Robot Revolution Read online

  “You know about spitballs?”

  “Yes, Sammy. After all, I have been going to school for over a month now.”

  “Cool. Can I go first? That way, if you like my idea, I can tell it to Trip when we meet up with him on the corner.”

  “Please proceed.”

  “Okay. I was thinking of how we could give Maddie more control over the direction of the plastic ball. Have you ever seen that car the Pope drives around in? The one with the big bubble in the back?”

  “I am googling it on my hard drive now.”

  “You can do that and ride a bike at the same time?”

  “Indeed. Your mother pulled out all the stops when she engineered me.”

  Because she was building E for Maddie, is what I’m thinking because, yes, I’m still sort of jealous or mad (or maybe both).

  “Okay,” I say. “What if we took Mom’s idea for an electric car and mashed it up with the Freedom Ball? We could put the ball around an electric golf cart to keep it sterile, and Maddie could ride around inside.”

  “It might work,” says E, sounding like he thinks it never actually will work.

  “Okay, I got this next idea from Mr. Moppenshine when he was trying to clean the birds in our backyard. What if Mom could build a walking can of disinfectant spray? A spray-bot! The Spritzatron 1000! It could walk behind Maddie and constantly fog the air around her with a cloud of germ-killing spray!”

  “Of the two,” says E, “I prefer the Maddiemobile.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Me too. Trip and I just need to find a golf cart we can borrow.”

  Trip is waiting for us at the corner on his bike.

  “Why do we need a golf cart?” he asks.

  “You heard that?”

  “Yeah. You talk really loud when you’re on your bike.”

  “It’s for the science project.”

  “Oh. Well, we don’t have a golf cart, but we do have a riding lawn mower that pulls a little green wagon.”

  “That might work…”

  “Outdoors only,” says E. “Otherwise, there could be a serious carbon monoxide problem.”

  “Hey, speaking of serious problems,” says Trip, “are you ready to go one-on-one with Randy Reich in your debate?”

  “Huh?”

  “Today’s Debate Day, remember? Mrs. Kunkel chose you and Randy to go up against each other first thing this morning.”

  Good ol’ Trip. Still saying the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

  Like reminding me that I have to debate Randolph R. Reich, the guy who never, ever makes a mistake.

  All righty-o. This terrible week just won’t end.

  Since I just found out it’s Debate Day, there’s absolutely no time for me to listen to E’s ideas about how to restore order among the robots at home. Which is a pretty important conversation, because some of our household helpers have gone completely rogue. For instance, last night, Hayseed told everybody that he planned on planting corn in the middle of Interstate 90.

  “If Dr. Hayes is too dadgum busy to pay attention to us, we should pursue other projects,” he told all the other robots when they were holding another one of their protest rallies in the backyard. “They got them that long stretch of green what goes down the road ’tween the east- and westbound lanes.”

  He was talking about the median strip. On the Indiana Toll Road!

  “There ain’t nothin’ growin’ there now but weeds and wildflowers. Well, fellers, I mean to cultivate that narrow strip of land. Sure, it might be as hard as putting socks on a rooster, but it’ll sure beat settin’ around here not knowin’ which way is up.”

  I’m starting to think that the best solution for our robot revolt is to pull all their plugs. But then I’d have to do all the dishes.

  Anyway, E says good-bye and ZHOOSHes down the hall to the third-grade classroom.

  Trip and I hurry into Mrs. Kunkel’s class to hear what today’s debate topic might be. Mrs. Kunkel has Debate Day once a week: two of us stand in front of the whole class and argue yes or no on a certain question.

  Last week, Trip and Lena Elizabeth Cahill debated “Should schools stop selling chocolate milk?”

  The week before that, the topic was, “Should parents be able to take their kids out of school for vacations?”

  I sure wish mine would.

  And I wish we were on vacation today.

  Because even though my mother thinks this whole debate idea of Mrs. Kunkel’s is genius, I hate getting up in front of the class—especially since you don’t know what you’re going to be debating about until five minutes before you have to start arguing for or against something.

  “Sammy?” asks Mrs. Kunkel ten seconds after the bell rings. “Randolph? Are you ready for your debate topic?”

  “Of course,” says R.R.R., straightening his tie.

  It’s a bow tie today. Makes him look even more like a miniature banker.

  “I guess,” I mumble.

  “Here is your question: Perfection—is it possible?” She writes the question on the board. “Randolph, you will be arguing for perfection as a goal.”

  “Wonderful,” he says, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

  “Sammy? You will be arguing against perfection as a possibility.”

  “Of course he will be,” cracks Reich. “Imperfection is how Sammy rolls.”

  The whole class (including Trip, that traitor) chuckles.

  “Save it for the debate, Mr. Reich,” says Mrs. Kunkel.

  “Gladly.”

  “You both have five minutes to prepare. And while they do that, I want the rest of you to spend the time doing your silent reading.”

  I scribble down a few ideas, but the five minutes are up in what feels like five seconds.

  Randolph R. Reich goes first.

  “I’d like to start with something the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi always told his team: ‘Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.’ But if perfection isn’t possible, we wouldn’t bother chasing it. And as you know, I do chase it and frequently attain it. Therefore, Mrs. Kunkel, fellow students, I say perfection is possible, and should always be our goal. Never let puny mistakes hold you back from being all that you can be. Always reach for the moon, ladies and gentlemen.” He stretches out his hand dramatically. “Even if you fall short, you will land among the stars!”

  The classroom erupts with applause.

  “Very well argued, Randolph,” says Mrs. Kunkel. She turns to me. “Samuel?”

  I go to the front of the class and stuff my hands into my pockets.

  “Well, uh…” I look over at Randolph. “People always say, ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ Then again, they also say, ‘Practice makes perfect.’ I sort of wish they’d make up their minds. So, in conclusion, I’d have to say that perfection isn’t possible unless you practice a lot. And who wants to go to practice all the time, since, like I said, nobody’s perfect? The end.”

  I don’t get applause. Just blank stares. Maybe I should’ve added a few hand gestures. I drag myself back to my seat.

  “Thank you, Sammy,” says Mrs. Kunkel. “That was very… interesting.”

  The class votes on who made the best case for their side of the argument. R.R.R. wins. By a landslide. Even I vote for the guy.

  What can I say? The guy is perfection in a coat and tie. Even his hair is perfectly parted and combed—and he doesn’t have a Groomatron in his bathroom.

  Then again, neither do I.

  Mine went on strike this morning.

  He said being my personal assistant was “boring.” Listening to my debate speech, I might have to agree with him.

  I also think I’m in big trouble.

  Señora Goldstein just came into the room. And I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.

  Señora Goldstein is the teacher who gives us Spanish lessons for an hour, three times a week. Sometimes we sing the taco song while she strums her guitar.

  “I
need this signed, Señor Hayes-Rodriguez,” she says, handing me a graded homework paper. “By both of your parents. Su madre y su padre. ¿Comprendéis?”

  “Oui,” I say, even though I think that might be French.

  I turn the paper over and see the big, fat, red fifty-two. It’s circled three times. There’s a frowny face next to it that sort of matches the frowny face Señora Goldstein is giving me now.

  I don’t bother sharing this bad news with E on the bike ride home. He has enough bad news of his own.

  Seems like Drone Malone attacked our neighbor’s bird feeder this afternoon. He thought the sparrows were stealing the birdseed inside. E seriously needs to reprogram all the bots in the house before they do some major damage.

  I show my fifty-two to Dad first.

  “¿Cómo es esto posible?”

  Yep. He says the same thing I did because we both speak Spanish very well—he’s the one who’s been teaching me since I was a baby. It means “How is this even possible?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I had a bad day.”

  “A fifty-two? What will your grandparents say?”

  Yikes. Mis abuelos. They’ll be so disappointed.

  “Do we have to tell them?” I ask.

  Dad shakes his head. “No. We all have bad days. We all make mistakes.”

  “I know,” I say. “That’s why my pencil has an eraser.”

  Dad grabs his chunky art eraser. “Here. Use mine. It’s bigger.”

  He signs my homework, up near the fifty-two. He draws a frowny face wearing a sombrero. “Now go take this to your mother. Ask her to sign it, too.”

  “But she’s so busy…”

  “She’s never too busy to be your mother, Sammy. Go. Date prisa! I need to finish this drawing.”

  I shuffle out to Mom’s workshop. There are even more math equations and formulas scribbled everywhere. For some reason, the electric SUV-EX is parked in the middle of the floor. Mom is tinkering with the domed thingy on its roof.

  “Um, Mom, hate to disturb you,” I say, limply waving my sheet of Spanish homework.

  “You already did.”

  “Right. I just need you to sign this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something from school. You can sign right under where Dad did.”

  She climbs down from the SUV and hunts for a pen.

  “You see, I sort of failed a Spanish assignment. Terrible, huh?”

  Mom nods like she’s listening, but she doesn’t seem to hear a word I say.

  “I mean, we speak Spanish here at home.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she says as she bites the cap off her pen.

  “Even McFetch the robo-dog understands Spanish commands, so how’d I end up with a fifty-two? It’s so weird.”

  “Hmm,” is all Mom says. Then she signs. No questions asked. No fuss, no muss.

  Phew. That’s a relief.

  Sort of.

  I bet if Maddie got a fifty-two on a Spanish assignment, Mom would drop whatever she was doing and start building her a bilingual robot that was also a mariachi singer.

  I look at my homework. Mom’s signature is all wrong—she just scribbled a wavy line, like she couldn’t even take the two seconds to write her name for real.

  That does it.

  I blow up.

  “You are the worst mother ever!” I scream.

  I storm out.

  Leaving Mom red-faced and sputtering in her workshop.

  Inside the house, there’s another disaster.

  It seems the robots sent Brittney 13—our teenage emoticon of an automaton—to the grocery store to do the shopping. She came back with four frozen Hot Pockets (chicken with cheddar and broccoli—yuck!), plus copies of Tiger Beat, Girls’ Life, J-14, Teen Vogue, and six other magazines with bright pink covers.

  “They were, like, right there at the checkout counter,” she gushes. “Omigod. I just had to have them all. They’re so sick!”

  “You mean the magazines are ill?” asks E. “If they are contagious, they could prove hazardous to Maddie’s health.”

  While I explain to E that sick sometimes means awesome, Hayseed nukes our dinner in the microwave.

  “I don’t appreciate this dadgum machine’s attitude,” he mutters, slamming the door shut. “Always beeping behind my back. Thinkin’ it’s so dadburn smart because it can pop popcorn and bake potatoes. Reminds me of E. Thinks the sun comes up just to hear him go cock-a-doodle-doo.”

  “I beg your pardon?” says E. “Are you implying that I am, somehow, conceited, arrogant, stuck-up, and/or smug?”

  “Of course I is!” hollers Hayseed like I’ve never heard him holler before. “Everybody knows you’re Dr. Hayes’s favorite. Why, I wish I had half the brains she gave you.”

  “If you did,” says Geoffrey the butler-bot snobbishly, “you still wouldn’t know a widget from a whangdoodle.”

  Hayseed doesn’t like the sound of that. “I tell you what, Mr. Snooty Pants from France…”

  “England!”

  “Same difference.”

  Yep. All of Mom’s robots are starting to get a little snarky with each other.

  “I have an idea,” says Dad when he finally braves a step into the kitchen, which is cluttered with clanking, catty contraptions. “Let’s eat upstairs! In Maddie’s room.”

  “Awesome idea,” says Maddie. “No robots allowed.”

  The three of us grab our Hot Pockets out of the microwave, slap them on paper plates, and dash up the stairs to Maddie’s room. The Breakfastinator is shut down now, recovering from sock shock.

  “One more panel and it’s done,” Dad tells us, buzzing about his new book. The walls of Maddie’s room are papered with Dad’s drawings because Maddie loves looking at them. I do, too, but he didn’t put any in my room. I guess I could ask Dad to print out some art for me, but, well, it always means more when your parents think to do nice stuff like that on their own.

  Wow. Am I mad at Dad, too?

  Am I really this jealous of Maddie, my best friend in the whole world?

  I’m starting to feel terrible because, don’t forget, she’s seriously sick.

  And then I start to feel even worse.

  I want to tell Dad and Maddie about my argument with Mom, but before I can, E escorts Mom into the room, carrying her Hot Pocket on a paper plate.

  “Thought I’d join you guys for dinner,” she says.

  “Grab a seat,” says Dad, offering her his.

  Mom sits down and doesn’t say a word to me.

  Pretty soon, nobody’s talking. We’re just listening to each other chomp and chew our Hot Pockets. Nobody even yelps when the molten cheese inside the Hot Pockets scalds the roofs of our mouths (which they do every time anybody bites into one).

  E tries to break the silence.

  “How nice that you all could be together for dinner!” he chirps. “There’s nothing like good food and good conversation. And this is nothing like good food or good conversation.”

  We all just stare at him.

  He’s funny. But right now, none of us are in the mood to laugh.

  Good news: the next morning, it’s raining out!

  Wait. That’s not the good news. The good news is that the electric SUV-EX is still up and running, so Trip, E, and I don’t have to ride our bikes to school in the rain!

  “Please fasten your seat belts,” says Soovee’s dashboard. “And kindly remove your hands from the steering wheel, Mr. Rodriguez.”

  Dad chuckles. “How exactly do you expect me to make turns? With my knees?”

  “Your assistance is not required this morning, Mr. Rodriguez. Perhaps you’d like to watch a short movie?”

  A cartoon is projected on the windshield in front of Dad’s face.

  “Soovee?” I ask. “Did Mom make it so you can drive yourself?”

  “Correct.”

  “This is so cool!” says Trip.

  “Yesterday, Dr. Hayes mounted a range finder to my roof housing a 64-beam laser
.”

  So that’s what she was doing when she was too busy to look at my rotten Spanish homework.

  “This laser allows me to generate a detailed 3-D map of my environment,” Soovee continues. “I will take that map and instantaneously overlay it on top of high-resolution, real-time traffic maps and produce all the data models I need to drive myself, and you, safely to school.”

  “But what if the police see me not driving?” asks Dad.

  “No worries,” purrs the car. “Mom also tinted the windshield. You can see out, but no one can see in. Why, you could fully recline your seat and take a quick nap.”

  Okay. I know what I want our new science project to be: Soovee—the self-driving electric car!

  “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride,” says the dashboard as we whir backwards out of the driveway, make a gentle turn, and head up the block toward an intersection.

  “Stop sign!” Dad shouts.

  “I see it, sir,” Soovee states calmly. “Kindly remove your foot from my brake pedal. Given the wet pavement, you are applying too much pressure and could send us into a skid.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Dad raises his hands in surrender and settles into his seat.

  “Isn’t technology marvelous?” says E. “Especially when it frees humans to pursue more important tasks. Now, instead of driving, you can work on your sketches, Mr. Rodriguez. Right here in the car.”

  “But I like driving,” says Dad. “I do a lot of thinking and daydreaming when I drive.”

  “They call that distracted driving, sir,” says E. “The roadways will be far safer without it.”

  “I guess…”

  Five minutes after we leave home, we ease into the school driveway. Lena Elizabeth Cahill is on safety patrol duty again. I start waving. I so want her to see me in my autonomous automobile, which is what you call a car that can drive itself.

  “Look, Lena!” I shout after I roll down the window. “No hands!” I point at my dad behind the steering wheel.