“Sorry,” George muttered, staring at his shoes.
“Now, take that heap of junk”—Otto pointed at Jackbot—“up to your bedroom and do your homework!”
Otto stalked back into the house.
Jackbot followed George up to his room. “Boy, what a grouch!” he muttered.
George shrugged. “That’s just the way he is. He’s . . . not a happy person.” I guess now I know it’s because of me, George thought.
“Maybe I could cheer him up?” Jackbot suggested. “Sing him a song? Tell a few jokes?”
“Uh, no, I have a feeling that might annoy him,” George said. He sat on the bed and took out his blue marble. He rolled it between his fingers, comforted by the smooth feel of it.
“Hey, what’s that, George?”
“Something my dad gave me when I was little,” George said.
Jackbot patted George’s shoulder with his claw. “Listen, it might be none of my business, but what happened to your mom and dad?”
George gripped the marble hard. He’d never really spoken to anyone about his parents; the fact that he had told Anne after just meeting her was totally out of character for him. And here he was talking about it again, twice in one day.
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know much about it. They were in a car accident. The brakes went out on a mountain road outside of Terabyte Heights. Uncle Otto said my dad never took the Smart Car in for tune-ups when he should have.”
“Accidents happen, George,” said Jackbot. “They’re no one’s fault.”
“I know that,” said George. “Uncle Otto was upset. Mom was his sister.”
He held the marble so tight his knuckles were white.
“Let’s keep busy,” said Jackbot breezily. “How about we look at these robots that need fixing?”
They spent the afternoon methodically repairing every single one of the house-bots. George lost himself in the work, and with Jackbot’s help, they managed to identify and patch up most of the glitches. Even though George had thought fixing the robots would be impossible without a bunch of new parts, he was able to find ways to improve them using only what he had on hand. It was as if the act of reengineering Jackbot had opened up a new world in George’s mind, where anything was possible.
By late evening, when Otto returned from the junkyard, the house was spotless, and Mr. Egg was just placing a savory-smelling dish of meatloaf on the table.
Otto looked at it cautiously. George knew from experience that Mr. Egg’s meatloaf was a thing to dread—but he had a feeling this time would be different.
“Don’t be shy, give it a try!” sang Jackbot.
Otto took a cautious nibble and swallowed slowly. His watery eyes came to rest on George. “Not bad,” he admitted. “Not bad at all.” He wasn’t exactly smiling, but as George watched his uncle eat every bite of meatloaf on his plate, he felt something very close to victory.
The next morning, the sun peeped in through George’s bedroom window. George opened his eyes and yawned. His heart sank like a stone in a lake as he thought of the school day that stretched before him—
Wait! No! No, it didn’t! Today was Saturday!
George had a day of freedom ahead of him. Uncle Otto would be at the junkyard, and George would be able to sleep in.
He closed his eyes, letting warm, shapeless thoughts drift over him.
DING-DONG!
The mists of sleep rolled away. George opened his eyes again.
DING-DONG!
Someone was ringing the doorbell. Repeatedly.
DING-DONG!
“Okay, okay,” George mumbled. He rolled out of bed and shuffled downstairs in his pajamas. He opened the door to a familiar figure.
“Morning, Mrs. Glitch,” George said. “I should be able to get to Lenny after breakfast—”
“No, it’s not Lenny—it’s HP, my home security robot.”
George sighed. The retired line of Hector Protector robots was nothing but trouble. George had had to reprogram four of the robots on his block alone so that they wouldn’t alert the police every time a fly landed on a window or a salesman knocked at a door. “What’s wrong with it now?” he asked.
“It thinks I’m an intruder!” Mrs. Glitch said. “I went out to buy some milk and now it won’t let me back in the house!”
“Sounds like its recognition circuits got scrambled,” George said. “Either that or you’ve offended it somehow.”
“Really? Do you think—?”
“No, I’m joking,” said George. “Let me go get Jackbot. He’ll sort this out quicker than I can.”
Mrs. Glitch smiled. “So glad to hear your little friend is back on his feet. I knew you could fix him!”
George smiled and called into the house: “Hey, Jackbot!”
No reply.
“Jackbot?” he shouted.
Still nothing.
Strange. Where could he be?
“Hold on a minute, Mrs. Glitch,” said George.
He searched the kitchen. The gardener-bot was watering the plants. Scrubby was hard at work on last night’s meatloaf pan. Mr. Egg rolled forward and asked George if he’d prefer eggs Benedict or French toast.
But there was no Jackbot.
George started to feel worried. Could Jackbot be in the bathroom? No, he wasn’t that human.
George ran upstairs and flung open every door. “Jackbot, quit playing around!”
The house was empty. George felt a sickening sensation build in his stomach.
“Any sign?” called Mrs. Glitch from the front door.
George returned to her, shaking his head.
Jackbot was missing.
Disappeared.
Vanished.
Gone.
For an hour, George combed every inch of the house for Jackbot. He looked in every room over and over again. He opened cupboards and closets and drawers, searched under beds and chairs and tables. He even called his uncle at the junkyard. But Uncle Otto didn’t know where Jackbot was either.
George went out into the front yard, feeling desperate.
The old Jackbot would never have left home, but this new version—he was unpredictable.
“Hey, George!”
George looked up from a flower bed he was searching to see Anne standing at the end of the driveway. Beside her, Sparky stood wagging his metal tail. “Hi,” George said, managing a tight smile.
Anne walked up to him. “I was just passing by,” she said, “taking Sparky for a walk.”
George raised an eyebrow. “You took a robotic dog across the entire town for a walk?”
Anne blushed. “I guess I was wondering how you and Jackbot were doing . . .” she said.
George swallowed hard. “Jackbot’s gone,” he said.
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“I don’t know! I woke up this morning and—and he’s just vanished.”
“Do you think he might still be damaged, after the accident? Maybe some wires got crossed and he wandered off?”
“I don’t know,” George said again. “He was working fine yesterday.”
“You never know with robots,” Anne said. “A loose connection somewhere inside, and suddenly they go haywire.”
“I guess,” said George. He’d seen enough of Mrs. Glitch’s problem bots to know that was the truth. But somehow it just didn’t feel right. “If he’s wandered off, he’ll have left some clues behind,” he said. “I was just looking for him when you stopped by.”
“We’ll help you look!” Anne said. “Right, Sparky?”
Sparky barked and lowered his snout to the ground.
“He’s programmed to identify close to two thousand individual smells,” said Anne. “Have you got anything with Jackbot’s scent on it?”
“Follow me,” said George.
He led Anne and Sparky through the house. Normally, George would have felt embarrassed about where he lived. Compared with the Droid mansion, his house was like a shoebox. But at that moment al
l he could think about was Jackbot.
He found the basketball they’d been playing with the day before, and let Sparky smell it.
Sure enough, after a few seconds sniffing around outdoors, Sparky began to bark. He darted toward the bushes at the back of Uncle Otto’s property. At the edge of the yard, on the concrete patio, George froze. A patch of bushes was damaged, the twigs bent and snapped. “Look!” he said, pointing near his feet at a black skid mark.
Anne frowned. “You think he came this way?”
“I think he was dragged,” said George. “That looks like rubber from his treads.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Anne asked.
“Oh, no,” George murmured. “He’s been kidnapped!”
Anne laughed. “Come on, George! Jackbot’s kind of cute, but—well, no offense, but he can’t be worth kidnapping! This is Terabyte Heights, remember? The town is full of state-of-the art robots worth millions of dollars. And Jackbot is . . . well . . .”
“He’s the smartest robot I ever met!” said George.
“But George, everybody thinks their robot’s smart! I even think Sparky’s smart, although deep down I know he’s dumb as a bag of hammers—”
George ignored her, his mind turning over. “Of course!” he said. “Patricia Volt!”
“Patricia Volt?” Anne said. “Her mom runs the Quality Control Department at TinkerTech, and her dad’s the head of marketing. What’s she got to do with this?”
George explained how Jackbot had totaled Patricia’s tablet yesterday. “And she said she’d get back at me for it. This is her revenge!”
Anne nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds possible. Let’s go ask her. I know where she lives—near us, in Binary Bluffs. I’ll call the car.”
Great, George thought as they waited. Anne’s house didn’t like me—imagine what Patricia’s will think!
The Volt residence was not quite as impressive as Anne’s house, but it was close. It was a big white building with turrets and a tower—like a castle, but more sleek and modern. The silver car stopped at the bottom of the driveway and encouraged them not to be too long, because it was due for a tune-up at ten o’clock.
George knocked on Patricia’s door and it replied, “Welcome, stranger. Your request for entry has been logged and brought to the attention of the residents. Please wait patiently.”
The screen beside the door lit up with Patricia’s face. The girlish pigtails and bow in her hair were completely at odds with the vicious scowl on her face.
“What are you doing in Binary Bluffs?” she said, squinting at George. Then she noticed Anne and did a double take. “And what are you doing with him?”
“Never mind about that,” George blurted out. “Just give me back my robot!”
Patricia put on a tremendous performance of appearing astonished. Her exquisitely sculpted eyebrows disappeared into her tousled bangs and her mouth formed an O of surprise. “You have . . . a robot?”she said.
“Cut the act, Trish,” said Anne. “Jackbot. Have you seen him?”
“Oh, that thing? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I thought it was just a pile of scrap metal that this loser carts around with him.”
George was so angry, he thought he was going to explode. But before he could say anything, Anne took a step forward.
“Seriously, Trish,” she said in a soft voice that was almost menacing. “Jackbot has gone missing. I’d hate to have to bring my father into this.”
Patricia looked spooked. “Okay, okay. Just wait a minute.” The screen clicked off. George could imagine her calculating and then deciding that she couldn’t be rude to Anne, daughter of the famous and powerful Professor Droid. A few seconds later, the door swung open and Patricia stood there in the flesh. Bjorn hovered behind her.
“For the record, I have no idea where that little robot is,” Patricia said. “If he’s lost, that’s too bad, but it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Yesterday you said you were going to get back at me for what Jackbot did,” said George. “And today, Jackbot’s gone missing. Don’t you think that’s a little bit of a coincidence?”
“Yes, I do,” said Patricia. “I think it’s a total coincidence!”
George was figuring out what to say next when he heard a rumbling sound grow louder behind him.
He turned to see one of the city’s huge robotic garbage trucks coming up the road. Nothing unusual there. He turned back to Patricia, wondering if he should try to force his way into the house.
She was looking over his shoulder. “That’s weird,” she muttered. “It’s not garbage day . . .”
The truck revved its engines ferociously, and George saw Patricia’s eyes go wide.
“Um . . .” said Anne.
George heard a loud bang and turned to see the Volts’ mailbox spinning through the air as the truck mounted the sidewalk and careened up the driveway. Anne’s car said something about a “collision hazard” two seconds before the truck flattened it like a tin can. “Sparky!” Anne shouted in panic. Broken glass and metal exploded beneath the truck’s caterpillar tracks. It pressed on, heading straight toward them. Its headlights looked like two eyes filled with malice, and its powerful crusher opened and closed like a set of jaws.
“It must be malfunctioning!” said George.
“Stop it!” yelled Patricia. “Bjorn, do something!”
In a split second, Bjorn ejected a stream of tennis balls from his stomach compartment. They bounced off the truck’s grill harmlessly.
“I think it’s going to take more than a strong serve to stop it,” said George. A claw scooper extended from the back of the truck and waved like a scorpion’s tail.
George backed into the house and pulled Anne along with him. She was pale, still staring at the remains of her dad’s car. “Oh, I’m grounded,” she groaned. “Definitely grounded.”
“Come on!” George shouted.
Patricia slammed the door closed. “Let’s just wait for it to go past,” said Patricia. “Someone call TinkerTech. They’ll know what to—”
CRUNCH.
The metal scoop tore through the front door like it was tissue paper.
George wasn’t sure who screamed the loudest.
“Run!” he shouted.
“Bjorn, cover us!” said Patricia.
The three of them turned and fled toward the back of the house. George looked over his shoulder and saw Bjorn standing bravely in front of the metal jaws. “He doesn’t stand a chance against that thing!” George said.
Two pincers reached out from the truck’s flanks and dragged the tennis-bot into its jaws. Bjorn vanished with a metal screech, shouting “Deuuuuuce!”
“We can’t run!” said George. “It’s too fast!”
“You have a better idea?” said Patricia.
“Keep it distracted,” said George. He peeled away from Patricia and Anne and headed up the stairs. The truck finished chewing Bjorn and its camera swiveled, as if it was searching for something. It lumbered closer and closer to Patricia and Anne.
George waited until the truck was level, then threw himself off the stairs and into its cab. He stamped on the brake and twisted the steering wheel.
The truck didn’t stop, but now it seemed to be confused. Through the windshield, George could see its camera swiveling in circles, and it was waving its giant pincers around wildly. Patricia shrieked as the sharp metal claws came within inches of her face, but Anne picked up an iron poker from the fireplace and walloped the claws aside. “I got plenty more where that came from!” she yelled.
George saw a glass panel marked M.O.
Manual override. Of course!
He raised his foot and kicked the panel with all his might. The glass shattered, and on the other side was a lever.
The truck was still going forward. A few more feet and it would crush Anne and Patricia against an inside wall of the house. “George!” Anne screamed. “I can’t hold this thing off any longer!”
George yanked
the lever.
The truck bucked, hurled him against the dashboard, and stopped.
George breathed a sigh of relief and peered through the cab.
Patricia lowered her hands from her face and looked around, aghast. Pieces of plaster and masonry had collapsed from the ruined walls. Dust was everywhere.
“Is everyone okay?” George called out.
“Get that thing out of my house—now!” Patricia said. “It almost killed us!”
“Hold on a minute!” said George. He scanned the controls, saw a switch labeled REVERSE, and pressed it.
The truck didn’t move, but its rear container began to rise up and over the cab. It hovered over Patricia and the rest of her living room.
“Oh, no . . .” said George.
The container tipped, and a wave of garbage spilled out of it—mostly right on top of Patricia. George saw fish heads, rotting fruits and vegetables, bones, cans, bottles, soup, coffee grounds, jelly, dirty diapers, and other things too disgusting to describe in the multicolored avalanche. The deluge didn’t let up for a good ten seconds, after which Patricia stood covered from head to toe in an unspeakable mess.
“Sorry,” George squeaked, “wrong button.” He tried a couple of others, and finally the truck backed slowly out of the house. Shakily, George climbed down from the cab and walked inside again, just as he heard the scampering of paws. Sparky ran up to Anne as she climbed out of the dusty mess toward him.
“You’re alive!” she said. She beamed at George. “He must have escaped from the car before the truck hit it!”
The stink from the garbage was overpowering. Patricia was still frozen on the spot, buried up to her chest. Her mouth was moving but hardly making a sound.
“Sorry . . . um, really sorry,” said George.
Patricia finally detached herself from the garbage and pulled something moldy from her hair. Her glowering eyes settled on George.
The Junkyard Bot Page 4