Demolition Derby Showdown!

Most trucks don’t have a wrecking ball.

Smash did. And every morning, when she thought nobody was listening, she talked to it.

On Saturday morning, sunshine poured in through the big doors of the Garage and lit up Smash’s bay. Her walls were purple, and her shelves were stacked with spare armor plates, polished bright. Across the floor lay her chain, stretched out in a line as straight as a ruler.

At the very end of the chain sat the ball. It was as dark as a thundercloud and as heavy as a boulder, and it was covered all over in fat, rounded spikes.

Smash was winding the chain back into her rear hatch, one link at a time, through a little tray of oil.

Click. Drip. Click. Drip.

“There you go,” she told the ball softly. “Nice and smooth. Good ball.”

“Are you... petting your wrecking ball?”

Smash froze.

Bounce’s bay was right next door. His round yellow face was peeking around the wall, and his green headlights were very wide.

“I’m MAINTAINING it,” said Smash. “There’s a difference.”

“It looks like petting.”

“Every link has to slide in clean. No sticking. No snags. One snag, and my ball won’t lock, and then I can’t swing big again.”

“It looks like petting,” said Bounce, “and telling it you love it.”

Smash stared at him until his springs began to wobble.

“Get out of my bay.”

Bounce sprang away, giggling.

BEEP! Across the Garage, the Command Screen lit up, and big orange letters slid across it: Rumble Bowl Demolition Derby. First of the season. Tonight.

Big Stomp read the screen. “All right, crew! Tonight’s the night. Smash, this one is YOUR event.”

Smash rolled out of her bay as if she had never petted anything in her whole life. CLANK went her armor. CLANK. CLANK. Her purple paint caught the sun, and the little skull-and-crossbones on her doors seemed to grin.

“I know,” said Smash.

A blue streak zipped across the floor and screeched to a stop in front of her. It was Nitro, of course, and he was talking before his tires had even stopped spinning.

“What’s a demolition derby, exactly? Is it just breaking stuff? Because I can break stuff. I broke a cone on the Speed Strip yesterday—”

“You knocked over a traffic cone,” said Smash.

“It was a BIG traffic cone.”

Smash let out a long, low rev. “A demolition derby is walls, Nitro. Barriers. Columns. Towers. Things that are built to be knocked down.”

“And nobody ever touches another truck,” said Torque, rolling out of her bay. “Not once, not ever. That’s the first rule.”

“And it isn’t just about knocking stuff over,” said Smash. “It’s about doing it beautifully. It’s an art.”

She said art the way Torque said engineering, as if it were the best word in the whole world.

A list was glowing on Torque’s little screen. “I’ve studied last year’s derby,” she said. “There are three rounds. Round One is walls. Round Two is columns and arches. And Round Three is—”

“One giant thing in the middle, and nobody finds out what it is until the very end,” said Smash. “I know.”

The big doors rumbled, and Mudslide rolled in from his morning drive. He had gone out almost clean. He had come back wearing about half a hill, and a trail of mud followed him across the floor like a very slow puppy.

“Morning, dudes,” he said. “Big night?”

“Smash’s night,” said Big Stomp.

Torque checked her list one more time. Then she looked at Smash, and her voice went careful.

“There’s one more thing. Diesel entered this year.”

The whole Garage went quiet. Even Nitro stopped rolling.

Smash’s headlights narrowed. Just a little.

“I know.”