‘Newton,’ said Jack, ‘you’re not exactly helping!’
‘Don’t be mean, Jack!’ said Jenny. ‘He’s doing the best he can!’
‘How on earth is screaming “Help! We’re all going to die!” actually helping us?’ said Jack.
‘It makes us run faster,’ said Gretel.
‘All very well for you to say,’ I said.
It was a relief to finally reach the art room.
It was even more of a relief to see Mrs Rainbow’s friendly smiling face waiting to greet us at the door.
‘Ah, there you are, children!’ she beamed. ‘What a wonderful robot costume you’ve made! So nice to see you taking the initiative to be creative all by yourselves!’
‘We’re not being creative!’ yelled Newton. ‘We’re all going to die!’
Mrs Rainbow smiled. ‘Oh, Newton,’ she said, affectionately patting his head, ‘you do have a vivid imagination!’
‘It’s not my imagination, Mrs Rainbow!’ he shrieked, pointing back towards the Grantbot.
Mrs Rainbow gasped. ‘You’re wrong, Newton! It takes a lot of imagination to make a costume like that!’
‘It’s not a costume!’ said Grant, looking a little miffed. ‘It’s an actual working robot-fighting robot! I designed and built it myself!’
‘I wouldn’t actually be boasting about that, Grant,’ said Jack, ‘given that it’s in the process of destroying the entire school.’
‘You are so jealous!’ said Grant. ‘Just because I can make robot-fighting robots and you can’t!’
‘We are all talented and creative in our own ways,’ said Mrs Rainbow. ‘There’s no need to be jealous of one another. Speaking of which, why don’t you ask your robot if it would like to come in and create something of its own?’
Unfortunately for Mrs Rainbow, the Grantbot was not as interested in being creative as it was in destroying me and whatever was stopping it from getting to me, which in this case was Mrs Rainbow’s art room.
The Grantbot stopped, and it must have sent out a high-frequency blast because all the windows shattered, raining glass all around us. The shards arranged themselves in a surprisingly pretty pattern on the floor.
‘Wonderful!’ enthused Mrs Rainbow. ‘Simply wonderful!’
She didn’t think what happened next was so wonderful, though.
The Grantbot began smashing its way into the room: knocking bricks, cracking timber and raining plaster dust down on top of us.
‘Now, see here,’ said Mrs Rainbow, ‘I’m all for people expressing themselves, but not if it puts others in danger.’
But the Grantbot was not interested in Mrs Rainbow’s opinions on artistic expression. It picked her up and dropped her out the window.
She got up and looked through the empty window at us. ‘Don’t worry, children,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and get help.’ And away she ran.
The Grantbot started towards us.
‘Time to go, everyone!’ said Roberta, picking me up and making a mighty leap through one of the empty window frames.
Roberta and I landed in a sprawling heap outside. The others piled out on top of us, just as the rest of the room collapsed in the same way the assembly hall had.
‘Thanks, Roberta,’ I said. ‘I owe you one. But isn’t exiting a building through a window against school rules?’
‘Yes, but sometimes rules have to be broken,’ said Roberta, climbing off the top of me and helping me up. ‘Mr Brainfright taught us that, remember?’
She was right, of course, but before I could reply the Grantbot crashed through what remained of the art-room wall and came stomping after us.
‘Help!’ yelled Newton. ‘We’re all going to die!’
With a combination of pushing, pulling and carrying, the group rushed me towards the library. But before we could get inside, Mr Shush appeared.
‘Not so fast,’ he said, standing between us and the door. ‘You don’t just come running in here like that! This is a library, not a gymnasium! There are a few rules you need to know before you enter my library!’
‘We already know them!’ said Roberta, pushing her way past Mr Shush. ‘Besides, rules are made to be broken!’ She motioned us all to follow her. ‘Come on! What are you waiting for?’
We ran inside the library.
Mr Shush didn’t have time to worry about us, though . . . he had to deal with the Grantbot who was crashing up the stairs behind us.
‘Not so fast,’ we heard him saying to the gigantic robot. ‘There are a few rules you need to know before you enter my library . . .’
The Grantbot was no more interested in Mr Shush’s rules than we were. It picked him up and deposited him headfirst in the book-return chute.
‘Number one!’ came Mr Shush’s muffled voice from inside the chute. ‘No depositing the librarian headfirst in the book-return chute!’
The Grantbot’s only response was to start smashing the library doors apart.
‘Number two!’ continued Mr Shush. ‘No smashing the library doors apart!’
I have to admit that I was pretty impressed by Mr Shush’s commitment to reciting his list of rules despite the fact that he had been placed headfirst in the book-return chute.
I was also pretty impressed by the Grantbot’s commitment to destroying the enemy robot: I just wished that the ‘enemy robot’ in this instance wasn’t me.
The Grantbot demolished the library doors with one last almighty crash and stomped right on in . . . stomping all over the books as it approached.
‘Oh dear,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t think Mr Shush is going to like that. Stomping on books is definitely against the rules.’
‘Yikes!’ said Newton.
As the library began to shake and the windows began to shatter we ran to a window and climbed out. We made our way across the yard to the administration block and up the stairs to the school office.
We slammed the door shut and crouched down, peering out through the small window in the top half of the door.
‘What do we do now?’ said Jack.
‘We’re all going to die!’ yelled Newton.
‘I wasn’t asking you!’ said Jack.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Grant. ‘The Grantbot is programmed to search for and destroy other robots and that’s what it will do until it finds one: unfortunately, in this case, that’s Henry.’
‘I wasn’t asking you, either!’ said Jack. ‘It’s all your fault we’re in this mess!’
‘You asked me to build it!’
‘Well you could have said no!’
‘Jack!’ said Jenny. ‘I know we’re being chased by a terrifying robot who won’t respond to Grant’s commands, but that’s no reason to be rude! You should apologise to both Newton and Grant.’
Jack shrugged. ‘Sorry, Newton,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Grant. I’m just trying to figure out how to help Henry.’
‘We all are,’ said Jenny, ‘but we won’t solve it by fighting among ourselves.’
‘We can’t keep running,’ I said. ‘Grant’s right. It’s obvious that it’s going to tear apart the whole school until it finds me.’
‘Maybe Mrs Cross will save you,’ said Roberta.
‘What are you talking about?’ I said.
‘See for yourself,’ she said, pointing out the window, which, amazingly, hadn’t been shattered.
The Grantbot had been heading towards us, but halfway across the yard, Mrs Cross had stepped in front of it.
The rest of the school, who were gathered outside the front fence, cheered.
Mrs Cross was the crossest teacher in the school. Her crossness was terrifying. If anybody could stop the Grantbot, she could.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded crossly. ‘Stop it this instant!’
As she said this she stomped her foot and crossed her arms defiantly.
The Grantbot’s only response was to copy her. It crossed its arms and stomped on the ground hard. So hard, in fact, that a huge crack opened up
in the middle of the basketball court and Mrs Cross slipped and fell into it.
‘Right, you’ve made me REALLY CROSS now,’ she yelled from inside the crack. ‘If you thought I was cross before, just wait until I get out of here!’
‘I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon,’ said Gretel.
‘No,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s a pretty big crack . . . and it’s getting bigger!’
As we watched, the ground continued to fracture until the crack reached the stairs of the building we were in.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Roberta. ‘Time to get going.’
Everyone jumped up, grabbed me and dragged me down the corridor past Mrs Bandaid’s room and outside.
It was just in time.
As the ground underneath the building continued to crack, the building began shaking and crumbling and then finally collapsed in a pile of rubble.
We looked around for somewhere else to hide.
The only building left standing was the block where our classroom was. But it didn’t look like it would be there for much longer.
It, too, was beginning to break up.
Tiles were falling off the roof.
Bricks were being shaken loose.
The whole building began listing to one side and then collapsed in a cloud of dust that enveloped us like a thick fog.
We were coughing and spluttering.
As the dust settled, however, we saw a light.
It was the red light shining from the top of the Grantbot’s antenna as it advanced towards us.
‘Come on!’ said Gretel, tugging at my arm.
‘No,’ I said, shaking myself free.
I knew what I had to do.
The Grantbot was programmed to exterminate enemy robots.
In the Grantbot’s eyes, I was an enemy robot.
It had already destroyed the school looking for me. What would be next? The town of Northwest? Central City? The entire world?
Only I had the power to stop it.
‘Go and join the rest of the school,’ I said to my friends.
They all looked at me, stunned.
‘Henry!’ said Jenny, grabbing my hand. ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’
‘It’s too late for that,’ I said, pulling my hand out of her tight grip. ‘If I hadn’t been stupid enough to think that Roberta was a robot in the first place, none of this would have happened. It’s all my fault, but I’m going to fix it . . . I promise.’
42
Thief to the rescue
I walked towards the Grantbot.
Its antenna was pulsing brightly.
I shut my eyes.
It would all be over in a moment.
The Grantbot was programmed to destroy robots.
Well, I was the only robot around here. Once it had neutralised me it would stop and nothing—and nobody—else would be harmed.
It raised its enormous arms in the air. It was going to crush me like a bug.
I braced myself.
That’s when I heard the dogs.
Howling, baying and barking.
I opened my eyes.
An enormous pack of dogs, led by Thief, was running towards me.
Well, I soon realised it wasn’t so much towards me, as towards the Grantbot.
The whole pack of dogs—hundreds of them, it seemed—swarmed around the Grantbot’s powerful legs. It tried to walk through the pack, but they were jumping up at it in such numbers and with such enthusiasm that they tripped it up and knocked it to the ground.
Then they leaped on top of it, pawing and yelping and licking in a mad frenzy.
My friends rushed to my side.
‘What’s happening, Grant?’ I said. ‘Where did all the dogs come from?’
‘I think it’s the high-frequency enemy-robot signal jammer,’ he said. ‘I told you dogs could hear it!’
‘And they REALLY like it!’ said Jenny.
The Grantbot was covered in dog slobber. Plumes of steam and smoke were rising from its shell.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Grant, ‘their drool must be getting into the wiring . . . Stand back—this could be dangerous!’
We backed away as the Grantbot hissed and sparked, popped and then blew apart in a huge explosion that sent dogs flying in all directions.
They hit the ground and ran off yelping in fright, their tails tucked between their legs.
All that remained of the Grantbot were twisted sheets of metal, nuts, bolts, wires and one shredded gumboot.
43
Mr Brainfright’s big idea
We stood there looking at the smoking pile of rubble that had once been our school.
Jenny squeezed my hand. ‘Don’t feel bad, Henry,’ she said.
‘But it’s all my fault!’ I said. ‘I am so sorry, Roberta.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘You obviously have a really good imagination.’
‘So have you,’ I said. ‘That was some story you wrote! You sure had me fooled.’
‘It wasn’t that good,’ said Roberta. ‘I didn’t have to use much imagination to write it. Mr Brainfright said to write about something that we know so that’s what I did.’
Newton gasped. ‘You really are a robot?’
‘No,’ said Roberta. ‘But I know what it’s like to feel different. This is the third school I’ve been to in three years. I always have trouble fitting in. So I really wanted it to work this time. But I guess I’ve been trying a bit too hard.’
‘And I guess we haven’t exactly made it any easier for you, have we?’ I said.
Roberta shrugged. ‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘I kind of feel like we’re friends now . . . right?’
‘You bet!’ I said.
‘Best friends!’ said Jenny.
‘You are definitely part of the gang now,’ said Gretel, grinning. ‘And I’m ready for a rematch any time you are.’
‘You’re on,’ said Roberta. ‘It was probably just a fluke that I beat you the other day.’
‘Well this has worked out really well for everyone, hasn’t it?’ said Jack. ‘And the best thing is, no school! This is the best day ever!’
‘For you maybe,’ said Jenny. ‘But not for poor Principal Greenbeard.’
Principal Greenbeard was on his knees, his head in his hands.
I think he was crying.
Seeing Principal Greenbeard so upset made me feel even worse than I did already.
At that moment the sun came out and a rainbow arched through the sky over the school. It was kind of sad and beautiful at the same time.
Mr Brainfright kneeled beside Principal Greenbeard and clapped his arm around his shoulder. ‘You know, Principal Greenbeard,’ he said, ‘this may be a blessing in disguise—a wonderful opportunity! We can rebuild the school bigger and better than it was before. We can get the students to help—doing is learning, after all.’
You could see Mr Brainfright was getting more and more excited about the idea the more he thought about it.
‘We could base our classes around the whole project!’ he went on. ‘Just imagine it. Measuring and calculating—that’s maths. The wiring and plumbing—science! And while they’re learning about building they’ll also be building their vocabulary—that’s English taken care of. They’ll be getting plenty of outdoor exercise, so there will be no need for separate sports classes, and they can sing and whistle while they work, which will not only help to pass the time but will add to their musical appreciation.’
Mrs Rainbow, who was nodding enthusiastically at Mr Brainfright’s speech, went to stand beside him. ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ she said to Principal Greenbeard. ‘The children would learn so much from the designing, painting and decorating of the new school. And, who knows, perhaps we could even design the school in the shape of a ship?’
At the mention of the word ‘ship’ Principal Greenbeard looked up and smiled. He got to his feet. ‘A ship!’ he said. ‘Why yes! Of course! We can build a new, better school . . . one
that’s truly seaworthy . . . we’ll have it shipshape in no time. We’ll win that Tidiest School Award next year, you see if we don’t!’
Grant stepped forward and said to Principal Greenbeard, ‘I could build a school-building robot to help with the heavy lifting, if you’d like.’
‘NO!’ we all cried at the same time.
Grant looked hurt. ‘What about a system of pulleys then?’ he asked. ‘I could rig up a block and tackle. Would that be all right?’
‘Would it involve robotics of any sort?’ asked Principal Greenbeard.
‘No, just ropes and wheels,’ said Grant. Then he added hopefully, ‘But it could involve a super-advanced digital electronic processing unit.’
‘I think just ropes and wheels will do fine,’ said Principal Greenbeard firmly. ‘Let’s keep it simple.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Grant, sighing. ‘Just ropes and wheels it is, then.’
44
Epilogue
Well, that’s my story.
And, just in case you’re wondering, it’s all true.
Every last bit.
If you’re ever passing through Northwest, and you happen to be passing Northwest Southeast Central School, feel free to drop in.
We’re pretty easy to find. Our school is the one that looks like a ship.
Our classroom is up on the second level, starboard side—it’s the one with extra-big portholes.
Just don’t forget to get a life jacket from Mrs Rosethorn at the purser’s office. We haven’t struck any icebergs yet, but—as Jenny’s mother always says—it’s better to be safe than sorry.
And if you see any robots, don’t worry: it will probably just be us making a film version of Roberta’s story. She was so impressed by my costume that she asked me to star in it.
It’s going to be a riot!
Robot Riot! Page 9