Crossing Over

by Stacy Davidowitz

  “Steinberg, can we get started?!” Dover persisted. “We need to strike while the iron’s hot!”

  Steinberg scanned the cabin to be sure the coast was clear. Yoshi wasn’t visible, but he was only a few feet away, keeping time on Wiener’s shower and supervising Play Dough while he shaved his peach fuzz. It was the longest he’d left them “alone” in three days, and with the robotics contest just around the corner, Steinberg needed to keep things moving. Though risky, if there was a time to solder together their robot’s parts, it was now.

  Heart racing, Steinberg removed Jenny’s flat iron from his pillowcase, slipped it under his T-shirt, and headed toward the nearest outlet. He wasn’t really striking while the iron was hot—he had to plug it in first.

  Three taps into the microphone halted Mission Contraband. (Flat irons had been banned since 2001, when a Notting Hiller burned her ear while primping for the Midsummer Dance.) Steinberg rushed back to his bed and, with trembling hands, shoved the iron under his covers. Not the best hiding spot, but it would have to do for now.

  TJ: Hellooooo, Camp Rolling Hills! It’s now four o’clock in the afternoon, which means it’s SHOWER HOUR, cleaning power, time to scour, smell like a flower!

  Captain: Yes, thank you, TJ. Everyone should shower before dinner.

  TJ: Get the dirt layer thinner.

  Captain: No dirt.

  TJ: Dirt-free, the way to be.

  “On it!” Wiener sang from the shower, as if TJ were in the cabin and not at the Head Counselor’s Office four hills away.

  “You’ve been on it for ten minutes, Wiener,” Yoshi pressed. “Time was up seven minutes ago!”

  TJ: I just want to send out a friendly reminder that this week we have volleyball, soccer, and staff basketball tryouts, and for the first time in twenty years, a robotics contest! My lady Captain and I will be judging.

  Captain: Also this week, we’ve started our one-on-one program. If your parents have signed you up for bar mitzvah lessons—

  TJ: That’s you, Robert Steinberg.

  Captain: —be sure to show up.

  TJ: I was lonely today, Robert Steinberg.

  “That’s strange,” Yoshi said, popping his head out of the bathroom. “I dropped you off at the Social Hall during Rest Hour.”

  “Yeah, I dunno,” Steinberg said with a shrug, as if he hadn’t snuck off to neighboring cabins to campaign for robot gear. The robotics contest was in eighty-six hours and his bar mitzvah was in an estimated 2,520. Priorities.

  Captain: And finally, counselors, remember to monitor the length of your campers’ showers.

  TJ: Thirty seconds. That’s all they get.

  Captain: Well, no. More like—[Mic goes out with a squeal.]

  With the announcements over and Yoshi back in the bathroom demanding that Wiener “GET OUT!” Steinberg eyed the lump under his covers. Dover did, too, hungry to solder. But Steinberg’s nerves were on end. Surely TJ would suspect he’d used contraband to fuse together the robot’s parts. Was it worth risking disqualification? Chaim said no. Steinberg gave Dover a shake of the head, calling the mission off.

  Dover collapsed onto his belly. “I’m bored! This is boring!”

  Steinberg rolled his eyes at his lab assistant’s sour-sauce attitude. He decided to appease him with a task. He handed him Wiener’s electric toothbrush. “Remove the motor.”

  Dover smacked it against the wall. It broke in two. The motor dropped out. “Next!”

  “You can have my job,” Totle offered, lounging in his Spider-Man underwear on the bunk below Dover’s. He was flipping through a Sports Illustrated magazine. “We need a fork and a cauliflower.”

  “A spork and a colander,” Steinberg corrected.

  “No way, man,” Dover said. “The One Tree Hillers were just in the Cooking Shack, and they’re always the first ones to get lice, and if I get lice multiplying in my ’fro, I’ll have to shave my head, and if I shave my head, I’ll never get dreadlocks.” He launched a rubber band across the cabin. “Do you think a rubber band could really knock someone’s eye out?”

  Steinberg pulled his lab goggles down over his face. He knew Dover would have to hit the eye socket at just the right angle to cause any damage, but he didn’t want to take any chances. “Fine. You want another job?” he asked.

  “Only if it’s a good one.”

  Steinberg understood that “good” meant something dangerous, on par with soldering. He scanned Chaim Roboto for a match. Battery tester. Even though he’d reserved that responsibility for Play Dough, Play Dough was off the task force until he’d finished shaving. Steinberg handed Dover a fistful of 9V batteries. “Lick the base.”

  Dover didn’t even blink before bringing the metal to his tongue. “It tingles!” He spit over the side of his bunk. “And tastes like sour pee!”

  “Perfect.” The batteries were juiced and ready for use.

  “What are you eating?” Play Dough called from the bathroom.

  “Batteries.”

  “No fair! Save some for me!”

  Steinberg sighed. He knew he’d be jealous.

  “Positivity drives productivity, boss,” Totle remarked.

  Steinberg considered this. He wanted to keep his team happy, and Play Dough would be one unhappy camper if his main responsibility was taken away. Steinberg checked his watch. He figured Play Dough couldn’t possibly be out of commission for too much longer. He’d been in there shaving for thirty-seven minutes. “OK!” Steinberg shouted to Play Dough. He nodded at Dover. “Split the job.”

  “All done with my half!” Dover said, his eyes going a little crossed.

  Smelly kicked open the front door, carrying four duct-tape wheels held together with duct tape. “Finito!” he declared. He tossed them to Steinberg and gave Totle a fist pound. “How much longer till the robot’s done?”

  Steinberg swallowed with uncertainty. He’d once built a robot in sixteen hours, but that was with his robot-making kit, which he’d given to Moses and Sam for safekeeping over the summer. At camp, he went rogue, and makeshift robots as simple as dust suckers had taken him days. Now, for the BEST ROBOT EVER, he’d need all the time he could get. “Eighty-six hours.”

  “Eighty-six hours?!” Dover counted the sheets of toilet paper he’d plastered to the wall as a makeshift calendar. “That’s when the contest is!”

  “An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains,” Totle said, his eyes fixed on a glossy swimsuit centerfold.

  Dover bounced to his knees, leaned over the side of the bunk, and sprayed Totle with Play Dough’s EZ Cheez. “How’s this for a pound of brains?”

  Totle ate it off his six-pack without a word.

  “Finally!” Yoshi exclaimed from the bathroom. Steinberg cocked his head. Either Play Dough was clean-shaven or Wiener had gotten out of the shower.

  Wiener emerged from the bathroom in a terry-cloth robe and a towel wrapped on top of his head like a turban. I guess the latter, Steinberg thought, disappointed. He really needed the rest of those batteries tested.

  “Does it fly yet?” Wiener asked, pointing to the retainer he’d let Steinberg disassemble for wiring.

  “It’s never going to fly,” Steinberg said matter-of-factly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not programming it to fly.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have the horsepower or the wingspan.” Steinberg had been configuring supplies and plotting controls nonstop, and he was struggling to meet his cabinmates’ high expectations.

  “All right, Steinberg,” Yoshi called. “The shower’s free. You’re up!”

  Steinberg was sure Wiener had used up all the hot water and that the pressure would be as weak as a drizzle. “Pass.”

  “You heard the Captain,” Yoshi said, popping his head out of the bathroom again. “Can’t pass on a shower, man.” Steinberg chipped at Wiener’s retainer with a nail clipper while Yoshi shuffled into his peripheral vision. “I’ll make a deal with y
ou. If you shower, I’ll divulge some pointers.”

  Steinberg looked up, perplexed. “On what?”

  “Robots!” He laughed. “Why do you think people call me ‘Guru’?”

  That’s what you’re a guru of?! Robots?! Steinberg felt his brain try to balance his feelings of disbelief and jealousy. If he’d known his counselor was going to vie for his position as the cabin’s resident robot expert, he’d have somehow upped his game. Plus, Steinberg didn’t need any pointers. What he needed was a colander and a spork from the Cooking Shack. “No thanks.”

  Yoshi shifted his weight and ran his fingers through his hair. “OK, forget the shower for a sec. You sure flying is out?”

  Steinberg nodded, skeptical this was going anywhere helpful.

  “Because the robot I made back in Japan that won me a life-size trophy . . . it flew like an airplane.”

  Steinberg watched his cabinmates perk up.

  “Flying isn’t out!” Wiener screeched. “Make Steinberg’s robot fly!!!”

  Steinberg would give just about anything to get his robot to fly, but not if his counselor would take all the credit. Still, a part of him couldn’t help but wonder how Yoshi had done it, and how in the world he thought he could do it here with their limited supplies. Steinberg swallowed his pride and asked: “How’d you make it fly?”

  Yoshi shrugged coolly. “I mean, I can’t just give you the answer. I’m trying to patent it.” Steinberg felt his chest tighten with frustration. How convenient that you can’t tell us. Either Yoshi was lying or he was being a jerk. Whatever, Steinberg thought. If you won’t spill, the guys’ll never think you’re a guru.

  “A REAL LIVE PATENT?” Dover screamed. “WOW!”

  “You’d KILL the robotics contest!” Wiener said.

  Steinberg felt his heart sink. Yoshi waved the guys off, feigning bashfulness, and then turned to face him. “So, flying aside, what are you thinking? You’ve got another idea in that head of yours?”

  Duh, Steinberg thought, annoyed. I have the best idea in this head of mine. The same idea that brought tenth-grader Neeraj Vernigatu to Nationals. He’d never met the guy, but he’d gotten a bootleg recording of the high school competition from Dover, who knew someone who’d scored front-row seats. Greatest illegal download of his life.

  “ ’Cause it looks like you’ve got a whole slew of materials, but not much direction.”

  Steinberg looked at his miscellaneous pile of fly tape and pillow stuffing and cicada shells and contact solution and the end of a broken hockey stick. He had a direction. He just wasn’t sure he’d ever pool together the supplies that Neeraj had used to make it happen. “Fine, I’ll shower.” Steinberg grabbed the shower caddy from under his bed and kicked off his sneakers.

  “Hey! Whoa!” Yoshi got between Steinberg and the bathroom and opened his arms. He either had a brilliant idea or wanted a hug. “You know what I think, guys?” Steinberg looked over his shoulder and caught Wiener stealing a glob of Smelly’s Surf Hair. “I think we need a brainstorm jam.”

  “Brainstorm jam and apple butter. Delicious on biscuits,” Totle said in his newly pubescent voice, like he was in a cologne commercial.

  Steinberg was getting antsy. With the robotics contest in less than eighty-six hours, he either wanted to brainstorm with Chaim in the shower or hook up the duct-tape wheels to the motor. He tried to pass through to the bathroom, but instead he got detained by one of Yoshi’s infamous shoulder squeezes.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, gesturing to Steinberg like it was his turn to do something. But to do what exactly, Steinberg had no idea. Even Chaim was shooting blanks. Yoshi released Steinberg from captivity and addressed the group. “I’m asking all of you: ARE YOU READY?”

  “For double cheeseburgers at dinner?” Play Dough asked, finally emerging from the bathroom. He had a bloody Band-Aid where his mustache fuzz once was. “I’m definitely ready.”

  “Not for dinner,” Yoshi responded.

  “For what then?” Wiener said, applying deodorant to the single armpit hair he was intent on fostering.

  “The brainstorm! Robot ideas! For the Japanese inventor of the year!” The guys sustained their stare. “Not me,” Yoshi clarified, as if anyone with eyes would ever assume he was Japanese. “I’m talking about my brother Steinberg!”

  Steinberg felt six sets of eyes shift to him. He wasn’t endorsing this. He hadn’t surrendered leadership. Not to a dude with the social skills of a stuffed monkey. Not to a dude who’d convinced the cabin that he was a guru and that Steinberg was a hack. He prayed his bunkmates understood that he and Yoshi—they were not allies.

  “What about you, Eagle Scout?” Yoshi said, pointing his chin at Dover. “What’s your idea?”

  Steinberg rolled his eyes, hoping Dover would catch it and they’d commiserate over their know-it-all counselor together. But Dover didn’t catch it. Instead, he rubbed his palms together, eager to share. “Well, I took off the toilet flusher. And I was thinking we could turn it into a laser pen.” Flusher? Too dense for a beam path, Steinberg thought.

  “Oh, that’s why I couldn’t flush!” Play Dough said, smiling to himself. “Mystery solved.”

  “Yeah, I think we’re gonna need to put that back. Like . . . soon,” Yoshi said. “All right, next.” He pointed to Smelly.

  “I dunno. A robot that pitches you a ball and you hit it.”

  “That’s what they use in batting cages,” Yoshi said in his stupid know-it-all voice. “But good job.”

  Smelly shrugged.

  “Totle?”

  “A robot that detects sharks in the lake.”

  “There are no sharks in the camp lake, but . . .”

  Dover slid off his top bunk. “I got it, I got it, I GOT IT!” Steinberg’s hopes soared and he felt his chest expand. “A robot . . . that’s like a sensor . . . that goes in your ear . . . AND WHISPERS TO YOU BACKSTAGE WHILE YOU’RE MACKING IT!” Steinberg’s hopes plummeted. Dover continued in a staccato robot voice. “Tongue . . . left. Swipe . . . right.”

  Play Dough joined in, voice and all. “Eat . . . pizza. From . . . her . . . molar.”

  “Is that what you guys do backstage?” Yoshi asked, horrified.

  Wiener nodded, as if making out backstage weren’t a dream but a reality, and that it happened so often, it no longer thrilled him.

  “Smelly almost did,” Play Dough said, nudging him, “but it’s a long story. Now he and Slimey make out at Canteen.”

  “Play Dough!” Smelly cried sheepishly. He turned to Yoshi. “We don’t. He’s just . . .”

  “You didn’t see them last night?” Play Dough asked.

  Smelly gave him his rendition of the laser-beam stare.

  Play Dough laughed. “I’m kidding. I mean, I’m not kidding. They do make out at Canteen. But it’s funny.”

  Steinberg blew out the side of his mouth. Any other time, he would have laughed along with them, but so far, the brainstorm had wasted—he checked his stopwatch—nine minutes and thirteen seconds. He could have prepped the tennis balls for battery insertion.

  “I’ve got an idea for Steinberg!” Wiener said. Finally, Steinberg thought. “But I can’t say it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s Sophie’s idea.”

  Steinberg wasn’t worried about Sophie, but he was worried about Wiener’s loyalty, and wanted to know what he was hiding. “Just say it.”

  “No.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” Totle warned.

  “I’m not a cat,” Steinberg said defensively. “Is she using microcontrollers?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is it RC’d?”

  Wiener squinted his eyes like he was solving a riddle.

  “That means remote-controlled.”

  “Oh . . . Yup.”

  “What about robotics software? Electronic circuit simulation? Computer vision? AVR?”

  “Yup. Yup. Yup. And . . . yup.”

  “I think he’s pulling your leg,” Yoshi said.


  “Yeah, dude, I was kidding!” Wiener did a lap around the cabin, collecting high fives. “I asked Sophie about it yesterday and she barked at me.”

  The guys laughed hysterically.

  Steinberg was so caught up in his robot, he’d missed every social cue in the last thirty seconds. I should’ve known better, he chided himself, recalling the years he’d devoted to charts of facial expressions. Maybe he was just as off as his weirdo counselor, after all. “Are we done yet?” he asked Yoshi in a tone that blamed him for this epic brainstorm disaster.

  Yoshi half nodded, which was the most annoying gesture—it told Steinberg “Yes” and “Maybe” at the same time.

  “Well, just a sec,” Yoshi said. “Who do you model your technique after?”

  Steinberg wanted to say Neeraj, but he doubted Yoshi knew high school inventors, so he was stumped by the question, and that, again, was über-annoying.

  “Like, who’s your idol?”

  Again, Neeraj. “Neeraj.”

  “OK, cool. So what makes this Neeraj person so special?”

  “He won.”

  “I mean, what kind of robots does he make?”

  Steinberg only knew the one. “He made Kiki.” Yoshi looked at him expectantly. “She could throw a volleyball the length of a basketball court.”

  “Anyone can do that,” Dover said. He clearly hadn’t watched his own bootleg of Nationals.

  “She also stayed perfectly in the lines in the obstacle course,” Steinberg boasted.

  “What were the obstacles?” Smelly asked.

  “There weren’t any. Just the robots had to stay in the lines.”

  “Kiki sucks,” Dover said.

  “She’s a dumb robot,” Play Dough chimed in. “You can do better than that. Right, Steinberg?”

  Steinberg felt his face flush. Neeraj had committed nine months to programming Kiki. Steinberg couldn’t possibly make anything better than that in time for the contest. “Um . . .”