Flying Fergus 8 Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Meet Fergus and his friends …

  Meet Princess Lily and her friends …

  Team Spirit

  Falling Off and Falling Out

  Trouble Off the Track

  Devil Take the Hindmost

  The Keirin

  All’s Fair

  Pedalling Pandemonium

  Road Rage

  Friends First and Forever

  About Chris Hoy

  About Joanna Nadin and Clare Elsom

  Copyright

  Meet Fergus

  and his friends …

  Fergus

  Chimp

  Grandpa Herc

  Daisy

  Jambo Patterson

  Mum

  Mikey McLeod

  Minnie McLeod

  Wesley Wallace

  Calamity Coogan

  Dermot Eggs

  Sorcha

  Charlie Campbell

  Choppy Wallace

  Belinda Bruce

  … and see where they live

  Meet Princess Lily

  and her friends …

  Princess Lily

  Hector Hamilton

  Unlucky Luke

  Percy the Pretty Useless

  Demelza

  Douglas

  Dimmock

  King Woebegot

  Prince Waldorf

  Queen Woebegot

  Duke Dastardly

  Prince Derek

  Knights of No Nonsense

  scary Mary

  … and explore Nevermore

  Team Spirit

  Fergus Hamilton was an ordinary nine-year-old boy. He liked baths (but mainly the mud kind), books (but mainly ones with Captain Gadget in), and broad beans (as long as they came with enough ketchup). He didn’t like getting up in the mornings (unless it was to ride his bike), going for long walks (unless it was with his dog, Chimp), or any kind of test (unless it was in sports, because he always aced those).

  Yes, he was ordinary in almost every way, except one. Because, for a small boy, Fergus Hamilton had an extraordinarily big imagination.

  Some days he imagined he was wearing the number one jersey for the Olympic cycling team, just like his hero Spokes Sullivan when he’d won gold two years ago.

  Some days he imagined he was wearing the coach’s cap for the Palace Pedallers, the cycling team he and his dad had set up in Nevermore (the parallel universe where his dad had been trapped since before Fergus had even been born).

  And some days he just imagined he was wearing brand new cycling shoes, the kind that clicked into your pedals and clacked on the ground when you walked. The kind that his mum could definitely never afford.

  But this morning Fergus was imagining he was very definitely not in Bridie’s Brides on Princess Street wearing a tight, itchy suit and green silk tie, with a matching green handkerchief poking out of his top pocket. “Do I really have to?” he asked, as Mum adjusted his collar for what felt like the fiftieth time.

  “Och, don’t be daft,” she replied, still fiddling. “What else are you going to wear to the wedding? Your team strip?”

  “Ooh, can we?” yelped Fergus’s best friend Daisy, as she fidgeted in her puffy green dress. “I look like a lampshade in this!”

  “Herc?” Mum turned to Grandpa, who was trying to admire himself in the mirror.

  Grandpa grimaced. “I’m with the kids,” he said. “I feel like a proper penguin in this get-up. And what about the expense?”

  “Honestly!” Mum exclaimed. “This is the most important day for me since … well, since our Fergie here was born, and you’d rather show up sweating, or in your civvies. Where’s your team spirit?”

  Fergus felt a prickle of guilt. He was thrilled Mum was marrying her boyfriend Jambo and he couldn’t have asked for a better stepdad – Jambo loved cycling and football and, what’s more, he was a sports reporter for the local paper so he could get Fergus into most matches for nothing. Having to wear these ridiculous clothes felt like a step too far, though.

  But if it made Mum happy …

  “We’re only joking,” he said, nudging Daisy. “They’re … brilliotic.”

  “Beast!” she agreed quickly, trying not to catch sight of herself.

  Mum looked at them all trying to be happy for her – and not making a very good job of it. She laughed. “Och, I know you’re only being nice,” she said. “And you’re right. None of you look like … you.” She turned to the shop assistant. “We’ll go and have a think about it. The big day’s still a few months away, after all.”

  Fergus sighed with relief as he slipped back into his jeans and t-shirt. A lot could happen in a few months – the Internationals for a start. The team had been training hard and, since Mum’s friend Charlie had worked her magic getting them all to bond as well as work beyond their comfort zones in the Wreck-it Run, they’d really been racking up top-notch timings.

  “I can’t wait to get back on the track,” said Daisy, as they all wandered back up Princess Street. “Last session Wesley said he’s going to help me with a tighter turn, and Minnie said she’d teach Belinda to bunny hop.”

  Fergus grinned. “Who’d have thought it back when we were on opposing teams?” he said.

  “And long may the truce continue,” added Grandpa. “The last thing I want is to go back to all that fussing and fighting. Save your grudges for the real rivals at Manchester.”

  At that, Fergus felt a swirl of something in his tummy, like a crackle of electricity or the flap of a butterfly. Daisy turned to him, eyes wide, and he knew she could feel it too: hope, that’s what it was, and possibility, and, most of all, team spirit. So, with that filling their heads and hearts, the friends bounded back along Napier Street and up the steps to the flat.

  “Jambo,” called Fergus as he burst through the door. “You won’t believe what Mum made us put on! It was worse than –”

  He stopped when he saw his soon-to-be-stepdad sitting at the table, a letter open in front of him, and a frown on his face deeper than the Firth of Forth. “What’s up?” Fergus asked. “Has something happened?”

  “It’s from the International Cycling Board,” said Daisy, eyeing the logo on the letter. “Isn’t it?”

  “Aye,” Jambo nodded. “It is. And no, nothing’s happened. At least not yet.” He looked up as Grandpa came puffing through the door, helping Mum with the shopping.

  “It’s here,” he said.

  “What’s here?” asked Fergus, exasperated now. “Tell us!”

  “Yes, tell us!” agreed Daisy. “Are the Internationals off? Are we disqualified?”

  “Have they moved them to Timbuctoo?” tried Fergus.

  “No, no, no.” Jambo shook his head. “It’s nothing that bad. It’s just … ”

  “The team,” Grandpa interrupted. “They want to know, don’t they?”

  “Want to know what?” chorused Fergus and Daisy loudly.

  Jambo looked at Grandpa, then back at the kids. “Who’s on the team,” he said.

  Grandpa frowned. “And who’s off.”

  Falling Off and Falling Out

  “They need to know the names of the four team members,” Grandpa explained to the squad as they assembled at Middlebank. “We’ve been training as a squad, but now we need to put forward our best four for the competition.”

  “Just four?” Calamity asked, confused.

  “And two substitutes,” Grandpa added quickly. “So even if you don’t make the starting line-up, there’s everything to play for.”

  “But … ” Minnie did the maths. “That still means two of us are left out.”

  “Not left out,” Grandpa said. “The whole squad will have a part to play. We’ll need everyone for s
upport.”

  “Support?” scoffed Wesley. “Well it won’t be me sitting on the sidelines.”

  “Or me,” said his sidekick, Dermot.

  “It had better not be any of my boys,” blustered Wesley’s dad and team coach Choppy Wallace.

  “Or your girls,” Belinda pointed out crossly.

  Choppy reddened. “Of course, of course,” he replied. “What I mean is, my lot all deserve to go through.”

  Wesley, Mikey, Belinda and Dermot all nodded furiously.

  “What about us?” demanded Daisy, crossing her arms. “We all deserve it too, don’t we?”

  Fergus, Minnie and Calamity crossed their arms to show they agreed.

  “And we’re the original Hercules’ Hopefuls,” Calamity pointed out. “That’s got to stand for something.”

  Fergus looked at Grandpa hopefully. He had to be on the team, surely? So his times had been down a bit compared to Wesley lately, but he’d been the fastest in the Nationals by far.

  But nothing, it seemed, was certain anymore.

  “It doesn’t matter which team you were on to start with,” Grandpa told them. “You’re all on the same squad now. And the truth is, we don’t know who’s going through to the final team, not yet.”

  Fergus felt his stomach sink, and could see from Daisy’s face that she was none too pleased either. “It’ll be fine,” he whispered. “We’ll both get on the team, I know it.”

  “You heard Herc,” Daisy hissed back. “He doesn’t know who’s on and who’s off. No one does.”

  Fergus knew she was right, but he had to believe they’d both make it. They’d been together from before the team had even got together – he’d helped Daisy build her first bike! – and leaving one of them out was unthinkable.

  “The fact is, you’ve all got great strengths,” explained Grandpa. “Wesley and Fergus are fantastically fast and almost neck and neck for times. Daisy and Dermot have stamina and are determined. Belinda and Minnie make a formidable partnership. And Calamity and Mikey always manage to surprise us with last-minute magic.”

  “So what do you propose, Herc?” asked Choppy. “Tossing a coin?”

  “Drawing straws?” mumbled Mikey.

  “Picking names out of a hat?” moaned Minnie.

  Grandpa shook his head in astonishment. “We’re not playing party games,” he pointed out. “This is a serious cycling situation, so there’s only one way to sort it out.”

  “What’s that then?” demanded Daisy.

  Grandpa smiled. “By bike, of course.”

  Of course this was fair, Fergus said to himself as the eight of them checked their helmets and slipped into their saddles for a warm-up session. And he had nothing to worry about, not really. He’d put in good races, and so would Daisy and the others. Grandpa was right, there were six places on the team, if you counted the reserves. And, even though the thought of not making the starting line-up was terrible, he probably could live with being a reserve. Especially as it would almost certainly be two of Wallace’s lot being left out!

  “We’ll not be timing you today,” Grandpa announced. “That’ll come at the weekend when we run our three events: a knock-out race of Devil Takes the Hindmost, a Keirin, and a road race.”

  “Why three?” asked Mikey.

  “Yes, why not just a straight time trial?” added Minnie.

  “Because the coaches need to see different skills over distance and at a sprint,” said Daisy, rolling her eyes. “Obviously.”

  “Now, now,” said Grandpa. “No need to be narky. But yes, that’s right. The Internationals will be run over three races so we need to get the right balance.”

  “But no slacking,” warned Choppy. “Because we’ll be watching you all the way.”

  Fine by me, thought Fergus, as the team headed out to the track. They were used to this by now – all working together to make sure everyone got a chance to ride the slipstream then speed ahead, all taking turns in first place. But, this time, as they lined up, Fergus felt a strange tension in the air, and felt his bike wobble as Wesley nudged him out of the way.

  “This is my place,” Wesley said. “Inside track, everyone knows that.”

  Fergus budged over to let Wesley in. No point in fighting, this was only a warm-up, after all. And what had Charlie taught them? That this was all about fun, not fighting. He’d try to remember that and he hoped Wesley would do the same.

  But after a few laps, things hadn’t improved. If anything they’d got much, much worse, and not just between him and Wesley: Minnie and Mikey weren’t talking after she’d alleyooped in front of her brother, sending him off track and into the grass; Belinda had accused Calamity of sabotage for swerving into her; Calamity claimed Dermot had stopped dead deliberately, making him swerve in the first place; and as for Daisy, she was furious with Fergus for pipping her at the post on a sprint. Even though he’d tried to say sorry she’d stomped off in a sulk.

  “Och, it’ll be fine,” Grandpa assured Fergus as he slid off his bike in a sweat. “You’re a team – on and off the track. You’ll get through this, just like you all got through the Highland Head-to-head when Wesley’s lot got lost in the mountains. Remember the Wreck-it Run? You hated that to begin with but it all came together in the end.”

  As Fergus wheeled his bike slowly towards home, he remembered the race round the hospital track, on the kart he and Daisy had designed together. They hadn’t won – they’d been beaten by Morgan and her sister Sorcha, Fergus’s brand-new best friend (after Daisy, of course) – but they hadn’t let that get them down. If anything, that was the race that had brought them all together.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said to Chimp, repeating Grandpa’s words. “Team spirit. That’s what it’s all about.”

  Chimp barked a happy reply and Fergus found himself smiling at the dog’s confidence. But, as he looked back to see his friends scattering their separate ways, and Daisy speeding off across the common, he wasn’t so sure Chimp, or he, was right.

  He wasn’t sure the team spirit was strong enough.

  Or if he’d been a fool to believe in it at all.

  Trouble Off the Track

  By mid-morning the next day, Fergus had serious doubts. By the afternoon, he knew he’d been right: the team spirit was gone.

  It had started when he’d gone for a quick spin on Carnoustie Common ahead of practice. “Just to get the muscles warm and working,” he’d said when Grandpa asked where he was off to.

  “Are you meeting Daisy?” Grandpa asked him.

  Fergus shook his head. “She’s out. I left a message with Mrs D, but you know what she’s like at passing those on.”

  Grandpa laughed. “Worried you’ll be up for corrupting her!” he said. “As if a ride round the park just the pair of you could be a problem. And Mrs MacCafferty’ll be there to keep an eye on you anyway, I’ll warrant.”

  Chimp gave a yelp at the mention of Mrs MacCafferty, whose cat Carol was his arch-nemesis.

  Fergus shrugged. “If Daisy calls back tell her I’ll see her there.”

  Grandpa nodded, then watched Fergus as he walked his bike – and Chimp – over the pelican crossing, and then into the park, his dog trotting happily behind him.

  “Safe as houses,” Grandpa said to himself, and got back to polishing some new brake calipers he’d just taken off an old Sullivan Swift.

  Out on the common, as he cycled at a steady pace round the old cinder track he’d helped to build, Fergus felt someone’s eyes on him. Skidding to a sudden halt, he turned to see a patch of peonies twitch and a familiar head disappear behind an enormous blue flower.

  “Wesley?” he called. “Is that you?”

  “No,” came the reply. “It’s definitely Dermot.”

  “Yeah, Dermot,” someone echoed.

  Fergus bristled. He knew when he was being lied to, and spied on. He had an idea, and picked up a stick. “Fetch!” he called to Chimp, and threw it straight into the flower patch.

  Chimp, who h
ad been busy burying a stone, lifted his head, saw the stick, and ran pell-mell into the peonies, barking for all he was worth. “Any minute … now!” Fergus said to himself, as Wesley and Dermot came yelping onto the track, chased by a merry mongrel who clearly felt he deserved a reward for finding not just an old twig, but two twits besides.

  Fergus sighed at the sorry sight of his team-mates. “Spying, were we?” he asked.

  “So what if we were?” said Wesley. “No law against that.”

  “I suppose,” said Fergus. “But it’s not very sporting, is it? Not against your own team.”

  “Every little helps,” said Wesley. “If I can work out how to take one second off you, then who cares how I did it?”

  “Yeah, who cares?” repeated Dermot.

  “I care,” Fergus said. “And I bet the others do too.”

  Wesley arched an eyebrow. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he smirked.

  An hour later, Fergus didn’t know which was worse – the mess the squad was in, or the fact Wesley had been right. First Minnie had refused to teach Belinda how to bunny hop, so Belinda said she’d get her dad to see Minnie didn’t make the team, as his company Bruce’s Biscuits was the Hercules’ Hopefuls squad sponsor. Then Calamity complained that Mikey was making faces at him to put him off.

  “It’s just my normal face!” Mikey protested.

  “More’s the pity,” replied his sister Minnie.