Ride

Chapter 25- Where's Fudge?

Chapter 25- Where's Fudge?

Eventually, the arguing died down. Suddenly, everyone just stopped yelling, too tired to care anymore.

Flo sighed, checking the time on the clock. "I guess I better get started on dinner", she reported. "What do you want, Fudge?"

There was no answer.

"Fudge?" Flo ventured again.

Still no answer. Frantically, everyone looked around to find the human girl absent.

"Where could she have gone?!" Luigi demanded. "Did anyone see her leave?!"

"No", everyone replied worriedly, just as Ramone emerged from inside the café. He'd been gone for a while, getting a drink. He looked slightly tipsy, but not exactly drunk.

"Is Fudge in there?!" everyone demanded the second he came out.

"Fudge?" the Lowrider repeated, surprised. "No. I thought she was out here."

"She must've left because we were arguing", Flo realised remorsefully. "She must've been so upset."

"I don't care how upset Fudge is right now", Sarge voiced his opinion, gazing out at the wild weather raging on. "I really don't think she should be out in this weather."

"No", Luigi agreed with a heavy sigh. He looked around at his friends. "We should start looking for her."

Everyone was very quick to agree.

"We will look everywhere!" Luigi continued determinedly. "She must not have gotten very far, but I am taking no chances." Immediately, he took charge. "Guido and Sheriff, you will come with me and help search the town. Sarge, Fillmore, look by Willy's Butte. Mater, Ramone, go to the tractor field and look there. McQueen, Sally, go to the waterfall and the Wheel Well. Everyone else, search the rest of the desert!"

It wasn't often that Luigi handed out orders like that, but nobody hesitated to obey. Normally, they wouldn't be particularly worried at this point. Fudge went off on her own all the time and had also gotten lost at the Los Angeles International Speedway before the tiebreaker race. Several times, search parties had been called. Fudge was never missing for more than a couple of hours. On this occasion, however, the Radiator Springs family had two concerns. The first was that she was out in a storm and the town was even beginning to flood a little. The second was that she had never been in a wheelchair and unable to walk when she'd been missing.

Though, as he followed Sally, Lightning couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. The fact that Luigi had sent him as far away from him as possible failed to escape his attention.

"Where could she be?" the race car wondered as he and Sally made their way to the waterfall.

"I don't know", the Porsche replied. "I really don't think she'd be this far up, but it's worth a look. She knows this area, but she couldn't have gone this far by herself."

"I don't think so either", Lightning agreed.

"The good thing about that is", Sally went on with a smile, "it means she'll be found soon."

Lightning mirrored her smile. "I guess that's true."

"We'll probably be the last ones back to town. I'm sure Fudge'll be there when we get back." Sally sounded so confident. Lightning didn't know how she did it. Sure, he was pretty confident and positive, but his girlfriend was even in the bleakest moments.

"Yeah. Probably." The thought cheered him up. He was sure Sally was right.

The two searched the waterfall and drove all the way up to the Wheel Well. It was slow going with the rain pelting down on them and the climb became very slippery. Lightning even nearly skidded off the road at one point. His eyes widened and his heart rate shot up. Not because of what had happened, but what it reminded him of. He could've sworn he felt the horror of realising that Fudge had fallen off his roof.