american tragedy

Chapter 27 (1)
Chapter 119 (1)
Nothing happened on the road, and Clyde continued to dream.He sat beside Hortense, and Hortense leaned on his shoulder.Before getting into the car, Sparser twisted her arm while everyone was not looking, and she also gave him an affectionate look.All this Clyde did not see.

It was getting late, and Hegglund, Ratterer, and Higby agreed to drive faster.Sparsit was even more elated because of Hortense, so that soon they could see the lights of the suburbs of the city.The car drove out at full speed along the road.But when the car arrived at the place where the railway line entered the urban area, two trucks were stuck in traffic and they waited for a long time.When we arrived in Kansas City, it was snowing again, fluffy snowflakes fluttered to the ground, the road was covered with slippery mud, and the car had to drive slowly.It is already 05:30 at this time, and it usually takes 8 minutes to drive to the vicinity of the hotel.But there was another traffic jam at the Hannibal bridge, and it was already past 40:[-] when we crossed the bridge and drove to Wien.The four boys have forgotten the fun of traveling with their girlfriends, and only worry about whether they can get to the hotel in time.Mr. Squires' tall and serious figure swayed in front of everyone.

"Hey, hurry up." Ratterer said to Higby who was looking at his watch anxiously: "It's too late, too late to change clothes."

Clyde interjected loudly, "Oh, God help me, I'm sure it's quicker. Well, I wish we didn't come out today. If we don't make it in time, things won't be easy."

Seeing that he was very anxious, Hortense asked, "Do you think you can make it in time?"

"It's going to be too late," he said, and Hegglund, who had been watching the snow flying outside the window, said loudly, "Please, Ladd, we'll hurry up. If we don't make it in time, we'll be punished. "

Higby usually didn't care about anything, and like a gambler, he was panicking now.He said, "We've got to make up a reason, or we're dead. Anyone have an idea?" Everyone was downcast, and nothing was said.

The house leak happened to rain overnight, and God was against them.With unusual traffic jams at nearly every intersection, Sparser was at a loss.And at the intersection of Ninth Street and Wyndott Street, the police raised their hands and signaled that no traffic was allowed.Sparser sweated profusely. "Hands up again," he cried. "What? Take Washington Road instead. But if it saves time, I'm not sure."

After a long 1 minute, it was released.He turned sharply to the right, three blocks, onto Washington Street.

In fact, it is not much better here, the cars coming and going are crowded.There was a delay at every fork in the road.Waiting for other cars to pass, they drove quickly to another fork in the road and drove into a street.

At the intersection of No. 15 Street and Washington Street, Clyde asked Ratterer loudly: "How about we get off at No. 17 and walk?"

Sparser cried, "If I can get over there, I'll be quick."

He squeezed tightly behind the other cars, leaving no gaps.On No. 16 Street, he saw that there seemed to be not many people on the street on the left, so he turned a corner and rushed forward along the road until he reached West Dot Street.When the intersection was about to speed up and turn, a little girl who was only about five or six years old ran towards the intersection and ran in front of the car.Before he could turn to avoid it, the car hit her before the brakes and dragged her forward for several feet.At this time, the voices of five or six women screamed, and five or six men, who had witnessed the tragedy, also screamed.

They all surrounded the little girl who was knocked down.Sparser looked out of the car and saw the people around the little girl, terrified.He thought of the police, the prison, his father and Mr. Kimbarker, the owner of the car, and all the punishments that had been imposed on him since then.Everyone in the car stood up and complained loudly: "Oh, God, he knocked down a little girl!" "Oh, God, what are we going to do with this?" : "No, the police are here, I have to drive away!"

Others were still standing there too scared to blink, but without thinking, he quickly shifted the car into third gear, stepped up the accelerator, and flew to the intersection ahead.

Unexpectedly, there was also a policeman here.He saw the noise at the western intersection from a distance, so he left his post and went to have a look.All that was heard was "Stop that car—stop it quickly."A man who followed the car from the accident yelled, "Come on, stop that car! They just killed a kid!"

The police understood what he meant, blew their sirens, and ran towards the car.Hearing the yelling and seeing the police approaching, Sparser sprinted past them and into No. 17 Street at nearly forty miles an hour.He was driving so fast that he brushed the wheels of the truck for a while, touched the fender of the car for a while, and almost hit other vehicles and pedestrians.The few unlucky people sitting in the car sat upright, their eyes widened, their hands clenched tightly, their faces were pale and expressionless, and they were terribly frightened.

But the police and the people who were chasing couldn't be thrown off all at once.Seeing that the car didn't intend to stop and didn't see its license plate clearly, the policeman blew his siren.The police at the intersection in front also understood what was going on, and they also blew their sirens, and stopped a tourist bus to give chase.Three other cars also participated in the pursuit out of righteous indignation, and kept honking their horns.

But the dispatch truck ran much faster than its pursuers.So at first the chants of "stop that car" and "stop that car" were still heard, but soon disappeared, and only the sound of horns blared in a distant mess.

Sparser had escaped a considerable distance forward.He knew that it would be easy to be overtaken if he walked straight ahead, so he quickly turned to Michael Street, a relatively secluded side street.He sped along the road for some distances until he came to broad Clarham Park Street, which curved southward.After a dash, however, he turned another corner at 31st Street, confused by the houses in the distance.The suburbs to the north seemed the best place to hide from pursuers.So he turned left and drove into this street, thinking that on these relatively secluded roads, he could go around and avoid the pursuers, and at least he could free up a while and find a place for everyone to get off. car, and drive the car back.This approach would have been feasible.But he decided to turn off the lights to better avoid tracking.He quickly turned north, east, and south, and finally rushed into a street. Here, the road was suddenly interrupted, and the road ahead was not yet paved.However, since there was another intersecting road a hundred feet away, he thought that turning into it would lead to another road, and he accelerated while turning sharply to the left.Unexpectedly, there was a pile of paving stones here, and the car slammed into the pile of stones.Because the car lights were turned off, he didn't see that there were still logs for building houses piled up on the sidewalk diagonally opposite the pile of stones.

The car hit full throttle, hit a pile of stones, was pushed back, and nearly flipped over.Afterwards, the car rushed straight towards the wood, only heard a "wow", and rushed into the wood pile.Logs fell, and the entire car fell to the left, in the weeds and snowdrifts beside the sidewalk.Then, accompanied by the sound of glass shattering and human bodies colliding, the people in the car crowded into a large pile towards the front left.

(End of this chapter)