Weird Little Robots

by Carolyn Crimi

  “Hi, I’m going to, um, a friend’s house for a little while,” Penny Rose said quickly. Lily had come in and was standing behind her. Penny Rose could smell her grape lip gloss.

  Mom leaned over the banister. “Hello!” she said to Lily. “What’s your name?”

  Lily plastered a huge smile on her face. “I’m Lily Proom!”

  “Oh, I know your mother!” She smiled back at Lily. “Love your boots!”

  “Thanks!” Lily said. “We won’t be long.”

  Mom waved her hand. “Don’t worry. Have fun, you two!”

  Penny Rose gulped. She wasn’t sure that fun was the right word. Her palms felt sweaty. She wished she had studied her Conversation Starters harder.

  Lily turned to her as soon as they were alone on the front porch.

  “Grab your robots and let’s go.”

  “Really?” Penny Rose said. “Um, I kind of —”

  “We have to see them. We need to know they’re real and not Photoshopped or something.”

  “OK,” Penny Rose said. “They’re in back.”

  Penny Rose jogged around her house to the backyard. She opened the door to the shed and saw iPam rolling down the slide. Her gaze swept over the rest of the robots. Should she take all of them or just a few? It was a hard decision to make on such short notice. But if she took them all and something happened, she’d never forgive herself.

  She spied Sharpie lurking in the Lava Lamp Forest. “You’ll do,” she said as she picked up the grumpy robot.

  Sharpie gnashed her teeth together.

  “Don’t do anything unless I push your ON switch,” she said. Her voice was stern but nervous. “Can you do that? It’s really important.”

  Sharpie stopped gnashing her teeth and made a beeping noise, which meant she was talking to iPam.

  iPam rolled over to Penny Rose.

  SUP?

  “Nothing. I just want to take Sharpie on a little walk, that’s all.” Penny Rose gave her a shaky grin and looked around the shed. Data stood on the windowsill as usual. Maybe Data could see Penny Rose’s future with the Secret Science Society if she came with them.

  “You, too,” she said, picking up Data. “Come with me. It’ll be fun.”

  She found her tool belt in the cardboard box in the corner. She buckled it tightly and slipped the two robots into the pockets. “Now remember, no movement unless I push the ON button! And even then, do very little. You have to pretend that you’re not real.”

  She still wasn’t completely sure this was a good idea.

  She jogged back to Lily.

  “Here they are,” she said. She pointed to the two robots sticking out of the tool belt.

  “That’s all?” Lily said. Her brows drew together, forming a deep V above her long, straight nose. “Your picture showed a lot more than that.”

  “Um, the others got paint on them, and uh, they’re all gunked up. So. Yeah. Paint.”

  Penny Rose looked down at the ground, hoping the excuse was good enough.

  “OK,” Lily said. “Let’s go.”

  Penny Rose had a hard time keeping up with Lily, whose legs were approximately twice as long as Penny Rose’s. When they got to the edge of Darkling Forest, Lily stopped.

  “Stand still, I’m going to put this blindfold on you,” she said, taking off her purple sparkly scarf.

  “Blindfold?” squeaked Penny Rose. She could feel her pulse thumping in her neck. “Ummm —”

  “We’re still not sure if you’re right for our group, and we can’t have you knowing where our clubhouse is.”

  Goose bumps spread across Penny Rose’s skin as Lily tied the scarf firmly around her eyes.

  “How will I know where to walk?” Penny Rose asked. Her voice shook. She worried she might cry. This did not feel right at all.

  She felt Data move slightly in the tool belt. Penny Rose squeezed her eyes shut and willed the small robot to stop moving. Data stopped. It was comforting, in a way, to know she was there.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll lead the way,” Lily said. She held Penny Rose’s hand and tugged her forward, causing Penny Rose to stumble.

  “Sorry,” Lily said. “Oh, watch out for this branch.” Lily stopped walking and held her hand tighter as Penny Rose stepped cautiously over the branch. “OK, you’re good,” she said once Penny Rose had cleared it.

  Penny Rose could hear the scampering of wild creatures and the murmur of a distant brook as she and Lily walked farther and farther into the woods. It had rained the night before, and the mud made strange sucking sounds as they walked. When they came to the bottom of a small hill, Penny Rose smelled wet leaves and felt them slip under her sneakers and stick to her ankles.

  She had never ventured very deeply into Darkling Forest. She and Mom had hiked one or two trails when they first moved to Skillington Avenue, but then Penny Rose had gotten busy with the robots. She would stare at it sometimes, wondering about all the treasures that it surely held. But the way it sat at the end of her block like a crouched animal was not particularly inviting.

  Lily stopped walking. She dropped Penny Rose’s hand.

  “You can take the scarf off now,” she said.

  Penny Rose hesitated before pushing the scarf up to the top of her head.

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  “I know,” Lily said, nodding.

  The structure before her wasn’t a tree house, exactly. Tree houses were usually perched on tree branches, and this was on the ground. But it was definitely tree-like, with four huge maples acting as pillars on each corner. Patchwork walls made of wood and scrap metal had been built between the trees. A perfectly square window hovered above the small door.

  Penny Rose stood a few feet back while Lily strode up to it. She knocked three times fast.

  “It’s me,” Lily said into the shut door. “I brought her.”

  Someone unlocked the door and pushed it open. Penny Rose squinted. She couldn’t see who was there. Lily motioned for her to follow.

  Penny Rose took a deep breath before stepping inside.

  It took Penny Rose’s eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness.

  Jeremy Boils scowled at her from a beach chair opposite the door. His wild red hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days.

  Penny Rose tried to make her lips move, but they refused.

  Jeremy Boils — scowling, angry Jeremy Boils — was part of the Secret Science Society.

  “Are you going to come all the way in or what?” Jeremy asked.

  Lily frowned. “Be nice.”

  Jeremy rolled his eyes.

  Penny Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to go in farther after seeing Jeremy roll his eyes, but her curiosity won out and she took two more small steps. She looked around while Lily settled into one of the beach chairs next to Jeremy’s. Above their heads was a hand-lettered sign on a piece of plywood that said: THE LAB. Behind them were shelves jammed with books, beakers, microscopes, telescopes, Erector sets, and jars filled with items she couldn’t quite make out in the murky light. There was a small table off to the side with stools situated around it that was not unlike the table she and Lark worked on in the shed. Paper cups, bottles, and some kind of big blobby thing sat in the middle of the table.

  But what fascinated Penny Rose the most were the dozens of pictures taped to the wall. Faded school pictures of kids with braces and strange glasses. And there was writing. Penny Rose inched her way closer and saw that lots of kids had scrawled names and dates on the walls using all kinds of pens. Some, she saw, dated back to the 1960s.

  “Did you bring the robots?” Jeremy asked. His deep voice made him sound much older than Penny Rose, even though he was just in the fifth grade.

  “Um, yeah,” she said.

  “Well, come on, let’s see them,” Jeremy said. He leaned toward her in his seat.

  She didn’t like the hungry look in his eyes. She paused.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “It’s me!”

 
Lily unlocked the door.

  Merry Zwack gasped for breath in the doorway. She wore a T-shirt five times too big for her, as usual. She smiled at Penny Rose, showing off the bright blue rubber bands on her braces.

  Penny Rose wanted to pinch herself. The Merry Zwack just smiled at her! Popular kids had never smiled at her before. And apparently Merry was part of the Secret Science Society, too!

  Penny Rose felt fizzy all over, like ginger ale was coursing through her veins. She smiled at Merry.

  “I rode my bike as fast as I could,” Merry said. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Nope,” Lily said. “We just got here.”

  “Good!” Merry said. She smoothed her hair and cleared her throat. “OK, so I’m Merry Zwack, and I’m the president of the Secret Science Society. My science specialty is the environment. I made a video on global warming and the things kids can do to help. It went viral.”

  She looked intently at Penny Rose, waiting for her response.

  “I saw it. It was great.”

  The whole school had been talking about that video. It was even on the news.

  Merry nodded and smiled, but somehow not in a braggy way. Penny Rose wished she had that kind of confidence.

  “Jeremy is our engineer,” Merry said. “He, um, also makes robots.”

  “I just made a Robotonator,” Jeremy said. “The advanced version. They sell it at the Science Store. Where did you get your robot kit?”

  Penny Rose swallowed. “I didn’t make them from a kit. I made them from regular things, like cell phones and pencil sharpeners.”

  “Huh,” Jeremy said. He squinted at her, as if he wasn’t quite sure about something.

  “And Lily is our entomologist,” Merry said.

  “I made my own beehive in my backyard,” Lily said. “And last year I got an award for my ant farm.”

  “My dad’s an entomologist,” Penny Rose blurted out. She immediately worried that she sounded like she was boasting.

  “Wow, that’s so cool!” said Lily.

  “Yeah!” Merry said. “My dad’s just a boring old accountant.”

  Both girls smiled at her. Jeremy shrugged. “It’s cool, I guess,” he said.

  Merry continued, using a very official voice. “So the Secret Science Society was started in 1969 by Betsy Bueller. You know about her, right?”

  Penny Rose nodded. She was a fifth-grader who had gotten the whole school district started on recycling way back in the sixties. There was a framed newspaper article all about her hanging in the trophy case at school. She was a legend.

  “Betsy wanted to have a place where kids could talk about science as much as they wanted to without feeling like weirdos.”

  Penny Rose knew that feeling well. Even Lark didn’t seem very interested in talking about science. She saved her super-science discussions to have with her parents.

  “We are also always striving to invent things that might someday help others,” Merry said.

  “Like the gym locker security system I’m working on,” Jeremy said.

  “And I sell the honey that my bees make at the farmers’ market,” Lily said. “All the proceeds go to Save the Bees.”

  “But we have to be sure that you are as science-minded as we are,” Merry said. “We take our club really seriously. It’s been around a long time. We heard about how you won the science competition last year in your old school, and we think you might be just right.”

  “How did you hear about that?” Penny Rose asked.

  “We have ways,” Jeremy said. He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  Merry sighed in exasperation and looked up at the ceiling. “I saw the article about you while I was at my grandmother’s house. I thought you’d make a great member, but you lived too far away. Then when I heard you moved here —”

  “But you’re not a member yet,” Jeremy said.

  Penny Rose wasn’t sure what to say. She looked down at her feet.

  “You don’t have to rub it in, Jeremy,” Merry said.

  “Anyway,” Lily said, changing the subject, “this week we’re making a volcano using baking soda. I added the purple food coloring.” She pointed to the big blobby thing in the middle of the table, which had long drips of purple down the side of it.

  “Next month we’re going to start working on our drone,” Merry added. “But we’re not sure yet what it will do.” She shot a sharp look at Jeremy.

  “It should spy on people,” he said. “That’s what drones are for.”

  Lily shook her head. “No, it should drop milkweed seeds over fields so that milkweeds grow, which will save the monarchs. Don’t you think so, Penny Rose?”

  Penny Rose paused. “I think both ideas are . . . interesting,” she said. Taking a side against Jeremy did not seem like a good idea.

  “See?” Jeremy asked.

  “She’s just being nice,” Merry said.

  “Whatever,” Jeremy said. “Let’s see these so-called robots of yours.” He made air quotes around the word robots.

  Penny Rose frowned. Her robots were real. They did not deserve air quotes.

  Penny Rose squeezed Sharpie extra tight before pulling her out of the tool belt and setting her down on the floor.

  “Ooooh! She looks amazing!” said Merry.

  “Is that it?” asked Jeremy.

  Penny Rose flipped the small robot’s ON switch. The light at the top of her head flashed. Her teeth gnashed together. She rolled forward for a few inches, then stopped.

  “Oh, my gosh! She’s great!” Merry said.

  “That’s, like, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lily said.

  Jeremy didn’t say a word.

  “I have another,” Penny Rose said. “Actually, I have five of them altogether, but I only brought two.”

  She set Data down on the wooden floor and turned her on. Data’s marble eye rolled around. Her motor hummed. She slowly waved an antennae arm at them.

  “I can’t believe how amazing these are!” Merry said. “Did you make them all by yourself?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

  “I made them,” Penny Rose said. She shifted from one foot to the other. “But —”

  She looked at all of their faces. Lily raised her eyebrows. Merry smiled. Jeremy scowled.

  “But what?” Lily asked.

  “I had help with roboTown,” Penny Rose said quickly. “That robot metropolis in the picture I showed you.”

  “I figured,” Jeremy said. He crossed his arms and smirked.

  “Your mom helped you with your metrics project,” Merry said to him. “Remember?”

  Jeremy shrugged.

  “Who helped you?” Merry asked.

  “Do you know Lark Hinkle?” Penny Rose asked. She knew that they did. Everyone knew Lark. She was the class weirdo.

  “Oh,” Lily said.

  “She’s weird,” Jeremy said.

  “Sorry, but we don’t really have room in here for another member,” Merry said.

  And that was that. Lark was dismissed as quickly as recess on Friday.

  Merry picked up Sharpie and ran her finger over Sharpie’s dentures. “Where did you get these weird teeth?”

  All at once Lily and Merry started shooting questions at her about how she made her robots. Penny Rose found herself talking to them almost the same way she did with Lark. In some ways, she found they were easier to talk to. They mostly understood the science, for one thing. She didn’t have to explain too much about how she fit the batteries in or how she worked on getting the robots’ arms to move. They nodded as she talked about her new idea for a solar-powered light for the shed and about the mugwarming invention that she had been thinking about. Even Jeremy seemed interested in that.

  Before she knew it, she was in her own beach chair laughing about Mr. Moyes, the science teacher, and how his stomach always poked out of the bottom of his shirts.

  At one point she glanced over at Data, whose marble eye spun ever so slowly. Did she see a future for Penny Rose a
nd the Secret Science Society? Penny Rose couldn’t wait to find out.

  The sunlight in the Lab dimmed. Lily stood and removed the purple scarf from around her neck.

  “It’s getting late,” Lily said.

  “Yeah, I should get going,” Penny Rose said.

  “We’ll be in touch,” Merry said, smiling at Penny Rose.

  Penny Rose wanted to ask if she had passed the test. She even practiced saying it in her head. So did I pass the test? It seemed like an easy thing to say, but for some reason the words stayed in her head.

  The walk home was quiet. Lily slipped the blindfold off as soon as they got out of the forest.

  “Those are really cool robots,” Lily said when they got to Penny Rose’s front porch. “See you at school.”

  “See you,” Penny Rose said. She stood on the porch and watched as Lily started walking away.

  “Um, Lily?”

  Lily turned around. “Yeah?”

  It was just the two of them, which was safer. Penny Rose gulped. “Do you think, um, that I’m, you know, I don’t know, was I . . .”

  “I’m ninety-nine percent sure you’re in,” Lily said. A small smile slipped across her face. “We’ll let you know. Bye.”

  Penny Rose had to force herself not to jump up and down.

  “OK, then. Bye.”

  Once she was inside, Penny Rose raced up the stairs, heaved open her bedroom door, and flung herself on her bed next to a startled Arvid.

  “I did it!” she cried to the four walls. “At least I think I did! I’m in!”

  She gazed up at the ceiling. The previous owner had painted a sky on it, with clouds and birds and a large swirling sun. She smiled as she stared at it. Arvid snuggled in next to her and curled himself up into a tight ball. She stroked him behind the ears.

  Something poked her in her side.

  Sharpie!

  “Oops,” she said. She sat up and took Sharpie and Data out of her tool belt. “You both were great,” she said to them. “Thanks for doing what I asked. I’m sorry if it was weird.”

  She put them on her nightstand. Sharpie clicked her teeth. Data waved. Arvid hissed.