The Heiress Club

Chapter 5: Liar

"You should drive."

I blink. "Me? Don't you have to be eighteen?"

Mnisi waves me off. "It'll be fine. Noelise drives all the time, and she's only seventeen. Your dad tells me that you need to practise driving."

I look at Sparky. I don't know what possessed him to think this was a good idea. I know this was his doing. Sometimes, even I can't understand his scheming. "Yeah, because I'm bad at it," I answer. I hear Noelise cough in what might be her version of a laugh. She's warmed up considerably.

"Nonsense!"

"I don't want to crash your car ..."

"This old thing? I picked it up at a used car sale for two grand. Don't worry about it. I'm lending it to you two for the afternoon." Apparently, Sparky's car got towed because of his poor parking. Sparky's still trying to wrangle it back, so in the meantime, Mnisi made the generous offer to lend us his car. Besides, from what he's implied, he has several more all lined up at his Monaco estate.

I smile. Well, I'll freely take what's freely given. "I'll try to return it without damage."

Mnisi guffaws. "You do that."

Their chauffeured car—a sleek black limousine—arrives soon, and Sparky and I bid them farewell. Once they're gone, I move to get into the passenger seat, but Sparky stops me. "You should drive," he insists. "Good practice."

"If I drive, I'm going to be bad."

"Good. Drive."

I roll my eyes exasperated but comply, circling around to the driver's side. Almost as soon as I've sat down, I realise it's one of those old-timey kinds of cars—a stick shift. "I can't drive stick shifts," I report to Sparky.

"It's like a normal car, just with gears," Sparky says, unfazed. "The speed limit here is so low you don't even need to shift gears." Despite his blasé tone, I see him buckle his seatbelt securely. Normally, Sparky never wears his seatbelt.

Thanks for that vote of confidence. I sigh and buckle my seatbelt too. "You suck."

"Hurry up and drive. We gotta get back to the hotel."

Driving is slow and painful. I run up on curbs countless times, no doubt scraping the sides of the car. It's so scratched on the outside that I don't think Mnisi will notice anyway. I accidentally knock over some trash cans. I stop and start in awkward jolts so much so that Sparky looks green in the face. He doesn't say anything though, sticking stubbornly to his decision to let me drive.

"Turn left here," Sparky directs as I come to a four-way intersection.

I turn left. "Actually, U-turn."

I swerve sharply, frustrated. "Do you actually know where we're going?"

"The Monaco streets are confusing," Sparky defends. "Turn right."

We putter down a narrow street, buildings painted in bright oranges and yellows crowding our vision and leaving only a small river of blue sky above. "That's a nice car," Sparky says.

I cast a quick glance at where Sparky's looking. An old blue-and-white van which looks stunning but probably can't go over 50 KPH is rattling slowly to our right over the poorly paved streets. "Where do we go?" I ask, reminding Sparky.

"Turn right."

I turn right. Now we're going on a steep downhill slope, down towards a wider street near the docks. "Careful," Sparky mutters, almost imperceptible.

It's hard to control my speed when I'm going downhill. I keep pressing down on the brakes, to no avail. Despite my efforts to keep a safe distance away, we slowly creep up on the blue-and-white van. "Careful," Sparky repeats.