How Lunchbox Jones Saved Me From Robots, Traitors, and Missy the Cruel

by Jennifer Brown

  I grimaced. Nasty sounded like the right word for sure. “No problem,” I said.

  “We’ll get you back up to full health before the tournament, though,” he said. “Follow my guy into the hive. I think there’s a queen in there.”

  “Hey, about that. The tournament,” I said, following his character into a dark room filled with ominous buzzing. “I can’t go.”

  “What?” His character slipped on green honey and fell into a pit. “Why not?”

  “It’s the same day as our robotics tournament. I have to go to that.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I’m glad I don’t do robotics. Seems to really get in the way of gaming.”

  Normally, I would have said something similar back to him. I wish I didn’t, or You are lucky. But instead I just left it with “Sorry, dude.”

  “Well, my mom is still going to call your mom. Maybe we can work something out. We’ll keep trying.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Now, help me get out of this pit. I think some Plutonians are coming. My guy smells something bad.”

  We played Alien Onslaught for most of the morning, only stopping for bathroom breaks. It wasn’t until the doorbell rang that I finally logged off.

  Walter stood on the front porch with a sleeping bag, pillow, duffel, and grocery sack.

  “Sheesh, Walter, it’s only for one night,” I said, holding the door open for him to get in.

  “Mom sent kettle corn!” he said, holding up the sack. My stomach rumbled. Walter’s mom’s kettle corn was amazing.

  But we were too busy to worry about eating right then. That would come later with scary movies. We dumped his stuff in my bedroom, grabbed a bunch of scrap wood in the garage left over from one of Dad’s projects, and trekked off into the woods where the old fort used to be.

  I hadn’t been back there in ages, but I didn’t see any reason why it would be gone. It may need some sprucing up, but Walter and I could do that, no problem.

  It was funny how the woods had changed in the three years since Rob and I had been back there. At the time it seemed like we were in an endless forest, civilization so far away we could disappear forever. The leaves had seemed dense, the trees so tall I couldn’t see the tops of them.

  But the truth was our old fort was only about fifteen feet inside the woods. It was fall, so there were no leaves, and the trees seemed mostly normal. I could hear cars on the highway in the distance, and if I squinted I could see Dad’s clothesline in the backyard. Either the woods had shrunk, or I had grown.

  Either way, the fort was mostly still there. It was leaning a little, and some of the nails had rusted and pieces had been blown off. The inside was a disaster, and Walter and I both crept around holding our boards like weapons just in case a rabid animal might pop out at us. But otherwise, it was definitely still workable. Walter and I spent most of the afternoon pounding nails and sweeping and reshaping. He talked about cars, and I listened. Every so often he would say something that made sense, as if I’d somehow been absorbing car facts without even knowing it. First robotics, now cars, what next? Would I suddenly be able to understand why girls hug every time they see each other, even if it’s only been an hour since the last time they saw each other?

  I was sort of glad the fort wasn’t too far back into the woods, because we had to make so many trips to and from the house to find materials. Which, now that I think of it, was probably why Rob had chosen this spot in the first place.

  It was on our final trip that we ran into Rob, who had just come home from getting his hair cut. He stepped out of his car, and Walter and I both stared.

  “Whoa,” Walter said. “You look like an army guy.”

  Rob rubbed his nearly bald head. “Close. Marines,” he said. “And this is just a trial run, so I can get used to it.” He looked at me. “What do you think, Luke?”

  “I think it’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen and they might as well call it the Traitor Cut because that’s what you are, and it doesn’t matter anymore because Walter and I don’t need you, we can take care of the fort just fine without you, so you might as well take your Traitor Cut and go off to boot camp where you belong and where you’re wanted,” I screamed.

  No, not really. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders, looked as disinterested as possible, and said, “Fine.”

  Rob laughed. “That’s it? Fine? I figured you would at least crack one joke about it.”

  I shrugged my shoulders again, like this was really boring. “You ready, Walter?”

  “Sure,” Walter said. He put the broom back and grabbed a couple of boards. I filled my pockets with nails.

  “What are you guys up to?” Rob asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, and tried to walk away, but Walter was way too nice for holding grudges against big brothers.

  “We’re redoing the fort in the woods,” he said. “It’s really cool. We’re going to make a car to go with it. I’m thinking it will be 1963 Corvette Stingray–inspired. I have the Quarter Mile Candy Red paint already picked out. I think my uncle will let me borrow his sprayer. Speaking of, I really like your car. Is it a four-wheel drive?”

  “Uh, thanks. Yeah, it’s four-wheel drive.” Rob’s eyes didn’t glass over the way mine did whenever Walter started talking cars, but he still looked a little overwhelmed and kept rubbing the top of his head. “I remember that fort, Luke,” he said. “It’s still there?”

  “Yeah,” Walter exclaimed. “And it’s awesome!”

  “You mind if I come back and take a look?” Rob said.

  I was almost sure I’d heard him wrong. Rob was asking to come back to the fort? My Rob? The Rob who was happily abandoning me? It hardly made sense.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Walter and I were getting ready to play Fort Invaders.” Truthfully, we hadn’t talked about playing anything at all, but it sounded good in the moment to have something going on that left me with no time for Rob for a change.

  “We were?” Walter asked, looking excited.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Remember?” I tried to give him the Say You Remember look, but Walter was way too honest for something like that. He just didn’t get deceit. It was probably a really good reason to like Walter, but at the moment it was a little frustrating.

  A smile spread across Rob’s face. “Aw, man, I used to love Fort Invaders. That was the best game ever. Remember, Luke, how Mom and Dad used to have to go all the way out into the woods and force us to come inside for dinner?”

  Yeah. I remembered. It was so great, feeling like it was me and Rob against the world. I thought that feeling would never go away. But it did.

  “Hey, I don’t really have anything going on right now,” Rob said. “You think I could join you guys?”

  Walter’s face lit up. And I would be lying if I said the thought of Rob joining us didn’t make me a light up a little on the inside, too. As mad as I was at him, he was still my brother, and the best friend I ever had. He was still the guy who I made the best memories with. He was still cocreator of the fort, and Fort Invaders, in the first place.

  I glanced up at his head, pale where his hair used to be. He was also still going off to boot camp like it was no big deal. None of that other stuff mattered anymore, did it?

  I tried to conjure a scowl that best relayed that I couldn’t care less what Rob did with his afternoon, as long as he wasn’t doing it with me. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Walter and I have a pretty good thing going on right now.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Walter said. “There’s lots of room in the fort.”

  “That’s okay,” Rob said. “If you don’t want me to . . .”

  “We do!” Walter said. “Don’t we, Luke?” And he gave me these puppy dog eyes that said Walter would never understand what it was like to be mad at anyone in his whole life. It was one of the reasons I liked him so much.

  I sighed. “I guess it’ll be okay,” I said. “But we follow my lead. I get to be the one in the fort and you have to be loo
kout.”

  Rob grinned. “I haven’t climbed a tree in a long time.”

  I tried walking back with dignity and nonchalance, but they started racing across the yard, “calling” things, and if I didn’t join in, I was going to get the cruddy stuff.

  “I get the lava pit!”

  “I call the fire blaster!”

  “I’m in the big room! I call it!”

  We got to the fort, and it was like time had turned back. Suddenly the trees felt tall again, and the highway sounds disappeared. Dad’s clothesline looked like serpentine wire around enemy barracks. We were small, because the world in our imaginations was so big.

  Rob was clumsy getting up the tree, but his voice cut through the air in barking commands. Walter and I lay on the floor inside the fort and giggled with anticipation, waiting for Rob to yell that the enemy was coming.

  We waited.

  And waited.

  And when the waiting got to be too much, a beeping sound cut through the woods.

  At first we thought this was a new addition to the game. Some high-tech alert system that Rob had thought up. We whispered how brilliant it was.

  But then we heard Rob talking. And the scuffing and shuffling sounds of him coming down from the tree. We listened, turning our palms up confusedly at each other.

  “What’s going on? Is this part of the game?” Walter whispered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll do recon. You protect my back.”

  “Roger,” Walter whispered, alligator-crawling toward me.

  I got up on my knees and slowly poked my head through the window. There was Rob, standing at the base of the tree, talking on his phone. I let out my breath and slid back to the floor.

  “Phone call,” I said. “False alarm.”

  Rob turned to peer in at us. He covered his phone with one hand and whispered, “Sorry, bro, I’ve got to take this. It’s my recruiter.”

  Of course. Just in case I forgot for half a second, Rob was there to remind me. He wasn’t my brother anymore, he was a marine. A marine who was going to leave, and who had already started leaving long ago. I watched him pick through the woods back toward the house, his “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” echoing toward me. Soon he was gone, and I heard nothing but the movement of Walter’s knees and boots on the fort floor.

  He pulled himself up to sitting next to me. “Should we wait until he comes back?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m tired of this game. Let’s go inside.”

  We climbed out and trudged to the house. I hoped I wasn’t walking in the same footsteps Rob had just left in the leaves.

  CHAPTER 24

  PROGRAM NAME: Robo-Rally

  STEP ONE: Robot gathers other robots into one square

  STEP TWO: Robot traps them there

  STEP THREE: Robots have no choice but to cheer

  By the following Tuesday, Lunchbox and I could see a glimmer of hope for the tournament, which was coming up in only two weeks. After some adjustments, the robot was sleek and bling-free, and could successfully perform the sign task, the treasure chest task, and the yellow ball task most of the time. Only every now and then did it repeatedly run into walls or tip over and die.

  The problem was, even though we technically didn’t need a team, we kind of wanted one. If for no other reason than to prove that we were able to accomplish what we’d been unable to accomplish before.

  We stayed after Life Skills class and told Mr. Terry about all we’d gotten done during our practices while he’d been grading papers in his classroom. Well, actually, I told Mr. Terry, because Lunchbox still didn’t do much in the way of talking, but he also didn’t clench his fists at me or stomp on my head—a good sign he agreed with everything I was saying.

  Mr. Terry seemed really surprised. His one and a half eyebrows kept getting higher and higher up on his forehead while I talked, and he kept asking, “Is this some sort of prank? Is Principal McMillan going to pop out of the supply closet any minute now?” The best part: none of his words fell into pits when he asked those things.

  “No, we swear, it’s for real,” I said. “We’ve got it working. Old Lunchbox here—er, Tim—is a pretty good programmer. Can we still go to the tournament?”

  Mr. Terry jumped up out of his seat. “Of course we can. I hadn’t ever canceled our registration. We’re still signed up.”

  “We should gather the team,” I suggested.

  “Yes, yes, we should,” he said, clicking a pen and writing notes on a scrap of paper. “I’ll take care of that. Wednesday practice is back on!”

  The next day, Lunchbox and I were the first in the industrial tech room. We’d discussed it in the bathroom that morning, and we’d decided we wanted to have the robot ready to show off when everyone got there.

  We were just placing him on the correct starting marks when the team began to stream in.

  Mikayla took two steps into the room, gasped and dropped her backpack on the ground, and rushed to the table. “What happened to Rosie?” she asked, holding both hands over her heart.

  “It’s not Rosie anymore,” I said. “We rearranged things.”

  “You can’t do that,” she said. “I put all those jewels on myself.”

  “But you also quit the team,” I said. “And we were the only ones making the decisions, and we decided that the robot was now . . .” I searched my brain, because we actually hadn’t discussed robot names at all. I glanced at Lunchbox, who raised his eyebrows at me expectantly. “Tim!” I said. “His name is Tim.”

  Mikayla looked stricken. “You changed our robot to a boy? I’m not sure if I want to be on this team anymore.”

  “Maybe this will change your mind,” I said. I gestured for Lunchbox to push the button. He reached down and the robot sprang to life, efficiently heading down to the treasure chest and flipping up its lid. It came back to the start square and waited like an obedient dog. I patted what I’d come to think of as its head. Lunchbox had been working on speeding up the robot and making it come home. This was our first run with his changes, and I was glad they worked.

  “Whoa!” The Jacobs had come in just in time to catch the tail end of the robot’s performance.

  “You got it to do something,” one of them said.

  “Other than attack,” the other Jacob added.

  I nodded proudly. “We’ve been working every night.”

  They oohed appreciatively.

  “Make it do something else,” Mikayla said. “Make it tiptoe. Make it spin on one toe like a ballerina. Oh, that would be so pretty.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly that easy,” I said.

  “I thought you said you could make it do stuff,” she said.

  “Yeah,” a Jacob added. “Make it throw a football.”

  “It can’t even pick up a football,” I said. “It doesn’t have hands. And throw it where?”

  “I’m open!” the other Jacob yelled, running through the room with his hands in catch formation.

  “I’m not going to . . . stop . . . hold on . . . you guys!” I said as the Jacobs began calling plays to each other, and Mikayla ramped up her whining about making the robot dance.

  Stuart sauntered in. “What’s going on in here?” he asked, but I couldn’t answer because it had gotten so loud. Everyone was talking over one another, Jacob and Jacob running into worktables, Mikayla getting a full-blown wail going. This was a disaster.

  And then suddenly a noise boomed through all the other noises.

  “Watch!”

  Only it sounded like:

  (with computer circuits frying and roofs caving in and stuff).

  Everyone stopped where they were and turned toward Lunchbox.

  “Just. Watch,” he said in a much softer voice.

  He pushed a few more buttons and the robot eased down the table. It motored over to the yellow ball task, turned, and hooked the wheel to spin it. The ball landed perfectly in place. The robot then backed up, turned, and headed for the
square with the sign in it. It barreled forward, pushed the lever with its claws, and backed out. The sign was up. The robot came back to the start square and did what looked like a little dance. I had no idea Lunchbox had programmed it to do that.

  “Wow,” Stuart said. “That is awesome. Can you show me how to do it?”

  Lunchbox nodded and Stuart went with him to the computer. The Jacobs followed, and soon they were all leaning over the desk, pointing and clicking and flipping through the manual that Mr. Terry had brought in.

  “What about me?” Mikayla asked, pouty.

  “Well, the thing is, we’ll have a booth. And it needs to be decorated so it’ll stand out to the judges. Maybe some posters with unique art?”

  Mikayla grinned as she slipped off her shoes.

  And just like that, we became a team.

  A real team that planned to win.

  CHAPTER 25

  PROGRAM NAME: The Aw Confusion

  STEP ONE: Robot prances in front of grandrobots

  STEP TWO: Grandrobots think the end of the world is coming

  STEP THREE: Grandrobots crowd robot right when he is about to make a move

  Because we were only two weeks away from the tournament, I’d started bringing the robot home with me in the evenings to protect it. You know, from robbers, saboteurs, roving pirates, bored ninjas, out-of-control industrial tech projects, Missy the Cruel. I realized I might have been going overboard a little, but Missy the Cruel could be pretty sneaky and underhanded when she wanted to be. So could pirates.

  Also, I just liked looking at it. Its final form was a rectangular shape, with shorter pincers tucked inside longer ones like sideways teeth. We’d secured the wires tight against its sides, and put two color sensors on the front that gave the impression of large, glassy eyes. The hook on the back rotated. The whole thing was a solid sleek gray perched on tank-like tires. It reminded me of the kind of robots NASA was always sending up into space.

  I’d started to think of the robot as somewhat human, and found myself talking to it as I carried it with me from room to room. I even let it sit in the Ultimate Gaming Zone while I sat cross-legged on the floor next to it.