Weird Little Robots

by Carolyn Crimi

  “But how is this happening?” Penny Rose asked. “I’ve gone over it a thousand times, but I still don’t understand it.”

  “It’s magic.”

  “Magic?” Penny Rose frowned. “I don’t know about that.”

  Robots, she knew, could do all sorts of things, like play chess and drive cars. It was possible that she had added just the right component, and that component made them act this way. She just wished she knew what that one component was.

  “Well, whatever it is, we really do need to keep all of this secret,” Lark said. “We can’t have anyone find out about them. Right?”

  Penny Rose didn’t say anything. iPam rolled over to her and tapped her shoe.

  GOOD AFTERNOON. HOPE YOU ARE WELL. FYI BTW, IT’S TOO DARK AT NIGHT.

  “Oh, OK,” Penny Rose said. “We can get you a night-light. I think there’s one in the kitchen. I’ll plug it in before we leave.”

  LOL. THX. AND WE LIKE PENNIES.

  “Pennies? I guess I have some,” Penny Rose said.

  DO NOT FORGET WE’D LIKE A PET. FYI. THX.

  “We know, but that’s going to be a little tougher,” Penny Rose said.

  “Hello? Penny Rose?” Lark leaned across the wobbly card table and looked Penny Rose in the eye. “We need to have some kind of formal thing that says we can’t talk about the robots to anyone,” Lark said.

  Penny Rose felt iPam tap on her shoe again.

  RUBBER BANDS ARE FUN, BTW.

  “OK, OK,” Penny Rose said.

  “OK to what?” Lark asked. “Me or iPam?”

  “Both. Let’s get their stuff first.”

  Penny Rose got up from her chair and rummaged around in the big box in the corner until she found a pad of paper and a pen. “What else do you need, iPam?”

  Penny Rose wrote as quickly as she could while iPam texted what she wanted. Minutes later she showed the list to Lark.

  Night-light Buttons Double-sided

  Rubber bands Pennies tape

  Stickers Paper clips

  “What if I take the first three items and you take the rest?”

  Lark looked over the list. “Got it.”

  By the time Penny Rose got back to the shed with the items iPam had asked for, Lark was dumping out the buttons, pennies, paper clips, and double-sided tape from her pockets.

  “Oh, and here!” she said, smiling. She dug a silver hoop earring out of her pocket and put it in the middle of the floor. “A little something from the birds.”

  The robots buzzed and beeped their appreciation. Lark bowed before sitting in her chair.

  “The thing is, if people know about them, they’ll want to examine them and take them apart,” Lark said, picking up where she had left off. “They won’t realize it’s magic.”

  “But what if it’s science?” Penny Rose asked. She went over to the outlet and plugged in the night-light.

  “They’ll still want to take them away and, like, experiment on them,” Lark said. “Do you really want strangers taking them apart?”

  “No, definitely not,” Penny Rose said. There were times when she was nervous watching Lark handle the robots. She couldn’t imagine having a stranger handle them. “We could do a ritual,” Lark said, jumping up from her chair. “We could cut our fingers and mix our blood together!”

  “Ew, no!”

  Lark looked up at the ceiling. “OK, how about we sign an oath. We swear to keep it to just us. No dweebs, doofuses, or dorks.” She smiled one of her huge toothy smiles. “That will be how it starts! No dweebs, doofuses, or dorks!”

  She picked up the pad that Penny Rose had made the list on and started writing.

  She signed and dated it, then pushed the pad over to Penny Rose to sign.

  Penny Rose hesitated. Keeping the robots a secret until the day she died seemed like an awfully big promise. What if her robots could help the blind or create a force field that blocked head lice from hopping onto kids’ heads?

  Or help a certain someone get into a certain secret science club?

  Lark nudged the pad closer to Penny Rose. “Come on! We need to do this. We need to make sure they stay safe. Look at them!”

  Penny Rose looked down. Clunk was pulling the Christmas lights’ plug in and out of the wall again. Fraction chased iPam through the obstacle course. Sharpie stood in the corner gnashing her teeth. Data gazed out the window from the highest point of roboTown, her marble eye turning slowly.

  They were so small. So easily broken. And they seemed so very happy.

  She pulled the pad closer and signed and dated on the line Lark had drawn.

  Something scratched at the screen in the window.

  “Hi, Chimney,” Penny Rose said.

  Chimney scratched again.

  “Hey,” Lark said excitedly. “They wanted a pet, right?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “How about Chimney?”

  “I don’t know,” Penny Rose said. “You think so?”

  “Let’s ask!” Lark said. “iPam, what about that squirrel? Do you think —”

  Before Lark could finish her sentence, iPam replied:

  YES. MOST DEFINITELY. YES!

  “Let’s try it!” Lark said.

  “Gosh, I’m not sure, Lark . . .”

  But Lark hurried over to the door and opened it just enough to let a small squirrel in if he was so inclined. She stepped away from the door quickly and sat back down in her chair.

  “Let’s see if he takes the hint,” Lark said. “I wish we had some food or something.”

  They watched the door.

  “Maybe he won’t come in,” Penny Rose said.

  “Maybe he will.”

  Even the robots waited. They stopped all movement and faced the door.

  Finally, Chimney made his way into the shed with surprisingly slow, cautious movements.

  Penny Rose held her breath. What if he went wild and they couldn’t get him out? What if he bit one of the robots? Or her?

  Data and iPam rolled over to him on their tiny wheels. They petted his bushy tail and stroked his back. Chimney blinked, but that was all. Soon all the robots were crowded around Chimney, beeping and flashing.

  “Phew!” Penny Rose said. “That was kind of cool and kind of nerve-racking.”

  “Most definitely,” Lark said, smiling. “I guess this whole time all Chimney wanted was to come in and play with the robots.”

  Lark shook her head.

  “Wow,” she whispered. “Real live robots and their pet squirrel. It’s like weird on top of weird, squared.”

  Penny Rose and Lark decided that the walls of the shed needed color. Penny Rose’s mom and dad had painted the kitchen a few weeks before and had extra paint, so the next day the two girls got into old clothes after school and brought the cans of paint and paintbrushes out to the shed. Chimney waited by the door.

  “Well, look who’s here!” Lark said. “He’s waiting by the door like a dog!”

  “Come on in, Chimney!” Penny Rose said, holding the door open for him.

  The girls gasped as soon as they walked into the shed.

  “What is going on?” Lark asked.

  The robots zoomed up to them with buttons and pennies taped to their small metal bodies. Around their necks were stacks of colorful rubber bands. Each one also wore a button hat. And draped all over roboTown were strings of paper-clip garlands. Clunk rolled over to Chimney and put the silver hoop earring on top of his head.

  “What are you doing?” Penny Rose asked. iPam answered:

  WE’RE HAVING A PARTY.

  “You guys are too funny!” Lark said, laughing. “We’re going to make everything even more festive with this yellow paint.”

  She started opening up paint cans. “It’s so sunny and cheerful and reminds me of canaries. Canaries aren’t my favorite bird or anything, but we had one when I was little and he was pretty cool. We named him Lemon. When he died, I downloaded this song called ‘Yellow Bird,’ and we played it while I read a
poem I had written about birds.”

  Penny Rose was only half listening. As she painted, her mind wandered to the proclamation. Was showing the Secret Science Society her robots really going against it? It would just be a picture after all.

  “Look, they’re staring at us!” Lark said.

  Behind them stood the robots. They stared at the two girls without beeping or whirring.

  “It’s like this is the most fascinating thing in the world to them!” Penny Rose said.

  Sharpie clacked her dentures and rolled over to the corner.

  “Oh, Sharpie,” Lark said. “Don’t be such a grump!”

  iPam zoomed over to her. They beeped and flashed at each other.

  SHE DOES NOT LIKE YELLOW.

  “Oh,” Lark said. “Um, it’s kind of too late now.”

  SHE IS JUST BEING GRUMPY, LOL.

  “She’s always being grumpy,” Lark said.

  iPam acted like a mother to the other robots. She broke up fights and scolded them when they got too rowdy. Or too grumpy, in Sharpie’s case.

  Clunk rolled on top of Chimney, who gave her a ride around the shed like he did every day. Data watched the world outside from her perch by the window.

  “Hey, iPam, what’s up with Data?” Penny Rose asked as she wiped a smudge of yellow paint off her hand with a rag. “She seems . . . different from the rest of you.”

  Penny Rose looked over at iPam, but her screen was blank.

  “iPam?” Lark said.

  DATA IS . . . SPECIAL. SHE SEES THINGS.

  “What kinds of things?” asked Lark.

  FUTURE THINGS.

  The girls stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at each other.

  “Like what, iPam! Tell us!” Penny Rose said. Her voice sounded high and squeaky to her ears.

  SHE KNEW YOU WOULD PAINT THE SHED YELLOW. BEFORE YOU DID, FYI BTW.

  “Wow,” Penny Rose said. Her heart beat quicker. What if Data could predict whether or not she’d get into the Secret Science Society?

  “That’s amazing!” Lark said. She jabbed her paintbrush back into the can and turned to face iPam. “Can she tell our future? What has she seen lately?”

  “Does she know what grade I’ll get on my math test?” Penny Rose asked.

  “Yeah, and whether or not my mom will buy me the new pair of binoculars I asked for?” Lark asked.

  iPam’s screen went dark.

  “iPam?” Lark asked. “What has she seen lately? Please, please tell us!”

  NOTHING. LOL.

  “Come on, iPam, what has she said to you?” Penny Rose asked.

  “Can we ask her questions?” Lark asked. “Maybe she could help us win the lottery!”

  “Yeah!” Penny Rose said. The two girls looked at each other with wide eyes, then turned to iPam.

  TTYL.

  She turned around and rolled into the Lava Lamp Forest.

  “Come on, iPam, tell us something!” Lark said.

  “Please?” Penny Rose asked.

  iPam rolled into the wall and stayed there.

  “OK, we get the message,” Penny Rose said.

  “If what she says is true, that’s pretty cool,” Lark said.

  “Most definitely! But I doubt iPam will let us ask Data about stuff,” Penny Rose said. “She’s pretty protective.”

  “Oh, well,” Lark said.

  Penny Rose couldn’t let it go that easily. She kept wondering if maybe Data could tell her about her future with the Secret Science Society.

  “I think we should put the proclamation in a safe place, especially with all this paint around,” Lark said. “Like taped inside of this box.” She walked over to the box in the corner and tapped it with her foot.

  “Sounds good,” Penny Rose said.

  She still wasn’t sure about the proclamation. Maybe her robots should be shared with the world. And since they were really her creations, maybe it was her duty to share them with fellow scientists.

  The following Saturday, while Lark was at her cousin’s birthday party, Penny Rose headed out to the shed by herself with her mom’s cell phone. If the lighting was good and if she could get a decent shot, she would take a few pictures of roboTown. Why not? They were just pictures.

  The robots beeped their greeting at her. Fraction gave her an extra-big wave. Clunk rammed into her shoe, backed up, and did it again.

  “Oh, Clunk,” she said. “You are so silly!”

  Data stared out the window as usual.

  “Data, do you see anything at all about my membership with the Secret Science Society?”

  Data’s eye stopped spinning.

  iPam rolled up to Penny Rose.

  SHE DOESN’T SEE ANYTHING. ROFL.

  “Oh, OK, no big deal,” Penny Rose said, shrugging. “She doesn’t have to tell me if she doesn’t want to.”

  She plugged in the Christmas lights and the Lava Lamp Forest.

  “I’m just going to hang out with all of you for a little while by myself. I think I’ll take a few pictures, too.”

  She pointed the phone at the window. Clunk had joined Data, and the two stood on the windowsill staring outside. It was a sweet picture. Poignant, even. She pointed and clicked. Fraction and Sharpie were taking turns on the tin-can elevator. She took pictures of them riding it. She went on to take pictures of roboTown from every possible angle until she finally managed to get a shot with all the robots in it.

  “Perfect!” She looked at the picture again and smiled. “See you guys later!”

  When she got back to her room, she took the note from the Secret Science Society out of her desk and read it again. It was clear they just wanted a picture. She wouldn’t be showing them the actual robots.

  Lark’s proclamation said nothing about pictures.

  Penny Rose swiped through the shots. The one that showed all of roboTown with all the robots was the best by far. She zoomed in on it. The light coming in through the window bounced off the shiny metal of the robots, making them sparkle. The lava lamps and the Christmas lights glowed. Looking at the picture, it occurred to her that not only was it a cool science experiment — it was also a work of art. And architecture, come to think of it. Someone should see it other than just her and Lark. People should be given the chance to appreciate it.

  Her heart thumped as she typed in: “THESE ARE MY ROBOTS AND THIS IS ROBOTOWN. SINCERELY, PENNY ROSE.” She punched in the number and pressed send.

  She exhaled.

  “So that’s done.”

  She shook her head. It was silly to get so excited. They probably sent the same note to fifty kids. Or it was a joke. She deleted the text and the pictures so her mom wouldn’t see them. She was being a world-class doofus.

  Her stomach grumbled. As she was walking down to the kitchen, her mom called to Penny Rose from her office.

  “Dad’s at his ukulele lesson. He made some kind of tuna fish before he left. It’s in the fridge.”

  “OK,” Penny Rose called back.

  After checking out the tuna fish, which had leftover lima beans and quinoa in it, she decided to make an ordinary peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She poured herself a glass of apple cider and sat down at the kitchen table.

  While she ate, she thought about the Halloween costumes she and Lark were making. Yesterday they had found two huge boxes and a can of silver spray paint in Lark’s basement. Now all they had to do was find things to stick on the boxes to make them look like robots, like dials and bolts. After lunch she was going to poke around in the shed for just the right things.

  She rinsed off her plate and her cup and put them in the dishwasher. Upstairs she could hear her mother’s sad country songs playing. She always played sad country songs when she paid the bills. She said the songs matched her mood.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  Penny Rose turned off the water and listened. It sounded like someone walking up the front steps and onto the porch. Probably just Dad coming home from his ukulele lesson.

  The d
oorbell rang. It certainly wasn’t Dad. Someone ringing the doorbell in the middle of the day on a Sunday afternoon in October was pretty obviously a stranger.

  It couldn’t possibly be the Secret Science Society. She had only just sent the text fifteen minutes ago. It took them weeks to look over her answer about the pencil.

  And yet if she had been the one seeing a picture of her robots for the first time, she would want to see the real thing right away.

  Penny Rose stood frozen in the kitchen. She wasn’t sure she was ready to see who was on the other side of the door.

  “Penny Rose, can you get that, please?” Mom called.

  “’Kay,” Penny Rose answered, barely above a whisper. Her legs felt heavy, like she was walking through wet cement. She peered out the window.

  Lily Proom was standing on the porch with her arms crossed. She was wearing her purple-fringed boots, the ones Penny Rose stared at longingly every day. Today they matched the purple sparkly scarf around her neck. Everything about Lily was cooler than other kids.

  What on earth was Lily doing standing on her doorstep? If a giraffe wearing a beret had been standing there, it would have made more sense.

  Lily rang the doorbell again.

  Penny Rose slowly opened the door. “Hi,” she whispered.

  “I saw your text. We all did. Those robots are really cool. Go get them, and I’ll take you to our clubhouse.”

  Penny Rose stood there for a moment, taking in Lily and her purple-fringed boots. Her heart was pounding so loud, she was afraid that Lily might hear it.

  “You’re a . . . member?” Penny Rose asked.

  Lily laughed. “Yep!”

  “Oh,” Penny Rose said. Of all the kids in school, she had not expected the popular and pretty Lily Proom, who had always ignored her, to be a Secret Science Society member.

  “Well?” Lily asked. “You coming?”

  “I, um, my m-m-mom . . . I, well, really, I should, because if I don’t, then . . .” Penny Rose stopped stammering and took a gulp of air. “I’ve gotta tell Mom, I think. I guess.”

  “Of course,” Lily said. “But hurry, OK? Our meeting is beginning soon.”

  Penny Rose started up the stairs just as her mother came out of her office.