Robot Revolution Read online

  Lena Elizabeth Cahill, the cutest girl in the fifth grade, is on crossing guard duty. She stomps over to our stalled vehicle, gestures with her flag for Dad to roll down his window, and then props her hands on her hips so she can glare at us.

  “You cannot park in the middle of the driveway, Mr. Rodriguez,” she says.

  “I know. I’m not parking. I’m having, uh, technical difficulties.”

  Story of my life.

  “Well, sir, because of your ‘technical difficulties,’ I’m having a traffic jam during morning drop-off!” says Lena, her reflective neon sash glinting in the sun. “This is not acceptable, Mr. Rodriguez. Not on my watch.”

  “Perhaps I can suggest a solution,” says E, leaning forward so Lena can see him.

  “Oh, hi, E,” giggles Lena, completely changing her tone. “I didn’t see you there.”

  I think Lena Elizabeth Cahill has a crush on E. I also think she doesn’t know I exist.

  “This is a very experimental vehicle,” E explains. “One day, perhaps soon, it will be able to drive and park itself.”

  “That’s fantastic,” says Lena. “You think you could make it, like, do that today?”

  “No. However, my arms are outfitted with, if I do say so myself, an array of impressive hydraulics. I am able to lift extremely heavy objects quite easily. I suggest that all passengers disembark, and I will tow the car over to the curb.”

  “Wow,” says Lena. “You’re as strong as a tow truck?”

  “Not to brag, but yes. I am. The automobile club tried to recruit me for roadside assistance, but I told them I was too busy matriculating for Maddie Hayes-Rodriguez.”

  We all climb out of the vehicle.

  “What does ‘matriculating’ mean?” Trip mumbles as we shuffle over to the sidewalk.

  “Going to school,” I say. E likes to use the big m word a lot.

  “Oh,” says Trip. “Then why didn’t he just say ‘going to school’?”

  “I know, I know. I’m working on it.” Getting Mom’s school-stand-in robot to sound more like a real kid is supposed to be my responsibility.

  E marches around to the front of the SUV and hooks one finger under the front bumper. Then, with a WHIR, a CLICK, and a big FERUUUUUUMPPPHHH, he hoists the front end off the ground and drags the whole car over to the curb.

  Show-off.

  Everyone applauds. Dad steps aside to call somebody on his cell phone. Probably a real tow truck.

  E takes a slight bow.

  “Thank you,” he says to the assembled crowd. “On behalf of Dr. Elizabeth Hayes and myself, we regret any inconvenience our ongoing quest for scientific knowledge may have caused you this morning.”

  “Actually,” a kid I’ve never met before pipes up, “your so-called quest for knowledge is idiotic, foolish, and laughable.”

  All righty-o.

  Something tells me this new kid and I aren’t going to be besties.

  Do I know you?” I say to the new kid.

  “Don’t be absurd,” he replies with a haughty huff. “How could you possibly know me when we’ve never even met? This is my first day matriculating here at Creekside Elementary.”

  Trip tugs on my sleeve. “That guy said ‘matriculating,’” he whispers. “Just like E.”

  “I know,” I say out of the corner of my mouth as we walk through the school’s front doors. “I heard him.”

  “Be careful, Sammy,” warns Trip. “Little Mr. Know-It-All could be a ninja robot disguised in strange clothes.”

  Now that Trip mentions it, the new kid does look a little goofy. Nobody else at Creekside comes to school in a navy-blue blazer with gold buttons, pleated khaki pants, a white shirt, and a striped tie. I mean, this is elementary school, not church.

  “Allow me to elucidate as to why your electric SUV is a ludicrous idea.”

  “Huh?” I say.

  E comes over to translate. “He wants to explain his negative reaction to Mom’s new car.”

  The kid sniggers. “I didn’t realize that robotic devices such as you had mothers.”

  “If I might be permitted a slight play on words,” says E with a grin, “Dr. Elizabeth Hayes, my creator, is the mother of many inventions.”

  Trip laughs, so I do, too.

  “And she’s the one who designed that abomination?” The kid flaps his hand toward our dead SUV.

  “Sammy?” asks Trip. “Is he calling your new car a Sasquatch?”

  “No,” says E. “However, by using the word abomination, he is suggesting that the electric SUV-EX is a disgrace, a mistake, and an error.”

  Funny. Error is what I used to call E before I got to know him better.

  “Wait a second,” I say. “Who the heck are you, anyway?”

  The boy taps the breast pocket of his blazer. I see three Rs embroidered there in gold thread. The thread matches the buttons.

  “I am Randolph R. Reich. Fifth grader. I’m never wrong, because I’m always Reich.”

  Since he pronounces his name “Rike,” his dumb joke makes E chuckle.

  “Very amusing,” says E. “However, Randy—”

  “Randolph.”

  “Sorry. My bad. However, Randolph, we all make mistakes—such as my gaffe just now using the more familiar form of your first name.”

  Randolph shakes his head. “Not me, Mr. Roboto. I never make miscalculations. Your ‘mother,’ on the other hand, made a colossal blunder when she decided to engineer a battery-powered SUV.”

  “Oh, really?” I say, because I don’t like anybody, especially new kids who’ve never met her, trash-talking my mom. “How come?”

  Randolph sighs. “It’s so obvious. Do I really need to explain my reasoning?”

  I shoot him a look that lets him know he’d better.

  “Fine. An SUV, or sport-utility vehicle, is primarily intended to be used for rugged, off-roading purposes.”

  “We go camping,” I say defensively. “Well, we did. Once.”

  (With Maddie’s SCID condition, the great outdoors isn’t all that great.)

  “And where, pray tell, would you recharge your battery-powered vehicle when you went on a camping excursion? Where, for that matter, would you even find an electrical outlet in the wild? Would you, perhaps, plug it into the nearest pine tree?”

  Okay. Randolph R. Reich might not be very nice, but he’s actually correct.

  I hate when that happens.

  He’s also attracted an audience. And once again, they’re all laughing. At E, me, and, even though she’s not here, my mom.

  “Plug it into a pine tree!”

  “Ha!”

  “Sammy and his whole family are such weirdos!”

  “His mom is a whackadoodle!”

  Why do I have the feeling that super-smart R.R.R. is going to be a pain in my behind for the rest of fifth grade and, probably, the rest of my life?

  Of course the new kid, Randolph R. Reich (I’d call him Triple R, but I already have a Triple H), is in Mrs. Kunkel’s class with Trip and me.

  “This is Randolph’s first day here at Creekside,” says Mrs. Kunkel. “I’m sure you’ll all do your best to make him feel welcome.”

  I guess. If we have to.

  E spends his day down the hall with the third graders in Ms. Tracey’s classroom, where he’s a stand-in for Maddie. In fact, as soon as E steps across the threshold into Ms. Tracey’s room, Maddie takes control of his high-definition eyeball cameras. She also becomes his voice. E’s artificial intelligence basically goes into sleep mode while Maddie takes over his robot body so she can participate in class. All from the germ-free comfort of her bedroom.

  Meanwhile, in Mrs. Kunkel’s classroom, we’re doing math, and Mr. “I’m never wrong because I’m always Reich” is at the Smart Board.

  “Okay, Randolph,” says Mrs. Kunkel. “I give you two gray cats, two black cats, and two white cats. How many cats do you have?”

  “Simple,” says Mr. Smarty-Pants. “Seven.”

  All righty-o!
I think Mr. Reich just scored his first wrong!

  Trip and I are so happy, we slap each other a low five.

  “Seven?” says Mrs. Kunkel. “Are you sure, Randolph?”

  “Definitely,” says Reich smugly, which, by the way, is how he says everything. He’s so stuck-up he probably thinks that his breath wouldn’t stink if he ate garlic knots dipped in garlic butter and sprinkled with garlic flakes.

  “Let’s try again, Randolph,” says Mrs. Kunkel. “I give you two cats plus two cats plus two more cats. How many cats would you have?”

  Reich rolls his eyes. “As I told you before, I would have seven.”

  “That’s incorrect. Two plus two plus two equals six.”

  “Of course it does, Mrs. Kunkel. But I have another cat at home: Mr. Fluffles. Ergo, if you give me six more cats, I would have seven.”

  “Oh, I see,” says Mrs. Kunkel, nodding. “I did not factor in your ‘Mr. Fluffles.’ My mistake.”

  Reich gives her another eye roll. “Clearly.”

  Wow. The teacher made the mistake, not Reich. I don’t think that’s ever happened in the history of school. Teachers all over the world have those special textbooks with all the answers printed in them. Teachers never, ever, not in a million years, make mistakes.

  I wish I could say the same thing about my mother.

  Because all of a sudden, the school secretary’s voice is coming out of the ceiling speakers.

  “Sammy Hayes-Rodriguez?” she says. “Please report to Ms. Tracey’s classroom. Immediately.”

  This can only mean one thing.

  E must be on the fritz.

  I hurry down the hall and, after knocking on the door, step into Ms. Tracey’s classroom.

  I see E, sitting in a shaft of sunlight near the windows. (It’s Maddie’s favorite spot in the whole room.) He’s slumped sideways at the table he shares with four other third graders. The janitor is there with his toolbox, too.

  “I think it’s his batteries,” says Ms. Tracey. “Maybe that’s why Maddie didn’t have her usual pep and energy today.”

  “Mom probably forgot to recharge him,” I say.

  “Can we recharge him here?” asks the janitor.

  I nod. “We just have to plug him in.”

  I open a compartment on E’s back.

  It’s empty.

  “Um, Mom also forgot to send him to school with his recharging cable,” I tell the janitor.

  I hear a weak BEEP-BLOOP-BEEP.

  That means E’s running out of power. Even his backup batteries are almost fully drained.

  “Mom?” he peeps. “Mom? Help meeeeeeee—”

  And then—KA-THUNK—his head slumps forward onto his desk.

  My bro-bot is officially out of juice.

  The janitor retrieves a rolling trash barrel from the cafeteria and we use it to wheel E up the hall.

  “E ran out of power?” asks Principal Reyes when we bring E into the front office.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And Liz forgot to pack his charger cord?”

  I just nod.

  “Wow,” says Principal Reyes. “That is so not like her.”

  That is so true.

  Mom is the smartest person that I—and pretty much everyone in South Bend, Indiana—have ever met.

  But like I’ve said, Mom’s been messing up a lot lately.

  Principal Reyes is a friend of my parents. She’s in a rock band with my mother and father. They call themselves Almost Pretty Bad; I like to call them Not Very Good. The only decent member of the band is Jimi. Because he’s a robot. That means he knows how to play his guitar so it doesn’t sound like a cat when you step on its tail.

  “This is a major mess-up,” says Principal Reyes, gesturing toward the limp E. “Is your mother preoccupied with something else, Sammy? Is she working on some new breakthrough technology?”

  All I can do is shrug and say, “I don’t know.”

  Because lately Mom, the absentminded professor of robotics, has also been generally absent. I’m starting to think that’s why our blueberries tasted like raisins this morning. She hasn’t been updating the Breakfastinator’s database on a regular basis like she usually does.

  “Well, take good care of E, Sammy,” says Principal Reyes as she heads into her office. “Give my best to your mom and dad. In fact, tell Liz to call me. If she’s under a lot of stress, she might need a girls’ night out.”

  I nod. Then I make a video call home to Maddie.

  “It was so weird,” she tells me. “We were in the middle of a spelling bee, and all of a sudden, E just cut out. He stopped sending me sound and video.”

  “His battery died,” I tell her.

  “Are you recharging him?”

  “No. I mean, I would, but Mom forgot to pack his power cord in the cargo compartment. Add that to the list of her most recent goof-ups.”

  “Well, it’s no biggie. I was winning the spelling bee but I’m sure we’ll just pick it up tomorrow.”

  “Okay. I’m gonna call Mom. Tell her what’s up.”

  “You up for more Spine Spinner Trivia when you get home?”

  “Definitely. See you later.”

  Next I video-call Mom. She’s in her workshop just behind our house.

  And man, does she look like her brain is on some other planet.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say when her frazzled face pops up on my screen. “It’s me. Sammy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your son.”

  “Huh.”

  All righty-o. Her mind is totally “in the zone.” Which means it’s not paying any attention to me.

  “So, how come you’re not at Notre Dame?” I ask.

  She gives me a quizzical look. “What?”

  “Notre Dame. You teach there?” I raise my arms Frankenstein-style, like one of her robots. “You’re a professor of robotics. Remember?”

  “Right. Robots. Can’t talk right now, Sammy. Busy. Very important project. Very, very important.”

  “Okay, but, uh, well, you forgot to pack E’s charger today and he sort of conked out in the middle of a spelling bee.”

  “Right. Okay. Thanks. I’m on it.”

  Then she must have hit the End Call button, because my whole screen goes blank.

  Okay. Nice talking to you, Mom.

  Finally, I call Dad.

  He’s working on more illustrations for his graphic novel masterpiece, but when I tell him what happened to E, he puts down his pen and says he’ll come pick me and E up right away.

  “Uh, with what?” I ask.

  “The SUV,” he says. “It just needed its battery charged. The tow truck hauled it home and I just plugged it in.”

  “Same thing with E. His battery conked out.”

  While I’m waiting for Dad, guess who waltzes into the front office?

  Yep. Randolph R. Reich. Mr. Know-It-All.

  “Mrs. Kunkel wanted to make certain that you were all right,” he tells me.

  “Fine,” I mumble. “My sister’s robot just needs its batteries recharged.”

  “Probably because of that extra exertion in the drop-off lane this morning. Towing an SUV to the curb requires a great deal of power. The effort undoubtedly drained the robot’s lithium cells dry.”

  “Maybe. I dunno.”

  “Of course you don’t know. I, however, pride myself on knowing everything about anything. Was your robot, by chance, sitting in the sun when it experienced this rapid battery drain?”

  “Yes,” I admit.

  He nods. “I thought so. Heat is a battery killer, Sammy. Each fifteen-degree rise in temperature cuts the life of a sealed battery in half.”

  Darn it. He’s right again. “Thanks. I’ll try to remember that.”

  “You should. Also, did you know that Alessandro Volta—the scientist who realized that electricity could be created by two different metals joined together by a moist intermediary—invented the battery in 1800? He used copper and zinc disks piled on top of each other
, separated by cardboard soaked in brine, a brackish mixture of salt and water, also used when making pickles. The volt, which is the derived unit of electrical potential, is named after Signor Volta.”

  All righty-o. I’ve had enough.

  “So tell me, Randolph: is there anything you don’t know?”

  Reich thinks about that. For maybe half a nanosecond.

  “Not really. Engineering, mathematics, the history of transportation, the meaning of abstract art. I know it all.”

  Luckily, that’s when Dad comes to my rescue. We load poor E into the SUV and haul him home.

  Halfway there, the electric SUV-EX starts sputtering. Again.

  We make it home!

  We’re actually pulling into our driveway!

  And then the SUV dies a slow, lurching death.

  This time when it conks out, it also locks all the doors. We’re trapped inside.

  “Jiggle your door handle,” says Dad.

  I jiggle. “It’s still locked.”

  Dad toggles the key. He presses the Start button. He pushes the Door Lock-Unlock button. He jabs the dashboard computer screen with his thumb, pounds a bunch of buttons in the center console with his fist, and tries to roll down the windows and open the sunroof. Nothing works.

  Suddenly, the dead car starts talking. “Opening doors.”

  Dad and I look at each other and—quick! We grab our door handles half a second after the car says, “Doors locking.”

  We’re stuck again.

  “¡Qué pedazo de basura!” mutters Dad, basically calling Mom’s latest and greatest invention a “hunk of junk.”

  As soon as he gets done calling it that, the Door Lock knobs pop up. Then they pop back down. Up. Down.

  It’s like the SUV is messing with us.

  “Keep your eye on the knob,” says Dad. “Next time it pops up, pull your door handle. Pull it fast!”

  So we both sit there. For three freaky minutes. Staring at the Door Lock knobs like they’re toasters and we’re waiting for our bagels to leap out. I’m starting to wonder if there is any food stashed in the glove compartment. We may be trapped in here for a while.