I instinctively reached for the seat belt, and Owen did the same. “Good idea, kids,” Rocky said, looking over his shoulder. “Rolls here has got a stone foot.” He nearly fell off the steering wheel from laughing so hard, and muffled laughter echoed up from under the dashboard. “Get it? It’s supposed to be lead, but since Rolls is made of stone, it’s a stone foot. Okay, Rolls, I’ve got her in reverse and nothing seems to be coming, so give her a nudge.”
The car backed out of the driveway. When Rocky had steered the car into the street, he shifted into drive and said, “We’re on the road. Give her some gas.”
If I’d had any second thoughts about maybe waiting for the next train and letting Owen handle the crisis, there wouldn’t have been much I could have done about it. Rollo really did have a stone foot. We all but flew down the neighborhood streets. If I’d tried to get out of the car, I’d have killed myself. I could only imagine what it would be like once we were on the open road.
“Brake!” Rocky yelled as we neared the intersection with the main road. The car screeched to a halt, fishtailing a little. After checking up and down the road, Rocky then called out, “Hit it,” as he spun the steering wheel by shifting his weight. I wasn’t sure the tires were actually in contact with road surface, we were going so fast.
“Aren’t you worried about getting stopped for speeding?” I asked.
The two gargoyles went into hysterics. “Who can stop an invisible car?” Rocky said between bursts of laughter.
“Hey, Rocky,” Rollo’s voice came up from under the dash, “maybe you should let one catch us someday. Wouldn’t it be funny to see how a cop would react to seein’ a car driven by two gargoyles? Wouldn’t it? Huh?”
“It’d be a scream.”
“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Owen said mildly, even as he white-knuckled the edges of the seat. “You know the rules about exposing yourselves to outsiders.”
“We wasn’t talkin’ ’bout exposing ourselves,” Rocky said, sputtering with laughter. “Just lettin’ ’em see we’re gargoyles.” He and Rollo found that highly amusing, providing their own laugh track once more. “Get it? Usually when you say you’re exposing yourself, you’re talking about the naughty bits.”