Revenge of the EngiNerds

by Jarrett Lerner

  Ugh.

  The thought of me being even slightly Stan-like turns my stomach.

  I shove the whole distressing mess of thoughts out of my head for the time being, and refocus on the problem at hand. And finally, after talking through another handful of horrible ideas, Edsley and I come up with a plan that, with a little luck, just might work.

  By the time we hammer out all the details, it’s nearly seven o’clock.

  Edsley calls his parents to make sure it’s okay he sleeps over, then we eat a quick dinner and get right back to work.

  First we slip into my dad’s closet and borrow an ugly plaid suit jacket that I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him wear.

  Then we climb up to the attic, where we dig through a box of my old Halloween costumes.

  Fifteen minutes later, we climb back down with a bowler hat, a fake mustache, a pair of lensless glasses, and a tall, crooked wizard’s staff.

  Done gathering what I need for my disguise, Edsley and I sit down at the computer.

  It takes us the rest of the night, but when I eventually hit the print button, I’m satisfied with what we’ve got:

  TODAY ONLY!!!

  THE WORLD FAMOUS

  CAN’T MISS

  MUST-ATTEND

  TOTALLY AWESOME

  EPICALLY EXCELLENT

  FESTIVAL OF COMESTIBLES!!!

  FEATURING:

  BOATLOADS OF BEEF

  HEAPS OF HAM

  STACKS OF SAUSAGE

  IMPOSSIBLE QUANTITIES OF PORK

  TOO MUCH TUNA

  AND

  DEFINITELY NO RADISHES!

  TODAY! 10:00 AM! FELDMAN’S FIELD!

  ROBOTS WELCOME!

  BE THERE OR BE HUNGRY!

  I based the fake festival’s food offerings on what had SQUELCHed into being in the snowbank behind Things & Stuff. And it was Edsley who suggested the made-up event should be held at Feldman’s Field. The place is old and overgrown. No one goes there anymore to play kickball or run around. We’ll have it all to ourselves.

  Which is just how I want it when we finally make Mr. How Is That for Appreciation go SQUAH-POOM!

  55.

  THAT NIGHT, FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE no farting robots or talking clouds waiting for me in my dreams.

  Unfortunately, that’s mostly because I barely sleep a wink, and don’t even really get a chance to have a dream.

  Why?

  I’m nervous, for one thing.

  All right—I’m scared.

  Scared that our plan isn’t going to work.

  Scared that it’s only going to further antagonize Klaus—and maybe antagonize him so much that he decides to rampage around town, butt-blasting the place to bits.

  But the other, bigger reason I don’t get much sleep?

  Edsley.

  He spends half the night snoring like a brontosaurus with a severe sinus infection.

  The other half of the night he spends talking in his sleep, giving me a bizarre and frankly pretty uncomfortable peek into his dreams.

  “Not the mango!” he says at one point.

  Then, later:

  “Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Fuzzy Rump!”

  And not too long after that:

  “Pony, pony, pony, pony, pony, pony, pony!”

  This last outburst is loud enough to wake up my dad. He pokes his head into my bedroom, all bleary-eyed, to make sure everything is okay.

  I tell him yes, and he leaves, and then I smack Mike in the face with a pillow.

  This stops him from shouting out random gibberish—but then he just goes right back to snoring.

  By that point, the sun’s already coming up, and I figure I might as well just start my day.

  I get out of bed and head down to the kitchen, where Edsley’s snores aren’t quite as thunderous as a brontosaurus’s—I’d say they’re more like a stegosaurus’s.

  It’s Saturday, and I usually spend Saturday mornings visiting my grandpa.

  I can’t today, obviously. I’ve got a date with a robot.

  So I call up Grandpa K. to let him know.

  One thing you should probably know about my grandpa: He doesn’t talk. Not how people normally talk, at least. He doesn’t use words. But I understand him all the same. Even over the phone, as long as I’m listening closely, everything he’s trying to tell me comes through loud and clear.

  The old man picks up after just one ring.

  “Grandpa?” I say. “It’s Ken. I just wanted to let you know that I can’t come over today with Dad. I’m, ah . . . busy.”

  On the other end of the line, Grandpa clucks his tongue.

  “I know,” I say. “Maybe I can come by tomorrow. Or during the week.”

  Grandpa sucks his teeth, then gives a little whistle.

  “Things?” I say. “Things are . . . good.”

  I hear a series of soft clicks. I know what it is—Grandpa passing a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. The clicks are the thin stick of wood tapping against the tops and bottoms of his teeth.

  After listening for a moment, I blow the air out of my cheeks.

  “Okay,” I say. “Maybe things aren’t good. I guess you could say they’re . . . weird.”

  Grandpa clucks his tongue again, then sniffs.

  I try to think of a way to say what I have to say that doesn’t make me sound like a totally terrible person.

  “I was wrong about someone. Maybe even really wrong. Because I was stressed out. And scared. And confused. And—and stubborn. And I guess, because of all that, I . . . well, I was kind of a jerk.”

  It feels surprisingly good to say it out loud.

  “Or not kind of,” I clarify. “I was definitely a jerk.”

  That feels even better.

  Grandpa gives me another sniff. Then I hear the click-clickety-click of his toothpick. Finally, he grunts.

  “I know,” I tell him. “You’re right. I have to apologize. And then I have to prove that I’m not actually a stubborn jerk.”

  Grandpa takes a deep, contented breath.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m gonna do exactly that. First I’ve just got to keep something from biting me and my friends in the backside.”

  56.

  I GET OFF THE PHONE with Grandpa and head back upstairs.

  Edsley’s still asleep.

  I let him snore while I get on my disguise.

  All dressed in my hat, glasses, and suit jacket, the fake mustache firmly pressed to the flesh above my lip, I nudge Edsley awake with the butt of my wizard’s staff.

  “Pony!” he shouts, his eyes suddenly as big as dinner plates.

  He stares at me.

  Blinks.

  Shakes his head.

  “How do I look?” I ask him.

  He yawns as he gives me a once-over.

  “You look,” he says, “like a really short wizard who’s trying to pass himself off as a guy from the nineteenth century.”

  I open my mouth.

  “Or no,” Edsley says before I can get a word out. “You look like a really short guy from the nineteenth century who fell and hit his head and so now he thinks he’s a wizard.”

  I sigh.

  “No wait. You look like—”

  “Mike,” I interrupt. “All that matters is that Klaus doesn’t recognize me from yesterday.”

  “Well,” Edsley says, looking me over again, “as long as he doesn’t know any really short wizards from the nineteenth century who have absolutely zero fashion sense, I don’t think he’ll recognize you at all.”

  I grab the Festival of Comestibles flier and tell Edsley to meet me downstairs.

  There, I fill up my backpack with as much portable liquid as I can find:

  Six bottles of water.

  A couple of juice boxes.

  Two cans of ginger ale.

  And a quarter-carton of milk.

  Edsley steps into the kitchen just as I’m rearranging things in the bag to fit the milk.

  “Wh
at about all this stuff?” he says, setting a hand on one of the shelves of the refrigerator door.

  There’s a jar of apple sauce.

  A jar of strawberry jam.

  A squeeze bottle of ketchup.

  A squeeze bottle of mustard.

  And a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup.

  I add it all to my backpack, just in case.

  Then I hand the bag to Edsley.

  He slings it over his shoulder and heads for the door.

  But I hang back and take a good long look at my kitchen. Hopefully, I think, it’s not the last time I see it.

  57.

  ON OUR WAY TO THINGS & Stuff, my mustache falls off four times.

  This does nothing to help my stress levels, which are already sky-high.

  Just outside the store, the mustache falls off again.

  This time, Edsley picks it up for me. And then, before I can ask him what in the heck he thinks he’s doing, he drags the back of the ’stache over his tongue and slaps it onto my face.

  “That should do it,” he says.

  I gag like I do at the dentist when they jam those sharp little X-ray pads down your throat. And it’s a good thing I skipped breakfast, otherwise it’d probably be making a reappearance right about now.

  Doing my best to ignore the fact that Edsley basically just licked my face, I turn to Things & Stuff.

  The snow that was heaped in front of the store the day before is already nearly gone. The mid-May sun made quick work of melting it.

  I take a deep breath—and Edsley claps me on the back, knocking the air back out of me.

  “Go get ’em, you weird-lookin’ wizard,” he says.

  58.

  “WEL-COME TO THINGS AND STUFF. How may I HA . . . HA . . . HELP youuu?”

  Klaus is at the back of the store, a feather duster pinched in one claw and a wet cloth dangling from the other.

  I waggle my wizard’s staff in greeting, then lower my head and mutter something about how I’m just browsing.

  But the bot seems even more excited than he was the day before about having a real live customer in the store. He abandons his cleaning equipment and makes his way over, bringing a little cloud of dust along with him. The tiny particles crowd my face, making my eyes itch and my nose tickle.

  “You ARE an in-TER-est-ing LOOK-ing cus-TOM-er,” Klaus says, now so close to me that, if robots had breath, I’d be able to smell his. “You ARE my SEC-ond cus-TOM-er. My FIRST cus-TOM-er turned OUT to be a NIN-com-poop.”

  A nincompoop? Really?

  Making my voice as gruff as possible, I say, “Oh, well, I’m sure he was a fine person.”

  “NO,” Klaus says. “TOE-tal NIN-com-poop.”

  A part of me wants to continue to defend myself. But a larger part of me just wants to hurry up and get out of there.

  So I dig a hand into the pocket of my dad’s suit jacket, which is where I stashed the Festival of Comestibles flier. I pull it out—and then let it slip through my fingers and fall to the floor.

  “HERE,” says Klaus, spotting the piece of paper. “All-OW me to GET that for youuu.”

  The bot bends over, shifting the dust that’s still hanging around us so that another puff of the stuff hits my nose. I try to twitch the tickle out of it while I watch Klaus spear the flier on a claw. Standing back up, he holds it out to me—but then, before I can even reach for it, he tugs it back.

  His eyes lock on the text, and then begin to flicker.

  “BOAT-loads of beeef  ?” he says.

  “Oh yes,” I tell him in my gruff voice. “The Festival of Comestibles. Today only. Starts very soon.”

  The little light bulb on top of Klaus’s head is burning so brightly, I’m afraid the thing’s going to burst.

  “Ro-bots are WEL-come?” he asks.

  “Of course,” I say. “You just have to be at Feldman’s Field at ten o’clock.”

  “Feld-man’s FIELD,” Klaus states. “Al-so KNOWN as lo-CAY-shun one-NINE-four-NINE-two-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-six-NINE.”

  I nod, dipping my nose right back into the dust.

  “That sounds—ahh-CHOO!”

  I sneeze hard enough to knock my mustache loose.

  It flies toward the floor and hits it with a soft wet slap.

  With my heart suddenly hammering hard enough to crack right through my ribs, I clap a hand over my mouth and wait for the worst to happen—for Klaus to identify me as the “nincompoop” from the day before, and for him to then turn around and hit me with a turd-missile at close range.

  But several, fart-less seconds tick by.

  I look up—and see that Klaus hasn’t even taken his flickering eyes off the flier.

  Quickly, I shove the ’stache under the nearest shelf with the end of my wizard’s staff. Then I say, “See you there!” and head for the door.

  I don’t stick around to find out if Klaus replies.

  I’m gone—outside to collect Edsley, and then on to Feldman’s Field, where we’ll wait and hope.

  Hope that the robot really does show up.

  And hope that we’ve got what it takes to handle him.

  59.

  IT TAKES FIFTEEN MINUTES TO walk from Things & Stuff to Feldman’s Field.

  Edsley and I make it in ten.

  I chalk my own speed-walking up to nervousness.

  And though Edsley keeps having to break into a jog to keep up with me, I can tell he’s nervous too.

  The whole walk, he doesn’t say a single word.

  He also doesn’t sneak into the backpack to have some of the ginger ale or chocolate syrup we brought with us.

  And when we pass by Cheese Louise’s, he doesn’t tip his head back and get a whiff of the cheese and grease. He doesn’t even glance at the inviting pictures of crispy fries and gooey, pepperoni-packed slices plastered to the pizza shop’s windows.

  It turns out we’re right to be nervous.

  Because before we even step out onto Feldman’s Field, something goes wrong.

  The field—the old, overgrown patch of grass that no one ever goes to anymore—isn’t empty.

  There are a bunch of kids on it, all standing in a cluster just past a set of old rusty bleachers.

  I head their way, already wondering how in the world I’m going to chase them off in the next sixty seconds.

  But these thoughts dissolve as soon as I get a little closer.

  The first one of the kids I recognize is Max.

  And then Amir.

  Then Simon.

  Alan.

  Jerry.

  Chris.

  Rob.

  John Henry Knox.

  Dan.

  It’s all of them—every single one of the other EngiNerds.

  Plus, of course, Mikaela.

  60.

  WHAT ARE ALL THE GUYS—AND Mikaela—doing here?

  Could they have somehow heard about the Festival of Comestibles?

  Did Edsley tell them?

  “Mike?”

  It’s Dan.

  He eyes Edsley, then turns to me, still carrying the wizard’s staff and wearing a bowler hat, some lensless glasses, and my dad’s ugly plaid suit jacket.

  “Ken?” he says, squinting to make sure. “What’s going on?”

  Before I can turn the question around on him, his eyes go wide.

  Then everyone else’s do too.

  They’re all focused on something over my shoulder.

  And even before I hear him, I know he’s arrived.

  “Where is THE beeeef     ?”

  61.

  KLAUS IS PEERING AROUND AT the sun-bleached weeds and torn plastic bags and deflated soccer balls littering Feldman’s Field, his neck making little clicking noises as his head swivels.

  His eyes flash red.

  The light bulb on his head burns brightly enough to be seen from outer space.

  Finally, the bot’s gaze settles on me.

  “SEC-ond cus-TOM-er,” he says. “
I have ar-RIVED at lo-CAY-shun one-NINE-four-NINE-two-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-NINE-six-NINE. The FES-ti-VAL of Com-EST-ib-ulls is to BE-gin in ONE min-UTE and four-TEEN SEC-onds. Now in ONE min-UTE and TWELVE SEC-onds. I ASK youuu: Where is THE—”

  Before the bot can finish this question, another one occurs to him:

  “Where IS your MUS-tache?”

  He takes a step closer to me. His eyes pulse in a new pattern.

  “You ARE not SEC-ond cus-TOM-er,” he says. “You ARE FIRST cus-TOM-er. You ARE NIN-com-poop.”

  Click-click-click.

  Klaus turns his head like he’s looking for something.

  Or someone.

  His gaze lands on Edsley.

  “MICH-ael,” he says. “I SHOULD have knooown.”

  Click-click-click—the bot’s eyes refocus on me.

  “There IS no FES-ti-VAL of Com-EST-ib-ulls. There IS no beeeef.”

  Klaus points one razor-sharp claw at me.

  The other he aims at Edsley.

  “CROSS me once,” he says, “shame ON youuu. CROSS me twice . . .” The bot does an about-face and pokes his butt in my direction. “. . . I FART ON YOUUU.”

  62.

  I STAND THERE AND WATCH the small panel in the upside-down trapezoid that is the robot’s pelvis slide aside.

  Of course I know what’s coming next.

  And I know that I need to get out of there—fast.

  But I can’t get myself to move.

  Because it wasn’t supposed to go like this.

  Edsley and I were supposed to have time to set up before Klaus arrived.

  The rest of the EngiNerds weren’t supposed to be here.

  And Mikaela wasn’t either.

  But thank God she is.

  Because before the bot can send a food-cube speeding my way, Mikaela charges forward.

  She snatches the wizard’s staff out of my hand and, winding up as she races toward the bot, swings the thing into the guy’s back.

  Ka-CLA-yAng-ang-ang-ang!

  Klaus tips forward, stiff as a tree trunk, and face-plants onto the ground with a satisfying THUD.

  And then: