Robot Revolution Read online

  POINK!

  Up pops my knob. I pull the handle.

  I’m out!

  Dad crawls ungracefully into the backseat. He’s out, too.

  “Now how do we open the back door to get E?” he wonders.

  And that’s when all the doors decide to automatically glide open.

  “Have a nice day,” says Soovee, chipper as ever.

  “We need to talk to your mother about this,” grumbles Dad. “Right now.”

  Yep. We’re adding it to the list of Stuff That Mom Needs to Fix.

  Dad pushes a button on his remote garage door opener. It activates Forkenstein—a headless robotic forklift Mom uses to haul heavy stuff around inside her lab. Forkenstein rumbles down the driveway on tank treads, sidles over to the SUV, and extends his lift arms to cradle E.

  “Let us put you up on the rack and take a look at you,” says Forkenstein, who now has a voice. Mom made him sound like the guys down at the corner gas station.

  Dad and I follow the rolling bot up the driveway and into Mom’s workshop, even though there is a DO NOT DISTURB! sign posted on the door. Mom is still busy working and doesn’t notice as Forkenstein sets E down on a worktable and I plug him into the charger. His eyes glow a faint yellow as the electricity starts feeding his battery. When E is fully charged, his eyeballs turn a brilliant blue—the same color as Maddie’s eyes.

  “Liz?” says Dad.

  She looks up from her desk and says, “Huh?” Again. Her dazed eyes tell me she’s here but she isn’t really here.

  “The SUV stalled again,” says Dad.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And this time it tried to trap us inside!”

  “Huh.”

  “And E conked out at school,” I remind her. “You forgot to pack his charger cord.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Liz?” says Dad. “We really need you to spend a little more time in routine maintenance mode. Robots are machines. A robot house can’t run all by itself.”

  “Actually,” mumbles Mom, “it probably could. There’s a hierarchical protocol embedded in their control boards…”

  She says a real long string of words that Dad and I don’t understand. It’s a lot of blah-blah-blah with lots of techno–mumbo jumbo.

  But we both nod as if we get it.

  “So, uh, you’re going to fix everything?” says Dad. “E? The SUV?”

  I add a couple of my own: “The Breakfastinator and the Groomatron?”

  “Definitely,” says Mom. “I’m on it. Later.”

  And then she goes back to focusing on whatever super-secret project has stopped her from focusing on anything and everything else.

  Including her family.

  While Mom’s mind is away, the robots will play.

  Actually, they will bump into each other, they will knock stuff over, and they will put way too much laundry detergent in the washing machine.

  Mr. Moppenshine is the bot in charge of chores around the house. In addition to mopping, drying, and buffing the floor with his feet while simultaneously spritzing, spraying, and dusting with his hands, he’s supposed to do the laundry. Premeasured squeeze packs of allergen-free detergent plunk out of his nose tube whenever he bends over the washer.

  Today he plunked six packets when he should’ve plunked one.

  Meanwhile, Drone Malone, our flying bot—great for recording high altitude YouTube videos and doing traffic reports—keeps banging into windows like a bird that thinks glass is just more wide-open space to fly through.

  Then there’s Blitzen, our super-aggressive lawn mower: he just scalped our entire front yard. Our grass isn’t green anymore. It’s just gone. We’re also missing a birdbath. (I think Blitzen bulldozed it into the shrubbery. I hope there weren’t any birds in it.)

  Speaking of shrubbery, Hayseed, our gardener robot, isn’t taking care of trimming the bushes out front because he’s too busy digging holes in the backyard.

  “Shoo-ee,” he says, “Blitzen stirred up so much dang dust, the rabbits are digging holes six feet in the air.” He sinks his shovel into the ground again.

  “Well, um, why are you digging holes?” I ask.

  “Well, I noticed that the dang Fooderlator was all out of chicken again,” he says.

  The Fooderlator is the robotic machine in the kitchen that automatically makes our dinner on nights when Mom and Dad are too busy to cook or we don’t just go out and grab a pizza (which is what we do on most nights when Dad’s supposed to cook).

  “So I thought we ought to raise our own chickens,” Hayseed goes on, leaning on his shovel handle. “So, I’m gonna plant me some eggs—just as soon as the Breakfastinator has some of them again.”

  I guess if the backyard starts smelling like rotten eggs, I’ll know why.

  Trip bikes over after school to witness the chaos and confusion.

  “Wow. This reminds me of the week after Christmas when my brand-new remote control car went wacky,” says Trip. “I think some of your robots’ motion detectors aren’t detecting motion anymore.”

  Yep. More routine maintenance that Mom has let slip while she concentrates on her super-important, top-secret, high-tech breakthrough project, leaving me, Dad, Maddie, and the robots to take care of ourselves.

  I’m able to use the Robo Control app on my phone to stop the bots from bumping into each other and the walls like Roombas gone wild.

  “That should keep them functioning till morning,” I tell Trip.

  “And then what?” he asks.

  “Hopefully, Mom will come out of her workshop for fifteen minutes and program their work assignments for the day. It’s something she usually does every morning, before any of the rest of us are even up.”

  “Cool,” says Trip. “So, what are you guys having for dinner tonight?”

  Trip has a look on his face that tells me a) he’s hungry and b) he wouldn’t mind eating dinner at our house tonight.

  My guess is his mother is making her famous Tofurky casserole. I had it at his house once. It tasted like a wet cardboard box stuffed with carrots.

  “I’m not sure what we’re having,” I say.

  “Well, whatever it is,” says Trip, “it’s got to be better than what my mom’s cooking tonight: brussels sprouts surprise.”

  “What’s the surprise?”

  “That there’s nothing in it but brussels sprouts.”

  We head into the kitchen, where Dad is futzing with the Fooderlator.

  “Hello, Mr. Rodriguez,” says Trip. “What are you making for dinner?”

  “Black bean chicken with rice,” Dad answers. “Steak fajitas, turkey burritos with fresh fruit salsa, empanadas con ropa vieja, and, for dessert, apricot pinwheel cookies!”

  Trip is practically drooling. Me too.

  “Really?” I say. “You’re making all that?”

  “No,” says Dad. “I doodled it on my sketch pad. Made me so hungry, I couldn’t think about Ninja Manatees anymore. So, I came in here to whip something up. Let’s see what we have to work with…”

  “Um, Dad?” I say. “Weren’t you supposed to go grocery shopping this week?”

  “Yes, Sammy, but I’m way behind on my book and coming up on a major deadline, so I was hoping your mom could cover me this week, even though, technically, it was my turn. But she couldn’t go shopping because she’s doing something majorly important and not doing any of her chores or even brushing her teeth or combing her hair on a regular basis. Then the SUV started acting up, E’s battery ran down at school, I had to stop Blitzen from plowing the backyard, Mr. Moppenshine started dusting my face…”

  I just nod.

  Mom and Dad usually do stuff as a team. If one of them gets busy, the other one picks up the slack. But now, both of my parental units are crazy stressed and burning the candle at both ends, which, sooner or later, will scorch your fingers and make you scream, “Youch! Who lit this thing at both ends?”

  I check out the refrigerated bins that store raw ingredients for
the Fooderlator to turn into delicious gourmet meals. They’re all basically empty, like Dad said, except he missed an ancient peach with a bruise in the shape of Ohio.

  “That is so gross,” says Trip, peering over my shoulder at the rancid groceries littering the otherwise empty food drawers.

  We go over to the fridge and stare at its bare shelves. Dad opens a cupboard. We have one box of Cream of Wheat and some saltines.

  “So, you guys want to eat dinner at my house tonight?” asks Trip.

  Dad looks interested. “What’s on the menu?”

  “Brussels sprouts surprise.”

  He stops looking interested. “Oh. No thanks.”

  “I have an idea,” I say. “Let’s eat out!”

  “Great idea!” says Trip.

  “We can bring something home for Maddie, too.”

  “Perfect,” says Dad. “How about pizza?”

  “Pizza would be fantastic!” I tell him.

  “I love pizza,” says the voice of Maddie, who, I guess, has been listening to our conversation upstairs, over her intercom. “But not delivery. Papa Pasquale’s, please.”

  “You’ve got it,” says Dad, grabbing his car keys. “Let’s go pick up a couple of pies!”

  “Woo-hoo!”

  Yes, Trip and I are both pretty excited and extremely hungry.

  But Dad doesn’t dash out the back door.

  “Slight problem,” he says, keys in hand, feet not moving.

  “Oh, right,” I say.

  “What?” asks Trip.

  “Our brand-new car,” says Maddie over the intercom. “It’s dead. In the driveway.”

  So we stay in the kitchen and listen to the empty Fooderlator hum.

  “Well,” I say, “we could always bike it.”

  “That’s true,” says Trip. “I rode mine over here.”

  “I’ve got mine,” I say.

  “What about me?” asks Dad.

  “You can borrow E’s,” I say. “He won’t need it until his battery is fully charged.”

  So the three of us pedal over to Papa Pasquale’s Pizzeria.

  People in the neighborhood stand on their porches and gawk at us when we ride home juggling three big pizza boxes. They think we’re weirdos.

  And you know what? They’re kind of right.

  But for once, it’s kind of fun being a weirdo.

  Maddie is feeling well enough to join us downstairs in the kitchen for dinner.

  To make sure she doesn’t pick up any stray germs, Trip has to put on a sterile mask that he flips up every time he bites into his pizza slice. Then he flips it down to chew and swallow. It sort of makes him look like a bunny rabbit nibbling carrots.

  Dad and I don’t have to wear the protective gear. Because we live with Maddie, she’s already been exposed to all of our germs.

  “Tomorrow,” says Dad, “I promise I’ll go to the supermarket. Right after I finish inking in a few panels my art director needs ASAP. I also have to do a few rewrites for my editor. But they’re minor.”

  “You think maybe Mom could cover for you tomorrow?” I ask.

  “No, Sammy. Whatever she’s working on right now is very important.”

  “What is it?” asks Trip.

  Dad shrugs. “She won’t say.”

  I notice that Maddie is avoiding everybody’s eyes by playing with her spinach and mushrooms. Yes, that’s what she likes on her half of the pizza. Me? I go with pepperoni.

  “Hey, speaking of super-important scientific stuff…” says Trip.

  “I know, I know,” I tell him. “We need to work on our science project.”

  “Mrs. Kunkel wants a progress update,” says Trip. “Tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Just be sure to bring your dad’s electric tire pump. Our ball is so big, it would take us all day to blow it up by mouth.”

  “No problem.”

  “You guys?” interrupts Maddie, sort of sheepishly. “I think I need to say something.”

  “What’s up, hon?” asks Dad.

  “I might know what Mom’s working on. Why she’s kind of letting everything else slide…”

  “Really?” I say. “What is it?”

  Maddie hesitates. “It’s for me.”

  “Awesome,” I say, because, like I told you, I love my little sister. If Mom is doing something to help Maddie, I’m all for it. “What exactly is she working on?”

  “I’m not sure,” says Maddie. “She just told me she needed to ‘disappear’ for a little while. But if things went the way she hoped they would, I’d be thrilled with the results.”

  “Wow,” says Trip. “That is so awesome.”

  “Wonder what it is…” says Dad.

  “Well,” I tell him, “we can’t ask her. You know how Mom gets when she’s working on a big idea. ‘Talking about it can jinx it.’ That’s what she kept saying when she was working on E.”

  “Wait a second,” says Trip. “Do you think Dr. Hayes is making Maddie another, brand-new robot?”

  Maddie smiles. “Well, I did tell Mom that I wish I could sing with my friends in the Creekside Elementary Choir.”

  “And E is totally tone-deaf!” I say, because I tried to teach him how to sing along with the radio, and it was a disaster. McFetch, the robo-dog, howls better than E sings. E can’t rap, either. Trust me. We tried that, too.

  “It would be so cool if Mom could make me a karaoke-bot,” says Maddie. When she gets happy like this, her blue eyes really sparkle. “A machine that I could sing through!”

  “Well, guys,” says Dad, smiling at Maddie, “how about we pick up the slack for Mom a little longer? I’ll restock the Fooderlator tomorrow and make sure the SUV is ready to roll.”

  “I’ll make sure E has his charger cables for school,” I say. “And that he doesn’t sit in the sunshine too long.”

  “And I’ll make everybody peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches for lunch!” adds Trip.

  “Fine,” I say with a laugh. “Just make sure your mom doesn’t surprise us by slipping a few brussels sprouts in with the bananas!”

  After dinner, I head out to the garage to box up the gear that Trip and I will need for our science project check-in with Mrs. Kunkel.

  I fold up the clear plastic sphere, then pack it in a bag. I stuff the bag into a cardboard box and tape it shut. We don’t want our competition seeing what we’re up to until the very last second.

  “Hello, Sammy!”

  E joins me in the garage. He looks and sounds like his old self. His eyes are glowing bright blue again.

  “Are you fully charged?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “I am, as you say, ready to rock!”

  “It’s great to have you back, E,” I tell him. “And don’t worry. I’ll make sure we take your charger cable to school tomorrow.”

  “Excellent. I don’t want to let Maddie down. I believe she was in the middle of spelling something when I conked out.”

  “What was the word?”

  “Something.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Yes, it was something.”

  I get it now. “Oh. S-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g.”

  “Correct.” E gestures toward the cardboard box. “Are those the materials for your science project?”

  “Yep.”

  “If I may ask, what are you and Trip working on?”

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Of course. My memory data is protected with hacker-proof encryption.”

  “It’s a cool invention for Maddie.”

  “Aha,” says E. “Like mother, like son.”

  “Yeah. I guess. I never thought about it like that. See, Trip and I don’t think it’s fair that Maddie is, more or less, trapped in our house all the time. So we decided to build her an all-terrain bubble ball so she can go outside with her friends!”

  E looks confused.

  “I first got the idea at the grocery store. You know those vending machines that give you small toys inside plastic capsules?”
/>   E nods.

  “Well, they kind of reminded me of a hamster ball I saw at a pet store. And then thinking about the hamster ball reminded me of these water-walking balls I saw at Trip’s lake house last summer. They’re huge, like, six feet wide, and made out of clear, strong plastic that floats on top of the water. You just blow them up with a tire pump, step inside, and—BAM! You can walk on water!

  “So, I started thinking: What if we could turn the water-walking ball into an anywhere-walking ball? What if Maddie could climb inside a sterile ball and go for a walk in the park with all her friends, without having to worry about germs or stepping in dog poop?”

  “Fascinating,” says E. “Definitely a hypothesis worth exploring.”

  “Exactly. So for our science project, Trip and I—”

  I’m about to explain the whole thing when I hear angry voices coming from the backyard.

  Angry robot voices.

  Most of Mom’s robots are huddled under an oak tree in our backyard, having some kind of secret meeting.

  They don’t sound happy.

  It’s almost like a robot rally. Everyone has a complaint.

  “It’s utterly shambolic,” says Geoffrey, the butler-bot with a British accent. “We’re being neglected whilst Dr. Hayes fiddles with whatever bits and bobs she has in her workshop.”

  “Mom is so mean and totally unfair,” whines Brittney 13, a robot that Mom programmed to imitate the emotions of a teenager. Constantly. Nonstop. We’re talking 24/7.

  “I don’t wanna play here anymore!” says Four, popping its detachable pacifier thumb into its mouth. Mom created Four to act like a four-year-old. Don’t ask me why. Four doesn’t do much around the house except scribble all over Maddie’s coloring books when she’s not looking.

  “We need to do somethin’ ’bout this,” says Hayseed. “And soon! I’m already feelin’ as confused as a fart in a fan factory.”