I wasn’t paying attention as I plowed into the bathroom and almost bumped headfirst right into Lunchbox Jones. The bell rang at that very moment, which made me jump about a foot and maybe even scream a little.
Lunchbox was hovered over the bathroom sink. His face was dripping and his hair was wet around the edges. He’d taken off his camouflage jacket and hung it over the radiator, and—weirdest of all—his lunchbox was perched on top of it.
He froze, bent over the sink, staring at me in the mirror. His eyes went wide. I froze, one foot still raised like I was going to take a step. My eyes went wider.
Suddenly he grabbed his lunchbox and clutched it to his chest, like he was afraid I was going to steal it. He snarled, showing all his teeth. I hopped three steps backward, bumping into the door.
“What are you looking at?” he growled. Only it sounded like:
(with lion roars echoing off the bathroom walls and antelopes being chased out of bushes and stuff).
I opened my mouth and tried to assure him that I wasn’t actually looking at anything, even though I was totally looking at him. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? He wasn’t wearing his jacket. He was washing his face in the sink. He wasn’t holding his lunchbox . . . and then he was holding it like it was a baby. I wasn’t the smartest guy at Forest Shade Middle School, but even I understood that something weird was going on here.
But nothing would come out of my mouth. Still, the only appropriate answer that anyone should ever give Lunchbox Jones when he asks what you’re looking at should be “nothing,” and if you can’t say the word “nothing,” just do what I did.
I shook my head so hard my ears rang.
And then I turned and tried to push my way through the pull door. And I may have walked directly into the door a few times before my brain fired off the right door-opening protocol, which, in this case, meant I had to talk my feet into moving backward toward Lunchbox a few steps so I could pull the door open.
Once I finally got it right, I lunged out into the hallway and ran all the way to the gym, across the gym floor and to my locker. I was moving so fast, I actually got there before the tardy bell rang.
I pressed my back to the cool locker and bent over, my hands on my knees, sucking in breath. I closed my eyes and watched little lights dance in front of my eyelids. One thing was for sure—I was wide awake now. So much adrenaline coursed through me I might never sleep again.
I was still dressing when everyone else filed out to our squad lines.
Which gave me time to calm down, and once I was calm, I started to think.
What was Lunchbox doing in the restroom, anyway? Why was he washing up at school first thing in the morning? And, more importantly, what was in that lunchbox that was so important?
CHAPTER 12
PROGRAM NAME: Corned Beef Hash
STEP ONE: Robot innocently rolls into kitchen area
STEP TWO: Robot smells something awful
STEP THREE: Robot tips over on side and plays dead
The maws and paws were already at my house by the time Dad and I got home. According to Dad, they’d been there since mid afternoon, working on a corned beef hash recipe that the maws couldn’t agree on for anything. They finally agreed to make dual corned beef hash dishes and let the family decide which one tasted the best. A corned beef hash showdown.
I hated corned beef hash. The idea of taste-testing two of them made me want to go back to school and just wait out the weekend.
“So how’s robotics going?” Dad asked on the way home. “You don’t seem to really talk about it.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay,” I said, mostly because I didn’t like to talk about it at all, but also because it seemed really important to Dad that I enjoy robotics, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him I would rather be playing Alien Onslaught with Randy. We’d left the game at the brink of beating level 21 the night before. It killed me that the paws had most definitely already claimed the TV and Randy would beat the level without me. Randy was great at reenacting what had happened while I was gone, complete with mouth-clicky alien noises, but it was never as good as the real thing.
“I never got to tell you how cool I thought the robot looked. You did a great job with it.”
“Walter did it, really,” I said. “Plus, the team rebuilt it after. I didn’t have anything to do with it. But thanks.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Luke. You may not have put the pieces on the robot, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you had nothing to do with it. You’ve got talent you don’t even know about. You’ll see.”
He pulled into the driveway, and the moment we opened the car doors, we could hear the maws bickering from inside the house. Dad sighed. “They get worse every week, don’t they?” he asked.
I nodded and rubbed my cheek absently. He had no idea.
“Sorry, bud, your mom won’t be home for another couple hours. Prepare to be pinched.”
Apparently dads weren’t as dedicated to saving you from overbearing grandma love as moms were. Or at least my dad wasn’t.
The maws met me at the door, each with a spoon in her hand.
“There he is! Try this, Lukey-Wukey, and tell me it isn’t the best hash you’ve ever tasted.” Maw Shirley simultaneously crammed a mouthful of hash into my face and pinched my cheek so hard it nearly mushed the food right back out of my mouth.
“Don’t you listen to her. She used canned corned beef. Canned, can you believe it? Here, try this one. It’s the only hash you’ll ever need to eat for the rest of your life.”
I hope that’s true, I thought as another spoonful of the most awful food ever invented was shoved into my mouth. As I chewed, my other cheek was squeezed within an inch of its life.
They stood in front of me, each holding her empty spoon against her chest, smiling hopefully.
“Mmmm,” I said, nodding. I tried to get around them, but they inched to their left, keeping me trapped.
“Well?” they said together.
“You won’t hurt her feelings. Tell her mine is the best. Canned corned beef, mind you,” Maw Mazie said.
“No, no, you don’t have to lie to protect your old granny there. She understands her hash could never touch mine.”
I wished the hash had never touched me. My stomach gurgled into what I was pretty sure was Emergency Mode.
“Yum, is that corned beef hash I smell?” Rob said, coming into the kitchen. He patted his stomach with both hands, smiling wide at the maws. “When’s it gonna be ready? I’m starved!”
The maws forgot all about me and went back to their pots, the argument starting anew.
“Try mine first. You’ll see she doesn’t know the first thing about corned beef hash,” Maw Shirley said.
“I know enough not to use canned corned beef. Come over here, Robby Wobby. Let me get at those cheeks.”
I could hardly believe it. Rob hated corned beef hash as much as I did. I knew this for a fact. Once we stole the leftovers and threw them down the storm sewer so Mom would quit making us eat them. Had Rob changed so much he now even liked corned beef hash? Traitor!
He followed the maws over to their pots, cheeks out. He eagerly gobbled up spoonfuls of corned beef hash and told them both that hers was the best and said he couldn’t wait for more.
I stared hard at him, looking for a telltale sign that he was lying. But there was none.
Instead, I saved myself, bolting for my bedroom the minute the maws’ backs were turned.
“Hey-hey-hey,” Dad said, grabbing my sleeve before I could get to the stairs. “You need to go in there and say hello to the paws. You missed them last week while you were at Walter’s, remember?”
“Okay,” I said. I dropped my backpack on the bottom step. This would take a while.
The paws were watching bowling.
“Did you see that? I think his toe went over the line! Line foul! Line foul!” Paw Stanley cried, reaching for his imaginary coach’s whistle.
Paw
Morris belly laughed. “Oh-ho! Beautiful spin on that ball! Just beautiful! I could get you a deal on a good bowling ball, you know.”
I came in and flopped in Dad’s recliner. A bowler got a strike, and both paws came up off the couch as if the guy had just scored a Super Bowl–winning touchdown.
“Wow! What a game! What a guy!”
“Did you see that? Did you see it?”
“I saw it! I saw—Hey, look who’s here!”
Both paws crowded around the recliner. “Well, it’s a long-lost stranger. So glad you could join us for a change.”
I smiled and nodded, acted like it was all big fun when what I really wanted to do was go into my bedroom and be alone. Or turn the TV to Alien Onslaught and help save Randy from the blue-faced nose-eating aliens.
“Where were you last Friday night? Have a date?” Paw Stanley asked.
Paw Morris wiggled his bushy eyebrows up and down. “You bet he did. Is she cute? What’s her name?”
“Walter,” I said.
They glanced at each other, confused.
“Walter’s kind of an ugly name for a girl,” Paw Morris said. “I guess she could shorten it, though? Wallina?”
Paw Stanley shook his head. “Wallina isn’t short for Walter. Maybe just Wally?”
“Still sounds pretty masculine,” Paw Morris said.
“Walter isn’t a girl. I wasn’t with a girl,” I said. “I was with my friend, Walter. Who is a boy. He builds cars.”
“And robots,” Dad interjected as he came into the room, wiping his hands on a towel. “It’s hopeless in there,” he said, pointing toward the kitchen with his thumb. “They’re arguing over onion size now.”
“Makes a difference in flavor,” Paw Morris said sagely.
“Luke tell you why he wasn’t here last Friday?” Dad asked. He tucked the towel into his waistband. Dad always had a towel tucked in his waistband. He said it was a habit he started when Rob was a baby and was always barfing on stuff.
“Well,” Paw Stanley said, “so far all we can get out of him is he has a girlfriend named Walter.”
I closed my eyes and held my forehead in my palm. Sometimes it was as if the paws were trying not to get it.
“Oh! Spare!” Paw Morris said, pointing at the TV.
“Walter is his friend. A boy,” Dad said, sounding just like me. “And Luke went over to build a robot for his robotics team. It’s really something. Has grippers and wheels and hooks and wires. Like nothing you’ve seen before.”
“I thought he was playing football,” Paw Stanley said. “I thought we’d settled that.”
“Nope. Luke’s a robotics guy,” Dad said. He tapped his temple. “He understands all this computer gobbledygook us old farts don’t get.”
“Well, I don’t exactly get it, either,” I said, but nobody was really listening to me. The paws were half arguing and half bemoaning a bowler missing a split, and the maws seemed to have ramped up their argument in the kitchen again.
Soon the noise spilled Rob out into the living room. He held his stomach. He looked green. He belched. Three times. On the third time, Dad jumped out of the way and scrambled for the towel on his belt.
“Corned beef hash,” Rob muttered miserably, falling limply into a chair. “Corned beef hash.” He belched again and made a terrible face. His eyes roamed to meet mine, and in that moment I understood. He still hated the stuff. Maybe he hadn’t changed into a totally different person.
We locked eyes. Rob’s seemed to be begging for forgiveness.
“You get used to that hash, soldier,” Paw Morris said. “You’ll be eating a lot worse in the service.” He and Paw Stanley elbowed each other, laughing. Dad joined in, tousling Rob’s hair, and soon Rob was laughing, too.
“After a day in boot camp, I’ll probably be glad to eat anything they’ll give me,” Rob said. “I heard we’ll march for ten hours straight.”
“Is that right?” Paw Morris asked.
Paw Stanley nodded. “But it’ll seem like twenty.”
“They’re gonna wean you off that junk food, make you a muscle man,” Paw Morris added.
Rob flexed his arms and grinned. “I am ready for it, sir!” he growled.
And just like that, I didn’t want to forgive him, no matter how much corned beef hash he ate.
CHAPTER 13
PROGRAM NAME: Mad Bot
STEP ONE: Bot doesn’t feel like being programmed
STEP TWO: Bot crosses arm attachments and refuses to cooperate
STEP THREE: Bot gets angry and goes all tirade crazy
We spent the first twenty minutes of practice staring at a blank computer screen and quietly arguing over who would have to sit down and try to make the first run at programming the robot. Mr. Terry had left to take a phone call, telling us to “get a feel for the program.” So far all we’d felt was certainty that one of us was going to break the computer or the robot or both.
“You do it,” Mikayla said, nudging me forward.
“No way,” I said. “You do it. Can’t you type like a million words a minute with your toes?”
She gave a haughty look. “This isn’t a typing test. And it’s ninety-two, thank you. Eighty-nine if I’m wearing socks.”
I turned to the Jacobs. They stepped back, holding their palms out. “Don’t look at us,” they said in unison.
“We’re only here because our moms wanted us to join a team,” one of them said.
“And we didn’t think we’d be as good at football as the guinea pig,” the other added.
I tried Stuart, but he was too busy stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets, talking to himself. “I’m out?” he said in a panicky voice. “I ate them all? Can’t be.”
I turned the other direction, but the only person over there was Lunchbox, and I wasn’t about to ask him a thing. Especially not after seeing him in the bathroom.
Where was Missy when you needed her? She was still gone, which was weird, and I half wondered if someone had gotten revenge on her, after all. Normally she would have been the first one to jump up and declare herself an expert, no matter if she had no clue how to do what ever it was she was claiming to be an expert at. She would have pushed me out of the way to get to the computer before I could. I would have been more than happy to let her expertly program the robot that “she” made. But she was gone and the Jacobs were trying on hard hats and Stuart was having a silent empty-mouthed meltdown and Mikayla was painting her toenails, and somebody had to do something.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it. Get me the robot.”
I pulled up the program and tried to make sense of it. There were boxes lined up along the bottom of the screen, with symbols that made no sense, percentages and numbers and words like “loop interrupt.” The rest of the screen was mostly blank, waiting for me to start telling it to do things.
Carefully, I clicked on a box. It followed my mouse. So far, so good. I had no idea what the box did, but I dragged it up into the middle of the screen, clicked a few settings, and left it there. I went back down to the bottom of the screen and clicked another box. A different kind, because . . . well, I had no idea why. I clicked some different numbers on that one, and rotated a symbol.
I sat back and admired the work. It looked complicated. Technical. Yet it was only about dragging and clicking things. It was actually quite easy. If this was all it took to program robots, I was going to be a rocket scientist before I got to high school.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Mikayla asked, peering over my shoulder. “What does ‘medium motor’ mean?”
“Of course I’m sure. What do you think medium motor means? It means it’s not large or small, right? Our robot looks pretty medium to me.”
She chewed her lip as she gazed at the robot, which sat on the mat nearby. “I don’t know. I mean, some robots are really, really huge, right? So this one would be very small in comparison. But then other robots might be tiny. Like you can’t even see them with your naked eye.”
The two Jacobs nudged each other and giggled. “She just said ‘naked.’ ”
Mikayla made a face at them, then turned back to me and continued. “As I was saying, some robots out there could be the size of . . .” She looked around. Stuart had sunk into a chair and was hugging himself. “A sunflower seed,” she said. “Compared to that robot, our robot would be huge. It’s really unfair to judge a robot on its size. When my mom and I went shopping for the winter dance last year, some of the dresses I wore said they were larges, but they were so not larges. I could barely get my big toe in them.”
“We’re not judging the robot,” I said. “And we’re not buying dresses. For robots or for toes. Do you mind?”
“Okay, fine. But I’m just saying. That robot could be an extra small and you’re making it feel bad about itself because you’re calling it a medium.”
As mad as I’d been at Rob, I was instantly glad—and not for the first time—that I did not have any sisters.
“Fine. Here.” I pulled a “small motor” box out of the bottom line-up and dragged it up next to the others. I clicked a few things and gave her a smug look. “Happy?”
“Who said it was a small?” she asked.
I grunted and pulled a “large motor” box up with the others. “There,” I said. “Done. Now it is every size.” In the back of my head, it seemed kind of impossible that one thing could be every size, but I was willing to say or do just about anything to make Mikayla stop talking at that point.
Fortunately, it worked. She sauntered away to where the Jacobs were. “I can use a hammer with my feet, did you know that?” I heard her ask, and soon I heard the sound of hammer meeting wood on the other side of the room.
But I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy dragging and dropping, clicking and rotating, moving and stopping, to notice much of anything else that was going on around me.