The Winter of the Robots (9 page)

“There must be a mix-up,” said Peter. “All eight boxes have cameras.”

“You’re sure?” Dad opened a box, saw a camera, and set it back. He started to reach for another.

“Yes,” said Peter. “I checked them all. Just let me know how much I owe you. I kind of have to get going.”

Dad handed him the bill, his face a mixture of confusion and relief. “Hey, do you want bags for all this?”

“I’ll get them!” Penny said. She ran into the kitchen. She was back a split second later with two grocery bags and started packing the cameras herself. “I found the kind with handles,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Peter.

“There’s no wiring needed with these 3Gs, so they’re easy to set up,” said Dad. “But if you need help placing or mounting them, give me a call. No charge.”

“Will do,” said Peter. He put on his coat and grabbed his laptop case. “Jim, can you help me out here?” He nodded at the grocery bags.

“Of course.” I grabbed the bags and followed him out of
the house. A black BMW was on the street. It beeped at us as Peter unlocked the car.

“Loaner,” he explained. “Just put that stuff in the backseat. So who’s covering for who?” he asked after I put the bags in.

“Penny’s covering for me,” I admitted.

“I can pay you back. It’ll take a while, but I’ll find the money.”

“Jim, I know your dad is hard on you,” he said. “If I can ever keep a kid from harm, I will.”

I wanted to correct him, to tell him my dad might yell a lot, but I was never unsafe. I didn’t, because what if he changed his mind?

“For what it’s worth, my dad was pretty rough, too,” said Peter. “Nothing I ever did was good enough. Straight As, scholarships, math fairs. I still wasn’t man enough for him. If I got in a fistfight to prove I was tough enough, he would yell at me for losing.”

“Wow.” I knew Peter had grown up poor, in a bad part of Los Angeles, but it was hard to imagine him in a fight. “I’m sorry. And thanks for this.”

“You will need to pay me back,” he said. “I have plenty of money, but it wouldn’t be in your best interest, long-term, to not have any consequences. I’m sorry for your situation, but it’s no justification to steal. Besides, I see you as a kid with potential. Not a charity case. We can work out a payment plan, OK?”

A kid with potential
. Potential for what, I wondered?

Mom and Dad said stuff like that all the time, but it felt weightier from Peter. Parents and teachers were supposed to tell kids they were full of potential. Peter sounded like he meant it. I wanted to ask him what potential, because I sure didn’t know.

“Jim?” Peter nudged me. “How does that sound?”

“Good. Great. Thanks.” I offered him my hand.

“Your word is all I need,” he said, and didn’t shake it.

“One of you used the cameras without permission, and the other one is lying,” Dad said when I went back inside. “But you
both
embarrassed me in front of a customer.”

Either because Penny was involved or he was relieved the cameras were there after all, or because his anger-management classes were working, he only yelled at us for about half an hour.

We both lost TV and video-game privileges for two months, and neither of us would see any allowance until further notice. I was just glad he didn’t ban me from using the computer—he must have figured I’d need it for school, which I did.

“I thought you were grounded,” Mom said when I brought up the mall. I’d waited for Dad to be gone to ask permission.

“Not exactly,” I said. “Dad just said I can’t watch TV or play video games.” I’d never been grounded. The only place I ever went was Oliver’s house, anyway, and they thought he was a good influence.

“OK, you can go,” said Mom. “But please take Penny.”

“What?”

“She hasn’t been able to do anything fun in ages,” Mom explained. “I should make more time for her, I know, but I’ve had so much going on.”

“But we’ll have to do Penny stuff,” I complained. I didn’t especially want to go to Build-A-Bear Workshop.

“You’re lucky I’m letting you go at all. Bring your sister or stay home. Your decision.”

“All right, all right. I’ll bring her.”

When I thought about it, bringing Penny wasn’t a bad idea. I kind of owed Penny something after the whole camera fiasco. She hadn’t blabbed, and she hadn’t tried to
blackmail me. She even tried to cover for me. Also, Rocky had seen me with Penny before and said it was cute.

We met Rocky at the bus stop. She was wearing a nice suede jacket she’d never worn to school.

“You aren’t cold in that?” I asked.

“I hate wearing a parka at the mall,” she explained, hugging herself to keep warm. “I thought I’d suffer now and be more comfortable later.” Maybe that was all it was, and maybe she wore shiny lip gloss to keep her lips from getting chapped in the icy wind, but the whole effect was that she looked really cute. My head spun and my mouth was dry.

If she thought it was weird I’d brought my little sister, Rocky didn’t say anything. On the ride to the mall, Penny told her all about Celeste and how her next robot would talk to her and clean up her room and zap the mean kids at school.

Rocky laughed. “Let me borrow it when you’re done.”

“Is there a robot store at the mall?” Penny asked.

“No, but we can look at the Lego Store.” I remembered Oliver telling me about the kits he’d used when he was younger. “I think they’re kind of expensive, though,” I warned her.

That would have been a good chance to ask Rocky about the robot
she
was making, but Penny moved on to other topics—school, unfair teachers, kids who thought they were all that, and why it was bogus that she couldn’t have a puppy.
Rocky told Penny about some puppy videos she’d seen on YouTube and promised to send her links.

The mall wasn’t as empty as we hoped. Everybody must have gone because they thought it wouldn’t be busy just before the Super Bowl.

“So what do you want to do?” I asked Rocky.

“Amusement park!” Penny shouted.

“I don’t have money for that,” I told her. “Besides, I was talking to Rocky.”

“I have passes to the aquarium.” Rocky dug into her handbag. “My dad got them somewhere. I only have two left, but it’s cheaper for kids under twelve. We can split the cost of Penny’s.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Yay!” said Penny.

Once we were in, we walked slowly through the wide tunnel past the serene tanks full of fish, crabs, and sea horses. The aquarium was busy, and we stuck close together. Penny laughed at a gigantic turtle. Rocky wished out loud that they had otters, like the aquarium in Duluth. We fell quiet, watching the abundance of sea life circling in the eerie blue light of the tanks.

We got to the sharks just in time for feeding. The toothy predators made short work of a bucket of bloody chum. Penny said it was disgusting and moved on. I found her at another tank, the crowd cleared away because of the shark show. She pointed at a rock and some seaweed.

“He’s hiding.”

“Who’s hiding?”

“Look!” She poked at the glass with her finger. I stared at the rock but couldn’t see anything special. A moment later, an octopus emerged and lazily floated away from the rock. His long legs made a brief balloon, then kicked and sent him zooming away.

“Wow,” I said. It was weirdly beautiful.

“Yeah,” said Rocky. I hadn’t even noticed she’d slid in next to me. “It looks like an alien.” Her hand fluttered near mine. Did she want to hold hands? I’d almost worked up the courage to find out when we were interrupted by a hubbub behind us. We turned and saw a boy on his back, kicking the ground. He was having a seizure.

“Oh no,” said Rocky. The overhead lights brightened. A security guard said something into his walkie-talkie, then yelled at the crowd to stand back. Rocky cut in front of him—he halfheartedly swiped at her elbow, but Rocky got past him and started talking to the boy’s mother. No, it was the boy’s
sister
. It was Malasha, and the boy was Alexei.

The mall security offices had a nurse on duty. Rocky and Penny and I waited outside in the hall. Some uncomfortable chairs were bolted to the floor near a row of lockers.

“Is he going to die?” Penny asked in a hushed voice.

“No, he just had a seizure,” said Rocky. “He has epilepsy. Dmitri says a lot of autistic kids have multiple diagnoses.”

“Scary,” said Penny.

“It is, but he’ll be OK.”

Poor kid, I thought. I also thought, Rocky knows a lot about Dmitri’s family all of a sudden.

“So, have you been hanging out there a lot? Working on your science project?” I asked.

“That, and I’ve grown close to Dmitri,” she said.

“Close,” I echoed.

“We’re kind of, you know.”

“Yeah,” I said. All those giggles and brushed elbows in science class weren’t my imagination. “How come he didn’t come with us?”

“He’s a Packers fan, so he wanted to stay home and watch the pregame stuff. He knows we’re here. He’s totally cool about it.”

“Of course.”

Once the thrill of a crisis faded, Penny was bouncing literally off the walls. She’d jump up on the chair, hit the wall with both hands, and spring back. Rocky looked at her phone, punched in a message. Must be texting her boyfriend, I thought. She finished and put the phone away.

“I gave Masha and Alex a couple of passes for the aquarium earlier today. I wasn’t sure we’d see them here, but they’re here because of me, you know? I should wait for them.”

“No problem.”

“
You
don’t have to,” she said. “That’s the thing.” She nodded at Penny. “She’s going nuts.”

“Do you want to meet up later?”

“I’ll go home with those guys,” she said. “Sorry. I know this wasn’t much fun.”

“It’s all right,” I said, even though there wasn’t much right about it.

I took Penny to the food court. She inhaled a crepe with hazelnut spread and raspberry syrup. I poked at my own, but I wasn’t hungry for it. A big ball of self-pity was taking up all the room in my stomach. Rocky and Dmitri were “kind of, you know.”

“Can we look at robot kits?” Penny asked when she’d finished her own crepe and half of mine.

“Sure.”

We went to the Lego Store. They had small robots you couldn’t program, and a big one that you did program. Penny scowled at the box, which showed what looked like a muscle-bound robot dude carrying a gun. “Celeste is better,” she said. “Why don’t they make girl robots?”

“They should,” I agreed. I was relieved. We could never have afforded the robot kit, and I didn’t want Penny to have her heart set on it.

Penny noticed a sign on the way out and pointed at it.

“Look!”

Saturday, February 25 10:00 AM

Compete in three categories!

Ages 8–12

Ages 13–17

NEW! Autonomous robots (all ages) NEW! (NO REMOTE CONTROLS OF ANY KIND ARE ALLOWED IN THIS CATEGORY) Enter as individuals or teams of two.

Winners in each category receive a $1000 prize!

Sponsored by the Lego Store and Albatross Electronics

“Can we enter?” she asked. “Please?”

“I’m not eight to twelve,” I reminded her. “You’d have to enter by yourself.”

“No, I want to enter Celeste in the all-ages category!”

“I don’t know.” We were beginners at this, and Celeste was still made of cardboard.

“I want to do it!” she said. “Oliver gave us a bunch of supplies, and we have the book. Please? I want a girl robot to enter and beat everybody.”

I wondered if we’d be able to build a robot all by ourselves. Even Celeste was made with Oliver’s help.

“Come on,” she pleaded.

“Sure. Fine.” Sensor, logic controller, actuator: it wasn’t that hard.

“I don’t get it,” said Oliver. He squinted at my sketches, which were a blur of erased and redrawn lines. We were in class, discussing our projects. Dmitri and Rocky were there somewhere, I supposed, but I hadn’t looked for them.

“It’s a collapsible robot,” I said. “When it senses the enemy is coming, it folds up and hides.” I was sure that Oliver would hate the idea, but I’d decided to show it to him anyway. He grunted noncommittally and looked at the sketch again. “So it can make itself flat,” he said. “What if the other robot rolls over it? What keeps the logic panel from getting smashed?”

“This would be made of metal.” I pointed at the robot’s head on the sketch. “It’s shaped like a shallow bowl, see. When it collapses, the legs tuck underneath and support the top. Something could roll over the top without hurting it.”

“Then what?”

“It jumps up and zaps the enemy.”

“No zapping,” he reminded me. “We agreed to voltage limits. It does need weapons, but I like the overall design.”

“Wow. Thanks.”