“Arvid, stop,” she said.
Penny Rose heard footsteps in the hall. She quickly stashed the robots under her pillow.
Mom poked her head in the doorway.
“Did you have fun with Lily today?”
“Yeah.” Penny Rose nodded thoughtfully. She hadn’t thought it was going to be fun at all, and yet it turned out being lots of fun.
Mom smiled. “I’m going to help your father with dinner, or else we’ll all die of starvation.” She shook her head. “He wanted to make an applesauce and mashed potato casserole for dinner.”
“You’d better hurry up and get down there,” Penny Rose said.
Mom laughed. “Oh, I almost forgot. Lark called. I told her to call back after dinner. OK?”
“Sure,” Penny Rose said, her voice cracking a little.
Her stomach clenched when she thought about talking to Lark. She couldn’t tell her about the meeting with the Secret Science Society. That was probably a surefire way for a person to end her membership with a secret society. And what if she wanted to join? Then she’d have to tell Lark what Jeremy had said about her. It wasn’t nice, and Lark wouldn’t like it. Why tell her when it will only hurt her feelings? That was not the kind of thing a best friend does.
Or was it?
Penny Rose thought about Lark all through dinner. She wished Lark would just . . . what? Disappear? Understand? Both?
The phone rang while Penny Rose was rinsing off her plate in the sink.
“Can you get that, Penny Rose?” Dad asked.
“I’m doing the dishes,” she said.
“It’s probably Lark,” Mom said. “You can do the dishes after you talk to her.”
“But I want to do them now,” Penny Rose said. She kept her back to her parents as she rinsed out her glass. “Otherwise they get all crusty.”
“Well, someone needs to get it,” Dad said, shoving himself away from the table. “I guess that someone is me!”
Just as he was about to answer, the phone stopped ringing. Dad shook his head and sat back down at the table.
“Honey, why didn’t you pick up?” Mom asked.
“I told you, I want to do the dishes,” Penny Rose said. “Besides, she’ll leave a message.”
Penny Rose still had her back to them and couldn’t see their expressions. She didn’t need to. She knew that they were both most likely giving her the Concerned Stare.
But something had changed. She felt different about Lark now — Lark’s loud, scratchy voice; her huge sunglasses; her obsession with birds. She thought about how the Secret Science Society dismissed Lark right away, and how she hadn’t stopped them.
She knew she was embarrassed. But she couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed by Lark or embarrassed by herself.
The next day was Sunday. Lark called again in the morning while Penny Rose was brushing her teeth.
“Tell her I’ll call back,” she yelled to her mom.
After breakfast, Penny Rose took Sharpie and Data out to the shed. Chimney was waiting by the door as usual.
“Chimney, we’re going to have to make a doggy door for you, except it will be a squirrel door.”
Chimney scampered in and basked in the robots’ warm greetings. Penny Rose placed Data in her usual spot by the window with Sharpie next to her. She squatted down on the floor and started rolling pennies with iPam.
“Hey, Data,” she asked, “I really need to know something. Like, a ‘future’ something.” She looked at iPam for the answer.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?
“Am I going to get into the Secret Science Society?”
iPam turned to Data, whose eye spun crazily.
GET A LOCK.
Penny Rose stopped rolling the penny to iPam. She frowned at Data. “What does that mean?”
SHE MEANS FOR THE DOOR. TO THE SHED.
“Are you sure she doesn’t mean that I should make a squirrel door? Like the ones they have for dogs? ’Cause I was just thinking —”
iPam interrupted her.
SHE MEANS A LOCK. FOR THE DOOR.
“But that’s not what I asked!” Penny Rose said. Sometimes it was frustrating using iPam for every single conversation. It made things ten times more difficult.
SHE UNDERSTANDS YOUR QUESTION, FYI.
“iPam, can you just —”
Before Penny Rose could finish her sentence, Lark barged in wearing her usual getup of sunglasses and binoculars.
“You wouldn’t believe what the birds left for me today! It was the teeniest, tiniest green button you’ve ever seen, and it was right in the middle of the birdbath.” She pushed her sunglasses up and sat down. “What were you talking to the robots about?”
“Me?”
Lark snorted. “Yes, you! I just heard you talking to them!”
“Oh, I was, um, gosh, I don’t even remember.”
Penny Rose got up and started digging through the box in the corner. “Hey, what do you think of a robot made of this?” she asked, holding up an electric can opener.
“It’s fine, I guess,” Lark said. She glared at Penny Rose in an unnerving way.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Penny Rose asked.
“I called you last night, and you never called me back. In fact, I called you twice. And once this morning!” She folded her arms across her chest. “I figured I should just come over here, and now I hear you talking to the robots, and you won’t tell me what you said. What’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” Penny Rose said. She put the can opener back in the box and rummaged around until she came upon a tiny toy train. “Do you think the robots would like this?” she asked, holding it up.
“You are being so weird.”
“I am not!”
“Yeah you are!”
“You’re the one who is always so weird!” Penny Rose blurted out. “Every single day of your life!”
It took a while for Lark to say anything.
“You think I’m . . . weird?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“You don’t even try to be normal,” Penny Rose said. “What with your weird gifts from the birds and everything.”
No one moved, not even Chimney.
Lark stood. “Some best friend you are!” She glared at Penny Rose, then stomped over to the door.
“Bye,” she said, yanking open the door.
“Bye,” Penny Rose said. She tried pretending that she was just saying an ordinary goodbye on an ordinary day, but this, she knew, was not ordinary. She knew something big had just happened between her and Lark. And she wasn’t sure if she was upset about it.
“She can be so strange,” she said to iPam.
iPam did not text a word. Instead, she rolled over to the Lava Lamp Forest and stood facing the wall.
“Fine, be that way,” Penny Rose said. She got up to leave. “Lark would hate the Secret Science Society. It’s for her own good that I keep this a secret.”
She peered over at iPam, who quietly stood by a blue lava lamp.
“Come on, Chimney,” she said. “Time to go.”
The squirrel followed her out the door. She closed it harder than usual.
“Everyone is so annoying!” she said to Chimney.
He blinked at her and scurried away.
Penny Rose spent the rest of the day in her room writing Conversation Starters. She wanted to be prepared just in case she bumped into any of the Secret Science Society members in the hallway at school.
But that night, before she went to bed, she found herself writing odd Conversation Starters, like:
1.) What is the best way to apologize to your best friend?
2.) Do you sometimes act like a jerk to your best friend?
3.) Does Lark hate me now? Do the robots?
“Arvid, I hope you still like me,” she said before turning off her light.
Arvid closed his golden eyes and sighed.
When Penny Rose saw Jeremy at the bus stop the next day, she wasn’t sure how to act. She glanc
ed his way, but he stared straight ahead. She wondered if this meant they had decided not to invite her into the Secret Science Society.
She hadn’t gotten in. She was sure of it. She stared intently at her sneakers as she waited to climb the steps of the bus.
Lark wasn’t at the bus stop. This was not unusual. She was often late. When the bus pulled up, Penny Rose looked toward Lark’s house and saw her slamming the door. Her hair was a tangled mess and her sunglasses were askew, making her look weirder than usual.
Penny Rose climbed onto the bus and sat in the front seat, where she and Lark usually sat. She slid her math textbook out of her backpack. After a few other kids got on, Lark raced up the steps, out of breath. Penny Rose looked up cautiously from her textbook.
“Hey,” she said softly.
Lark passed her seat without saying a word.
Penny Rose’s cheeks flushed. Lark had believed her about the robots when they first came alive. She could have made fun of Penny Rose or told her she was crazy and weird, but she didn’t. She had acted just like a best friend was supposed to act, and now Penny Rose had messed it all up.
Penny Rose took out her pencil and a piece of paper from her backpack and wrote:
I’m sorry. XO PR
She folded it up into a tiny square, turned, tossed it to the middle seat where Lark was sitting, then turned around again quickly.
When Lily and Merry got on at the next stop, Penny Rose’s heart sped up. She sneaked a peek at them. Merry gave her a quick smile as she headed to the back of the bus.
Lily brushed up against Penny Rose’s jacket. “Sorry, Penny Rose!” she said.
“It’s OK,” Penny Rose said with a big smile. But Lily had already moved on.
Penny Rose snapped her head back down. She stared at her math textbook, but everything on the page might as well have been in Latin. Her ears, though, like Arvid’s, were picking up the slightest sounds.
She jumped when she heard Merry squeal from the back of the bus.
“Ooooh! Can you BELIEVE it?” Merry said.
“No!” Lily said. “I really can’t!”
Penny Rose didn’t dare turn, but her stomach did a dance with each giggle they made. They were laughing at her; she just knew it.
Penny Rose peeked over her shoulder at Lark, who had straightened her sunglasses and was staring out the window. She was ignoring Penny Rose’s note.
It was already an awful day, and Penny Rose hadn’t even gotten to school yet.
When the bus let them out, Penny Rose walked as quickly as she could to class all by herself. She watched the clock all day and worried about lunch. She and Lark always sat with Laticia and Britta. Lark did most of the talking. Without Lark at lunch, Penny Rose would have to talk. She had not memorized the appropriate Conversation Starters for this situation.
When the bell finally rang, she took her lunch box out of her cubby and dragged herself down the hall to the lunchroom. It was going to be a long half hour. She looked for Lark but couldn’t see her.
Just then someone grabbed her by the elbow.
Merry Zwack.
“Come with me,” she whispered.
Penny Rose glanced nervously up and down the hallway as she followed her. They stopped at the library.
“Hi, Ms. Codell! We’re just working on a project,” Merry said.
Ms. Codell looked up from her computer and gave them a distracted wave.
Merry led Penny Rose to the farthest stack of the library, in the science section. Lily and Jeremy were sitting cross-legged on the floor eating their sandwiches.
Merry plunked down next to Jeremy and opened up her lunch box. “This is one of our meeting places,” she told Penny Rose. “You’ll know we’re meeting here if this book is placed upside down on the shelf.” She picked up a book with an old stain on the cover shaped like a protozoa. “It’s a book about Madame Curie and it came out in 1969, the year the Secret Science Society started. If there’s a meeting, we’ll stick a note on page forty-four with the time and date.” She shook her head. “No one ever takes this book out. Too bad. It’s actually pretty good.”
Penny Rose nodded and sat down on the floor next to them. She felt funny about eating in the library. It seemed wrong — like dancing in the grocery store or playing catch in the dentist’s office. Some things just weren’t done.
But no one seemed to mind, so Penny Rose took out the peanut butter and grape sandwich her father had made for her. She took a big bite. A grape shot out from the bread and landed on the floor.
Penny Rose froze. She looked to see who had noticed. They all had. She picked up the grape and put it in her lunch box.
“Was that a grape in your sandwich?” Jeremy asked. He wrinkled his nose. “Gross!”
Before Penny Rose had a chance to answer, Merry said, “I think it’s cool! Like grape jelly only better! Very creative!”
She beamed at Penny Rose.
“So, before we make you a new member, we need to see the rest of your robots,” Jeremy said. “You haven’t passed. The Secret Science Society is a club for only the best scientists. We can’t let just anyone in.”
“Oh,” Penny Rose said. She looked down at her sandwich but didn’t take a bite.
Merry swatted her arm. “Don’t worry about it!”
Penny Rose gave her a weak smile.
“We’re meeting today after school,” Lily said. “I’ll come by to pick you up at three forty-five.”
“Don’t forget to bring the rest of the robots,” Jeremy added. He had eaten his entire sandwich already, except for the crusts. He popped a stick of bright green gum into his mouth. Penny Rose could smell its minty freshness from her spot two feet away.
The others chatted about a YouTube video that showed the bubbling surface of Mars, but Penny Rose stayed quiet. She felt strange carting all the robots through the woods and allowing them to be handled by the Secret Science Society. And she felt even stranger doing all this after school, since that was the time she and Lark usually hung out in the shed. They had almost finished making their robot costumes.
But now that Lark wasn’t speaking to her, maybe they wouldn’t even go trick-or-treating together.
Even though Penny Rose had started the fight, and she felt bad about it, she wasn’t sure she wanted it to end. She needed it to last a little bit longer. Like, until the others had seen the robots and officially let her into the Secret Science Society.
As soon as she got home, Penny Rose raced up to her room, found an old shoe box, and then ran out to the shed. Chimney was waiting for her patiently. Lark was nowhere in sight.
The robots rolled over to Penny Rose and Chimney as soon as they came in.
“Has Lark been here, iPam?” she asked.
NO.
“Oh,” Penny Rose said. “I guess she’s busy.”
Penny Rose squatted down on the floor. “I need to take all of you somewhere today, OK? But you have to promise that you’ll only move when I turn you on, and that you won’t do anything fancy, like text me or anything. Got it?”
R U TAKING US TO THE WOODS?
Penny Rose had forgotten that the robots talked among themselves. “Yes, I am. To the Secret Science Society’s Lab. It’s really cool there. You’ll love it.”
iPam’s screen was blank.
“iPam? Is that OK?”
She paused.
I SUPPOSE. LOL.
“Great! I’m just going to put you in this box.”
As long as the robots didn’t act like they were alive, she saw no reason why she couldn’t show them to the Secret Science Society. She was pretty sure that wasn’t going against the proclamation. And they were her robots after all, not Lark’s. She had created them. Lark only helped make roboTown.
Penny Rose carefully placed iPam, Fraction, and Clunk in the shoe box. She shooed Chimney out of the shed.
“Sorry, Chimney, but they’ll be back soon.”
She raced back to the house and waited in the front hall. Sec
onds later Lily hopped up her front steps.
Penny Rose opened the door and greeted her with a nervous smile.
“I’m going to Lily’s house,” she called to her father, who was working in his office with the door closed.
“’Kay,” he called back. “Have fun!”
“Ready?” Lily asked.
Penny Rose nodded. They chatted about their social studies quiz until they got to the edge of Darkling Forest. Lily took off her purple scarf and tied it around Penny Rose’s eyes.
Penny Rose held the shoe box tightly under her arm as Lily led her to the Lab. Once there, she took the scarf off of Penny Rose and then rapped three times on the door.
“Let us in!”
Jeremy unlocked the door and watched Penny Rose as she entered. He locked it again once she and Lily were inside.
Penny Rose felt a shiver of fear. Something about the way he looked at the shoe box was unnerving. His scowl scared her, and for a split second she considered leaving. She imagined running through Darkling Forest with her shoe box, jumping over tree roots and rocks. It was as if a little person entered her head, just for a split second, and yelled, “Get out now!” But Penny Rose didn’t know how to get home. And she knew the little person, or whatever it was, was just nerves. It wasn’t real. Jeremy was just a kid.
The Secret Science Society was very real. She could smell Jeremy’s gum and the mustiness of the Lab. The cool pictures on the wall, the science stuff on the shelves — it was all real. She felt as though she was just inches away from being part of it.
Someone knocked. Jeremy unlocked the door.
“Hi!” Merry said. Her big smile was aimed right at Penny Rose. “Hey, are the robots in there?” she asked, nodding at the shoe box.
Penny Rose nodded. “Except for the ones I already brought.” She gripped the shoe box and stood completely still, like a soldier guarding a treasure.
Merry laughed. “Well, gosh, can we see them or what?”
Penny Rose started. “Oh, yeah, sure.”
Merry walked over to the table and sat down on one of the stools. “Let’s look at them here,” she said, shoving aside the volcano.
Lily and Jeremy sat at the table. Penny Rose stood at the head and lifted the lid of the shoe box. All three Secret Science Society members seemed to be holding their breath.
Weird Little Robots Page 6