“Yes, I can,” Penny insisted. “I’ll tow her. A little tinkering and she’ll be as good as new.”
“You’re optimistic, to say the least,” laughed Louise.
Penny produced a steel cable from the tool kit of the maroon sedan, and Jake Harriman coupled the two cars together.
“Penny, what will your father say when he learns of this?” Louise inquired dubiously. “On top of a parking ticket, too!”
“Oh, I’ll meet that problem when I come to it,” Penny answered carelessly. “Louise, you steer Lena. I’ll drive the sedan.”
Shaking her head sadly, Louise climbed into the old car. Although Penny was her dearest friend she was forced to admit that the girl often did bewildering things. Penny’s mother was dead and for many years she had been raised by a housekeeper, Mrs. Maud Weems. Secretly Louise wondered if it were not the housekeeper who had been trained. At any rate, Penny enjoyed unusual freedom for a high school girl, and her philosophy of life was summed up in one headline: ACTION.
Penny put the sedan in gear, towing the coupe slowly down the street. The two vehicles traveled several blocks before a hill loomed ahead. Penny considered turning back, and then decided that the cars could make the steep climb easily.
However, midway up the hill the sedan suddenly leaped forward as if released from a heavy burden. At the same instant Lena’s horn gave a sharp warning blast.
Glancing into the mirror, Penny was horrified to see Leaping Lena careening backwards down the steep slope. The tow rope had unfastened.
Bringing the sedan to the curb, she jerked on the hand brake, and sprang to the pavement. Louise, bewildered and frightened, was trying desperately to control the coupe. The car gathered speed, wobbling crazily toward the line of traffic.