Nitro vs. Bounce: Speed vs. Air!

The whole thing started with a backflip.

It was Saturday afternoon in the Garage, and Bounce was bouncing. That was not news. Bounce was always bouncing. He was the smallest truck in the Mash Motors Crew, round and yellow with a green checkerboard. He sat on four big springs that never, ever sat still.

Boing. Boing. BOING.

Each bounce went a little higher than the one before.

“Watch THIS!” said Bounce.

Nobody was watching. Big Stomp was having a nap in his bay, with his headlights dimmed. Smash was dozing too, with one headlight open, in case anything needed smashing. Torque had her crane arm deep in a box of bolts, sorting them by size. Mudslide was out on the mountain trails, the way he was most afternoons.

Bounce didn’t mind. He sprang up, tucked his nose and flipped.

“One!”

He landed, sprang again and flipped again.

“Two!”

He was halfway through his third flip when a blue blur shot across the Garage floor.

WHOOSH!

It was Nitro, doing speed runs from one end of the Garage to the other. He zoomed past Bounce, and his wind zoomed past too. It caught Bounce right in the middle of his flip.

Bounce wobbled. He came down crooked, bounced off his back tires, spun around like a top and stopped. He was facing the wrong way. But he was on his wheels.

“Two and a HALF!” said Bounce. “That counts.”

At the far end of the Garage, Nitro slid to a stop in a spray of blue sparks. He was a wedge of electric blue, zigzagged with white lightning bolts. Even standing still, Nitro looked like he was going somewhere fast.

“That does NOT count,” said Nitro.

“It does too. And you messed it up. Your wind blew me sideways.”

“Your flip got in the way of my run.”

“Flips don’t get in the way,” said Bounce. “Flips go up.”

“Up is slow,” said Nitro. “Speed is the answer. What was the question?”

“Who’s the best stunt truck in Rumble City? That’s the question. And the answer is air. Air beats speed.”

Nitro laughed. “Air? Air is just speed, pointed up.”

“Well, speed is just a jump that forgot to leave the ground!”

They rolled toward each other until they were nose to nose, one tire’s width apart. Nitro’s turbo whistled. Bounce’s springs went boing-boing-boing.

“Speed,” said Nitro.

“Air,” said Bounce.

“SPEED.”

“AIR.”

A huge red shadow fell over them both. It was Big Stomp, the biggest truck in the crew, awake now and blinking.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Big Stomp. “What’s all the noise?”

“Speed is better than air,” said Nitro.

“Air is better than speed,” said Bounce.

Big Stomp looked at Nitro. Then he looked at Bounce. Then his grille split into a slow, wide grin.

“Only one way to find out,” he said. “In front of the whole city.”

Smash opened her other headlight. Torque stopped sorting.

Torque rolled over to the Command Screen, the giant screen that filled one whole wall of the Garage. She tapped out a message with her crane arm and sent it across the city, straight to the Rumble Bowl.

Speed or air: which is better?

The answer came back before she could fold her crane arm away. The screen flashed, and letters as tall as Big Stomp marched across it.

Stunt Showdown! Speed vs. Air! Tonight!

Underneath, in smaller letters, there was one more line.

Round Three: Top Secret.

“Round three?” said Bounce. “What’s round three?”

“It’s a secret,” said Torque. “That’s what top secret means.”

Nitro and Bounce looked at each other. For once, they were thinking exactly the same thing.

What was the secret?