Toto and the Boys I: Jackie

Chapter 11

 What the hell, Jackie! Get inside! Get inside! Faster!

Well, good thing she finally came to her senses. After jumping around in a circle behind Beatle, she finally managed to run back to me and climb in.

Start! Start! Start!

The alarm was still going off and I could almost make out the guard in white uniform coming our way.

Go, Jackie, Go!

“Oh God, oh God!” she cried after she finally managed to get me started. “Escape plan, escape plan. Where to go, Toto?”

This was what I was talking about! We have to have an escape plan! You know I like Beatle, right? He’s a cool car. And now you’ve ruined the only friendship I have in this godforsaken parking lot!

Okay, I had to focus as well. Jackie was definitely going crazy as she veered me away, almost bumping against the headlights of the narcissistic BMW--the only thing I regretted not happening that time--and zoomed around the parking lot.

Calm down, girl. Calm down. You don’t want to be too obvious. Oh God, the guard is coming! Turn, turn, turn!

I have always wanted to be a getaway car. I had met one a long time ago and the thrill of the vic’s story made me want to experience the same thing. Yes, it was a bonus that it was a feminine vehicle. But there was a big difference between that vehicle’s experience and the one I was in.

Its owner came prepared. That was why it lived to tell the tale.

My owner wasn’t. She did the act on impulse and it was getting us in trouble!

“That alarm was not part of the plan,” Jackie uttered the moment we finally made it out of the parking lot without the guard running after us.

Oh, so you had a plan? I must tell you, Jackie girl, whatever that plan was, it was stupid as hell.

Jackie was obviously still tensed. I could feel her fingers gripping my wheel tightly.

You almost gave my engine an attack to the death, I told her after a few minutes. We were now driving around Bacolod Lagoon, past the capitol and to McDonald’s. She entered the drive thru.

Good thing you decided to get lunch. Eat and your brains might just start working again. I was really pissed with her at that moment. I was still thinking about Beatle’s cry of anguish as we drove away. How could I ever repay that Civic? Not in this mileage, I guess.

Ever since I had been manufactured, I had never experienced such thing. Sure, I liked the thrill, but it was one thrill I was not willing to go through again. It would have been better if it was Georgie. That girl had a lot of guts and cunning unlike Jackie here, who seemed to have shifted from the nice, pretty lady I knew she was to a crazy car killer.

Jackie ordered a meal of burger and fries and then we were back in the road. She drove to the Philippine Red Cross headquarters.

Hey, there, Dee! I called out when I spotted my ambulance friend. The only friend I had left after Jackie did her criminal act earlier. Ah, yes, of course, I still had Tata. But I hated her owner so she didn’t really count.

Jackie climbed off me with her food and I was, for the first time, thankful that she was leaving me.

  *****

“What are you doing here?” George asked her.

Her friend was behind a desk full of radios set in different frequencies. The other rescuers in the office just stared at Jackie as she walked to where her friend was.