The Real Thing Read online

  The debate rolled and crashed like a thunderstorm for the next two hours, before they finally took a vote.

  It was close, but the decision was final. That night the great vats in three massive factories, in three different countries, began to churn.

  SHOTGUNS AND RATTLESNAKES

  They had crossed over the racing track and were following a dusty metal road that led away from it when Fizzer heard the pick-up truck.

  At first he thought that help was at hand, but then realised the noise was coming from behind them.

  ‘Get off the road!’ Fizzer said urgently, his intuition buzzing. Tupai, who had heard nothing, obeyed without question.

  A row of small bushy shrubs ran the length of the road and they dived into it, disregarding a few scratches and cuts, just a half-second before a large khaki-coloured pick-up truck slid around the end of the road and spurted down past them, gravel flying from under its wheels.

  An arm hung out of the driver’s window, but the driver was looking the other way so they couldn’t see his face.

  The two men standing in the back of the pick-up were unmistakeable though, hanging on to the bucking frame with one hand and pointing shotguns in the air with the other. It was the ugly twins, and they looked uglier than ever.

  Fizzer and Tupai crawled on their hands and knees behind the shrubs. It was one thing to be brave when faced with a pitchfork, but quite another kind of bravery to face up to a shotgun. The kind of bravery they award medals for, posthumously.

  The shrubs, which made a kind of hedge, offered quite good concealment, so they followed them until the road turned a corner and the shrubs abruptly stopped.

  There was no other cover, apart from the occasional tree, anywhere nearby.

  ‘What do we do?’ Tupai whispered from behind Fizzer.

  ‘Wait,’ Fizzer said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Night.’

  They sat for a while, and Tupai even lay down for a time in the relative safety of the small hedge.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ Fizzer said. ‘It’ll be a long night.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’ll be all right. You get some kip, I’ll keep an eye out for Curtis and the Brothers Grimm.’

  And Tupai did sleep.

  In the bowels of the three factories, in Ireland, Africa and Puerto Rico, ingredients were sliding down massive stainless steel chutes into huge mixing and boiling vats by the time Tupai and Fizzer finally ventured out on to the metal road.

  A car started nearby, and Fizzer froze, one hand back in warning, but the car drifted off somewhere in the distance.

  They started to walk, navigating by starlight, conscious of the sound of their breathing and the crunch of their footsteps on the unsealed road. They travelled about a kilometre, without speaking, before Fizzer said, ‘Sorry I dragged you into this, Tupai.’

  Tupai placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder in the dark. ‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, mate.’

  A few more paces, then bright lights appeared in the distance burning fiery holes in the dark fabric of the countryside, and they heard the far-off sound of an engine.

  ‘Down,’ hissed Fizzer.

  They scuttled off the road, dropping into a drainage ditch, mostly dry fortunately, which ran the length of the road.

  The lights intensified until they could see two headlights, with a row of spotlights mounted on a rack above.

  They buried their faces in the mud and weeds as the lights swept over their heads, but the vehicle did not slow. Fizzer looked up as it flashed past and saw a pick-up truck, although he could not tell from the back, in the dark, what colour it was, or who was driving it. They waited until it was a few hundred metres away before they crawled back out of the ditch and resumed their trek.

  ‘Do you think it was them?’ Tupai asked.

  Fizzer shrugged. ‘Better safe than sorry.’

  After a moment Tupai asked, ‘How do you know we’re heading the right way?’

  The answer came back with a grin Tupai could hear but not see in the darkness. ‘We’re heading away from the ranch. That’s the right way.’

  The truck, or a similar one, patrolled the road three or four times that night. A smaller vehicle, a car of some kind, passed them twice, and a loud Harley Davidson motorcycle breezed past once, the throaty roar of its engine unmistakeable from a long way off. Each time they took refuge in the ditch, and continued onwards as soon as the vehicle had passed.

  One thing they realised, as the night progressed, was the sheer scale of everything in America. As light began to rise again over a range of hills to the east, the roads they had been following seemed no closer to ending than when the two had set out.

  A tall row of poplars followed the road now, a windbreak for some barns and other smaller buildings now appearing out of the darkness with the coming of the dawn.

  ‘We’d better get off the road again,’ Fizzer said, eyeing the buildings with suspicion. They didn’t seem populated, or even dwellings, but if they were work buildings then they could attract visitors during the day.

  ‘Have we passed a McDonalds yet?’ Tupai asked as they slipped through the poplars. ‘Isn’t there supposed to be one around every corner in America?’

  Fizzer nodded. ‘I’d even settle for a Burger King.’

  ‘Double whopper with cheese.’

  ‘Large fries and onion rings.’

  ‘Nope, lay off the onion. You’ve been eating canned beans for a week, the resulting explosion could be catastrophic.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘But a chocolate shake for dessert.’

  ‘Strawberry and banana mixed.’

  ‘Chocolate.’

  ‘Strawberry-banana.’

  The other side of the trees was scrubland, green-brown grass and clumps of thorny weeds. A few metres away, a thicket of wild cane stretched along another fence. Behind it was a freshly ploughed field, where a massive metal plough and the tractor that pulled it rested in the half-light of the early morning.

  They slept after a while from sheer exhaustion. The poplars provided shade, for the morning at least. They never made it to the afternoon, their peaceful slumber was brutally stolen by the sound of trotting hooves. The sound came, not from the road side of the poplars, but from the scrubland side where they were lying.

  ‘Follow me,’ Fizzer whispered, shaking Tupai awake, and they sprinted across the uneven ground to the cane thicket, pushing aside the stalks and making a path as deep inside as they could.

  Fizzer, who was in front, looked behind to see Tupai quietly, but systematically, straightening and steadying the cane stalks behind them to conceal their passage.

  The hooves sounded closer, and something slithered across the ground past Tupai’s feet.

  ‘Do they have rattlesnakes in Georgia?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ came the unhelpful response.

  The hooves stopped at the cane thicket and a stick, or maybe a shotgun, began to beat the first few clumps. Whoever it was didn’t venture into the thicket though, and the sound of the hooves started again and gradually faded.

  ‘Why didn’t they check it out properly?’ Fizzer wondered.

  ‘Perhaps they know about the rattlesnakes,’ Tupai said with concentrated coolness, as there was another slithering sound near his ankles. ‘Watch where you step on the way out.’

  ‘You don’t want to stay in here? In case they come back.’

  ‘In a word, no.’

  They both trod very carefully on their way out of the thicket, and the slithering sounds kept a safe distance from them, or at least they didn’t get bitten.

  ‘I suppose we should make a start,’ Fizzer said, looking both ways down the narrow lane. ‘No point in waiting around here for him to come back.’

  Tupai shook his head. ‘Nah. I’m sick of this sneaking around. And we don’t know how far we have to go. We could be walking for weeks.’

  ‘So your suggestion is?�
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  ‘We go for a tractor ride.’

  Fizzer swung around and looked at the tractor sitting idle in the middle of the field.

  ‘What’s it doing there, do you think?’

  ‘I’d say whoever is supposed to be driving that thing is too busy looking for us.’

  ‘So we just hop on, start her up and make a run for it?’

  Tupai nodded.

  ‘Simple as that?’

  ‘Simple as that.’

  Of course it wasn’t.

  THE TRACTOR GREEN

  Tupai managed to start the tractor all right, that part was easy, and Fizzer had driven one before, when his father had a job as a farm manager on a sheep station in the middle of the North Island. So they were soon rolling, heading towards an open gate at the far end of the field. First Fizzer had had to work out how to lift the plough, a solid metal apparatus attached to the back of the tractor, with sharp-looking tines curving down into the soil.

  The plough rose and flattened itself against the rear of the tractor when Fizzer finally found the right lever.

  They rumbled slowly across the field and out on to the road, where the tractor was able to pick up quite a good speed, the large rubber tyres with the deep tread making a buzzing noise on the hard metal of the road.

  ‘Le tracteur vert,’ Tupai shouted with a smile over the noise of the engine and the tyres.

  ‘Le what?’ Fizzer looked back at him, perplexed.

  ‘I never paid much attention in French,’ Tupai shouted, ‘but for some reason I remember that phrase, le tracteur vert. The tractor green.’

  For some reason this seemed really funny, and they both laughed for a while. It felt good not to be walking, and it felt good to be making some real progress. They must have been travelling at around thirty kilometres per hour, which was all the tractor could manage.

  The sun warmed their backs and the breeze of their speed ruffled their hair. It was altogether a much more pleasant feeling than lying face down in a muddy ditch.

  The ugly brothers spotted them as they passed a grassy track that led to another huge barn. The pick-up truck was circling around in front of the barn when there was a shout from one of the brothers on the back of it, and it suddenly accelerated back down the track towards the road. It was a small satisfaction to see one of the twins lose his footing when the truck took off and slide back down the tray, cracking his head on the tailgate.

  The pick-up slid out of the track on to the road, sending shingle flying, and came charging after them like a dog after a wild pig.

  As it spun out of the track they could see the other twin aiming a shotgun in their direction, but then the truck was behind them, hidden by the metallic mass of the plough.

  The plough was keeping them alive. On one side of the road was the drainage ditch, on the other a sturdy wooden fence. The plough was wide enough to block the small dirt road, leaving no room for the pick-up truck to pass. And it was solid enough to block any shots the brothers might be stupid enough to make.

  There was a bang behind them, and a spray of pellets bounced harmlessly off the underside of the plough.

  Fizzer and Tupai’s estimate of the brothers’ intelligence dropped a few more points. A couple more shots rebounded from the metal behind them but none penetrated the thick steel.

  The pick-up truck swerved to the left, then to the right, as if by doing so it could find a way past.

  An open gate appeared in front of them, opening on to another freshly ploughed field, huge furrows running the length of the paddock.

  On impulse, Fizzer swung the big machine in through the gate and across the field of dirt. As he’d hoped, the pick-up truck slid to a halt at the gate, the narrow tyres of the truck unable to cope with the soft dirt and deep ruts of the freshly ploughed field.

  The tractor trundled away happily, although the big tyres did score deep grooves sideways across the field, making a mess of someone’s hard work.

  The pick-up pulled forwards a few yards, trying to get an angle on the tractor, but Fizzer aimed the tractor away from them a little, blocking their shot with the plough until they were out of range.

  Another gate on the far side of the field led to another road, tarsealed. Fizzer felt a rising hope. Tarseal. That surely meant a public road.

  ‘I think we’re getting close to civilisation,’ he shouted.

  On cue, the khaki pick-up screamed around the corner of a road somewhere behind them, its tyres smoking with anger as it slid on to the tarseal.

  ‘This is not good,’ Tupai shouted.

  The road was wider, and there was just enough space for the truck to get by, if Fizzer would let it, so he didn’t. He swung the tractor desperately from right to left as the truck swerved around behind them.

  Tupai was examining the rig of the plough, holding on to the roll bar with two rigid hands as the machine careened along the road.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he shouted. ‘When I tell you to, slam on the brakes.’

  Tupai reached up to the plough attachment. He had to stand on the seat of the tractor and stretch to his full height. The way the tractor was waltzing down the road made it almost suicidal.

  Another pointless shot bounced off the underside of the plough as he reached up and pulled out a small locking bolt, then grasped the fat, rubber-coated handle of the assembly pin.

  ‘Ready …’ he shouted, watching the truck through a small gap in the plough and bracing himself with one hand on the roll bar. ‘Now!’

  Fizzer stood on the brakes. Literally. He stood up out of the seat with all his weight on one foot, the one on the brakes.

  A tractor is a huge deadweight and takes a lot of stopping, but those massive tyres put a lot of rubber on the road and, when they stop turning, they grip like glue.

  The tractor shrieked to a halt, smoke pouring from both big tyres, and slewed a little to one side.

  The pick-up truck slammed its anchors on too, but not quickly enough, and it rammed into the back of the tractor between the great wheels. It was a fight the tractor won.

  Even before the impact, Tupai wrenched out the huge pin with a sound that was half scream, half roar, and the whole weight of the plough smashed down on to the front of the pick-up, the metal tines scything through the hood and into the engine bay below, with a screeching, tearing sound.

  ‘Go! Go!’ Tupai yelled, and Fizzer stood on the accelerator. The tractor surged forward dragging the hood of the truck, the distributor cap, the carburettor, half the radiator and a collection of small plastic hoses and wires with it.

  The whole mess hit the road as it was dragged forward off the pick-up and the rear end of the plough bounced out of the towing bars and gouged its way to a stop in the tarmac.

  The tractor went a lot faster, they discovered, without the plough, and they took off down the road, leaving the ugly brothers staring at the wreck of their truck.

  Ten minutes later a State Police Cruiser approached on the other side of the road, and, by a combination of arm signals and general mad shouting, they managed to get it to stop.

  The troopers inside were tough, experienced front-line policemen, with handguns the size of small cannons strapped to their waists, and hats that looked a little like lemon squeezers.

  More importantly, though, they had a photo of Fizzer and Tupai in a clipboard on their dash.

  JOKE-A-COLA

  The backlash was more widespread and vehement than anyone could have anticipated.

  They began shipping the new formula that week, and most of the bottling plants around the United States, along with almost all the international plants, were using it a fortnight later when their existing syrup stocks ran out.

  The response from the public was both immediate and frightening. There were public rallies in Pittsburgh, marches in Washington DC, and near riots in some areas of Los Angeles.

  Coca-Cola denied the recipe had changed, although it was pretty obvious to anyone with tastebuds that it had.

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sp; Network news bulletins carried the news as a lead story, and even the normally sedate New York Times had a front page banner asking, ‘Is this the Real Thing?’

  Local channels interrupted daytime programming, including the popular soap, The Beautiful Years, to report the story, but that only caused a backlash against the channels from viewers for whom nothing less than World War Three would have justified interrupting the programme.

  People began stockpiling older bottles, with the original formula, and a black market took off on the Internet with cans of ‘Old Coke’ selling for up to twenty times the price of the new product. Two US Congressmen came out swinging at The Coca-Cola Company, and a group of lawyers in Seattle filed a class-action suit to force Coca-Cola to change back.

  What they didn’t realise, of course, was just how impossible that was.

  Critics called the drink, ‘the Coke you have when you’re not having a Coke’. David Letterman, on The Late Show, called it ‘Joke-a-Cola’, while Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, paraphrasing an old Coca-Cola advertising line, said, ‘Things go better with … just about anything else,’ before pouring a can of Coke down a toilet that had been set up on stage.

  This caused a renewed outbreak of fury, directed, not at Jay Leno, who had done the pouring, but at The Coca-Cola Company, who had done the mixing.

  There was something sacred, it seemed, about the century-old soft drink, something deeply embedded in the American psyche. Pouring Coke down a toilet was akin to burning an American flag, and the anger was real and extreme, as if the executives at The Coca-Cola Company were, somehow, trying to cheat the American public out of their heritage.

  Nor was the raging storm limited to the United States. In Mexico and Iceland, the two largest per-capita drinkers of Coca-Cola in the world, cars were overturned and buses burned in some of the largest street riots seen in those countries. Particularly in Iceland, where rioting was a relatively unknown pastime. In Uruguay a seventy-year-old man chained himself to the top of a church steeple, claiming that he would not come down until they re-introduced the original recipe. In Rio de Janeiro a special Coca-Cola Carnival was held, in a strange kind of prayer to Coca-Cola to reconsider.