Flying Fergus 7 Read online

Eyes on the prize, and on the crew standing between it and him, he dug deep, deep inside himself, searching for the courage it had taken Luke to get on that adapted bike, for the strength Scary Mary had shown to put her name down when she couldn’t even speak it out loud, and, most of all, for the belief Charlie had had in all of them – that coming out of their comfort zone was the key to victory.

  “Yee-hah!” yelled Daisy as they shot forward, leaving Dermot and Wesley, and Minnie and Belinda, struggling in their wake.

  Fergus pounded the tarmac as the pram wheels spun. Grandpa and Choppy’s machine may have collapsed as soon as Calamity crashed into it, but the sledge was still secure. He and Daisy had a chance, if only they could catch up with that other crew.

  If only …

  Fergus ran and ran and ran, faster than when he had to run for the bus, faster than he’d ever managed to muster in athletics at school, faster even than the time he’d had to chase Mrs MacCafferty’s cat, Carol, who was chasing Chimp. And they were making ground, metre by metre, so that, as they turned the final corner, they were almost neck and neck with the strangers.

  But that’s when it happened. There was a crack, and a crunch, and the steering wheel snapped off in Daisy’s hands, sending the machine spinning into one of the safety hay bales, and sending Fergus flat on his face.

  Lying on the floor, Fergus heard the cheer go up as the crowd congratulated the winners. But oddly, he didn’t feel downhearted. In fact, all he felt was pure delight. They’d done it! So they’d been beaten at the final hurdle but it was a close-run thing, and they’d done themselves and Charlie proud, and that, he decided was all that mattered.

  Fergus lifted himself up, dusted himself off, and, after rescuing Daisy from the hay and delivering her safely into Mrs Devlin’s clasping arms, went to say a massive well done to the winners.

  Three Cheers for Charlie

  The week had been full of surprises, but there was one more in store for Fergus.

  As the winners took off their helmets and grinned at the crowd, he saw the two girls were sisters, sharing the same green eyes and cheeky grin.

  “That was quite a tumble,” said the girl who’d been steering.

  “Och, I’m fine,” replied Fergus. “Or rather I will be,” he added, feeling for the bruises he knew were on his knees, despite the padding.

  “I’m Morgan and this is Sorcha,” the girl said, and held out her hand.

  “Fergus,” he replied, shaking it, then turned to the other girl, shaking hers in turn. “You were brilliotic!” he added.

  The girl touched the tips of her fingers to her chin and then towards Fergus.

  “That means ‘thanks’,” Morgan explained.

  She was deaf, Fergus realised quickly. He suddenly felt awful that he couldn’t sign anything back.

  The girl signed again.

  Morgan grinned. “She says don’t worry about it, you are an amateur after all. In signing as well as racing.”

  “An – an amateur?” Fergus stammered.

  “Yes, aren’t you?” asked Morgan. “We haven’t seen you at the Wreck-it Run before.”

  “I’m … I’m a national champion,” Fergus said. “Cycling, though,” he added quickly.

  The girls giggled and Fergus felt his pride, already pricked, deflate a little more.

  “Och, we don’t mean anything, do we, Sorcha?” said Morgan, signing as she spoke.

  Sorcha shook her head.

  “And we didn’t mean to make assumptions. It’s just this is our third year in a row in the Wreck-it Run, so we kind of know what we’re doing. Whereas for you … well, this must have been –”

  “Out of my comfort zone?” finished Fergus.

  Sorcha signed at Fergus.

  “Exactly that,” translated Morgan, both her and her sister wearing warm smiles, which Fergus could tell were genuine.

  Fergus smiled back. He liked these girls, and he knew he’d made some assumptions of his own lately, the whole squad had.

  “You’d better get your prize,” he said, as he saw Charlie waving frantically at them to hurry up.

  Morgan followed his gaze. “Aye,” she replied. “Come on, Sorcha.”

  Sorcha went to go, then, changing her mind, turned back to Fergus, nudging Morgan to watch her.

  “I hope I’ll see you again,” Morgan said, as Sorcha signed the words. “Me too,” she added.

  “Me three,” said Fergus. “Definitely.”

  As he lined up with the others to watch the pair being handed their gleaming trophy, and Jambo handing Mum the enormous cheque for the hospital from all the entrance money, Fergus felt himself soar inside – as if he’d just flown across a finish line on his very own bike.

  “Three cheers for Charlie!” Fergus called out, as the squad assembled back at the track for the debrief. “Hip, hip …” He held his breath, hoping with all his heart that the rest of them felt the same as he did.

  “Hooray!” came the reply. Not just once, or twice, but all three times, getting louder and louder with each.

  “Thanks, squad,” Charlie said when the hubbub had died down.

  “No, thank you,” said Fergus. “You were right all along. About the Wreck-it Run and the yoga.”

  “Well, maybe not yoga,” whispered Wesley, who had still not quite mastered downward dog.

  Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Ready to get back on your bikes, then?”

  “Are you kidding?” Daisy cried.

  “Now?” asked Belinda eagerly. “Can we? Can we?”

  Charlie laughed. “Well, I reckon you’re ready. But it’s up to Herc and Choppy. They’re your coaches, after all. My job here’s done.”

  “Wait, you’re leaving?” demanded Fergus.

  “But – but –” stammered Calamity. “I thought …”

  “Yeah, we thought that …” continued Minnie.

  “You were on our side,” Fergus finished. “That you’d stay with us until the Internationals.” He’d not believed it possible when she first arrived, but now he really did want Charlie to stay. They all did! But instead she was quitting?

  “Och, come on, sonny,” Grandpa comforted. “Charlie is on your side. Always will be.”

  “I am,” Charlie said. “And I’ll be there on the big day cheering you on, but I’ve got my own team to think about, with a big tournament coming up. And, besides, I think you’ve learned just about all you can from me.”

  “No we haven’t,” Wesley pretended.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” bluffed Belinda.

  “Oh, I think you do,” said Charlie. “Fergus?” She turned to him, her smile wide, waiting.

  He took a deep breath. “Never rest on your laurels,” he said.

  “Always think outside the box,” added Daisy.

  “Sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone,” Mikey chipped in.

  “Three out of three,” Charlie said. “I knew you’d listened. Right, time for me to be off. So scoot, little fella,” and she shooed Chimp out of her lap and back to Fergus’s side, where he stayed for the walk back to the track, and the practice lap Choppy let them do as a reward, and all the way back to Napier Street and home.

  “I’ll not take anything for granted again,” Fergus promised his dog as he slipped him a cold sausage he’d saved from his tea.

  Chimp wolfed it down in one.

  “It’s … it’s not just sausages you like me for though, is it?” Fergus asked.

  Chimp licked his face.

  Fergus smiled. “I guess that’s my answer.”

  And Chimp licked and licked until all the ketchup was gone.

  Sir Chris Hoy MBE, won his first Olympic gold medal in Athens 2004. Four years later in Beijing he became the first Briton since 1908 to win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games. In 2012, Chris won two gold medals at his home Olympics in London, becoming Britain’s most successful Olympian with six gold medals and one silver. Sir Chris also won eleven World titles and two Commonweal
th Games gold medals. In December 2008, Chris was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and he received a Knighthood in the 2009 New Year Honours List. Sir Chris retired as a professional competitive cyclist in early 2013; he still rides almost daily. He lives in Manchester with his family.

  www.chrishoy.com

  Joanna Nadin is an award-winning author of more than seventy books for children, including the bestselling Rachel Riley diaries, the Penny Dreadful series, and Joe All Alone, which is now being adapted for TV. She studied drama and politics at university in Hull and London, and has worked as a lifeguard, a newsreader and even a special adviser to the Prime Minister. She now teaches writing and lives in Bath, where she rides her rickety bicycle, but she never, ever back-pedals …

  www.joannanadin.com

  Clare Elsom is an illustrator of lots of lovely children’s books, including the Furry Friends series, the Spies in Disguise series, the Maisie Mae series, and many more. She studied Illustration at Falmouth University (lots of drawing) and Children’s Literature at Roehampton University (lots of writing). Clare lives in Devon, where she can be found doodling, tap dancing and drinking cinnamon lattes.

  www.elsomillustration.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  Piccadilly Press

  80-81 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 9RE

  www.piccadillypress.co.uk

  Text and illustrations copyright © Sir Chris Hoy, 2017

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication should be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Sir Chris Hoy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-8481-2634-3

  Piccadilly Press is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre,

  a Bonnier Publishing Company

  www.bonnierpublishingfiction.com