"BOY" by Roald Dahl
... 25 chapters. I liked them all, and here is a resume of the most dramatic one; A Drive in the Motor-Car. When Roald Dahl’s first term at St. Peter Boarding School ended in December 1925, he had an enormous homesickness. Therefore, it was a great delight when Roald’s mother came to bring him and his trunk home for Christmas holidays; a couple of weeks without hard study, sadistic headmasters, monster-matrons and grotesque canes. The weather was exceptionally mild that Christmas holiday, and one amazing morning, the Dahl family was going to take their first drive in the first motor they had ever owned. The car was a black-painted French automobile, called De Dion-Bouton. The driver was Roald’s elder sister who had received two driving lessons from the man who had delivered the car. As the family climbed into the auto, their excitement was so intense they could hardly bear it. Everyone wondered how fast this new car would drive. The only way to find out, was to try. The drive started nice and slowly on a deserted road, but the joy and trill of fast driving, made the passengers demand higher speed. When the speed increased, the inexperienced chauffeur’s driving skills weren’t enough. In a sharp bend in the road, Roald’s ancient sister, never having been faced with a situation like this before, slammed on the brakes, and made the wheels lock. The car went into a fierce sideways skid, and in a great crash, the auto went into a hedge. The passengers flew in all directions along with broken glass. Some landed on the road, others in the hedge. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured, no one except Roald. His nose had been cut almost right off as he had flown through the rear windscreen, and was now dangling in a thin thread of skin. Roald’s mother knew what to do, and clapped the dangling nose back into his face, and held it there. Now, the problem was to get injured Roald to a doctor. The elder sister managed with a little effort to get the wrecked car back on the road ...