by R. L. Stine
The three of us watched from the other side of the counter. “Come on, Francine. You can do it,” I said.
The arm rose, then slowly lowered. The prongs on the hand tightened around an egg in the bowl.
I could feel my excitement growing as the hand gently lifted the egg. “Yes … yes … yes …” I whispered.
“This is the way it’s supposed to go,” Gates murmured.
The hand slowly raised the egg. It held it for a few seconds over the countertop. Then the claw moved sharply forward—and smashed the egg hard into my forehead.
“Ohhhh.” I was too startled to scream.
I heard the loud craaack. I stumbled back a step. And felt the yolk ooze slowly down my nose and cheeks.
“Urk! Urk! Urk!”
The robot belched out its ugly laugh.
I wiped the egg yolk from my eyes with both hands. And watched as Francine raised another egg—and smashed it on top of Gates’s head.
He uttered an angry cry. The egg yolk stuck to his thick hair and stayed on his head.
“Turn it off! Turn it off!” Mrs. Bernard shrieked, tossing her hands in the air. “Oh, what a mess!”
“Urk! Urk! Urk!”
Gates scrambled around the counter. He slid his hand to the robot’s back and fumbled for the power switch.
Francine tossed an egg at the kitchen wall. It splattered with a loud craaack. The yolk streaked down the wallpaper. Another egg sailed into the clock over the kitchen sink. Yolk ran down the white curtains over the window.
Francine heaved another egg onto the wall.
“Turn it off! Turn it off!” Mrs. Bernard was screeching, tearing at her white hair.
And that’s when my parents returned home. They stood at the kitchen door, their eyes darting over the sticky, yellow, oozing mess.
“What have you done?” Mom cried.
“Urk! Urk! Urk!”
Francine tossed back her head and uttered her ugly laugh.
“This isn’t funny!” Dad cried. He stepped into the room, his eyes on the yellow glop running down the kitchen wall.
“Their machine went loopy,” Mrs. Bernard said.
“I … I don’t understand,” Mom stammered. “Livvy—?”
“I’ll get a mop and some cloths.” Mrs. Bernard scurried from the room.
“It was an experiment,” Gates said.
“Our first test for the robot,” I added. “But … well …”
Mrs. Bernard burst back in with a mop and bucket in her hands. “That machine doesn’t belong in the house,” she said.
Mom crossed her arms in front of her. She chewed at her bottom lip. She always does that when she’s tense or upset. Dad just looked confused.
“What exactly happened here?” Mom said.
“We programmed Francine to pick up eggs and crack them,” I said. “But when we tried her out, she went berserk.”
“She smashed eggs on Livvy and me,” Gates said. He still had a puddle of yellow yolk on top of his head. “Then she began tossing eggs everywhere.”
“Loopy. Just loopy,” Mrs. Bernard muttered. She was leaning over the mop as she cleaned the floor.
“Are you really going to call that robot Francine?” Dad asked.
“Benjamin, that’s not what we’re talking about,” Mom scolded. Usually, he’s Ben. But she always calls him Benjamin when she’s angry.
I shook my head. “I guess Gates and I messed up the programming,” I said.
“First, we’ll clean up the mess,” Mom said. “Then we’ll check her after dinner.”
Mom and Dad are computer programmers. They work together in a lab downtown. They are both experts in artificial intelligence. You know. Designing brain modules that allow computers and robots to think on their own.
That’s how I got interested in Robotics. My parents talk about their work a lot. And a few times, they let Gates and me come to their lab and see the experiments they’re doing.
There’s one place I am not allowed to go. That’s their work lab in our basement. They do very secret work down there, and I am totally forbidden to go there unless they invite me.
Gates and I grabbed rolls of paper towels and began to wipe up the gooey egg yolk from everywhere. When we were finished, the kitchen looked almost normal, except for two yellow streaks down the wall.
“See you tomorrow. I’m sure we can fix Francine’s programming,” Gates said.
“We’d better!” I said. “No way we’ll win the contest against Swanson Academy if all she does is smash eggs on people’s heads.”
Gates snickered. “It wasn’t totally bad. We did give Chaz a good scare.”
“This machine is dangerous,” Mrs. Bernard said, waving her mop in the air. “It doesn’t belong in the house.”
Gates went home. Mom and Dad and I had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. I talked about some kids at school. Mom and Dad talked about a bot they were programming that could answer riddles.
We didn’t talk about Francine and the egg disaster.
But after dinner, my parents carried the robot down to their basement lab to examine it. I stayed in my room, trying to concentrate on my homework. But I was too eager to hear their report. I couldn’t think straight.
They came upstairs after about an hour. I hurried down to the living room to hear their news.
Dad placed the robot against the mantelpiece. Mom waved a sheet of paper in front of her. I could see that it had lines of programming code on it.
“So?” I asked. “Did you find what’s wrong with Francine?”
Dad squinted at me through his round eyeglasses. “What’s wrong is the programming, Livvy,” he said.
“Your robot was programmed to toss eggs and smash them on people,” Mom said.
“No, we didn’t do that!” I shouted. “Gates and I didn’t program her to smash eggs. I swear!”
“Look at the code.” Mom handed the paper to me.
I blinked, struggling to read it.
“And look at the bottom,” Mom said. “Look at the code. You programmed the robot to do that weird laugh.”
“No …” I murmured. “That’s impossible …”
I gazed over the computer code on the page.
“I swear Gates and I didn’t program her to toss eggs and laugh,” I insisted.
“Well, I don’t think she programmed herself,” Dad said. “Did she?”
I turned to stare at Francine, and I felt a chill of fear at the back of my neck.
“Program herself?” I murmured. “That’s impossible—right?”
Did you ever have a dream and you knew you were dreaming the whole time, but you couldn’t wake yourself up to get out of it?
That night I had one of my super-realistic dreams, as if I were watching in high def.
It started out with Francine stomping out of the garage. I wondered who had left the garage door open. I watched her from the bottom of the driveway as she began to pick up speed.
Her metal feet thundered over the pavement. Her steel-rod arms swung at her sides. Her thick body leaned forward, and she ran with a steady, mechanical rhythm.
I knew I should follow her. I knew I should catch the robot and tug her into the garage. But something held me back. Some powerful force held me in place.
Francine was halfway down the block, running full speed. My heart jumped a beat when something came whirring around the corner. Another robot!
The two robots crashed into each other with a deafening clannng—metal against metal. I let out a scream.
Instantly, they began pounding each another with their iron fists. The sound of their fight was like thunder, crash after booming crash.
I held my ears so tightly I couldn’t hear my own scream.
I watched them battle and struggled to wake up to pull myself out of this nightmare. Wake up, Livvy. Come on—wake up.
Finally, I opened my eyes. Wide awake. I sat straight up.
The dream lingered in my mind. I tried to blink away the
picture of the two robots battling so angrily.
I gasped when I heard a thud. Outside my bedroom door?
I held my breath and listened.
Another heavy thud. From the stairs. Someone slowly climbing the stairs to the second floor.
Thud.
I felt a chill roll down my back. The footsteps were heavy and metallic.
I remembered I was going to bring Francine out to the garage in the morning. So I’d left her by the kitchen door.
Thud.
I realized I was shaking. My hands were clenched into tight fists.
I turned and lowered my feet to the floor.
I heard one more heavy footstep. The floorboards creaked.
Silence now.
Was I dreaming this?
I took a deep breath and tiptoed across the room to the door. My skin tingled with fear. I could feel the blood pulsing at my temples.
I grabbed the doorknob with one cold, wet hand. I twisted it. Pulled open the bedroom door—and screamed.
I stared into the dimly lit hallway. Francine stared back at me.
The robot stood erect, arms straight down at her sides. It took me a few seconds to catch my breath. This isn’t happening, I told myself.
“How did you get up here?” I demanded. “Are you programming yourself?”
Of course, I didn’t expect an answer.
I peered behind the robot. No one else in the hallway.
“This is getting creepy,” I murmured.
I jumped as the robot tossed back her head and uttered her laugh again. “Urk! Urk! Urk!”
The sound must have awakened my parents. Their bedroom door swung open and they came bursting into the hall.
Mom was pulling her nightshirt down to her knees. Dad’s pajamas were twisted from sleep and he stumbled and had to catch himself against the wall. His dark hair was matted over his forehead. He squinted without his glasses.
“What on earth—” Mom started.
“How did that robot get up here? Livvy, why are you up in the middle of the night? What was that scream we heard?” Mom barraged me with questions.
“I—I—I—” I stammered. “Francine woke me up,” I finally choked out. “She … came upstairs on her own.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad snapped.
Mom scowled at me. She likes her sleep. She hates waking up before morning. “Why are you lying to us?” she demanded.
“I’m not!” I cried. I shoved Francine to the side, away from the doorway. “Why would I want to lie to you?”
They both shrugged. Dad pushed his hair from in front of his eyes, but it fell right back.
“You two are the experts in artificial intelligence,” I said. “You tell me how this happened.”
Mom and Dad exchanged glances. “I know what’s going on here,” Mom said. “You and Gates have cooked this up. It’s a little experiment. You two have a bet to see if you can freak us out.”
“No way!” I shouted. “I—I didn’t do this. I swear.” I curled my hands into tight, angry fists. “Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because I know it’s a joke,” Mom said.
Dad raised both hands to signal halt. “Let’s get back to bed,” he said. “Livvy, please take the robot down to the garage.”
“And no more trying to freak us out,” Mom added.
“But—but—” I sputtered angrily.
“Livvy, a simple robot like this cannot climb stairs,” Mom said. “And cannot think on its own. Your father and I checked the programming, remember? We know what this robot can do.”
I gritted my teeth and grrrrrd like an angry dog. But I knew it was pointless to argue any more. I wrapped an arm around Francine’s waist and dragged her down the steps in the dark. Then I carried her into the garage, the concrete floor cold under my bare feet.
A few minutes later, I was back in bed. But I couldn’t fall back to sleep. How could I?
The robot was doing things on her own. And my brilliant-scientist parents refused to believe me.
I tossed and turned and kept rolling onto one side, then the other. An hour or so later, I was finally drifting back to sleep—when a noise from outside startled me awake.
“Urk! Urk! Urk!”
That’s when I knew I was definitely in trouble.
Two days later, Dad helped me bring Francine to school because we had a Robotics Club meeting scheduled at the end of the day. Coach Teague wanted everyone to show the progress they’d made on their bots.
We propped the bot up in the back seat just like a passenger. It felt a little weird fastening a seatbelt around her. But I wanted to make sure she was totally safe.
Gates met us at the side of the school and we carried Francine to a corner of the Art room. Everyone was supposed to store the bots there until the club meeting.
I kept thinking about Francine all day. I couldn’t help but feel a little stressed. What if Gates and I started to show her off and she went berserk again?
Ellen, my teacher, kept watching me. (Ellen likes us to call her by her first name.) I guess she could tell that I was only half listening.
I kept thinking about how Gates and I had reprogrammed Francine’s memory module. Did we get it right this time?
Ellen’s voice broke into my thoughts. “What do you think, Livvy?”
“Uh … well …” I knew the class was talking about pollution in the ocean. But I didn’t have a clue about what Ellen was asking me. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I think I’m against it.”
The class burst out laughing.
I knew I’d blown it.
Ellen laughed, too. She’s small and really smart and appears too young to be a teacher. But she told us she’s twenty-three. Her laugh sounds like a bird chirping. “Livvy, I asked you what your favorite ice cream flavor was,” she said.
That gave everyone a chance to laugh at me some more. I turned and saw that Rosa Romero was laughing harder than anyone. Rosa is my enemy. I don’t know how else to say it.
Gates and I never wanted an enemy. I mean, who wants that? But Rosa is usually bad news for both of us.
She just always tries to prove that she is better than us. She acts like the perfect person, especially around Ellen or Coach Teague. But she laughs at Gates and me and constantly puts us down and throws shade on everything we do or say.
Mainly, she’s just mean. Not a bully or anything. Just mean-natured and nasty to us.
“Rocky Road,” I told Ellen when everyone had stopped laughing.
“Try to pay attention to the discussion,” Ellen said. “I could see your mind was somewhere else.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, feeling my face grow hot. I knew I was blushing.
Rosa snorted with glee.
I’ll pay you back at the club meeting, I thought. When our robot makes your robot look like a baby toy.
On my way to the Robotics Club meeting after class, I tripped on the steps and scraped my knee against the railing. I guess I was a little tense. I really wanted Francine to wow Coach Teague and everyone else.
The meeting was in the Art room. The other members of the club were already there. Gates and DeAndre Marcus were talking in a corner.
Rosa was perched on a window ledge, running a hand through her long, perfectly wavy black hair as she talked to her project partner, Sara Blum. Sara and I had been best friends at Springdale Elementary. But she got into Rosa’s crowd, and now we hardly ever see each other.
Francine stood in the corner where Gates and I had left her that morning. The other two bots were on a long art table in the center of the room.
The others were small, maybe a little bigger than a tissue box. Francine was the only big, person-sized robot. The other two looked like machines—not like humans.
Gates was still talking with DeAndre. I started over to him, but someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Is that thing yours?”
I turned to face Rosa. She had the usual smirk on her face and was pointing toward Francine in the c
orner.
“Hey to you, too,” I said.
“Is that yours?” she repeated.
I nodded. “Yeah. Gates and mine.”
Her smirk turned into a wide grin. “You’ve been watching old movies? Didn’t anyone tell you bots don’t look like that anymore?”
“We wanted to do something a little retro,” I said.
She sneered. “Well … he’s definitely retro.”
“It’s not a he. It’s a she,” I told her. “Her name is Francine.”
Rosa laughed.
Sara, back at the windowsill, joined in. “My cousin’s dog is named Francine,” Sara said.
Rosa stared at me for a moment. She seemed to be thinking of a mean thing to say next. Finally, she said, “Do you really like Rocky Road?”
I nodded. “Yes. I do.”
“Me too,” Rosa said.
“You two are like twins,” Sara said. She and Rosa laughed. It was sarcastic laughter.
“Okay, people, let’s see what you’ve got.” Coach Teague strode into the room. “Sorry I’m late. Let’s get right to it. Show me your bots. Let’s see how we’re going to crush Swanson Academy this year.”
Sara, Rosa, and DeAndre readied their projects on the table. Gates and I left Francine in the corner. She was so big and heavy, we decided we’d bring her over when it was our turn.
“DeAndre, would you like to go first?” Coach Teague asked.
DeAndre nodded and slid his bot to the center of the table. It was about the size of a shoe box. It had metal arms on each side with clawlike hands. DeAndre had stenciled the word MonsterMaker on one side.
DeAndre activated it, and a small square block slid up at one end of the top. It looked as if the bot was raising its head.
“What does your robot do?” Coach Teague asked.
“You’ll see,” DeAndre replied. He has a soft, whispery voice. It always sounds like he’s telling you a secret.
Coach Teague chuckled. “You’re keeping us in suspense.”
We huddled around the table and watched. One end of DeAndre’s robot popped open, and a tiny box slid out. The robot tilted and small pieces of metal poured out from the same opening. With a loud hum, the bot’s slender arms moved into action. They began pressing the small metal items onto the sides of the tiny box.