My Babysitter is a Robot

by Dave Cousins

  “Really? Wow! I never knew.”

  Ali shot me a look of alarm, but Brett was as oblivious to sarcasm as Robin had been.

  “My grandad’s got it working as his own personal slave,” said Brett, his eyes brimming with spiteful glee. “It does all his cooking and cleaning. Even cuts his toenails for him!”

  I KNEW IT! All along I’d suspected Mr Burton was up to something. All that rubbish he’d told Mum about dismantling Robin so he wouldn’t ‘go rogue and wreak havoc’ again. It was just a trick to get the robot for himself!

  But at least that meant Robin hadn’t been destroyed…

  I shrugged. “Good luck to him,” I said. “That robot was nothing but a pain in the neck.” I pushed past Brett and walked away.

  Ali had to run to catch up with me. “Imagine having to cut old-man toenails!” he said. “Gross!”

  I shrugged again, but this time my shoulders felt strangely heavy.

  “I thought Robin was actually kind of cool,” said Ali, sounding sad. “That stunt he did at the pool was amazing. And he did help us defeat the big boss at the end of Revenge of the Robots.”

  I spun round to face him. “SO?”

  Ali jumped. “Sorry! I was only saying.”

  “Well, DON’T. I don’t want to talk about it, OK?”

  “Three out of twenty! That’s hilarious!” Jess was feeling smug because she’d got top marks on the test.

  “I forgot to learn the stuff,” I told her.

  It was only Wednesday, but I’d already been told off twice by Mrs Badoe for forgetting to do my homework. Which was why I’d been sitting at the table for the past ten minutes, frowning at a sheet of maths problems. If I didn’t get these in on time, I’d be in REAL trouble. Right!

  Question one: Savita has three guinea pigs and one cage. How much of the cage does each animal occupy?

  “These questions are stupid!” I said, throwing down my pen.

  “Are you sure it’s the questions that are stupid?” said Jess.

  “Ha ha!”

  I got up and walked over to give Digby a scratch behind the ears. His tail gave a half-hearted flick, but lacked its usual gusto. The dog hadn’t been himself since Mr Burton took Robin away. The robot’s hat had found its way into Digby’s basket and when Mum had tried to take it off him, Digby had growled and showed his teeth. She’d decided to let him keep it. The hat was covered in dog drool so Mum doubted Dad would want it back now anyway.

  A loud sneeze erupted from the front room. Moments later Rosalyn appeared in the doorway and pointed at Digby. “Get that thing out of here! You know the rules.”

  “If I take him out, will you help me with my homework?” I said.

  Our babysitter snorted. “I don’t get paid enough to help with homework. Now get rid of that mutt, or I’m telling your mum you’ve been gaming when you should’ve been doing schoolwork.”

  I waited until Rosalyn went back into the other room, then let Digby back in.

  “Olivia’s been bragging that Mr Burton has got Robin doing all his chores,” said Jess.

  “I know. Brett says he made Robin cut his toenails!”

  My sister made a gagging noise, then shrugged. “Well, he is a robot. They’re designed to do stuff people don’t want to do. I mean, it’s not like he’s a real person – with FEELINGS.”

  I remembered Robin trying to sing while he baked. He’d said it was what people do when they’re happy – but robots don’t feel emotions. Being Mr Burton’s slave couldn’t make Robin SAD any more than living with us had made him HAPPY. He was just a machine – a computer on legs!

  “That time when Robin asked Mr Rossini to give Digby a shave,” said Jess. “Soooo embarrassing!”

  “Kind of funny too, though,” I said. “Remember the way he used to talk to Digby like he was a person?”

  My sister snorted. “I thought robots were supposed to be smart!”

  “I suppose we all make mistakes.”

  “Not robots!” said Jess. “That’s the whole point! They’re designed NOT to make mistakes like humans do.”

  “Yeah, he wasn’t much of a robot really, was he?”

  Jess shook her head and opened her exercise book. I sighed and reached for my pen.

  Question two: The mean old man has one robot and ten toenails…

  I put the pen down. When I looked up, my sister was staring at me.

  “We need to get him back, don’t we?” she said.

  Realizing we needed to rescue Robin was the easy part. Working out exactly HOW we were going to do it was much harder.

  “Maybe we could break in and steal him back?” I suggested.

  Jess raised an eyebrow. “Like prison food, do you?”

  “OK, we could BUY him back then. Make Mr Burton an offer he can’t refuse!”

  “Great idea! How much have you got?”

  “Well … not so much at the moment, but I’m sure Mum owes me some pocket money.”

  My sister snorted.

  “So what ARE we going to do?”

  “If you could possibly stop talking for, like, FIVE SECONDS, I might actually be able to think!”

  I pulled a face. I was beginning to realize that the hardest part of this whole thing was going to be spending time with Jess. But if we wanted to get Robin back we were going to have to work together.

  After a bit more arguing – sorry, discussion – we decided to try a TWO-PRONGED ATTACK: I’d talk to Dad while my sister worked on Mum.

  “We need to get Robin back from Mr Burton.”

  “Who?” As usual, Dad was a little slow on the uptake. His driving job meant he was away from home a lot, so he was often a bit behind on current events.

  “The robot babysitter Grandma made for us,” I reminded him.

  Dad frowned. “You mean the maniac who trashed my tomatoes?”

  “That was an accident. He … got wet when we went swimming, and it made him go a bit funny.”

  “A bit FUNNY?!” Dad’s eyebrows quivered as he gazed at the destruction. “He murdered my tomatoes and obliterated half your mum’s paintings!”

  “I know, but … he didn’t MEAN to.”

  “I’d been growing those tomatoes for months,” Dad said, going all misty-eyed. “I raised them from seed, you know.”

  It was obvious I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. Maybe Jess would have better luck with Mum.

  “She just kept going on about how we could’ve been hurt,” said Jess. “‘What if he’d set fire to the house? What if he’d gone crazy with a shovel instead of the hose?’ She wouldn’t even listen to what I had to say.”

  “You reminded her about the cakes though, right? How if we got Robin back she could eat delicious muffins every day!”

  My sister pulled a face. “Mum said if Robin came back she’d get fat.”

  I let out a groan of frustration. “What is WRONG with these people?”

  “We’ll just have to think of a way to get him back ourselves,” said Jess. “Any ideas?”

  Sometimes the best way to find a solution to a problem is not to go looking for one. You can be banging your head against a brick wall, trying SO HARD to think of something, and get nowhere. But if you stop trying – if you forget about it for a while and do something else – a strange and magical thing can happen, and the answer just pops up all by itself!

  I decided to play some Revenge of the Robots to clear my head. While I was playing, I remembered what Robin had said about being ashamed of the robots in the game and how they’d misbehaved…

  And that’s when I had my genius idea.

  “You want to get Robin to trash Mr Burton’s house like he did our garden?” I couldn’t tell if Jess was impressed or about to start laughing.

  “If we can make Mr Burton think that Robin is really dangerous,” I said. “Well … he won’t want to keep him then, will he?”

  Jess frowned. “That’s actually not such a bad idea…”

  “It’s genius!”

&nbs
p; My sister snorted. “OK then, Einstein, so how are we going to get Robin to deliberately malfunction again? We can’t exactly go next door and ask if we can give him a bath!”

  “Um … I haven’t worked that bit out yet.”

  Jess rolled her eyes.

  “What? I’m supposed to think of EVERYTHING now, am I?”

  I put Grandma on speaker so Jess could hear too.

  “First you let Donald Burton steal my lovely robot and now you want to make him DELIBERATELY malfunction!”

  I was glad Grandma was on the phone and not within swiping range. I also wondered how she knew Mr Burton’s name was Donald, but now probably wasn’t the time to ask. She was NOT using her happy voice.

  “I programmed layers of safety code to make sure something like that DIDN’T happen,” she said.

  “So it can’t be done?”

  “Now I didn’t say that, did I?” Grandma’s voice softened a little. “Let me have a cup of tea and a think. I reckon it could be a THREE-CUP PROBLEM, this, so you’d better give me at least an hour.”

  Three cups of tea and half a packet of Jammie Dodgers later…

  “It goes against the fundamental Laws of Robotics for a robot to act against its owner,” said Grandma, still crunching on the remains of a biscuit, “but there is a way you could control him remotely.”

  I grinned at Jess. “How?”

  “I programmed a fail-safe to allow remote access in an emergency,” said Grandma. “It’s paired with your games console, so in theory you could control him from there. It would be just like playing a game.”

  “Brilliant! So what do we do? What are the controls?”

  “One step at a time!” said Grandma. “First you have to ACTIVATE remote access.”

  “OK, so how do we do that?”

  “You have to sing to him.”

  “Pardon?!” said Jess. “I think the phone went funny just then, Grandma. It sounded like you said we have to SING to the robot.”

  “That’s right.” We could hear Grandma chuckling to herself. “I told you it was an EMERGENCY measure. I didn’t think you’d ever have to use it! I programmed Robin’s fail-safe to respond to your voices, but it couldn’t just be your normal speaking voices or you could have set it off accidentally. I used that recording you sent for my birthday – the two of you singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.”

  “So we have to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the robot?” I said. That recording had been Mum’s idea. A painful half an hour of my life that I was in no hurry to revisit. “There must be another way!”

  “I’m afraid not. If you want to take control, you’re going to have to sing to him.”

  Suddenly the plan seemed a lot less brilliant.

  It’s kind of disappointing how ideas that seemed GREAT at the planning stage suddenly feel COMPLETELY LUDICROUS on a chilly Friday evening when you’re walking next door to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in front of your neighbour’s house!

  Part of me hoped that Rosalyn would demand to know what we were doing and stop us from going out, but she didn’t even notice us leave.

  I started to wonder if we really needed to rescue Robin. I mean, hadn’t we WANTED to get rid of him? I remembered all the times he’d embarrassed us and how Robin wouldn’t let us do anything until our homework was finished; how he’d always know if we tried to fake being ill. On the other hand, he had helped me and Ali defeat the big boss in Revenge of the Robots and, unlike Rosalyn, Robin actually seemed to like spending time with us.

  Then I started thinking about Robin trying to sing when we were baking. Robots weren’t supposed to feel emotions, but maybe Robin was different … special?

  We had to rescue him. He was our robot! No! More than that – he was our FRIEND.

  There was no way we could abandon him to Mr Burton, even if getting him back did mean totally embarrassing ourselves in public – again!

  At least it was nearly dark. Hopefully there’d be nobody around to see us make fools of ourselves this time.

  So there we were, standing on Mr Burton’s doorstep, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ like a pair of really confused carol singers. Jess was really going for it – belting out the song like it was the final of Britain’s Got Talent.

  Now I’ll admit that sometimes I’m not as kind to my twin as I could be but, when I tell you that Jess can NOT sing, I’m not being horrible because she’s my sister – it’s simply the truth. If your ears were unfortunate enough to hear my sister sing, they would tell you exactly the same thing.

  I was doing my best to join in because Grandma said that Robin was programmed to respond to both our voices. Digby was there too, doing what he always does when Jess sings: throwing his head back and HOWLING! (I don’t know if he’s complaining or joining in. Dogs have strange taste in music…)

  The noise we were making was quite … something. Thankfully ‘Happy Birthday’ is a short song, so we got to the end pretty quickly. Then we looked at each other, not sure what was supposed to happen next.

  Usually this was the point where someone blows out the candles and everyone gets a slice of cake. Of course on this occasion there was no cake. What we wanted was some kind of sign that Robin had heard us. But the house was silent.

  “Maybe we should sing it again?” said Jess.

  So we did.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And—

  Mr Burton’s front door flew open and the old man shot out like the house was on fire.

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” he shouted, flapping his arms at us. “STOP THAT INFERNAL RACKET THIS INSTANT!”

  Believe me, I wanted to stop, but with the door open this was our best chance of getting Robin to hear us. So we kept singing.

  I saw movement in the hallway behind Mr Burton and for a moment I thought it was the robot. Then I realized that the shape filling the doorway was too short and too wide … and it was pointing a mobile phone at us.

  “This is going straight on YouTube,” said Brett, laughing so hard he was struggling to hold the camera still. “Two Losers and a Dog Sing ‘Happy Birthday’! Viral for sure.”

  Of course we had to choose an evening when Brett was visiting.

  We reached the end of the song and this time we did stop.

  “Mum said it was your birthday,” said Jess, giving Mr Burton her best innocent smile. “So we thought it would be nice if we came round to sing to you.”

  For a few seconds the old man was so taken aback he just stared at us. Then he scowled.

  “Your mother is mistaken,” he said. “It’s NOT my birthday, so you can go away.” Then his eyes narrowed and he leaned closer. “I know what you’re up to,” he hissed. “But it won’t work. You’re not getting it back.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying not to shiver.

  Brett was still laughing as we walked away. “Weirdos!” he shouted.

  “That better have worked,” said Jess.

  I nodded. If Robin hadn’t heard our singing, all we’d done was give Brett a new video to humiliate us with.

  I’d never felt so nervous waiting for my console to start up. Jess was sitting next to me on the bed with Digby – he could sense there was something important going on and didn’t want to miss out.

  “What are we going to do if it didn’t work?” Jess asked.

  “Run away to a country where they don’t have YouTube?” I suggested, entering my login details.

  The row of game icons slid into view and there it was – Robin’s face, all bushy beard and wonky football hat.

  “It worked!” said Jess. “I told you my singing was the best!”

  Normally I would have had something to say about that, but I’d just remembered that Grandma never got around to telling me HOW I was supposed to control the robot once we got access!

  I selected the icon and a message flashed up on the screen.

  I glanced at Jess and Digby. “Are we sure ab
out this?”

  Digby gave a low woof and slapped his tail against the bed. My sister nodded. “Let’s get our robot back!”

  I clicked the button and the television filled with the image of a kitchen. There was the cooker and a sink… The picture was moving, as though the person holding the camera was in motion. The view descended until a washing machine filled the screen, and for a second we saw a face reflected in the circular glass door.

  Digby sat up and barked, his tail whipping the air like a helicopter.

  “It’s Robin!” said Jess.

  “We must be getting a live feed from the robot’s eyes,” I said. “We get to see what he sees!”

  A hand wearing a yellow rubber glove opened the washer and started pulling clothes into a basket on the floor.

  “Ugh!” said Jess. “Are those…?”

  I nodded. “Looks like Mr Burton’s got Robin doing his washing. We REALLY need to get him out of there.”

  “So go on then. You’ve got control. Only maybe try not to get killed as many times as you usually do.”

  “WHAT D’YOU MEAN?” But I knew EXACTLY what she meant.

  When I start a new game, I’m always rubbish until I get used to it. And this time there was no tutorial, no chance to practise. This time, if anyone got hurt … it would be FOR REAL.

  For a second I just sat there, staring at the screen, the controller all sweaty in my hands.

  Then I told myself to get a grip. I could do this. I just needed to pretend I was playing Revenge of the Robots, only this time we wanted the robot to win!

  So … in Revenge the right-hand joystick lets you look around. Maybe that would work here.

  “Oh, my!” said Robin’s voice as the view on the television swung to the right.

  “Of course!” I said. “He doesn’t know he’s being controlled! Robin must think his head just moved all on its own!”