House of Robots

by James Patterson

  “What’d you find?”

  McFetch yaps like a crazy Chihuahua—nonstop for maybe two whole minutes. Since I don’t speak Chihuahua, I have absolutely no idea what McFetch is trying to say.

  Fortunately, Mom equipped the robo-dog with a high-tech scent analyzer. A full-spectrum analysis report scrolls out of its snout on a tiny slip of curled paper. It’s a list of everything McFetch smelled on or in the bag.

  “Wait a second,” I say. “You could smell peanut butter, bananas, and all that other stuff even though the perpetrator was wearing gloves?”

  McFetch yaps some more, probably to remind me that his sense of smell is about ten million times better than a human’s.

  I call Trip and tell him what McFetch just discovered.

  “So, Trip,” I ask, “do you remember what happened in school the day before I found the boxes on the front porch?”

  “We had that math test?”

  “And Cooper Elliot squished your sandwich in the cafeteria. The one Mr. Moppenshine made for you.”

  “With marshmallows, Reese’s Pieces, and sprinkles!”

  “Exactly. And assuming that Cooper Elliot never washes his hands because everybody tells him he should wash his hands, it’s quite possible the sandwich stink would still be on his mitts several hours later.”

  “Cooper did it!”

  “Or helped somebody else do it. All we need now is his confession!”

  I go find Hayseed and Brittney 13.

  “Come on. You two are coming to school with me today.”

  “Oh, goody!” gushes the always-emotional Brittney 13. She probably thinks our school has boy bands since we have a band room.

  “I don’t need to get all edumacated while I’m there, does I?” asks Hayseed.

  “Nope. You and Brittney 13 just need to talk to Cooper Elliot.”

  “Talk to him? Shoot, son, I could talk a dog off a meat truck.”

  Since neither Hayseed nor Brittney 13 is built for long-distance travel, Forkenstein hauls them over to Creekside for me first thing in the morning.

  We corner Cooper Elliot on the playground, right near the swing set where he cornered Trip and me.

  Brittney’s job? She’ll be our “good cop.” Butter Cooper up. Get him talking. She lays it on thick.

  “Excuse me, aren’t you the lead singer in that awesome band?”

  “Um, no…”

  “Well, you sure are cute.”

  “You’re a robot. How would you know?”

  “Oh, I’m programmed to emotionally respond to cuteness. Awesomeness, too!”

  “What’s going on here, Dweebiac?” Cooper says to me. “Why’d you bring these two broken-down bobbleheads to school? Now that E’s fallen apart, you really think these two clunkers can protect you?”

  Brittney turns on the waterworks. Artificial tears spritz out of her eye sockets.

  “No,” she blubbers. “We want to protect you, Cooper Elliot. Because you’re so cute. And so awesome. And so awesomely cute.”

  “Protect me? From what?”

  That’s when our “bad cop,” Hayseed, moves in.

  “Now then, Cooper, regardin’ the disappearance of our friend E—”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Is that so? Well, you know what my grandpa used to say: Don’t skinny-dip with snapping turtles.”

  “Sammy? Turn this stupid thing off. I didn’t do anything!”

  “Cooper, let me tell ya—my cow died last night, so I don’t need your bull.”

  “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Boy, you’re dumber than a box of dirt if you think we ain’t got your peanut-butter-’n’-banana hands all over that paper sack.”

  “What paper sack?”

  “The one you slipped on top of Dingaling’s head to block his motion sensors.”

  “You mean that stupid robot thing on Dweebiac’s front porch? Johnny and Trevor told me to! They said it was probably a burglar alarm.”

  BA-BOOM, FA-WUMP, and KREEE-UNCH! He’s busted!

  Cooper Elliot just confessed.

  By accident!

  Another neat thing about Mom’s robots?

  A lot of them, including Hayseed, have digital recorders hidden inside. Hayseed now has Cooper Elliot’s confession permanently stored in his memory banks.

  And Brittney? Well, since Mom made her to replicate a typical teenager, she can instantly text anybody, anywhere—without a phone. It’s all in her head. Plus, she’s her own Wi-Fi hot spot.

  So Brittney promptly texts the South Bend Police Department and suggests they send those two detectives back to Creekside.

  They do.

  “Thanks for all your hard work, Detectives Roboto,” Detective Jordan says to Hayseed and Brittney 13. Then she turns to me. “Good work, son. We’ll take it from here.”

  So I have Forkenstein carry Brittney 13 and Hayseed home while I head inside to Mrs. Kunkel’s classroom, where everybody (including Mrs. Kunkel) is standing at the window, watching the cop show taking place out on the playground.

  Then, maybe three minutes later—and this is the honest truth—the two detectives haul Cooper Elliot away in their police car!

  Mom gets called down to police headquarters, too.

  When I come home from school, she tells Maddie and me the whole story.

  Turns out Cooper and his two knuckleheaded brothers, Johnny and Trevor, who are in the seventh and eighth grades over at Jefferson Intermediate School, were the ones who kidnapped E.

  I guess they thought their “harmless prank” was hilarious. E, of course, would disagree.

  From what the police told Mom, stealing E and trashing him wasn’t all Cooper’s idea—actually, I don’t think Cooper Elliot’s ever even had an idea—but he was definitely part of it.

  Anyway, Trip and I don’t have to worry about Cooper Elliot picking on us at school anymore.

  Well, at least for a month.

  That’s how long he’s been suspended this time.

  Maddie and I talk for a really long time that night.

  I fill her in about school—as I always do—but I talk even more about E and all the amazing robots, how they worked together, and about Mom and Dad, and how I’m gaining a bunch of respect for them.

  I’m feeling pretty great now that the case is closed. Maddie, too.

  There’s only one thing that might make both of us feel even better: having E back as our bro-bot.

  For that to happen, Mom would need to do some pretty incredible surgery.

  It would be kind of like putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again—only with a ton more parts and no yolk.

  You could say that robots are running our entire house this weekend.

  Because they do.

  Why?

  Because Mom’s too busy over in her workshop prepping E for what she calls “brain surgery” on his main circuit board. This is the final operation that will either save E or totally erase his memory.

  “If it works,” Mom tells us before she disappears behind locked lab doors, “E will be E again. In fact, he might be even more remarkable. Several of his apps have upgrades available.”

  “And if the operation doesn’t work the way you want it to?” I ask. “If you can’t bring him back?”

  She sighs. “Well, I guess I could construct a new robot.”

  “But it wouldn’t be E.”

  “It would have the same specifications.”

  “But it wouldn’t be E?”

  “No, Sammy. It would not. E is…unique.”

  “Then, please, Mom, give it your all. I want my bro-bot back!”

  Dad tries to keep himself busy revising Hot and Sour Ninja Robots in Vegas, but his head (and his heart) is over in the workshop with Mom, so he keeps making goofy mistakes. For instance, Las Vegas is not in Alaska. Also, people in Las Vegas do not have three eyeballs or four ears. He even gets the title wrong on the cover.

  Maddie and I aren’t doing much
better.

  She’s feeling pretty good (except for her stomach, which, like mine, is filled with butterflies), so we try to pass the time in the family room playing Super Mario on the Wii U. We aren’t allowed to play video games very often, so it’s fun.

  For almost a whole fifteen minutes.

  Our minds aren’t on the game. They’re over in Mom’s workshop.

  Everybody is worried about E. Even a few of the robots are distracted.

  In short, even though it lasts the usual number of hours, it’s the longest weekend any of us can ever remember.

  Until, finally, Mom is done!

  Just after dawn on Monday morning, Mom comes out of her workshop.

  E comes out right behind her.

  Well, it looks like E. But he’s all jittery and kind of stumbling around and making BZZT-BZZT, KLIK-KLIK, CHUNKA-CHUNKA noises.

  This is not good.

  I guess Mom goofed up. The E I knew is gone.

  I think I might start crying.

  Then E wiggles his goofy eyebrows and says, “Yo—I’m just messing with you, bro.”

  “You’re okay?” I ask, goose bumps exploding all over my arms.

  “Never better, Sammy. Kyrgyzstan. K-Y-R-G-Y-Z-S-T-A-N. Booyah. I am definitely good to go.”

  His arms whirr, and his hips swivel.

  “Testing, testing. ‘I thought a thought. But the thought I thought was not the thought I thought I thought.’ All systems are up and operational.”

  E fist-bumps me and does a quick little backward moonwalk in the driveway that ends with a backflip into a split.

  “So, Sammy, did you miss me?” E asks, his eyes glowing bright blue. “I missed you for a little while and then I didn’t miss you or anybody else because I was stone-cold out of it.”

  Mom is smiling. Dad is laughing. I’ve never been happier.

  “I wish I could’ve helped you and the other bots investigate my disappearance,” E continues. “However, I was unable to do so because, if I may be permitted an appropriate pun, I had fallen to pieces.”

  Oh, yeah. E is back—chirpier than ever. But I feel I have to tell him the whole truth and nothing but.

  “I did miss you, E. Really. I did. But—and I’m just being honest here…”

  “Lay it on me, bro.”

  “Okay. It’s a little weird that you go to school with me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The other kids all know you’re only there because Mom and Dad think I need a friend. In case you never noticed, I’m a little strange. And being strange makes it hard to make friends.”

  “You’re not strange, Sammy. You’re my brother.”

  “Well, isn’t that kind of strange? Having a brother who’s, you know…”

  “Handsome, clever, and strong?”

  “You’re all that, E,” I say with a smile. “But face it, you’re also a robot. That’s not exactly normal.”

  “You are correct, Sammy,” says E. “I am not normal. In fact, I would daresay I am exceptionally different. I suppose strangeness is just something that runs in our family.”

  I look at Mom. And Dad. And E.

  E’s right. We’re all a little different. Unique, even. UNusual.

  And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  After E finishes giving me a better spin than any ride at Six Flags Great America, Mom comes over and looks me straight in the eye.

  “Sammy, you’re wrong. Yes, you’re a little…different. Good different. But E isn’t going to school because Dad and I thought you needed a new friend.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “You can’t make friends the way you make a robot. It’s something you just have to do for yourself—like you did with Trip. And you’ll make more. Lots more.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, Mom, but—”

  “Sammy? This is very important. So please pay attention.”

  “Okay.”

  “E is not going to school for you. In fact, Project E has absolutely, positively nothing to do with you at all.”

  “No?”

  Mom shakes her head. “E is going to school for Maddie. And she didn’t want to be the center of attention. You know Maddie.…She didn’t want you to worry about E’s success or failure, because she knew you’d care too much. That’s why I couldn’t tell you what I was really trying to do.”

  That Maddie. She always says “it’s no biggie.” Of course, she knew that if I knew E had been made for her, everything he did would be a really big deal to me. The funny thing is how much I ended up caring about E anyway.

  And now I start to realize what all this means for the future.

  I remember what Mom told me back when we first talked about her new experiment.

  Remember how Maddie can’t go to school because of the autoimmune thing?

  Well, thanks to E, all that’s going to change now.

  “Maddie can go to school!” I say. “Real school. E can be her eyes and ears.”

  Then something else hits me.

  “Wait a second. Is that why E’s eyes are so amazingly blue?”

  Mom smiles. “Just like Maddie’s.”

  So let me tell you what happened in school later that same day.

  It’s actually pretty amazing.

  For the first time ever, Maddie Hayes-Rodriguez is in a third-grade classroom at Creekside with other kids her age. Thanks to E’s incredible HD-camera eyes and state-of-the-art audio components, Maddie gets to meet her new teacher, Ms. Tracey, the one who lets you have cupcakes on your birthday.

  All of a sudden, thanks to E, Maddie has twenty-six new friends. She can hear them talk, and—get this—she can talk back to them! She can join in on classroom discussions. She can read aloud when they read aloud and solve math problems at the whiteboard and watch videos and do arts and crafts. Because E is one absolutely amazing, incredibly talented, battery-powered education machine.

  It is, without a doubt, the best Monday ever at any school anywhere.

  On Friday, after Maddie’s first official full week of school, we throw this unbelievably awesome party. There’s never been anything like it at our house, or South Bend, or maybe the whole state of Indiana.

  Mom and Dad and I and E—and all of Mom’s other crazy robots—party till the break of dawn. (We would’ve had the party on that amazing Monday, but it was a school night.) There are sopaipillas for everybody! And, thanks to E, Maddie gets to be there, too—without ever leaving her sterilized bedroom.

  Trip comes, of course, and brings his mom. She made everybody peanut-butter-and-banana finger sandwiches.

  Mom and Dad’s band play some almost pretty bad music. Ms. Tracey and Mrs. Kunkel and a bunch of kids from school dance up a storm.

  Turns out Mom was right about something else, too.

  I have made a bunch of new friends at Creekside, and none of them are robots. One is even Jenny Myers! Of course, no matter how many new friends I make, Trip will always be my second-best bud. He has dibs on that.

  All the kids from school think the robots roaming around the house are the coolest things they’ve ever seen.

  I guess they’re right.

  Mom’s robots are pretty cool. And they all do incredibly amazing stuff.

  But if you ask me, E is the coolest.

  Why?

  Because he’s my bro-bot.

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  JAMES PATTERSON has had more #1 bestsellers for children than any living writer. He is the author of the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, and Daniel X novels, as well as House of Robots. His blockbusters for adults, featuring enduring characters like Alex Cross—in addition to his many books for teens, such as the Maximum Ride series—have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. He lives in Florida.

  CHRIS GRABENSTEIN is a New York Times bestselling author who has also collaborated with James Patterson on the I Funny and Treasure Hunters series. He liv
es in New York City.

  JULIANA NEUFELD is an award-winning illustrator whose drawings can be found in books, on album covers, and in nooks and crannies throughout the Internet. She lives in Toronto.

  BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON FOR YOUNG READERS

  The Middle School Novels

  Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life

  (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

  Middle School: Get Me out of Here!

  (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

  Middle School: Big Fat Liar

  (with Lisa Papademetriou, illustrated by Neil Swaab)

  Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill

  (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

  Middle School: Ultimate Showdown

  (with Julia Bergen, illustrated by Alec Longstreth)

  Middle School: Save Rafe!

  (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

  The I Funny Novels

  I Funny

  (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)

  I Even Funnier

  (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)

  I Totally Funniest

  (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)

  The Treasure Hunters Novels

  Treasure Hunters

  (with Chris Grabenstein and Mark Shulman, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

  Treasure Hunters: Danger Down the Nile

  (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

  The Daniel X Novels

  The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

  (with Michael Ledwidge)