by Mark Young
“Uh-oh,” Shelly said.
Theremin charged after the time-traveling rook, who was now carrying the ball, and tackled him.
Wham! The rook was slammed face-down into the board, hard. A referee drone with a black-and-white striped metal body and a swirling red light for a head hovered above Theremin.
“EXCESSIVE FORCE! EJECTED!” the drone declared.
“But I have super robot strength! I can’t help it!” Theremin yelled.
“EJECTED! EJECTED!”
Three more referee drones appeared. They hoisted Theremin off the ground and dropped him in a penalty box. The penalty was, in part, that his holographic image was projected onto the ceiling of the stadium so that everyone attending would see him pouting about his punishment.
“Poor Theremin,” Shelly said. “He’s never made it through a game. It’s too bad, because he’s a really good player.”
Newton felt bad for Theremin, but he returned his attention to the field. The rest of the game was a blur as Scorchers and Monsters scored one after the other. In the final seconds of the fourth quarter, queen Tootie Van der Flootin lifted a Scorchers pawn holding the ball and lobbed them both into the hoop as the referee drones exclaimed:
“GAME OVER! GAME OVER! THE MONSTERS WIN 74–53!”
The Megalithic Monsters fans roared, the Subatomic Scorchers fans gasped, and Shelly and Newton went looking for Theremin. They found him sulking under a palm tree outside the stadium.
“It’s not fair,” he grumbled. “Chrono-chess-ball is antirobot. I can’t help it if I knock players unconscious when I tackle them. I am made of metal, duh!”
“Maybe you could just not tackle them,” Newton suggested helpfully, but Theremin just scowled.
“Come on,” Shelly said. She knew from experience that the best way to get Theremin out of a postgame funk was to distract him with gadgets and other toys. “Let’s go to the Student Store. Maybe we can find something to cheer you up. Plus, we’ve never taken Newton there.”
Theremin sighed. “Okay, but it’s not going to change my mood.”
Shelly was right—Newton had never been inside the school store before. He’d passed by it a few times, but he’d been so busy with classes and the Mad Science Fair that he didn’t have time to explore.
The store was crowded with students who had stopped in after the chrono-chess-ball game. Newton looked around, wide-eyed. The stores shelves were stocked with fun-looking gadgets.
“Let’s find the sample table,” Shelly suggested, and the two boys followed her as she weaved through the crowd. She stopped at a levitating metal tabletop with a TRY ME sign on it and picked up a small spray can.
“Babel Breath Spray,” she said. “Hmm. I wonder what this does?”
“I’ll try it,” Newton offered.
“You might as well,” Theremin grumbled. “Robots don’t have breath.”
“Open wide!” Shelly said, and Newton opened his mouth. She pumped the spray and Newton felt a tingle inside his mouth.
“Det smager frisk,” Newton smacked his lips and smiled. Then he got a quizzical look on his face. “Hvad sagde jeg bare sige?”
“It broke his tongue!” Theremin cried as he pulled on Newton’s hand. “We’ve got to take him to Nurse Bunsen!”
“Ingen!” Newton shook his head.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Shelly said. “I think he’s speaking another language.”
“Which one?” Theremin asked.
Shelly pulled out her tablet, pressed a key, and held it up to Newton’s face. “Say something.”
“Noget,” Newton said.
“Something,” Shelly’s tablet said aloud, translating Newton’s speech into English. Shelly’s eyes got wide. “You’re speaking Danish! Cool!” she cried.
“Ja!” Newton agreed.
She picked up the can of Babel Breath Spray and squinted to read the fine print. “One squirt allows you to speak another language for up to sixty seconds. Warning: Languages may differ with each spray.”
“Now that’s kind of fun,” Shelly said.
“Ja, roligt! ROLIGT!” Newton agreed.
“Hmph,” Theremin snorted. “It’s not very useful.”
“That’s why it’s fun!” Shelly replied.
Theremin turned to a bin containing balls made of silver metal streamers. A sign overhead read: MAGNO-ELECTRIC ANTIGRAVITY POM-POMS!
“It would have helped to have someone cheering for me in today’s game,” Theremin said as he picked up a pair of pom-poms, shook them, and began to cheer:
“Stronger than steel, brighter than the sun,
Theremin won’t stop, ’cause he’s number one!
GOOOOOOOO, THEREMIN!”
As the robot held the pom-poms over his head, streaks of bright blue electricity snapped and crackled between them. Theremin was spun in place, then the pom-poms lifted him straight off the ground.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Theremin slammed into the ceiling as the pom-poms crashed through without him and kept shooting up, up, up, until they disappeared into the blue sky.
The robot fell to the floor, rolled over onto his back, and groaned. “Why does everything bad happen to me?”
“Theremin, that was way cool.” Newton blurted out. Hearing his own voice, Newton touched his face. “Hey, I’ve got my old voice back again!”
“Over here, guys,” Shelly said, moving to another shelf. “Micro-Weather souvenir globes!”
She picked up a small clear dome. Inside, a tiny tornado twirled. “This one’s a real tornado!” Even though the tornado was contained, Shelly’s hair started being blown around as if she was inside it. She quickly put down the dome. “Maybe too real,” she added.
Theremin moved to the shelf. He picked up one of the globes. “It’s snow,” he said. “Real snow!”
“Whoa. I’ve never seen snow either,” Newton said. “At least, I don’t think I have.”
He stood closer to Theremin to get a better look inside the globe. Millions of tiny snowflakes were falling inside the globe, landing on the branches of a tiny forest of green trees. Suddenly, holographic snowflakes began to fall and swirl around Theremin!
“It’s not the same as actually seeing snow with my portal pass, but it’s better than nothing,” Theremin said. “I’m gonna get it.”
He made his way to the cashier—a bored-looking young woman with a large mechanical eyeball strapped across her forehead—and handed her the snow globe. She tilted her head, aimed the eyeball scanner at the globe, and then scanned Theremin’s ID card.
The eyeball blinked rapidly, then a mechanical voice rang out. “REJECTED!”
“Impossible!” Theremin said. “I have a hundred allowance credits on my card.”
The cashier shrugged as she pointed up to her eyeball headpiece “It says you’re rejected.”
Theremin’s eyes flashed red. “And I say it’s a mistake!”
He took out his tablet and began typing. The holographic face of his father appeared.
“What is it now?” Dr. Rozika said with a sigh.
“Father! My ID card isn’t working. My allowance credits aren’t showing up,” he said.
“There is nothing wrong with your card. I am withholding your allowance until the damage you caused to my lab is paid for,” Dr. Rozika replied.
“Father!” Theremin wailed. “That could take forever!”
“Seventy-one years, four months, and eight days to be exact,” Dr. Rozika replied. “Have a nice day, Theremin.”
Dr. Rozika’s face disappeared. Theremin’s eyes began to flash.
Shelly could tell Theremin was about to lose it. She paid for the snow globe and gave it to Theremin. Then she grabbed Newton’s arm. “Come on, we’ve got to get him out of here. There’s too much valuable stuff he can destroy.”
Shelly and Newton quickly ushered Theremin outside the shop.
“Come on, Theremin,” Shelly said calmly. “Let’s go to the dorms and try out your
new snow globe there.”
Theremin ignored her. “Father is so mean,” he complained. “Why did he even create me in the first place?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Newton suggested.
“There’s no point,” Theremin mumbled as they stepped onto a sliding pathway that would carry them through an artificial rain forest and deposit them at the dorms.
“I’m sure he had a good . . . ,” Newton began, then gasped as he felt the strange tingly feeling on the back of his neck again.
“Someone’s following us!” Shelly yelled. “Over there!”
Newton spun around and saw a figure in shiny clothing duck behind a banana tree. Newton ran toward it, as Shelly and Theremin followed. But when they reached the tree and surrounded it, nobody was there!
“I’ve had enough of this!” Newton cried. “Some guy has been following me for days now! And the way he keeps disappearing is freaking me out!”
“It’s not Higgy pranking you?” Shelly asked.
Newton shook his head. “He followed me and Higgy yesterday. But we couldn’t catch him then, either.”
Theremin was concerned. “He might have been following us around the Student Store.”
“Let’s go to your room,” Shelly said to Theremin.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you just might have the answer!” Shelly replied.
A few minutes later the three friends stood in Theremin’s dorm room. Newton thought that it was surprisingly neat. Theremin’s metal sleeping pod had no blankets or pillows; the few clothes he wore fit neatly into the drawers of a plastic see-through dresser. A nearby shelf held specimens of rocks, jars of sand, and plant life that looked to Newton like they had been collected from the island.
Shelly turned out the light. “Theremin, scroll through your short-term memory circuits from when we got to the store. Maybe you accidentally recorded the guy who’s following Newton.”
“Sure,” Theremin said as he faced the white wall. Bright beams of light shone from his eyes and projected a scene on the wall—the Student Store. Newton realized that they were seeing everything that had happened in the Student Store from Theremin’s point of view.
There was Shelly, spraying the Babel Breath Spray into Newton’s mouth. Then Newton started talking, and Shelly laughed. Then the projection panned over to the bin of pom-poms. As they saw Theremin’s hands reaching into the bin, there was a flash of shiny fabric on the far right side of the image.
“Stop!” Newton yelled, and Theremin froze the image.
Newton pointed. “See that arm there? That shiny sleeve? That’s the guy who was following us.”
“Zoom in and give us some slow-mo, Theremin,” Shelly instructed.
The memory projection tightened to the mysterious image and moved forward, frame by frame, until the shiny sleeve was revealed to belong to a man in a shiny suit. The man had a wild head of green hair—and not just any green hair. It was so bright that it looked like it could glow in the dark.
“Pause it!” Newton cried. “This has gotta be the guy. Have either of you seen him before?”
Shelly shook her head. “He doesn’t look familiar.”
“I can access my facial recognition software,” Theremin said. “I’ve got a personal database of every student and staff member in the school in my memory. Let me cross-check.”
Newton heard whirring and clicking sounds coming from Theremin’s head.
“Come on, Theremin,” Newton whispered softly. “Who is it? Who is it?”
Then Theremin blinked, and the projected image faded. “He’s not from Franken-Sci High.”
“Hmm,” Shelly said as she turned on the light. “Then who is he, and why is he following you, Newton?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Newton said. “Remember when Mimi accused me of being a spy, trying to learn her family secrets? Well, maybe she sent someone to spy on me.”
Shelly nodded. “It’s possible. But if it’s true, she didn’t hire a very good one. What kind of spy goes around with bright green hair and shiny clothes?”
Newton sighed. “I guess that doesn’t make sense,” he admitted. Then something occurred to him. “What if he has something to do with my past? Maybe he knows who I am and where I’m from!”
“Anything’s possible,” Shelly said. He repeated the words in his head, and it felt good.
Anything’s possible!
CHRONO-CHESS-BALL
Chrono-chess-ball is a combination of basketball, chess, and musical chairs, along with short-term time travel. It is played by two teams of sixteen players each. The game is played in four ten-minute quarters. The team with the most points wins.
Point Scoring and Special Rules
Each team has a specific number of players based on chess pieces. Different players earn different points for scoring a basket, which is made by throwing the ball into the coil:
8 pawns: Pawns earn 1 point when they score. Pawns can be eliminated from the game if they are hit with a ball from the opposing team.
2 rooks: Rooks earn 2 points when they score. A rook can use a chrono-wheel to travel back in time 3 seconds during any point in the game.
2 bishops: Bishops earn 3 points when they score. A bishop can use a chrono-wheel to travel forward in time 3 seconds during any point in the game.
2 knights: Knights earn 4 points when they score.
1 king: The king’s main job is to protect the queen. A king earns 10 points when he scores.
1 queen: If a queen scores, the game ends, and the team with the highest points at that time automatically wins.
CHAPTER 5
THE OBSTACLE COURSE OF DOOM
“Any sign of your shiny, green-haired mystery man today?” Shelly asked Newton the next morning. Newton, Shelly, and Theremin were walking through the school halls to their next class.
Newton shook his head. “Not yet, and I’ve been looking,” he replied. Then he looked down at his tablet. “So, what’s this new class that popped up on the schedule that we’re going to? Phys Ed? Is that the name of a scientist?”
“It’s short for Physics of Physical Education,” Shelly replied. “We’ve always had the gym that any student can use in their free time, but this is the first time Phys Ed is an official class. Only a few professors were ever interested enough to teach it.”
“Why?” Newton asked.
Shelly shrugged. “Maybe mad scientists are more into mental education than physical,” she replied. “Anyway, Mumtaz thinks it’s important to be active.”
“That’s one good thing about being a robot,” Theremin chimed in. He rapped on his metal body. “I’m fit as a fiddle, if that fiddle were made of metal! As a matter of fact, I’m exempt from the class.”
“So why are you coming with us?” Newton asked.
“And miss the chance to see other kids humiliated, for once?” Theremin asked. “I wouldn’t miss it!”
Newton started to feel nervous. “Humiliated?”
“I don’t think it’s what Mumtaz had in mind, but most of the classes involve tasks that no human can accomplish. You’ll see . . . ,” Theremin hinted.
“Don’t worry, Newton, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Shelly said. “We’ll probably just do simple exercises and jog around a little.”
But when they got to the gym, their jaws dropped. A massive structure had been erected. Rope bridges and hanging ropes led from one end of the gym to the next, suspended over giant glass tanks. One was a water tank that held sizzling, sparking, wriggling creatures. Another contained a swirling vortex.
“What is that?” Newton wondered out loud.
“It is an obstacle ropes course,” said a mechanical voice next to him. “Don’t you know anything, newbie?”
Newton turned to face Odifin Pinkwad—or rather, Odifin Pinkwad’s brain, since the unusual student was actually a brain floating in a jar of purple liquid. Odifin spoke through a speaker on the jar and was rolled around the school atop a metal tab
le with wheels that was pushed by a skinny, slouching, greasy-haired teenager named Rotwang.
“I know some things, Odifin, but not everything,” Newton informed him. “I still don’t have my memory back.”
“You’re still sticking to that story, are you?” Odifin laughed. “Ha. Pathetic!”
Theremin glided between Odifin and Newton. “Why are you here, Odifin? You’re exempt from gym, just like I am.”
“I want to show that I’m superior, so Rotwang is going to participate for me,” Odifin said, spinning his tank to indicate the teenager next to him, “as any well-trained personal lab assistant would.”
“Right. What he said,” Rotwang grunted.
The sound of a shrill whistle pierced the air. All eyes turned toward a six-year-old girl with red hair, wearing a white tracksuit and a whistle around her neck.
It was the gym teacher Professor Juvinall.
“I almost forgot she was teaching this,” Newton said. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“You mean because you called her a little kid,” Theremin pointed out.
“But she is,” Newton replied. “She’s only six years old!”
Professor Juvinall blew her whistle again. “Quiet, everyone!” she yelled, in a voice that was exceptionally loud for a child. “Welcome to freshman level Phys Ed. I only ended up teaching this class because we drew straws, and I got the short one.”
“That’s because she is the short one,” one of the students muttered. Juvinall’s head snapped in the direction of the sound.
“Who said that?” she asked.
All the students froze. Nobody responded. Juvinall slowly turned to glare at Newton.
“Was it you, Warp?” she asked.
“N-n-no, Ms. Juvinall,” Newton said nervously. “Not me.”
Her green eyes narrowed. “It better not have been,” she said. Then she addressed the class. “Okay, so to make things interesting, I personally designed this fun little course for this class. I call it the Obstacle Course of Doom.”
Frantic whispers rose up from among the students.
