When Life Gives You Lemons

Chapter 7- Before the Race

"Rise and shine, Fudge-O!" Lightning called as a door opened noisily.

Lightning? What was he doing in her house and waking her up? Fudge stretched her hand out and smacked it hard on something wooden.

"Ow!" she cried, rubbing her sore hand.

Since when was the bedside table that close to her bed? Surely, it was further away than that last time she checked. Fudge sat up sleepily and saw not the familiar little businesses of her hometown, but the sun rising over the huge towers of a city and lots of signs in Japanese characters.

Oh, yeah, she remembered. She was in Tokyo. She kept forgetting. They'd been there for a couple of days and every morning, Fudge would wake up, thinking that she was back home in Radiator Springs.

"All right, guys!" Lightning announced. "We got a lot to do today, so... let's get to it!"

"All right, what's first?" Sarge asked, his voice filled with its usual authority and determination to get to work.

"Breakfast."

Everyone laughed.

After eating, they returned to their rooms to turn on the weather (Lightning wanted to see what kind of conditions he could expect out on the track).

"It's in Japanese!" Lightning exclaimed in dismay when the weather appeared on the screen.

"This is Japan, soldier", Sarge reminded him. "What did you expect?"

"It's not that bad", Fudge noted, gesturing to the screen. "Look, they got the pictures like the sun and the cloud and the rain... and your favourite, the lightning bolt! Plus, the numbers are all in English.

"In Celsius, not Fahrenheit!" Lightning complained.

Once they'd converted the Celsius into Fahrenheit Lightning, Sarge, Fillmore, Luigi and Guido got to work, insisting that Fudge and Mater could help by staying out of the way and out of trouble.

"Why do we have the hard job?" Fudge had joked to Mater, giggling.

"If you want, Fudge", Sarge piped up kind of sternly, "you can help us."

"I'm good", she replied.

"So..." Fudge attempted to start a conversation with Mater once the others had left. "What's new?"

"Aw, nothin' much", the tow truck responded. "Jus' excited about my date. And McQueen done apologised to me 'bout last night, so..."

"So, you guys are cool?"

Mater nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, that's good... So, what do you wanna do?"

Mater shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, let's see what's on TV", Fudge suggested, reaching for the remote control.

When the TV came on, the first thing they got was a black and white, fuzzy, crackly channel.

"Oh! I love this show!" Fudge joked.

But Mater changed the channel.

"Think we'll find anything in English?" Fudge wondered as they flipped through channels of anime and Japanese news and game shows. Nothing seemed to be in English.

"I don't know..." Mater navigated himself to the movies. "Dad-gum! They got a preview for that movie we wanna see! Let's watch!"

Fudge shrugged. "Okay." She grinned, leaping onto the couch. "I have been dying to see this movie for ages! And it's in English!"