And the hoverboard rose over the fender and hood of the car, climbing the windshield and roof, then flying off the other side, straight for the park and duckpond in front of the courthouse!
Openmouthed - and a touch disoriented by what the hoverboard could do - Marty noticed Griff and his gang run to the gangleader's old car, and pull out three hoverboards of their own - big, ugly things with all sorts of attachments, all probably five times faster than the toy Marty was riding!
Maybe, Marty thought, he could lose them in the shops underneath the courthouse. He glided over the duck pond. The board slowed, then stopped. Marty looked down. He had run out of gas dead centre over the water.
Griff laughed.
‘McFly, you bojo,’ he yelled. ‘Those boards don’t work on water - unless you’ve got the power!’
As if to demonstrate the meaning of power. Griff tossed his hoverboard to the ground. And what a hoverboard! It was three times the size of the board Marty was riding, with twin jets in the back, and fins beside, not to mention those spikes all around the edges. In fact, it didn’t look much like a skateboard -or hoverboard - at all. It looked, Marty thought, a lot mor
e like a chain-saw. Trapped over the pond, he had plenty of time to read the name of the board, too, written in gold letters on a jet black background: THE PIT BULL.
The board came to life with an electric growl. Griff climbed on, bat once again in his hand. He kicked off, running the board in a tight circle, then throwing the front tip of the Pit Bull into the air, doing the closest Marty imagined he could to a wheelie with a board that had no wheels.
Griff grinned at Marty. Marty tried to urge his own board to move some way, any way, but only succeeded in almost losing his balance. The board was stuck, and Marty was dead meat.
Griff grinned at the three members of his gang.
‘Hook on,’ he said.
The two guys and the girl pulled three tow lines from the back of Griff’s board as they climbed onto hoverboards of their own. Griff cocked his bat back.
‘I’m gonna take his head off.’
Griff gunned his board. The four of them came straight for Marty.
Marty was still stuck above the pond on a board that wouldn’t budge! His eyes froze on Griff’s bat, growing larger with every passing second.
Marty, the soon-to-be-heedless sitting duck.
Chapter Five
Griff went into his backswing.
Marty balanced on the hoverboard, six inches above the duck pond. He was trapped.
Griff started his swing, ready to drive Marty’s head out of the park.
There was only one thing Marty could do. He pulled his foot out of the hoverboard strap, and stepped completely off the board.
He dropped quickly into the pond. Water that was much too cold splashed around him as he fell. Griff’s board buzzed above him, missing Marty’s head by inches. And Griff couldn't stop his swing. His hoverboard lurched wildly, sending Griff and his hangers-on straight for the courthouse.
Marty closed his eyes as his head went under. He had taken a breath on his way down - but how long could he stay under?
He opened his eyes underwater. The pond was very clear and clean. He couldn’t see any sign of Griff or the others overhead - only clear blue sky.
In fact, it was very quiet out there.
He decided he’d better come up for air.
He opened his eyes again when he got above the water. There were three unoccupied hoverboards hovering near the pond.
There were also four brand new holes in the smoked green glass that covered the lower part of the courthouse shopping mall - one each, Marty guessed, for Griff and his three gang members.
And, to top it all off, there were a whole bunch of uniformed security guards running around in the wreckage. Even from his pond-level vantage point, Marty could tell that the guards were very unhappy.
Grabbing the pink hoverboard, which had remained hovering just above the water, Marty swam for shore. From the far side of the park, Marty could hear old Biff yelling ‘Buttheads!’ Marty wondered which particular buttheads Biff was referring to. Probably all of them.