Hugh warily accepted Fiona's offer of help to get back up. Something must be up as she only let him fall over once whilst pretending to support him.
"They're on the move" she said "apparently we only have 3.33 revolutions before the plot thickens"
"99 red balloons" Hugh muttered almost inaudibly.
"Oh do stay with it" Fiona snapped "that was last time. Now change into your purple outfit quickly"
---
Meanwhile, on the M25, surprisingly, traffic was moving.
Even more surprisingly, especially to the lads in their rep-mobiles - and even more especially to those being overtaken by it, was the lorry moving at what could be called a respectable pace. The police, had they noticed, would have called it illegal, probably, but they didn't notice and it somehow never triggered the speed cameras either. So surprising was this that no-one noticed the car tucked in behind it.
Even more surprising than any of the above was that the lorry was on it's second revolution of the M25. But this surprising fact went unnoticed by more or less everyone. Including, suprisingly, the occupants of the car tucked in behind it.
---
In the car, the driver - lets call him/her/it James as everyone else seems to - counted backwards from eleventyone, then set the airconditioning to recycled, counted forward to eleventythree and set it back to scoop in external air, thus avoiding the smell that could politely be called rotten cabbages. She/it/he did this not out of any consideration of its/his/her passengers, but purely out of a sense of nasal self preservation.
---
Fiona and Hugh dashed madly hither and thither for a while, clad in purple. Then they pulled themselves together and headed to the lookout point.
---
In the back of the lorry, several people appeared to be trying to do an interpretative dance at each other, possibly with extreme prejudice.
"If you don't knock it off, you'll have the lorry over" bellowed the driver. He was lying, but he was fed up with the racket they were making.
"Tell you what" said one especially red in the face person "let's just say we all agree we're all who we say we are and get on with it"
"Hang on! We can't do that! I don't agree I'm who I say I am"
The rest rolled their eyes.
"OK lads - as soon as you see the smell..."
---
Fiona produced some snowgoggles and two clothes pegs, all purple. She handed one set to Hugh, and they donned them.
"Dust in dime" Hugh said
"Well don't eat it den"
---
About this time the passengers in the car noticed something was up. It wasn't the fact that they had recently (relatively speaking) crossed over the Dartford Crossing for about the 3rd time. It wasn't that they appeared to be just over the speed limit. Nor was it even that they had been tucked in behind the same lorry all the way - even though they had long ago run out of words to make up from the number plate. It was more the foul stench that invaded the car.
"James! Do something!"
James however, had not only taken the precaution of pegging their nose with a peg, but had also plugged their ears with cotton wool.
---
Several things happened.
A white cloud suddenly emerged from the back of the lorry.
The lorry screeched to a halt.
The car vanished into the white cloud, presumably into back of the lorry. Possibly actually into the back of the lorry, as no noise of collision was heard.
Watching it on cctv later, the operator would have sworn that both the car and the lorry started to stop before the white cloud emerged, but he knew he would be laughed at, so he didn't.
(And apols for the delay.
)