Weird Little Robots

by Carolyn Crimi

“We’re here,” Lark said, staring at the path that led into the forest. “Now what?”

  “Um, this is the part I don’t have planned,” Penny Rose said. “I was kinda hoping you’d think of something. Like I said, I was always blindfolded. I don’t know how to get there.”

  “That’s just great,” Lark said. “Because I have no ideas whatsoever.”

  They stood there at the edge of Darkling Forest, staring into its inky depths.

  Finally Lark said, “Tell me what you heard after you put on the blindfold.”

  Penny Rose sighed. “Nothing, really. I don’t know.”

  “Concentrate,” Lark said. “When I’m listening for birds, I listen with my whole body — my ears and my nose and even my fingers. Does that make sense?”

  Penny Rose shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “But I’ll try.”

  Penny Rose closed her eyes, and Lark held her arm. They took a few steps onto the path. She raised her chin up to the night sky as she listened. She could hear the wind. It grazed her face, cooling her skin. A tendril of hair brushed against her cheek. The same thing had happened when Lily first took her to the Lab. Small memories came flooding back to her. The smell of wet bark. The sucking sounds of her shoes in the mud. Crows cawing. A snap of a branch. A soft trickle of water.

  Water. Nearby. She heard it now.

  “I remember hearing that water,” she said. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated with every muscle, tendon, and bone in her body. “And it was on my . . . right. Yeah. There’s some kind of brook nearby.”

  “Great!” Lark said. “Let’s keep walking! Was it always on your right?”

  “I think so!” Penny Rose said. She could almost feel her ears heating up, straining to hear better.

  “There’s a fork in the path,” Lark said. “Where should we go?”

  Penny Rose bit her lip. “There was a place with lots of leaves,” she said. “I remember feeling like we were walking through a leaf pile!”

  “Great!” Lark said. “There’s a pile of leaves to the left!”

  They trudged through the slight dip in the path filled with leaves.

  “There’s a place where Lily said to watch my step,” she said. “There was a branch.”

  “Good!” Lark said. “We’re going to get there! I just know it!”

  Lark helped her step over the branch. They walked a few more paces.

  “There’s another fork,” Lark said. “Now what?”

  Penny Rose squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She couldn’t hear the brook. The wind had died. Darkling was silent.

  Snap!

  Penny Rose’s eyes shot open. Lark looked as nervous as she was.

  Snap! Whish!

  Something was coming toward them. Leaves rustled as it moved along the path.

  Penny Rose held her breath. Whatever it was, it was very, very close. And it did not sound human.

  Neither girl spoke.

  Snap!

  It stood a few feet away. Penny Rose squinted, but even with the night-vision goggles, she could only make out a small dark shape.

  The thing stood still. It rose onto its hind legs, exposing its white belly.

  Penny Rose stared, mouth open.

  “Chimney!” she said in a loud whisper. “It’s you!”

  Chimney bounded toward them, his black-smudged tail twitching with excitement.

  “Oh, Chimney, am I glad to see you!” Lark said.

  The robots started moving in Penny Rose’s tool belt. She took them out and showed them to the squirrel. They clacked and buzzed and beeped with joy.

  CHIMNEY!! HOW R U? WE HEART YOU!

  “Chimney, if it hadn’t been for you, all the robots would have been stolen!” Penny Rose said. “You chased Jeremy out before he could get all of them!”

  Chimney kept standing on his haunches.

  “Why is he just standing there?” Lark asked.

  “I don’t know,” Penny Rose said.

  “Wait!” Lark said. “I bet he knows where the Lab is!” Chimney twitched his tail and got onto all fours. He turned and started bounding off down the path on the right.

  “Let’s follow him!” Penny Rose said. She put the robots back in her tool belt and scurried after Chimney.

  “We’re following a squirrel through the woods at night on Halloween,” Lark said behind her. “This is nuts.”

  Penny Rose nodded. “Most definitely.”

  They followed Chimney as he leaped nimbly over tree branches and stones. The forest grew darker the deeper they went.

  “Is that it?” Lark asked, pointing.

  Penny Rose looked up. It was the Lab all right. She could see the dim outline of the strange little hut. The lights were on. Someone was inside.

  “That’s it,” Penny Rose said. “I bet he’s there now.”

  “Maybe we should make it here,” Lark said. “Then carry it with us. We’ll have to be extra quiet as we walk, otherwise it’ll spoil the whole thing.”

  Penny Rose nodded. She hoped this worked. She remembered Lily and Merry teasing Jeremy about being afraid of ghosts. If she could make something that looked creepy and ghostly enough, Jeremy might run out of the Lab and leave the robots behind.

  In any case, it was the only plan they had.

  She gathered leaves and stuffed them into the mask, but when she fitted the mask onto the top of the broom, the leaves kept falling out. Of course they would! Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  “Tie the bottom of it with string,” Lark said.

  “I don’t have any,” Penny Rose said.

  iPam stirred in her tool belt. It felt like she was jabbing Penny Rose with one of her arms. She took iPam out.

  THERE’S WIRE IN UR TOOL BELT.

  “Oh!” Penny Rose said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re not a super-cool robot,” Lark said.

  Penny Rose put iPam on the ground. She took Sharpie out of the belt and stood her next to iPam. Chimney let out a small squeak. He hopped over to the robots and bent his head down so that they could stroke his tufted ears.

  “They’re like a family,” Lark said. “We’ve just got to find the others!”

  Penny Rose dug the spool of wire out of her tool belt, cut a piece off with the scissors, and twisted it around the bottom of the mask. She held it up for the robots, Lark, and Chimney to see. It looked a bit like an unfinished scarecrow.

  “He needs something,” Lark said. She looked around on the ground.

  “Like what?” Penny Rose asked.

  “I dunno,” Lark said, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Like arms, or something.” She bent over and picked up a branch. “Here, tie this to it to make a cross.”

  Penny Rose cut another piece of wire off the spool and used it to fasten the branch onto the broom.

  “Good,” Lark said. “And now we do this.” She unzipped her hoodie, slipped it onto the broom, and pulled the hood onto its head. Their scarecrow was now complete, except that it was a lot creepier than any scarecrow Penny Rose had ever seen.

  “OK, you two, back in the belt,” Penny Rose said to the robots.

  The robots gave Chimney one last pat on the head. Penny Rose picked them up and carefully put them in her tool belt. She took her mom’s iPod and the two tiny speakers out of the belt and hooked them all together.

  “Perfect!” Lark said. She picked up their fake ghost and glanced over at the Lab. “It’s time to get going.”

  Penny Rose nodded. “I guess.” She adjusted her night-vision goggles and hiked up her tool belt.

  “Here we go,” she whispered into the darkness.

  As they came closer to the Lab, they heard someone talking. They crept along the narrow path until they were only a foot away from the front door. They crouched down on either side of it. The crack between the door and the siding was big enough for Penny Rose to peek through. She took off her night-vision goggles so that she could look in.

  Jeremy was on his cell phone. He
was sitting at the table and still wearing his Albert Einstein costume. Data, Clunk, and Fraction were in front of him. Fraction was facedown on the table, and Clunk was missing an arm. A lump formed in Penny Rose’s throat.

  “Mother, I’ve got everything I need, don’t worry. Yes, of course it’s fun. Sleepovers are fun. I’ll be home before breakfast.”

  He paused. Penny Rose could hear the distant tinny sound of his mother’s voice on the other end.

  “It’s only two blocks away! I can walk two blocks in broad daylight, Mother.”

  He paused again. His mother seemed to be going on and on about something.

  “I have to go. I can’t keep calling you every fifteen minutes. None of the other boys do. I’ll be fine.”

  He clicked the phone off, sighed, and shook his head. After a moment or two of contemplation, he leaned in close so that his face was only inches away from Clunk.

  “If you move, I will get you anything you want. Just do it again. I know you can. I saw you.”

  The robots didn’t budge.

  Jeremy stood. He paced around the small room, then stopped.

  “I can take off another arm, you know,” he said menacingly. “Would you move if I did that? Huh?”

  His eyes glinted in the dim light of the Lab. He stood in front of the table with his hands on his hips.

  “Well? Move, you dumb robots! Move or I’ll make you into a toaster!”

  Penny Rose shot a quick glance over at Lark. She could see that, like her, Lark had had enough. Now was the time.

  Lark walked carefully over to the door with their handmade ghost. She raised it slowly above her, so that its head was in the center of the window above the small door.

  Penny Rose tucked the speakers under her arms. She had cued up “Shrieking” from her mom’s playlist. She pressed play. Nothing happened.

  She looked over at Lark, who was holding the ghost facing into the Lab. Lark frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” she mouthed.

  Penny Rose shrugged. She turned the iPod around in her hands until she finally saw what the problem was. She shook her head. The speakers weren’t on! She slid the button on each of them to ON, put them on the ground, and pushed play again.

  EEEEEEEeeeeeee! Eeeeee oooooo eeeeeee!

  Penny Rose jumped. Her nerves were amped, but the shrieking was way louder than she’d expected.

  “Who’s there?” Jeremy cried. Penny Rose peered in through the crack again. Jeremy was looking around the small room. “Where are you?”

  Penny Rose dug her flashlight out of her tool belt, turned it on, and shone it up at the ghost.

  Jeremy saw the flash of light and looked up at the window. His eyes bulged. A strangled gurgling sound came out of his mouth.

  “Go away!” he said, backing up toward the wall. “Go away!”

  Penny Rose pressed “Shrieking” again on the playlist. The eerie sound filled the woods.

  Jeremy crouched. He glanced around the small hut wildly and ran toward the door.

  Penny Rose turned off the flashlight. She waved both arms at Lark, who was standing in front of the door, but Lark didn’t see her. She was too busy moving the ghost up and down in the window.

  The doorknob jiggled. When it turned, Lark lurched out of the way, falling into the bushes. Penny Rose flattened herself against the side of the Lab.

  Jeremy screamed and ran out the door.

  “GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE! MOMMMMMY!”

  He ran out of the Lab holding his bowed head in his arms for protection.

  He never looked up. He never looked back. He just ran and ran and ran with his arms wrapped around the Albert Einstein wig on his head until he was completely out of sight.

  Penny Rose helped Lark get out of the bushes. Once Lark was standing, Penny Rose picked leaves off of her sweater.

  “It worked,” Lark said.

  “It did,” Penny Rose said. “It really did.”

  “He’s a fast runner,” Lark said.

  “And a loud screamer.”

  They looked at each other, then burst into laughter.

  “MOMMMMY!” Lark said in a high, shrill voice. “Mommy, there’s a ghost!”

  “And his head is stuffed with leaves!” Penny Rose said.

  “And he’s wearing a Gap hoodie!” Lark said.

  They doubled over. Lark fell to the ground, tears streaming down her face.

  “I don’t think he’ll ever come back,” Lark said, catching her breath.

  “Not without his mommy!” Penny Rose said, which sent them both into fresh peals of laughter.

  Penny Rose felt a jab in her side. She took iPam and Sharpie out of her tool belt and put them on the ground. Chimney emerged from the bushes and joined them.

  “We did it!” she told them. “We did it, we did it, we did it!”

  WHAT ABOUT CLUNK AND DATA AND FRACTION? FYI BTW, THAT’S WHY WE’RE HERE.

  “You’re right,” Penny Rose said. She picked them up. “Let’s get them home.”

  Chimney and Lark followed Penny Rose through the small door of the Lab. The salty lump formed in her throat once again when she saw Fraction facedown on the table.

  “Oh, Fraction,” she whispered, picking her up.

  Data’s marble eye started to spin. Clunk raised her one arm up in the air and beeped. Fraction didn’t move.

  Chimney clamored up the leg of the table. Penny Rose placed iPam and Sharpie on the table with the others. Robots and squirrel fell into a gleeful reunion of beeps, whirs, twitches, and spins. All except Fraction.

  Everyone was completely still as Penny Rose turned her this way and that, trying to figure out what had happened. All her parts were there. She gave Fraction a gentle shake, but she didn’t move.

  “I don’t understand,” Penny Rose murmured. She pressed CLEAR on the small keyboard, then each number and symbol. Her screen was still blank. “Technically, she should at least be able to calculate, but I can’t even get her to do that.”

  Lark stood next to her. “She’s lost the magic,” she whispered.

  Penny Rose didn’t want to agree with her, but deep down inside she worried that it was true. If it truly was magic, she had no idea how it worked. Science she could deal with. Magic was a complete mystery.

  “Let’s take them all back to the shed,” Penny Rose said. “Maybe I can find something there that will fix her.”

  Lark put her hoodie back on while Penny Rose gathered up the robots, the fake ghost, and the iPod. They wordlessly slipped their night-vision goggles on and headed toward the path.

  The walk back through Darkling Forest was a quiet one. When Penny Rose heard the brook nearby, she knew they were close, but it didn’t bring her any joy or relief. If Fraction — dear, loving Fraction — was gone forever, Penny Rose wasn’t sure what she would do. How could she go on making robots knowing that someday they might die? It occurred to her that she had never really considered how real they were until just now.

  Lark’s house was dark. Mrs. Hinkle hadn’t noticed that Lark was gone. They kept walking until they got to the shed. Penny Rose took a deep breath before pushing open the door.

  “What the —?” Lark began. She stopped in the doorway and gaped.

  “Yeah, I forgot to tell you,” Penny Rose said. “He made a huge mess while he was looking for them. iPam said Chimney chased him out. A lot of roboTown was wrecked.”

  “What a doofus,” Lark said. “Or maybe he’s a dweeb.”

  “He’s definitely a dork,” Penny Rose said.

  They sat at their table. Chimney hopped onto the window ledge to watch. Penny Rose took out all of the robots and lined them up so that they could see everything. She stood Fraction directly in front of her.

  “So,” Lark said. “What now?”

  Penny Rose sighed. “I could take her apart and put her back together again,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” Lark said. She fidgeted with the string on her hoodie.

  “Or I could try new
batteries? What do you think, iPam?” Penny Rose asked.

  iPam motioned to the other robots. They conversed for a while in their odd little way. Data’s marble eye spun faster than it had in days.

  “Well?” Penny Rose asked.

  MAKE IT LIKE BEFORE.

  “What?” Penny Rose asked.

  WHAT IT WAS LIKE WHEN YOU MADE US. MAKE IT LIKE THAT.

  “Like a reenactment!” Lark said.

  “Oh,” Penny Rose said. She hunched over and put her head in her hands. “I don’t remember!”

  Lark stood. She paced back and forth. “OK, let’s think this through. What time of year was it when you made Fraction?”

  Penny Rose kept her head in her hands, thinking. “September. Definitely September. I remember talking to her on my birthday, and that’s September nineteenth.”

  “Good!” Lark said.

  Penny Rose raised her head. “Oh, gosh, but I had started them all before that,” she said, frowning. “The thing is, I would make changes here and there. I didn’t work on one robot until she was done. I worked on them all at once.”

  “OK, OK, good,” Lark said, still pacing. “What time of day did you work on them mostly?”

  “In the morning. Or at night. Or the afternoon.”

  Lark stopped pacing. “So basically anytime at all.”

  Penny Rose nodded.

  “What else?” Lark asked. “Did you play music or have the same snack or anything?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Penny Rose said. She looked around the shed. So much had changed since then. It hadn’t been yellow, for one thing. RoboTown wasn’t there. She had been alone back then. All she had were the robots.

  “Well,” Penny Rose began. She wasn’t sure she felt comfortable saying the next part, but she knew that for some reason it was important. “I was, you know, alone most of the time. You weren’t . . . here.”

  Lark nodded slowly. “Oh, right. We weren’t friends yet.”

  Penny Rose thought back to that time in her life, when it had been just her and the robots. She had spent so many hours talking to them. They were her friends. Her only friends.