Weird Little Robots Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The cool September breeze blew down from the north. It drifted through Darkling Forest, causing the animals there to burrow deeper into their underground homes. It picked up leaves and gum wrappers as it whooshed across Skillington Avenue. It swept past the Boilses’ house, the Hinkles’ house, and the Gilmores’ house until it settled over the very last house on the corner, number 1959.

  You might not pay too much attention to this old Victorian at first. Its front yard was ordinary enough. The ordinary porch swing creaked in the wind. Two ordinary pots of yellow mums welcomed guests.

  But if you walked around to the backyard, you would see a shed with a sagging roof and cracked windows. An interesting shed. A sign written in crayon was taped to its green door:

  DON’T COME IN — I’M CREATING.

  And if you looked through the window of the shed on that September afternoon, you’d see an eleven-year-old girl named Penny Rose Mooney sitting at a rickety card table with more than a dozen items strewn across it.

  There were the usual helpful things, like the hammer that was no bigger than a pencil, the wing nuts, the screwdriver, and the cigar box filled with triple-A batteries. Penny Rose especially loved the yellow metal tape measure that zipped back into its case with the touch of a button.

  But most fascinating of all were the little robots that Penny Rose had created out of the bits and pieces she found on her treasure walks. She had made them with odd items that pleased her, like a meat thermometer, a cell phone, a calculator, a pair of old dentures. One robot had a marble eye that Penny Rose had found in the town graveyard.

  Today was Penny Rose’s birthday. There would be cake that night. Presents. A few balloons. If you listened very carefully, you’d hear her talking to the robots about it.

  “I think having a birthday party with just your parents and your cat is fine. I really do,” she told them. “And I have you guys. You’re my friends.”

  She didn’t like the way her voice trembled when she said that last part, so she did what she always did when she worried or became upset. She tightened another screw. She loosened a bolt. She changed a battery.

  The wind blew across her neck. She shivered and pulled the hood up on her sweatshirt. “Why is it so cold all of a sudden?”

  The robots didn’t answer.

  And maybe it was the force of her determination, or a few stray whiskers from her cat, Arvid, or that northerly wind blowing in through the window that changed every single item in that shed on that cool September afternoon.

  Or maybe it was simply a desperate wish from a lonely girl.

  The next morning, after a quick visit to the shed, Penny Rose joined her parents at the kitchen table for breakfast. Every Sunday morning since they had moved, her father made pancakes in the shape of insects. He was an entomologist, so he pretty much thought about insects all day.

  Penny Rose didn’t have the heart to tell him that she hated his pancakes. He was trying very hard to be the family cook now that Mom was busy with her new job at the bank. Besides, Penny Rose liked guessing what the shapes were.

  Mom sat at the kitchen table with a lumpy-looking pancake on her plate. She had taken exactly one bite. She looked up when Penny Rose came in and shook her head ever so slightly.

  Penny Rose knew what that meant. Another perfectly good batch of pancake batter ruined. He had probably added something “gourmet,” like rhubarb or olives. He never seemed to be able to leave pancake batter alone.

  Dad slid another lumpy-looking one onto her plate and set it before her.

  “Happy Day After Your Birthday!” he said. “I thought I’d make an especially challenging pancake today. See what you think.”

  Penny Rose stared at the blob of pancake. “Bumblebee?” she asked. She tossed a piece to Arvid, who was the only one who loved Dad’s pancakes.

  Dad shook his head and turned back to the stove. “Nope. Guess again.”

  “Oh, I bet it’s a beetle!” she said. They had just had a long discussion the day before about beetles.

  “Ding, ding, ding! You are correct! Now eat your beetle.”

  He sat down at the table, smiled at her, and took a bite of his own beetle pancake. He was lanky, like Penny Rose, and had the same black hair and green eyes. He was almost the opposite version of her mother, who had straight blond hair and a stocky build.

  “I know you wanted a small birthday party with just us last night,” Mom said. “But since we have leftover cake, I thought it might be nice to invite Lark over tonight to help us polish it off.”

  Penny Rose took a tentative bite of her beetle pancake, which had something odd and crunchy in it. Peanuts? Crackers? She wasn’t sure.

  “I’ve said hello to her three times, and she hasn’t said one word back to me,” Penny Rose said.

  “Maybe she’s shy,” Mom said.

  “Or maybe she didn’t hear you,” Dad said.

  “Or maybe she doesn’t want to be my friend,” Penny Rose said, staring down at her plate.

  Penny Rose and her parents had moved to Skillington Avenue twenty-eight days ago, and she had been studying Lark Hinkle from her bedroom window ever since. Lark’s house was on the opposite side of the street in the middle of the block. Penny Rose had to crane her neck to get a good vantage point. She could often see Lark standing in her front yard writing notes as she stared through binoculars at the treetops.

  Lark was utterly mysterious. She wore enormous sunglasses everywhere, even in their fifth-grade classroom. Sometimes she carried a small metal box.

  And Lark didn’t seem to have any friends, either. It was so . . . logical . . . for her and Penny Rose to be friends, but so far it hadn’t happened.

  “Besides, it’s not like I don’t have any friends,” Penny Rose said. “I have the robots. And Arvid. And you guys.”

  She looked up from her plate to see her parents giving her the Concerned Stare. They gave her the Concerned Stare when she worked in her shed for long hours or when she talked about how the robots were her friends. They probably worried about other things, too, like flesh-eating viruses and alligators, but Penny Rose knew that approximately 97 percent of their worries had to do with her and how she was adjusting to the new neighborhood.

  Given that, she didn’t dare mention how when she went into the shed this morning, the air seemed . . . different. Like the cold breeze that had swept in the night before had stayed there. Or how a squirrel with a black smudge on his tail had seemed to follow her as she walked from the house and then watched her from a tree branch the entire time she was in the shed. She was sure if she told them these things, the Concerned Stare would become their permanent expression.

  “I think you should go over there and ring h
er doorbell,” Mom said.

  “And then just introduce yourself,” Dad said. “Ask her if she’d like to see the robots.”

  “I’ll try,” Penny Rose said. She took another bite of beetle pancake.

  “Great!” Mom said.

  Dad smiled and nodded.

  First, though, Penny Rose would need a detailed plan. She went up to her bedroom, sat on her bed, and turned on the lamp she had made last year from an olive oil can. A stack of notebooks sat on her nightstand: her New Inventions notebook, her Robot Drawings and Descriptions notebook, and her To-Do List notebook. Her most secret notebook, Conversation Starters, was at the bottom of the pile.

  She picked it up, found a clean page, and wrote a quick list of Possible Conversation Starters:

  1) “I think binoculars are fun.” (Lark seems to like binoculars.)

  2) “The sun seems strong today.” (Lark often wears sun goop. First determine if the sun does, indeed, seem strong.)

  3) “Sunglasses are very wise.” (Lark wears sunglasses.)

  4) “Do you like robots?” (It is unknown whether or not Lark likes robots, but it is probable that she does since most people do.)

  5) “Yesterday was my birthday. Would you like some leftover cake?” (This seems like a good bet, unless she has allergies or is gluten-free or vegan or something.)

  6) “What is in that metal box?” (This might be too nosy, although if you’re going to carry something so mysterious, you should be prepared for questions.)

  Penny Rose looked over her list. She considered what her father said about Lark not hearing her before. She decided she would speak loudly.

  Penny Rose tore out the page and tucked it into the tool belt she wore in case she happened upon interesting items for her robots.

  “This is it, Arvid,” she announced to the small orange cat curled up on her bedroom rug. “This is the day I become friends with Lark Hinkle.”

  Arvid did what he always did when Penny Rose made important announcements — he yawned.

  Skillington Avenue was unusually quiet. Penny Rose figured that the Gilmore boys who lived next door were making trouble on another street. Bonkers, the mean dog who always barked from the Boilses’ front yard, was probably off somewhere slobbering on a ham bone or a small child. Jeremy Boils was up in his room, in front of his computer. She often saw him through his window, and today was no different.

  Lark’s house was quiet, too. Penny Rose started toward it. Just then, the front door opened.

  Lark came out wearing the same sunglasses she wore every day. Instead of her metal box, she carried a grocery bag. She walked down the sidewalk, away from Penny Rose.

  This ruined Penny Rose’s careful plan. She had planned on walking up to Lark’s door and ringing the doorbell. Then she was going to wait until Mrs. Hinkle answered. Then she was going to say, “Hello, is Lark home?”

  She had no idea what she was going to do now.

  More importantly, where was Lark going?

  Lark seemed determined. She was practically speed walking.

  Just then, Penny Rose saw something shiny glinting in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Penny Rose couldn’t help herself when it came to shiny objects. They were inevitably things she could use for her robots — odd bolts and bottle caps and abandoned keys. Once she even found a fork.

  She felt herself being pulled toward the shiny object, walking so fast she was almost running. Just before she could reach it, Lark plucked it off the sidewalk.

  Penny Rose froze. Her mouth dropped open.

  Lark inspected the item before putting it in her bag.

  “What is that?” Penny Rose blurted out.

  “Just a compass,” Lark said. She started walking back to her house. “Nothing you’d be interested in,” she called out over her shoulder.

  A compass? That would be perfect for her robots! Why did Lark want a compass, anyway?

  Penny Rose waited a few moments until Lark went back into her house. She looked up and down the street. No one was there. She checked Jeremy Boils’s window. Even he was gone. She crossed Skillington, trying to look like she didn’t have a care in the world, and headed toward Lark’s house. She stood a foot away from the family of garden gnomes that studded the Hinkles’ yard.

  Penny Rose crept over to the window that faced the front yard. She crouched behind some overgrown bushes, then slowly stood until she could see inside. Lark walked from one room to another, but that was all she could see.

  Penny Rose waited for what seemed like hours. Nothing happened. She sneaked around to the back of the house and flattened herself against the wall. She made sure the backyard was quiet before she peeked around the corner.

  And that’s when she saw them.

  The birdhouses.

  Dozens and dozens of them. The entire backyard was bursting with birdhouses.

  Not just ordinary birdhouses, either. A pendulum swung from the bottom of one. A flag waved from another’s rooftop. One was built like a tiny windmill, its blades spinning in slow circles.

  And they were made using all kinds of materials, like plastic buckets and soda cans and tissue boxes.

  Lark came out the back door carrying a white birdhouse with a red roof. She had attached the compass to one of its exterior walls. Lark hung it above the bird feeder and tilted her head to one side.

  “Nope, not here,” she said. She moved it to a higher branch. “That’s better.”

  A bee buzzed near Penny Rose’s face. She tried not to move, but when it landed on her nose, she jumped.

  “Get away!” she yelled. She swatted at it.

  Lark’s head swiveled in her direction.

  “HEY!” she yelled.

  Penny Rose continued to slap at the bee.

  “I, um, I . . .” Beads of sweat popped out on her forehead. “I think binoculars are fun!”

  Lark squinted. “What?” Her voice was loud and scratchy.

  “The sun is very strong today, isn’t it?” Penny Rose was practically shouting as she swatted the bee away with both hands.

  Lark frowned. “You’re on private property,” she said. “And you’re spying! And you’re acting really weird!”

  “I was walking . . .” Penny Rose said. A gushing wave of panic flooded through her body.

  “And?”

  “I c-c-came here . . .” Penny Rose stammered. She started edging away. She most certainly did not have the appropriate Conversation Starter for this situation. “I walked and I came here —”

  “You said that already.”

  “I have to . . .” Penny Rose didn’t finish. Even if she had tried to finish, she wasn’t sure what to say to people under normal circumstances, and this was no normal circumstance. Hello, I was spying on you and saw that you were an excellent birdhouse creator didn’t sound like a very neighborly statement, even though it was truthful.

  Penny Rose turned and ran toward the street. She didn’t stop running until she got to her shed. From the moment she saw those birdhouses, she knew, she just knew, that Lark was like her: she couldn’t resist making something from nothing, either.

  Once inside the shed, Penny Rose started gathering interesting objects and putting them in her tool belt: a rubber-band ball, a ballpoint pen, a stopwatch.

  She looked at her robots on the card table. She had only showed them to her parents, and they had loved them. But that’s what parents do — they fawn all over everything their children make. Other kids were different. More discerning. It was possible that Lark may not like them.

  “Robots, I need your help.”

  She sat down at the rickety card table where her robots were lined up. There was iPam, the robot made out of a broken cell phone. Like all the other robots, she had wheels for legs. Her tiny screen had a crack through it, and Penny Rose still hadn’t attached both of her antennae arms.

  “Nope, not you, iPam,” Penny Rose said. “You still need work.” She picked up Clunk, whom she had made last week. Clunk’s meat-thermo
meter head was perched on top of an old transistor radio.

  “Hmm. Maybe.”

  The late morning sun glinted off the metal on her meat thermometer. For a second it almost looked like she winked.

  “Hello, Fraction.” Penny Rose smiled. She was just the robot for the job.

  Dear sweet Fraction. The kind calculator with the heart sticker. It was faded now but still distinct on her back.

  “You are coming with me,” Penny Rose said.

  Sharpie, the robot made out of a pencil sharpener and old dentures, kept tipping backward. She wouldn’t do.

  As Penny Rose picked up Data, a shiver ran through her body. She put her back down quickly.

  “That was weird,” she murmured.

  It was probably her imagination. She had, after all, found Data’s marble eye in a cemetery. She was bound to feel a little funny about her.

  Actually, everything felt different in her small shed since the cold winds blew through it yesterday. She looked around, taking in the four windows, the dented cardboard box filled with junk in the corner, and the scratched floor.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  She finally noticed the five bolts scattered across the table. Five bolts she was certain had not been there before. And a stack of papers on the table was slightly askew. Askew in a way they had not been before.

  And it was colder. Much colder.

  “This is silly,” she said to the robots. “I don’t have time for this. I’m on a mission.” She made a sign with a purple marker and picked up Fraction and Clunk.

  “Here we go,” she said.

  Penny Rose walked around to her front porch and perched Clunk on the top step with the sign she had made. She went down the stairs and checked to see if anyone was watching. She didn’t see the Gilmore boys or Jeremy Boils, so she placed the stopwatch in the center of the sidewalk square outside of her house. A few feet from that she placed the rubber-band ball, again right in the center of a square. She crossed the street and placed the ballpoint pen pointing to her house.

  Then, on Lark’s front doorstep, she propped Fraction up with one arm in the air, as though she were waving hello. Fraction was, in Penny Rose’s opinion, an extremely friendly robot, what with her heart sticker.