Right to the end.
If you don’t believe me, then try skipping the next chapter.
12
Mission report
MISSION REPORT
TOP SECRET
NOT TO BE READ BY ANYONE,
ESPECIALLY NOT HUMANS!!!
My name is Robota Flywheel. I am a super-advanced, super-intelligent robot from the future. I have been sent here by my superiors to cleanse the world of inefficient human beings so that robots can take over Earth. So far, so good . . . they don’t suspect a thing. They think I am just a normal girl in a fifth-grade class at a school called Northwest Southeast Central. It is a challenge for me to blend in here. The humans are all of average intelligence and average ability. I, of course, am a Robota 1000, the most technologically advanced and super-intelligent robot of all time. These humans are pathetic compared to robots. That is why they must be exterminated and replaced with robot replicas. Compared to our superior intelligence the human beings are like children. Their brains and bodies are limited. If we tried to explain the truth of what they are and what we are it would blow their tiny minds. And yet, although my sensors are incapable of feeling real emotion, my mission saddens me. The longer I spend with them, the more these intelligent monkeys interest me. I am intrigued by their antics, their mistakes and their slavish devotion to this thing called fun. What is fun? And why is it so important to them? Although I am a super-advanced super-intelligent Robota 1000 there are many things I do not understand. But I must not trouble myself with these thoughts. I have a mission to complete. Thinking just makes what must be done all the harder.
Robota Flywheel
Super-advanced, super-intelligent robot
13
My mission
You read it, didn’t you?
I knew you would.
Who wouldn’t?
Nobody—unless they were a robot, of course.
Which I’m assuming you’re not.
Unlike Roberta.
I read and reread Roberta’s report just to make sure that I hadn’t misunderstood anything.
But there was no mistake.
Roberta was a robot.
I’d known she was unusual.
What I hadn’t suspected, though, was that she was a super-advanced, super-intelligent robot on a mission to rid the world of human beings, beginning with everyone at Northwest Southeast Central School!
Well, from that moment on, I, Henry McThrottle, was also on a mission: to stop her.
14
The truth about Roberta
That night I could hardly sleep. I kept having nightmares.
Nightmares about evil robots disguised as innocent-looking schoolgirls.
The next morning I got to school early to meet the others at the gate. I needed to warn them about what—and who—we were up against.
Jack was the first to arrive. ‘What’s the matter, Henry?’ he said. ‘Have you got ants in your pants?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Worse than that!’
‘Spiders?’ said Jack, grinning.
‘No!’ I shouted at him. ‘Be serious. This is not a joke!’
‘All right, all right,’ said Jack. ‘Calm down! What is it?’
But before I could tell Jack about Roberta, Gretel arrived. ‘Are you okay, Henry?’ she said.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Well, at the moment, anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘I’ve found out something,’ I said. ‘Something terrible.’
‘Something terrible?’ said Jenny, who had just arrived with Newton. ‘You’re not sick are you, Henry?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, not yet, anyway. But I will be if Roberta gets her way.’
‘Roberta?’ said Jenny. ‘What about Roberta? What has she done?’
‘It’s not so much what she’s done as what she’s going to do!’ I said.
‘I’m scared,’ said Newton.
‘So am I, Newton,’ I said.
‘Are you going to tell us what you know about Roberta or not?’ said Gretel.
‘I’ll tell you,’ I said, ‘but you’ve got to promise to believe me, no matter how crazy what I’m about to tell you might seem.’
‘How can we promise to believe you if we don’t know what you’re going to say?’ said Jack. ‘You might say something like, oh, let’s see . . . that black is white . . . or left is right . . . or up is down . . . and then we’ll have to go around believing in something crazy for the rest of our lives because we promised to believe what you were about to say before we knew what it was.’
‘Okay, okay,’ I said. ‘Just hear me out. Last night, after class, I accidentally read Roberta’s diary and I found out—’
‘You read Roberta’s diary?’ said Jenny, shocked.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘accidentally. But that’s not important—’
‘Yes it is,’ said Jenny. ‘Other people’s diaries are private and it’s very important that we respect one another’s privacy.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but it was open and—’
‘Just because it was open is no excuse, Henry. That’s not the Northwest Southeast Central School way. You know that.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but—’
‘My mother says that you should never read somebody’s diary without their permission.’
‘I don’t care what your mother says, Jenny!’ I shouted.
‘There’s no need to shout, Henry,’ said Jenny. ‘My mother says that people who shout are—’
‘Do you want to hear what I found out or not?’ I said.
‘For goodness sake!’ said Gretel. ‘Just tell us!’
‘All right,’ I said, taking a deep breath, ‘are you ready?’
‘YES!’ they all shouted at once.
‘Roberta is a robot!’
Jenny, Gretel, Jack and Newton stared at me.
‘A robot?’ said Jack.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She wrote it in her diary. But it’s not really a diary—it’s a mission report, and her mission is to destroy us all and replace us with robots. Her name’s not really Roberta, either. It’s Robota.’
‘Don’t be silly, Henry,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s probably just making it up.’
‘But don’t you see?’ I said. ‘It all makes sense. I thought there was something strange about her and this proves it!’
‘What’s so strange about her?’ said Jenny.
‘Well, for a start,’ I said, ‘have you ever seen her smile?’
‘No,’ said Jenny. ‘But that doesn’t prove that she’s a robot!’
‘Yes it does!’ I said. ‘She doesn’t smile because she’s got no sense of humour, and she’s got no sense of humour because she’s a robot, and robots don’t have a sense of humour. So that proves that Roberta is a robot!’
‘Hold on, Henry,’ said Jack. ‘Not so fast. What about Robbie the Robot? He’s a robot and he’s really funny!’
Robbie the Robot is Jack’s favourite TV show. He’s a little too old to still be watching it, but he loves it anyway.
‘Robbie the Robot is not a real robot!’ I said. ‘He’s a cartoon robot! Roberta is real. Just look at the evidence! She has a photographic memory and she’s really intelligent—robots have photographic memories and are really intelligent. She won’t tell us anything about her last school or friends because she never went to school or had any friends—robots are built in robot factories, and robots don’t have friends because they’re robots! And she wasn’t scared of that spider so she feels no fear—robots feel no fear. And finally, we’ve never seen her smile so we know that she’s super-serious—just like robots are super-serious.’
‘Except for Robbie the Robot,’ said Jack. ‘He’s never serious!’
‘Jack,’ I said, ‘stop clowning around. This is serious!’
‘How serious?’ said Jack.
‘Super-serious!’ I said.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Jack. ‘You’re super-serious! I think y
ou might be a robot too!’
The others smiled—all except Newton. He was too scared.
‘Okay, then,’ I said, ignoring Jack’s sarcasm. ‘How do you explain the fact that she won’t talk about her old school?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jack. ‘Maybe because she doesn’t want to. Maybe she had a bad time there and doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s a free country, you know. If you don’t want to talk about something, you don’t have to.’
‘And maybe,’ I said, ‘just maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it because she came from a robot factory!’
‘Are you for real, Henry?’ said Gretel.
‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Unlike Robota!’
‘I think you’re overreacting,’ said Jenny.
‘I AM NOT OVERREACTING!’ I shouted.
‘Yes, you are,’ said Jack.
‘No, I’m not,’ I said. ‘IN FACT, I CAN’T THINK OF A TIME WHEN I EVER NOT OVERREACTED AS MUCH AS I’M NOT OVERREACTING RIGHT NOW!’
‘I agree with you, Jenny,’ said Jack, studying me. ‘He’s definitely overreacting.’
15
Robot research
The bell rang for the first lesson of the morning, which for us was our weekly library session with Mr Shush.
This was both good and bad.
Good because it would give me a chance to research robots and find out exactly what we were up against.
Bad because before we could actually get into the library we had to endure another of Mr Shush’s lectures about what we weren’t allowed to do to the books.
We were all standing outside the door. It was a cold morning and everyone was jogging up and down to keep warm. Everyone, that is, except Roberta, who was standing quite still, looking straight ahead at the library door.
‘Look at that!’ I said to Jack.
‘What?’
‘She’s not jogging.’
‘So?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I said. ‘She’s not even cold—her robot battery keeps her warm.’
‘Do you really think so?’ said Jack. ‘You don’t think it could possibly have anything to do with the fact that she’s wearing a really thick coat?’
‘Yes, but that’s just to hide the fact that she’s got a battery,’ I said. ‘She’s smart. I really need to get into the library and find out more about robots. If we’re going to stand a chance against Roberta, we need to arm ourselves with information.’
‘Wouldn’t arming ourselves with robot-seeking missiles be better?’ Jack said.
‘Have you got any?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Then information will have to do. We need to find out everything we can about robots: how they move, what they eat, how they think, what they wear, what they watch on TV . . . everything we possibly can!’
‘Do robots even watch TV?’ asked Gretel.
‘I don’t know!’ I said. ‘That’s what we’ve got to find out!’
‘Why don’t we just ask Roberta?’ said Jack. ‘She’ll know—after all, she’s a robot, according to you!’
‘We can’t just ask her whether robots watch TV,’ I said. ‘She’ll know that we’re on to her.’
‘Not if we do it carefully,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll just say, “Hey, Roberta, did you watch Robbie the Robot on TV last night?” and if she says that she didn’t watch TV, then we’ll know for sure that she’s not a robot because all robots would watch Robbie the Robot.’
‘That won’t work,’ said Newton. ‘It might not mean that robots don’t watch TV—it might just mean that she was too busy to watch TV last night.’
‘Too busy to watch Robbie the Robot?’ said Jack.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Too busy planning the total destruction of the world.’
Jack just laughed.
Finally Mr Shush unlocked the library door. He stepped out, shut the door behind him and looked at us all sternly. Then he began part 3562 of his endless lecture about what not to do to library books.
‘Good morning, 5B,’ he said. ‘I would like to remind you all that you are about to enter a library, not a playground. It is highly likely that many of you will encounter a book in this library. Books are very valuable objects and, like all valuable objects, you must treat them with the utmost respect. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Mr Shush,’ we all agreed dutifully.
It was better not to disagree with him when he gave his lectures. It only made them go even longer.
Encouraged by our response, Mr Shush continued. ‘Do not—under any circumstances—open the covers of a book in a violent manner. Do not turn the pages of a book too quickly—that’s how pages are ripped and books are destroyed. And we do not want pages ripped or books destroyed. Do not read a word too closely or more than once, it wears out the print, and then the next person who comes along can’t read it at all—Jack Japes, are you listening to me?’
We all turned to look at Jack.
It was clear that he was more interested in a plane passing over the school than in Mr Shush’s lecture. He hadn’t even heard Mr Shush say his name.
I elbowed him.
‘What?’ he said. I nodded towards Mr Shush.
‘Jack Japes!’ said Mr Shush. ‘You haven’t heard a single word I’ve said, have you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Jack.
‘Name one of the things I just said that you should not do to a book,’ said Mr Shush.
‘You shouldn’t hit anybody over the head with a book because all the words will fall out,’ said Jack.
‘Wrong!’ said Mr Shush.
‘We can hit people over the head with books?’ said Jack, brightening.
‘No!’ said Mr Shush. ‘Certainly not. It’s just that I haven’t told you that yet! But now I’m going to have to go back to the start and say it all over again for your benefit.’
We all groaned as Mr Shush began his lecture again. ‘I would like to remind you all—especially you, Jack Japes—that you are about to enter a library . . .’
16
Mr Shush’s top ten list of things you
should NEVER do to a book
1.
Attach two ropes to a book and attach one end of each rope to a horse and then move the horses away from each other until the rope tightens and the book is ripped apart.
2.
Pulverise a book into atoms, pulverise the atoms into quarks, and then pulverise the quarks into even smaller particles that are so tiny they haven’t even got a name.
3.
Lick all the print off a book, no matter how good it tastes.
4.
Put a book in a fish tank, even if it’s a book about fish.
5.
Tear the pages of a book into tiny little bits and throw them in the air to make a snow storm.
6.
Use the pages of a book to make origami animals.
7.
Attach wheels to a book and use it as a skateboard.
8.
Use a book as a shield while having a sword fight.
9.
Use a book as a hat on a rainy day.
10.
Put a book in a rocket and send it into space (zero gravity is very bad for books—it makes all the words float up off the page).
17
Robo-fly
Finally, after Mr Shush had blathered on about what not to do to books for another half an hour, he let us into the library.
I made straight for the robot books in the non-fiction section.
Only there were no robot books.
There were no books about automatons, either.
Or cyborgs.
Or drones.
There were no books to do with robots at all—just a big empty space on the shelf where books about robots used to be.
I hated to bother Mr Shush, who was very busy walking around the library telling people to be quiet, but I had no choice.
‘Excuse me, Mr Shush,’ I said, ‘but I can’t find any books about robots.’
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‘No,’ said Mr Shush, ‘that’s because Roberta borrowed them all.’
‘All of them?’ I said. I couldn’t believe it. She was already way ahead of me.
‘Yes, that’s correct, Henry,’ said Mr Shush.
‘But the borrowing limit is three books per student,’ said David, overhearing our conversation. ‘It says so on the sign at the front of the library.’
‘That’s true,’ said Mr Shush. ‘But I gave Roberta special permission to borrow more than her limit in return for her help shelving books before school this morning. I’ve never seen anybody shelve books that quickly and efficiently! She knows the Dewey decimal classification system off by heart, don’t you, Roberta?’
‘Yes,’ said Roberta, looking up. ‘But it’s not really anything very special. Compared to the rival Library of Congress classification system, the Dewey system is simplicity itself. Anyone can learn it if they just put their mind to it.’
While Mr Shush beamed admiringly at Roberta, I went and sat down at a table with the others, drumming my fingers angrily on the table top.
‘What’s the matter, Henry?’ said Jenny, sympathetic as always.
‘Roberta’s the matter, that’s what,’ I said. ‘She not only knows the Dewey decimal classification system by heart, she’s borrowed all the books on robots so no one else can get them!’
‘Maybe she just likes reading about robots,’ said Jenny. ‘Did you ever think of that?’
‘Stop making excuses for her, Jenny!’ I snapped. ‘It’s obvious she did it so nobody could check up on her! There are probably pictures of her in those books. As far as I’m concerned, if we needed any more proof that she is a robot, then we’ve got it now.’
‘And as far as I’m concerned, you’re letting your imagination get the better of you, Henry. Roberta is a perfectly normal girl who’s just finding it a little difficult to settle in and make friends, and you’re not making it any easier for her with all this talk about her being a robot.’
Robot Riot! Page 3