent source of energy. The car will convert Gas Oxymon into vapor that will power the New Beetle for thousands of miles; but best of all, Gas Oxymon will not pollute.
“I hypothesize,” said Simon, “that after successful flight we can share our secret fuel and gas converter with comrades.” Simon opens the cellar doors linking their basement laboratory to street level with a wooden plank ramp.
“That’s true Simon! You’ll be a folk hero.” Chloe finds his keys. “Everyone can make engine fuel with a kitchen blender,” said the French Lop bunny as he hops into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. The New Beetle purrs softly, its dashboard alight with blinking bulbs, and its navigation-system monitor shows a map of New York City. Chloe drives his car out of the basement and into wakening daylight on their tree sparse East Village street. He waits for approaching cars to pass, and then sets the New Beetle into position for lift-off. The engine backfires and spits as the automobile begins to rise, slowly up off the pavement. As he hovers above the building pitch, the Manhattan skyline pops into Chloe’s view.
“Prickly pineapples WOW! This is the best invention yet!” said Chloe. He glides above his neighborhood for a few moments to spy who might be outside watching him other than Simon who is clapping excitedly on the sidewalk below. With a sense of fearless accomplishment, he lowers the car to street level and drives into an empty parking slot.
“Did the flying machine meet your satisfaction Chloe?” asked Simon greeting him at the driver’s side door.
“This car flies amazing!” said Chloe, “Only a master brain like you could make my idea fly. Thank you, Simon,” Chloe giggled. “How long will it take me to fly to England?” asked Chloe as they walk to their apartment building. Simon puts his finger to his temple, adjusts his glasses, scratches his ears, and said, “You should be there in 4 hours and 16 minutes if you stay above 10,000 feet at 837 miles per hour.” “Super, so I should arrive before dinner,” said Chloe, squinting his brown eyes and taking a deep breath. “I can almost taste Gram’s sweet potato pudding. Perils of parsley! I have to get ready for my trip.”
Chloe’s oviform body leaps to the apartment building door. His lop-ears jump as though to take flight as he hops up the stairs -- three at a time -- to his third floor flat. In preparation for journey he sets his remote control broom to sweep the apartment, while he tidies his bedroom and closes the windows should it rain. He tosses his fur brush, favorite sleeping cap, sneakers, and his lucky rock into a backpack, and dashes to the kitchen to prepare a snack. After packing fruit and crunch bars into a paper bag, Chloe turns out the kitchen light, slings the backpack over his shoulder, and heads downstairs to the street. He opens the car door, places his belongings on the passenger side seat, and then bids farewell to Simon.
“I’ll beam you from the lab to check your flight progress,” Simon looks at his wristwatch, “in exactly one hour,” waving his flimsy fingers good-bye and grinning widely. “Remember the emergency manual is in the glove box! Have a safe flight comrade Chloe.”
“Thanks Simon! Good-bye comrade,” giggled Chloe.
After buckling his safety belt, Chloe starts the engine, and thumps the gas pedal three times, as only a bunny can beat -- hard and firm. He flips two switches on the dashboard, tripping on the navigation monitor to view the ground below. The tires tremble, and the slick, black New Beetle shakes as sauna-like steam sneaks out from behind the vehicle. The car lifts and rises above apartment buildings and the laundromat. Chloe can spy the roof garden atop the corner grocery before he sails across Tompkins Square Park. Steering East at full-throttle, the true test of speed apparent, the car zooms ahead of Long Island and out across the Atlantic Ocean in only six minutes.
The New Beetle hums for an hour 10,000 feet above the vast, cobalt ocean. From Chloe’s window and monitor views, he watches the ocean below as a gentle wind whittles dips across its surface. He sees the sky hang a clothesline of clouds, acting its part to hide the scenes ahead. Reaching for his snack bag, Chloe pulls out an alfalfa crunch-bar. Then he hits PLAY on the dashboard music library ready to serve his favorite songs of AVVA, the duo-team of Aardvark musicians and two Vole singers. He breaks at each stanza of “Vamma Via,” to hum in between chews of alfalfa crunch. In a flash, the monitor shows Simon’s face. “Testing . . . Mr. Simon to Mr. Chloe,” he grinned into the screen from their basement laboratory.
“Hi Simon, can you hear me?” asked Chloe.
“Your voice sounds loud and clear,” said Simon. “You’re about to hit a storm, the radar shows active convection ahead.”
“Sauerkraut and cabbage!" said Chloe. "Everything is running so well. Okay, thanks for the warning though. What is the weather forecast for England?”
“Weather on the British Isles appears dandy for landing," said Simon, "just be careful in the miles ahead.”
“I think I’m about to hit the storm,” said Chloe, staring ahead into a black sky flashing with lightening.
“Beam me when you arrive in England. Safe transit, over and out.” Simon’s face disappears as the monitor shows the ocean surface below stressing from the wake of a hurricane.
Bludgeoning clouds muscle around the airborne New Beetle. The cyclonic system dwarfs the car, towering overhead 60,000 feet, and as the storm wall engulfs this eastbound traveler, callous winds slam against the car, plunging it halfway to the sea surface. Ordinary wind waves, grown to the size of battleships, collide their whitecaps with deep swells of anarchy.
Chloe pulls back on the steering wheel to correct descent, pointing the New Beetle up again, but regains no measurable height. Biceps of wind force the car below the cloud deck. Howling blasts twirl the car out of control. By the compass, Chloe heads west. The wind teases a pause. Chloe turns correctly east and attempts to reach higher elevation.
Rain bombs the windows with amounts too great for wipers. The whooshing sound of torrents overpower the engine motor and AVVA's song “Attack.” In the absense of natural light, Chloe's pelt, a blend of auburn and gray, absorbs neon dashboard lights; even white tufts of fur on his hands and feet glow burnt orange red. The car gains enough height to touch the base of clouds.
“Wow! That was close,” said Chloe.
Lighting tickles the New Beetle, shocking Chloe’s fur to stand on end, “KA-BLAM! BEGONE GRR-BLAM!” demanded thunder. The dashboard dies. Chloe works the pedal with his firm foot, and then pumps the clutch, but the car doesn't respond. He flips the ignition key off, and then on. Off. On. Nothing. The car starts to dive, front first, down, down, faster than the rain swirling around the car, as the wind wishes it even faster toward the battling waves.
Inside the New Beetle, Chloe's ears flap behind him. An apple from his snack sack jerks out of the bag and races under the seat for protection. The car slams into the mouth of a hungry wave poising to swallow. Chloe’s window view follows air bubbles scurrying up the glass exterior in murky green water. The car levels and sinks into the Atlantic, tires first. Headlights cast a foggy underwater show of blowfish pointing and laughing at the sinking car. A shadowy blob appears in the distance.
Chloe reaches for the lucky rock he once found sweltering on a Saharan sand dune.
“Rotting raspberries! You’d better work now, rock.” Chloe places it on the dashboard. “Oh! The manual.” He pulls the book from the glove box and quickly browses pages with his forepaws, “Let’s see, submersion, sinking, swimming . . . nothing. Dark blobs . . . nothing. How about, float . . . floating. Yes!” he reads, “If planning to hit water, release the emergency gear and buttons A12 and 6C simultaneously.” Chloe follows directions. The car’s undercarriage burps, sending out an air bubble to gurgle up the sides and windows. A metallic balloon swells out from under the trunk, bouying the rear of the car slowly toward the surface.
The dark blob approaches from the front, using thick arms to propel it, but at the rear a spiny blowfish pops the balloon and laughs, releasing the car to sink faster than before. The blob swims in pursuit, but escapes Chloe’s sight somewhere above the car. He feels his ears plug.
With one sucking thump, eight arms grip the automobile’s frame from above and holds the car steady from exploring the abyss below. Wrapping its muscles from the roof down around the sides and across the hood and trunk, the tentacles stick to the black New Beetle, slowly raising it toward the surface. Through the windshield, Chloe watches the octopus slowly bow its head above the hood. Chloe smiles in return and pats his rock with his right forepaw.
Near the surface, Chloe sees the underside of crashing waves above. One more time, he switches the ignition key off. Ignition key on. “Sput, splat.... vroom, VROOM,” the New Beetle tremors as the motor coughs alive. The octopus loosens its grip and drops away, waving eight arms good-bye.
“Thanks, Mr. Octopus!” said Chloe to himself. “I’m not sure how I’ll ever repay you!” Chloe pulls the steering wheel back to elevate the flying machine against the weight of the water. Bubbles erupt from the exhaust of the New Beetle, as it prepares to surface, still holding its breath. The magical car leaps from the water, Chloe releases a sigh of relief as he gains height past hungry waves erasing his ascent.
Paralleling the ocean’s surface for one mile, Chloe steers east with a steady climb; slits of daylight rip open the clouds ahead. Within minutes, the sun shines at his back, while the mossy grass hills and rocky pale cliffs of Southwest England landscape the foreground.
“Dizzy diatribes, that storm gave my ears a workout,” he said, and sings the verses to AVVA’s song, “Vaterloo.”
Sunlight prepares to fade as Chloe lands on his grandmother’s front street in Shaftesbury. Handmade bed linens hang to dry above her lawn, airing their white faces to westerly breezes. The stout English Lop stops picking blueberries for desert and walks from the garden, towards Chloe’s car, dragging her long braid ears behind her gait.
“I’m so happy to see you, our Muffin,” said Gram. Her soft voice quizzes for details while she caresses Chloe’s soft gray ears, “Did you have a safe journey? How does this machine fly? Was the weather good for flying?”
“Everything was fine Gram,” winked Chloe. He kisses her furry cheek, alive with the scent of lavender rose perfume.