“Step on it! I haven’t moved this fast since they confiscated my license” yelled the other, her hair streaming behind her.
Gran spotted us, lifted one hand in a regal wave, and hollered, “Best country I ever invaded!”
Kai lost the battle with gravity and laughter, bending over like he’d been gut-punched.
I just pressed my hands to my face and prayed for the earth to swallow me.
Half the neighborhood was out, watching Gran’s spectacle. I thought she’d been a handful when she was on her own, but I was so wrong. When we moved her to Australia, we were thrilled to find an open room in a house down the road where she could live with two other ladies.
A blessing in disguise, and not in a good way. Gran had corrupted those two shrews faster than I could blink, and they’d been terrorizing the neighborhood ever since.
“She’s your family,” Kai reminded me cheerfully.
“She moved here for the weather,” I corrected. “And the wine.”
“And for you.” He kissed my temple in a way that made my knees wobble.
Eventually, the scooter stuttered to a halt in the middle of the cul-de-sac, its engine dying with a final death rattle. It came to a wobbling stop as if it had finally remembered it was built for gentle grocery runs, not senior-citizen drag racing.
Kai and I jogged over just as Gran kicked the little kickstand down with surprising agility.
She climbed off dramatically, hands on her hips, windswept curls and cheeks flushed with triumph. The two elderly partners in crime peeled themselves off the back, their legs shaking and their hair standing on end, looking like they’d survived a carnival ride operated by a drunk fairy godmother.
“Why, Gran?” I shook my head exasperatedly. “Just why?”
“To feel alive, darling,” she announced, lifting her chin proudly. “Besides, Margo said her hip felt stuck, so we were trying to unstick it, so to speak.”
Margo — white hair sticking straight back as though electrocuted — nodded enthusiastically, “It did help. I think my arthritis shifted.”
Before I could reply, a small electric patrol buggy with an amber light silently whirring rolled into the street.
Oh no.
The council ranger stepped out, a clipboard tucked under one arm, his expression somewhere between exhaustion and fascination. He must have been on his usual route through the neighborhood — he had started passing by Gran’s house multiple times a day — and the sight of a stolen hot-pink mobility scooter doing forty in a twenty zone had clearly caught his attention.
“Afternoon,” he greeted warily. “Ma’am … did you borrow this from your neighbor again?”
Gran patted the scooter affectionately. “I prefer the term ‘test drive.’ This baby has potential.”
The ranger pinched the bridge of his nose as though he were fighting to hold on to his sanity for dear life.
Same, buddy. Same.
“We’ve talked about this.”
Gran leaned forward, squinting at his name tag. “Elliot, dear, it’s far too hot for that much uniform. Are you trying to bake yourself alive?”
“Madam.” Elliot sighed. “Please just … keep your hands off the scooter.”
“Sure, sure. Yes, absolutely, I will,” she promised, raising her hand like a boyscout, with a wrinkle-nosed smile that clearly meant absolutely not.
He looked at me and Kai with the haunted stare of a man who had previously had to deal with my grandmother and her accomplices and who might need therapy because of it.
Kai saluted him in sympathy.
When the ranger finally drove off — muttering something like “I’m too young for this job” — we walked Gran and her merry disaster squad back to their house at the end of the street. Gran kept talking the whole way, waving her hands wildly as she recounted the “emotional benefits of high-speed cardiovascular chaos.”
“Joyride while your knees still work!” she declared, pointing to the sky. “One day the universe will repo these bad boys and I refuse to leave any miles unused!”
