Fuzzy

by Tom Angleberger

  “No, thanks,” muttered Biggs.

  “Discipline tags assigned to J. Biggs . . .”

  Fuzzy detected an expression he would have called, from his studies of human expressions, a smirk on Max’s face. Until the Barbara avatar kept going.

  “. . . M. Zelaster, and F. Robot.”

  “But we didn’t . . . ,” Max started to say, when a bell rang.

  Max looked around. “Oh no! We’re the only ones still in the hall.”

  “Tardiness tags assigned to J. Biggs, M. Zelaster, and F. Robot,” continued Barbara. “Thirty seconds until violation is upgraded.”

  “But—” said Max and Biggs at the same time.

  “Maybe you’d better go on to class,” said Nina. “I didn’t mean for you to get into trouble. I’ll talk to your principal about it.”

  They walked down the hall in silence. Biggs was mad at Barbara. Max was mad at Barbara and Biggs. And Fuzzy was trying not to fall over.

  2.6

  SCIENCE CLASS

  They got to the door and it slid open, interrupting Ms. French, who had already started the UpGrade test review.

  “I see you got to meet the new robot,” Ms. French said.

  “Yes, this is Fuzzy. Fuzzy, this is Ms. French.”

  “Hello, Ms. French,” said Fuzzy.

  Max was pleased to see that he didn’t try to shake her hand or call her an object. He must have turned the face recognition back on. He was already learning how to be social.

  “Well, um, hello, Fuzzy.” Max could see that Ms. French, who was only about fifteen years older than her students, appeared to be stressed. Friendly but stressed. That was her usual look, actually.

  “I wish there was time for the whole class to find out more about you, but I’m about to launch the review program for tomorrow’s test. Do you need to sit down?”

  “Do you wish me to sit down?”

  “Yes, at that desk, please.”

  Ms. French waited until Fuzzy sat himself in a vacant aisle combo-desk and then gave a single hand clap, her signal for silence. “All right, class,” she said. “If you’ll turn back to your qScreens. Ralph, please read the question.”

  “List all planets, including the largest dwarf planets, in order of distance from the sun,” Ralph said smugly, probably sure he could get this answer right.

  “And can you name the planets, Ralph?” Ms. French asked.

  “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, dwarf planet Pluto—”

  “That is not correct, Ralph,” said Fuzzy.

  Uh-oh, thought Max, Fuzzy still has a lot to learn.

  “Fuzzy!” she hissed. “You’re not the teacher! Just sit there!”

  “It’s OK, Max,” said Ms. French. “Fuzzy, I’m pretty sure I heard Ralph list the planets in the right order.”

  “At the moment, Pluto’s orbit has brought it closer to the sun than Neptune,” said Fuzzy.

  “Do we need to know this for the test?” asked Krysti, whose mission in life was to never learn anything that wasn’t going to be on a test.

  “Well. That’s very interesting, Fuzzy,” broke in Ms. French. “I’m sure we will all be very interested to learn about this when we aren’t preparing for the test.”

  “So we don’t have to know it for the test?” asked Krysti.

  “No, you don’t,” said Ms. French. “In fact, it’ll be best if you forget it. The only answer that’s going to count on tomorrow’s UpGrade is the one Ralph gave. I’m sorry, Fuzzy.”

  “But shouldn’t we learn the right answer?” asked Max.

  “Maybe later,” said Ms. French, and she turned toward a boy on the other side of the room. “Noa, perhaps you could read the next question for us.”

  “But it’s silly to learn the wrong answer,” insisted Max.

  “Please, Max, can we discuss this later? We need to get through the rest of the review. Go ahead, Noa.”

  Max and Fuzzy sat silently for the rest of the class. Max scowled, but Fuzzy was expressionless. Max wondered what he was thinking. Then she realized she hadn’t been paying attention to the review and groaned. She’d have to study extra-hard tonight.

  2.6.5

  Meanwhile, Barbara—who had camera eyes in every classroom—had just given both Max and Fuzzy another discipline tag for distracting from the learning environment and had lowered Max’s school citizen score several points for questioning the importance of UpGrading.

  3.1

  HISTORY CLASS

  “Don’t worry, Fuzzy,” said Max as they walked down the hall. “Mr. Xu’s class is gonna go much better.”

  “Yeah,” said Simeon, who had joined a group following Max and Fuzzy down the hall. “Xu’s really cool. He’s going to think having a robot for a student is totally awesome!”

  Max groaned. Simeon was another one of the old-fashioned slang users like Krysti. Plus, she was annoyed that Simeon was even there at all.

  Max knew she should be glad that some of the other kids liked Fuzzy, too—after all, that was the whole point of a Robot Integration Program. But she couldn’t help being a little irritated that they were all hanging around now. She’d hardly had a chance to talk to Fuzzy herself. And she had so many questions.

  But this wasn’t a great time to talk anyway, since Mr. Xu’s class was in Hallway D and there was barely enough time to get there before the chime rang and Barbara started giving out discipline tags.

  Mr. Xu was, in fact, very excited to meet Fuzzy.

  “I’m sure everyone is as curious as I am. Would you mind answering some questions, Fuzzy?” he asked once the class was settled.

  “No, I would not mind,” said Fuzzy.

  Lots of kids put their hands up, but Mr. Xu said he wanted to ask the first question. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “My current software, Fuzzy.9, was turned on twenty-two days ago. However, I am aware of my previous actions and training since my central processors were brought online four hundred and eighty-three days ago.”

  “Let’s see,” said Mr. Xu. “Divide 483 by 365 and . . . So, you’re about a year and a half old!”

  “Correct,” said Fuzzy.

  “Fascinating,” said Mr. Xu. “OK, who’s got the next question?” Hands went up. “Simeon, go ahead.”

  “Do you use batteries or what?” asked Simeon.

  “Yes. In fact, forty-five percent of my weight is batteries, stored here in my abdomen, pelvis, and thighs.” Fuzzy pointed to his rear end and did not seem to mind everyone laughing at him.

  “How long do they last?” asked Krysti.

  So much for her not caring about robots, thought Max with a smile.

  “An average of 55.3 hours,” he said. “If I were, say, in a desert or on some other planet, I would have solar panels sent along with me to extend the time between recharges at a base station.”

  Biggs was in this class, too, and Max was completely unsurprised to hear him ask the dumbest question of all time: “Do you use the bathroom?”

  Apparently Mr. Xu thought this was a dumb question, too, because he was just about to fuss at Biggs about it. But then they were all surprised when Fuzzy answered. “Yes. I have a coolant system to control the temperature of my processors. This creates condensation, or tiny water droplets, which collect in a short tube and must be emptied from time to time. A bathroom would be a convenient place for me to do so.”

  The few titters of laughter stopped when Mr. Xu tapped lightly on his desk.

  “Can you send a text message?” asked Jenny, a girl who was usually too full of herself to take an interest in anything else.

  “Yes,” said Fuzzy.

  “Will you send me one?” Jenny asked.

  Fuzzy just sat there, and Max knew that somebody was going to start making fun of him in about half a second, when Jenny held up her qFlex bracelet. A text message was scrolling around the surface.

  “Wow! How did you know my number?”

  “I saw your name on your notebook.”<
br />
  Everyone looked and saw that it said Jenny Turling in tiny letters at the top of her notebook.

  Fuzzy’s eyes must be able to zoom in on stuff just like a camera, Max realized. Then she thought, Duh, they are cameras!

  “And then,” continued Fuzzy, “I accessed the databases of the major cell phone companies and found fifty-seven Jenny Turlings. But there is only one in this area.”

  “But aren’t those databases private?” asked Max.

  “Well, there is a primitive sort of password protection,” replied Fuzzy, “but I decrypted it with—”

  Suddenly, one of the big wall screens lit up with Vice Principal Barbara’s virtual face.

  “Unauthorized use of text-messaging device. One discipline tag to F. Robot. One discipline tag to J. Turling.”

  Jenny let out an indignant squawk and turned to Mr. Xu.

  Mr. Xu gave her a little nod.

  “Vice Principal Barbara, I think we can override those tags. The text message was part of a classroom demonstration,” he said.

  “There are no records that you made a request to violate school guidelines for such a demonstration,” Barbara’s grating voice replied.

  “Well, it just came up. Now, Vice Principal Barbara, if—”

  “I will make a note that allowing students to send text messages is one of your teaching methods. I am unaware of how it can be helpful in studying the history of colonial America, the subject of your upcoming UpGrade test. This information will be reflected in your Constant UpGrade teacher score.” Her screen flicked off.

  Mr. Xu looked like he was burning with a desire to throw something heavy at Vice Principal Barbara’s screen. But he no doubt knew from past experience that Barbara was still watching and, in fact, recording whatever he did next, ready to further reduce his #CUG score if he showed any reaction at all.

  So, he took a deep breath. “Fuzzy, I’d like to thank you for answering our questions. I’m sure it will be a valuable experience for all of us to have you in our class. However, now I think it would be best for us to return to today’s Constant UpGrade study schedule: Agricultural Methods of the 1700s.”

  3.2

  CAFETERIA

  As they made their way from history class to the cafeteria, Fuzzy walked steadily, with no trace of his troubles from the day before. He seemed just like any other kid. Krysti, in fact, seemed to have accepted him as just one of the gang and was chattering away as usual.

  “Did you see Mr. Xu’s face?” she asked. “He was buggin’ big-time.”

  “Buggin’ . . . big . . . time . . . ?” said Biggs. “Fuzzy here probably thinks you’re speaking Norwegian or something.”

  “Actually,” said Fuzzy. “I understand both the Norwegian language and the slang terms that Krysti is using. “‘Buggin’ big-time’ is a combination of two popular colloquial phrases from the late twentieth century: ‘bugging’ meaning to lose control of one’s emotions and ‘big-time’ meaning ‘very much so.’”

  “Whoa! Thanks, Fuzz!” said Krysti, and she threw her arm around him like they were best friends. “You’re cooler than you look! Speaking of which, I think I’m going to draw your picture during lunch.”

  “You should have him fighting a monster like a movie robot,” suggested Biggs.

  “Fuzzy versus Godzilla!” yelled Simeon.

  Max was annoyed.

  She hoped that once they sat down for lunch she’d finally have a chance to really talk to Fuzzy. But almost as soon as they walked into the cafeteria, he started slowing down. Max guided him over to their table, and then he just sort of sat there. He wouldn’t answer anyone’s questions, and he hardly moved.

  “I bet his batteries ran down,” said Biggs.

  “No way, bro. They last for 55.3 hours without recharging,” said Simeon with that know-it-all tone of his that really drove Max nuts.

  “Fuzzy, I wanted you to pose, dude,” said Krysti, holding up her sketchbook.

  But Fuzzy still just sat there.

  Then Dr. Jones and a couple of technicians with a motorized cart showed up.

  Max panicked. What had she done wrong?

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Jones! I don’t know what happened.”

  “It’s not your fault, Max,” said Jones. “I should have anticipated this. I just forgot how crazy school cafeterias are.”

  “‘Crazy’?” said Krysti. “It’s totally boring.”

  “It may be boring to you,” said Dr. Jones, “but I can barely hear myself think in here. There must be two hundred kids talking at once. In fact, look at this . . .”

  He held out a book-size qScreen showing hundreds of lines of computer code on its LCD screen.

  “Make that two hundred and fifty-seven,” said Jones.

  The code looked like gibberish to most of the kids, but now Max knew what to look for.

  SpeechRecog(stream(254))

  SpeechRecog(stream(255))

  SpeechRecog(stream(256))

  SpeechRecog(stream(257))

  “Smoke!” she said. “He was trying to understand everything everybody in the whole cafeteria was saying at the same time.”

  “We’ll take him back to the room for a reboot for now,” said Jones. “And then we’ll either have to turn off his voice recognition when he comes in here or figure out some way for him to listen to just one person at a time.”

  The technicians loaded Fuzzy onto the cart and wheeled him away.

  Dr. Jones stayed long enough to say to Max, “You gonna help us again tomorrow?”

  “You mean, I can? I thought you’d be mad that I let him freeze up again!”

  “No, no,” assured Jones. “You did a great job with him, Max. And we could definitely use your help again tomorrow . . .”

  “You got it!”

  3.3

  ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ

  The next day went a lot smoother.

  Fuzzy went to all of Max’s morning classes and then turned his voice recognition subroutines off as they walked into the cafeteria. Max and the other kids were able to write notes to him on their qFlex bracelets, and then he could read their questions and answer normally.

  Of course, it’s hard to call any answer “normal” when the question—from Simeon, of course—was: “Could you kill Godzilla?”

  After lunch, Max had gym. She wasn’t sure what to do about Fuzzy. She knew she couldn’t bring him into the girl’s locker room. But then she wondered why not. He wasn’t really a boy or a girl, just a robot. Then she thought about Fuzzy seeing her dressing for gym and knew that absolutely no way could he go in there.

  She stopped before turning down the hall to the gym.

  “Uh, Fuzzy, you better ask Dr. Jones what to do about gym class. I can’t take you with me into the locker room.”

  “Why not, Max? Are you afraid I’ll see you in your underwear?”

  Max turned bright red and her ears turned even redder. How could he know about underwear? Could he have been making a joke?

  Before she could think of anything to say, Fuzzy had sent a text message to Dr. Jones and gotten one back.

  Fuzzy wasn’t allowed in gym class for safety reasons. Dr. Jones wanted Max to drop Fuzzy off at the tech room.

  Max looked at the time on her qFlex. Great. She would really have to hustle to drop off Fuzzy and get back to the gym on time. But she couldn’t just ditch him.

  “C’mon, Fuzz, we’ve got to hurry.”

  She sped up and started weaving past clumps of slow-moving kids in the hallway. Fuzzy kept up with no problem. He was apparently learning that you didn’t have to watch every kid, just the clumps.

  When they got to the tech room, she was ready to say good-bye to Fuzzy and hightail it to gym. But Dr. Jones and Nina wanted to talk.

  “We are really impressed with the progress Fuzzy has been making,” said Nina.

  “Do you know he has written eighty thousand lines of new code today?” asked Jones.

  “That’s good, right?” asked Max, anxious t
o get out of there.

  “Yes, that’s what he’s here for,” said Dr. Jones. “Unfortunately, we just learned today that his launch date—that is, the time when we need him to be fully activated—has been moved up. We won’t have as much time as we had hoped. So we need to do everything we can to keep him learning.”

  “How would you feel about spending some time with Fuzzy after school?” asked Nina.

  “Uh, you mean like a study hall?”

  “No, we mean away from school,” Nina said.

  “You don’t mean like a date?” gasped Max. She thought about how Krysti and, of course, Biggs, were already teasing her about her robot boyfriend.

  “Well, no, nothing like a date,” said Dr. Jones. “But how about taking him home for dinner? He can ride the bus with you.”

  “Ride the bus? But what if—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Nina. “We’ll follow along, of course, with a couple of security units. But we want him to have as many typical kid experiences as possible. When you get to your house, we’ll wait outside in case there are any problems. You’ll have a chance to talk more and help him figure out this whole school thing. Then we’ll bring him back here.”

  “Uh . . . I guess,” Max said. “Listen, I’ve really got to go now. I’ll be back after gym class.”

  She bolted from the room, but had barely started down the hall when the chime rang. And then came a voice she had heard way too much lately:

  “Late for class. One discipline tag to M. Zelaster.”

  4.1

  MAX’S HOUSE

  “You might at least have messaged first,” said Max’s father. “I’d have ordered pizza or something . . .”

  “Dad, don’t worry about it. Fuzzy doesn’t eat,” Max said.

  “Oh. That’s right. Of course not.” Don Zelaster smacked his forehead in a Duh! gesture. “But still . . .” He looked to where Fuzzy was scanning a bookshelf in the next room, apparently out of earshot. Max wondered if Fuzzy knew what a book was. Old-fashioned books were one of her mother’s affectations.

  “It may not sit too well with your mom, you know,” her dad said in a lower voice. “I think she made her feelings about robot students pretty clear the other day. And now you’ve actually brought the thing home . . .”