While he helped a student across the room, I felt a tap on my shoulder and then heard a familiar voice in my ear. “All right, Swift,” Sam whispered. “What have you two been up to?”
Noah and I spun in our seats to face our good friends Samantha Watson and Amy Hsu.
“Check it,” Noah whispered. “They’re going to make a reality show here!”
“What?” Sam asked. She peered over her glasses, looking skeptical. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
When she glanced at me for confirmation, I nodded. “It’s true.”
Amy wrung her hands and lowered her head. Her long dark hair obscured part of her face, her occasional shield against the outside world. “They’re going to film us? All of us?”
It turned out that Noah didn’t have to explain further. At that very moment, Mr. Davenport’s voice sounded over the intercom system. “Pardon the interruption, faculty and students,” he said. “I have a few brief announcements. First of all, beginning tomorrow, a small crew will be here filming a new reality program based on our academy’s students.”
A murmur of excitement rippled through our classroom. I imagined similar scenes happening throughout the rest of the school. Noah grinned and nodded at Sam and Amy in a What did I tell you? sort of way.
“I’m told that the crew won’t be disruptive and, after a few days, we won’t even realize they’re there,” Mr. Davenport continued. “Either way, your last-period classes will have release forms for you to take home and have your parents sign. If you don’t want to be on the show, I’m told that the production will blur your face or something similar.”
Amy’s shoulders relaxed a bit. She sighed and pulled her hair away from her face. I couldn’t imagine Amy, one of the shiest people I knew, wanting to be on a television show of any kind.
“Not only will this be great publicity for the academy,” Mr. Davenport continued, “but I’ve been told the production company is donating a state-of-the-art editing suite to the school. They’ll be using the equipment to edit the show on-site, and once production is complete, they’ve generously agreed to provide it for student use.”
Amy smiled, no longer self-conscious at all. The three of us knew about Amy’s small collection of short films and animations. Actually, I think we were the only ones who knew about them. Her meticulous nature and near-perfect internal clock helped make her a talented editor and animator.
“Do you think they’ll let students help with the editing?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe.”
“My second brief announcement is about this month’s invention convention,” Mr. Davenport said. “As another public relations opportunity, we’re going to expand it into a public event called the Inventors’ Olympics.”
More murmurs broke out in the classroom as Mr. Davenport went on to explain the event. The class seemed to be split between excitement and slight anxiety. It was one thing to show off a new invention in front of your fellow students, but the pressure was dialed up when you knew it was going to be seen by the public. I hadn’t planned on showcasing anything in the upcoming convention—it was difficult to show an audience my cool glasses unless I made a pair for everyone. Still, I imagined I’d be a bit anxious if I did have something planned.
“And finally…” Mr. Davenport let out a breath. “I’ve been asked to instruct everyone to dispose of his or her used chewing gum in one of the receptacles you’ll find in the hallways. This is part of a recycling invention created by our very own Miss Amy Hsu. Thank you for your time, everyone.”
My eyes widened. Amy was behind the gum thing? I glanced back at her, but she was already hunched forward in her seat, scrolling through the digital textbook on her tablet. Her hair curtains cut her off from the rest of the class’s gawking.
“No way,” Noah said. He glanced at Sam. “You knew about this?”
Sam didn’t get a chance to answer. “All right, everyone,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Let’s get back to it, shall we?”
That temporarily cut off the chatter about the film crew within our group, as well as the rest of the class. Even so, for the rest of the morning, the entire school was buzzing about the news. As expected, some students were apprehensive, but most were excited about being part of both the Inventors’ Olympics and a new reality show.
“I bet someone will see my invention and want to buy it,” Evan Wittman said during second period.
“Maybe I can be on Squatch Hunters after this,” I heard Ashley Robbins say during third period. “I love that show!”
Noah must have spread the word about what other reality shows the producers had created. Let me tell you, if you ever want to spread news, modes of communication include the telegraph, telephone, and tell Noah.
When the “formidable foursome” (as my dad likes to call us) sat down for lunch together, we were not immune to the day’s trending topics.
“It’s so not real,” Sam said as she plopped her lunch bag onto the table.
Noah set his tray down and pulled out a seat. “It’s right there in the name… reality television.”
“Don’t you think if the squatch hunters ever found Bigfoot it would be all over the news?” Sam asked. “It would blow up the Internet.”
Noah waved her away before pulling out a sandwich. “Whatever.”
Amy twirled her fork through her salad, not taking a bite. “But do we have to be on the show if we don’t want to be?”
I shook my head. “You heard Mr. Davenport. If your parents don’t sign the release form, then you won’t be on the show.”
Sam pointed a fork at her. “You’ll just have a blurry face, like you’re in witness protection or something.”
Amy sighed, relieved. “That’s fine with me.”
Noah popped a grape into his mouth. “There’s something much bigger to worry about, though,” he said between bites. “Since Davenport announced the show, that’s all everyone’s been talking about. I’ve hardly seen anyone using my app. There’s no way everybody’s collected enough loot to feed the beast today.”
My best friend had a point. Since he’d launched his app, more and more of our classmates had been scanning the hallways looking for cartoon food items to use at the end of the school day. But since the announcement, I couldn’t remember seeing anyone using the app between classes. After glancing around, I only spotted a couple of students in the cafeteria searching the room for loot.
“Maybe you should just lower the amount of food it takes to satisfy the beast,” Sam suggested.
Noah shook his head. “That defeats the purpose of the game. Everyone is supposed to work together, tell their friends, get more and more people to participate.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “I think you’ll survive.”
“Yeah, but Ms. Jensen said the producers wanted to feature my app,” Noah explained. He jutted a thumb toward me. “Tom’s even going to build a special lens to help.”
“That’s true.” I explained how I planned to use the technology of my glasses so the cameras could pick up the loot and the beast.
“You can have Mr. Davenport make a special announcement,” Amy suggested. “Like I did.”
“Oh yeah.” I rounded on Amy. “I didn’t know you were behind the gum thing.”
“I did,” Sam said with a smug grin.
“How in any known universe is that your project?” Noah asked. “Especially for a germaphobe like you.”
Noah had a point. I wouldn’t necessarily describe Amy as a germaphobe, but she has always been a little more than obsessed with cleanliness. In fact, in her backpack (which is so well-equipped, it would put Batman’s utility belt to shame), there were bound to be at least two bottles of hand sanitizer.
Amy laughed. “I almost didn’t go through with the project, but my parents talked me into it. They said it was good to move out of my comfort zone once in a while. That’s how we grow.”
I sighed and nodded. “Yeah, my dad says the same thing.” That’s the
same logic he’d used to get me to agree to that interview a while back.
“How do you recycle gum, anyway?” Noah asked. “Isn’t it from a tree or a root or something?”
Amy’s eyes lit up. “It used to be, but now most of it’s made from a synthetic rubber.”
“You know, like car tires,” Sam added.
Noah’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t think I want to chew gum anymore.”
“This wasn’t my original idea,” Amy continued. “There are already people installing gum receptacles in Europe. But I wanted to come up with a system that students could do themselves, maybe set it up in their own schools and use the recycled product for their 3-D printers or something.”
Amy is usually soft-spoken, but when you get her going about one of her inventions, she can’t be stopped.
“If all goes well, I’m going to be collaborating with Sam,” she continued with a wide grin. “Give her the raw material for her invention.”
“Which is?” I asked, turning to face Sam.
She took a bite of her pasta and shook her head. “I’m not saying yet.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Whatever it is, I still say messing with used chewing gum is all kinds of nasty.”
* * *
Throughout the rest of the afternoon, I tried to put the reality show and upcoming Olympics out of my head. I think I wasn’t the only one, since I heard less and less chatter about becoming TV stars and I saw more and more students hunting for loot with Noah’s app. Maybe today would be the day that we satisfied the beast after all.
When the final bell rang, I gathered my belongings as quickly as possible and met Noah outside. Just as the days before, we weren’t the only ones waiting on the school’s front lawn after classes. Dozens of students faced west, holding their phones out in front of them.
“About the same as yesterday,” Noah said as he glanced around. “I don’t think it’ll be enough.”
“You never know,” I said. “Maybe a couple of them found most of the loot.”
Noah shrugged. “Maybe.” He held up his phone. “We’re about to find out.”
I did the same, aiming my phone’s camera in the same direction as everyone else. At first, I just saw the modest skyline of Shopton. But as always, I felt it before I saw anything. My phone began vibrating in my hand, though it wasn’t as strong as when someone was calling. There were just little bursts in a slow, repeating pattern, simulating the beast’s footsteps as it approached.
I focused on the screen, examining the skyline, and then I spotted it. A small figure appeared on the horizon, but it quickly grew in size as it lumbered forward.
Around us, other students were pointing at the horizon and scanning the skyline with their phones. It didn’t take long before everyone was angling their phones identically like the panels of a solar farm.
Through my screen, the figure grew larger, until it resolved into a giant reptilian monster. Of course, there wasn’t really an enormous beast trundling through Shopton. Noah did a fantastic job blending the animated creature in with the surroundings, making its feet disappear behind trees and buildings so it looked like it was really there… as long as you were looking at your screen. If he’d been sloppier, the beast might’ve just looked like a goofy cartoon.
As the beast moved closer, more detail came into focus. This wasn’t your typical reptilian monster like a giant dinosaur or Godzilla. Noah had designed a cyborg. One of the creature’s meaty arms had been replaced with a robotic appendage with a buzz saw at the end; electricity rippled over the metal blades running down its back, and one of its eyes was a red laser. You could see its thin beam sweep the area as the beast turned its head.
With the beast’s next shuddering step, a cartoon barrel flew into frame, arcing toward the creature. Someone had launched one of their collected food items.
“Aw, too soon,” Noah said. “They have to wait until it gets closer.”
Noah had programmed the game with semirealistic physics. That meant the beast had to be close enough for the launched food to actually reach its mouth. Nevertheless, there was always someone who jumped the gun.
My phone trembled with more powerful vibrations as the beast stomped closer. In just a few more steps it would loom over the school.
“Now!” Noah shouted.
I tapped the app’s big red Launch button and one of my items shot into frame. A cartoon turkey leg tumbled through the air toward the beast’s open mouth. On my screen, I could see other items hurtling on the same trajectory. As my turkey leg entered the creature’s mouth, points were added to my score. I kept tapping until all of my collected loot had disappeared down the creature’s gullet.
In no time, the streams of cartoon food slowed and then stopped as everyone ran through their inventory. The beast let out a large belch (my phone really vibrated on that one) and then continued toward the school.
Noah shook his head. “Yeah, I didn’t think that would be enough.”
The creature brought down its buzz-saw arm on the roof, and sparks flew as a chunk of the school fell away. Noah had done such a great job with the animation that I caught myself glancing past my phone to make sure that the school was still intact.
Noah turned to me and grinned. “Wait until you see what I added for this one.”
I turned my attention back to the screen and spotted four tiny figures stepping out onto the roof. Even though they were cartoon versions, I recognized their uniforms and gear immediately. The four original Ghostbusters readied their proton packs and blasted the beast with four gyrating orange streams of light.
“Cool,” I said with a laugh. I heard other students join in around me.
Not so cool for the cartoon Ghostbusters, though. The beast reached down with its flesh hand and scooped them up, then popped them into its mouth in one fluid motion. More laughter and a few gasps echoed around us.
“Amy helped me with the animation on that one,” Noah explained.
The rest of the animation continued as it had before: the beast sliced, punched, smashed, and stomped at the building until there was nothing left. Then it turned and slowly ambled back the way it had come.
As the crowd began to disperse, the high score flashed across the screen. Evan Wittman had successfully collected and launched the most food items—again.
3 The Culinary Calamity
THAT EVENING AFTER I FINISHED my homework, I tested yet another augmented reality invention. Okay, it wasn’t a cool app like Noah’s. Not that kind of augmented reality. Instead, I was going to cook dinner—virtually. Using robot arms I’d built in robotics class and the body of one of our early battlebots, I’d created a kind of virtual chef that I could operate remotely.
My creation was just a prototype, so it didn’t look pretty. Picture a gear-covered stick man mounted to the top of an automated vacuum cleaner. A large pipe rose out of its mobile base with a camera mounted at the top. Just below the camera, I’d fitted two shorter pipes perpendicularly and attached my robotic arms to the end of each. The entire thing was covered in gears, pulleys, and belts that enabled the arms to move and gave them leverage.
I wanted to surprise my dad with my latest creation, but I didn’t know how I was going to do it since it took a while to assemble in the kitchen. Luckily, he’d been working in his home office since we got home.
Since my mother died a few years ago, my father has tried to be two parents in one and limit work to the office, but running a high-tech company like Swift Enterprises doesn’t always allow him to do that. Sometimes, he has to bring work home. Tonight’s session had given me time to set up my big unveiling.
I heard Dad’s home office door open and footsteps coming down the stairs. “Something smells good,” he said. “Thanks for cooking tonight. It’s a tremendous help…” His voice trailed off as he saw me standing in the middle of the living room.
See, my father knew that if I was cooking dinner, it would be just one thing, pancakes—pretty much the only thing I
like to cook. What he didn’t expect was to see me doing it from another part of the house. The camera transmitted the scene from the kitchen to my special glasses. I was using the controllers from my augmented reality game to operate the robot arms.
“I thought you were cooking dinner,” Dad said.
“I am,” I replied without looking at him. “Go check it out.”
He edged around me and made his way to the kitchen. I carefully flipped one of the pancakes before rotating the robot ninety degrees. The camera transmitted the image of my father standing in the kitchen doorway. I slowly waved the robot arm, the one holding the spatula with its claw.
A grin stretched across Dad’s face. “Hey, that’s nice.”
“Thanks,” I replied, turning the robot back to face the griddle.
Now I don’t know if it was the urge to show off in front of my dad, or if I was just overconfident, but I tried something I hadn’t done before: I poured pancake batter with my left robot arm while simultaneously removing a cooked pancake with my right. And then I wished I hadn’t. I tilted the plastic pitcher in my left claw too far, spilling batter onto the floor.
“Uh-oh,” I muttered as I instinctively jerked my left arm. Even more goo sloshed out of the pitcher. I tried to back the robot base away from the mess, but the treads spun and slipped in the batter. Before I knew it, my view of the kitchen radically changed as my robot toppled to the ground.
“Oh man,” I said as I pulled off my glasses and dropped the controllers. I ran to the kitchen to see the mess I’d made in person. My father stood there shaking his head, a glob of pancake batter splashed across his shirt and pants.
“What’s that you always say?” I asked with half a smile. “Back to the drawing board?”
My father chuckled as he grabbed a kitchen towel and wiped at the batter on his shirt. “It would seem so.”
As my dad went upstairs to change, I cleaned up the mess. There was just enough un-spilled batter left for me to finish cooking dinner—the old-fashioned way.
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