He held out the knife. The others crowded round, and began laughing. On the blade, using a power tool, Danny had engraved the word SNITCHER.
Eddie turned crimson. Danny snapped the blade shut and tossed the knife to him.
“Next time, Snitcher, don’t leave your things around the Professor’s laboratory,” Danny said. “It’s so messy.”
For once, Eddie had nothing to say.
Danny left him and walked back to the blackboard where Irene had been standing, watching the whole scene.
“That ought to take care of him for a while,” Danny chuckled.
“Yes, Danny, and I told you it would be more effective than just punching him in the nose,” Irene replied.
“You were right.” Danny looked at her, and sighed deeply. “Gee, Irene,” he said, “you’re a swell girl.”
“That’s true,” said a voice behind him, “but you don’t have to get all mushy about it.”
It was Joe. He was trying not to smile, and blushing at the same time. He said, “I think it’s about time we made up, Irene. I’m sorry for the things I said a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, Joe, I forgot all about that day,” Irene said. “Why, we’ve been working together for the last three weeks and you haven’t said a single thing about girls being nothing but trouble.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m glad we had the homework machine. And I guess I was wrong all around. Look at my report card. This is the first time I ever got an A in arithmetic.”
“I’m glad, Joe.”
“So’m I. And—and I—well, I have something for you.”
Irene and Danny looked at him in surprise.
“It’s not much,” Joe mumbled. “Just a poem. Here—”
He thrust a piece of paper into Irene’s hand. She opened it, and read:
Who is the one who made me change my mind about girls being not so keen?
Irene.
What do I think of when I am looking out of a train window and get tired of the scene?
Irene.
If I were Jack Sprat and could eat no fat, who would I want to eat no lean?
Irene.
Who will I pin up if I have to go into the army when I am eighteen?
Irene.
Whose eyes are as blue as a new pair of jeans?
Irene’s.
If I were a jar of yellow paint, and she were a jar of blue, with who would I want to mix, to make green?
Irene.
“Why, Joe,” Irene exclaimed. “It’s beautiful!”
Danny stuck out his lower lip. He had been reading over Irene’s shoulder. “Pooh!” he said. “He keeps saying ‘who’ instead of ‘whom.’ He sure didn’t pay any attention when we fed the grammar books into the computer.”
“Oh, Danny,” said Irene. “I believe you’re jealous.”
“Me?” Danny said indignantly. Then he grinned. “Yep,” he said. “I am.”
Miss Arnold came towards them, just then, and put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Well, my three star pupils,” she said. “Congratulations. I know your marks are the highest in the class.”
“Thanks, Miss Arnold,” they all said.
Miss Arnold’s eyes twinkled. “Now that the term is over,” she went on, “I have something important to tell you. It’s about your homework.”
“Our—our homework?” Danny said uneasily.
Joe groaned. “It seems to me we went through this before.”
Miss Arnold nodded. “Yes, your homework. I’d like you three to wait until the other pupils have gone. I’ll only keep you a few minutes. Please come to my desk when the room is empty…”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Homework Champions
Professor Bullfinch and Dr. Grimes were playing a duet in the living room, when Danny came home from school. He came in slowly, scuffling his feet, his head hanging, and a gloomy expression on his face.
He tossed his books on the bench in the hall. His mother came downstairs with her shopping basket over her arm. She kissed him, and then held him off and looked him up and down.
“Why, Danny dear,” she said, “whatever is the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Didn’t you do well in the exams? You passed, didn’t you?”
Silently, he handed her his report card.
The Professor leaned his bullfiddle against a chair and came to see the card. “Top marks,” he said. “Then why so growlsome looking? Are you unhappy because school is over?”
“What?” said Danny. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
Mrs. Dunn folded her arms. “Daniel Dunn,” she said, in her no-nonsense voice. “Out with it! Something’s wrong.”
Danny kicked at the rug with one toe. “Oh…well you know how hard we worked on the computer so we wouldn’t have to do any homework?”
“Yes?”
“Well, Miss Arnold just broke the news to us that we’ve been doing homework all along. In fact—we got special honors for doing more and harder homework than any of the other kids in class!”
Mrs. Dunn began to bubble with mirth. Dr. Grimes came out, raising his eyebrows.
Professor Bullfinch coughed, and said, “I wondered how long it would be before you found that out. Naturally, in order to feed information into the computer you had to know it yourselves. And in order to give the machine the proper instructions for solving problems, you had to know how to solve them yourselves. So, of course, you had to do homework—and plenty of it.”
“Why, simply programming a problem is homework,” Dr. Grimes put in.
“Yes. It just never occurred to me before,” Danny confessed. “Gosh, it—it somehow doesn’t seem fair.”
“It wasn’t really fair for you to expect a machine to do all your work for you, was it?” Mrs. Dunn said, gently. “That’s why I suggested to Miss Arnold that she give you high school homework to do.”
“You suggested it? My own mother! But why?”
“Surely that must be obvious to you, Danny. I knew you’d have to study quite hard to keep up with it. And after all, darling, that’s what homework is for—to teach you how to study by yourself.”
Danny sighed. “I guess so. Well, nobody can complain that we haven’t studied this year.”
“And you’ve done more than that,” said the Professor, enthusiastically. “Come into the living room and listen to what Grimes and I have been doing.”
He and Dr. Grimes returned to their instruments. They sat down before some sheets of music and, after a little tuning up, began to play. Danny and his mother listened thoughtfully. It was a rather dull piece of music.
When it was over, Danny said, “Well, it wasn’t too bad. Who wrote it?”
“Minny did,” answered the Professor.
“Minny?”
“Certainly. We got the idea for the experiment from something Joe said, a long time ago—he asked what would happen if we sang into the microphone. And you youngsters apparently got Miniac to write your school reports for you—”
“So you got the machine to write music?”
“Yes. We fed into it full instructions for the composition of a sonata, plus information on note relationships and a lot of other technical material. Then we programmed a sonata for piccolo and bullfiddle, and Miniac turned it out. We had to add an attachment for writing music notes, of course…”
Mrs. Dunn laughed. “It isn’t bad,” she said, “but it isn’t exactly Beethoven, either.”
Professor Bullfinch shook his head. “No. It never can be Beethoven, Mrs. Dunn. No matter how intelligent the computer is, it is only a machine. It can solve problems in minutes that would take a man months to work out. But behind it there must be a human brain. It can never be a creator of music or of stories, or paintings, or ideas. It cannot even do our homework for us—we must do the homewo
rk. The machine can only help, as a textbook helps. It can only be a tool, as a typewriter is a tool.”
“I said that, didn’t I?” Danny asked.
“Yes, dear,” his mother replied. “You said it. But I don’t think you really thought about it—until now.”
Joe stuck his head in the front door. “Hello, Mrs. Dunn,” he said. “Is Danny around? Oh, hi, Dan. Come on out. Irene and I are going down to the drug store to celebrate with a soda.”
“Fine,” said Mrs. Dunn. “Run along, Dan. And—” She slipped an arm about his shoulders and hugged him tight. “I don’t care whether it’s fair or not, but I’m very proud of you.”
Danny suddenly felt a lot better.
“Thanks, Mom,” he said, hugging her in return. Then he went to join his friends.
The three walked down the shady street together, Irene between the two boys. She said, “First prize for homework. How do you like that?”
“It’s the end of using this computer for homework,” Danny said. “Never again! I don’t even want to think about machines.”
Joe thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “You can’t beat the system,” he grumbled. “Teachers are too smart for kids. That’s all there is to it. Now if only—”
Irene caught hold of his arm. “Look,” she said. “Look at Danny.”
Danny had a strange, wild look in his eyes, and a faraway smile on his lips.
“Oh-oh. Here we go again,” said Joe.
Irene said, “Danny—count up to a billion by thousands—quick!”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Danny said. “This is just a simple idea I had. Listen—what about a teaching machine…?”
“Grab his other arm, Joe,” Irene shouted. “He needs a soda—fast.”
They seized his arms and ran, dragging him along, to the drug store.
Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine Page 7