Sam glared at him. “I’ve been trying to tell Amy that it’s really no big deal.”
“She’s right, Ames,” Noah agreed quickly. “People get pranked all the time. Everyone will forget the whole thing in two, three days, tops.”
Amy sunk lower in her seat. “Three days?”
“Sit up, Amy,” Sam ordered. “Whoever did this, you can’t let them see it getting to you. That’s what they want. You just have to brush it off like it’s no big deal.”
Amy nodded and sat straighter. “You’re right.” She sucked in a deep breath. “It’s no big deal.”
“There she is,” Andrew said loudly as he strolled in. “Confetti girl!”
When the classroom broke out in a burst of laughter, Amy squeaked and pulled the hood back over her head.
I couldn’t see it, but I imagined the thunderous look Sam had shot Andrew. I could see his reaction, though—he stiffened and quickly looked away, rushing to his seat in the back of the classroom.
Sam slowly spun around, her lips screwed into a scowl. “I don’t know what I’m going to do to him yet, but it’s going to be big.”
For the second time in two days, I felt kind of sorry for Andrew Foger. It must’ve been a new record.
* * *
I don’t know if it was Sam’s look or the fact that being my friend wasn’t going to get him any special privileges, but unlike the day before, Andrew kept his distance throughout the day. He didn’t speak to me in any classes and he was nowhere to be found during lunch.
I was grateful for the break, but it also made me think more about what my father had said the night before. Even if Andrew was a huge pain, it must be hard being alone in a new school without any friends. I guessed I could be a little nicer to him.
How hard could it be?
I made a point of catching him as we left physics. “So—” I began.
“Oh, hey, Junior,” he interrupted. “I forgot to tell you. Wait till you see the surprise I have for you in robotics.”
“Oh, yeah?” Talking about new inventions was always a great way to break the ice. “What is it?”
Andrew gave an exaggerated nod. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” He ended with a loud guffaw.
That was the same dumb line he used to give me when we were kids. It was always his way of boasting how he knew something that I didn’t.
“Whatever,” I said, then turned toward my locker.
Okay, being nicer to him was going to be harder than I thought.
After I grabbed some spare parts from my locker, I caught up with Noah in the stairwell to the third floor. “Did you get to finish the update last night?” I asked him.
“Yep,” he replied with a grin. “I dialed down Raider’s flight response, so no worries there. I also added some surprises I think you’ll like.”
“Cool!”
When we got to the robotics lab, everyone was crowded into one corner looking down at the floor. Almost everyone. Sam sat at our worktable with her back to the others.
She jutted a thumb over her shoulder. “You’re going to love this one, Swift.”
Noah and I set our backpacks on the table before joining the circle. It wasn’t uncommon to come upon scenes like this in robotics. Folks were thrilled to witness a student’s new invention, especially if it was a robot. Judging from the way everyone was laughing, this one must’ve been good. I was excited as Noah and I pushed into the crowd for a look.
That excitement was quickly dashed when I saw what had my classmates so worked up. Andrew was crouched there, showing off his robot.
He noticed me at once. “You’re just in time, Junior. I told you I’d already built a dog robot.”
Andrew’s “dog” robot was actually a modified Star Wars toy. You know, one of those Imperial walkers? Well, it looked as if Andrew had mechanized it so it could walk around on its own. He’d even added two floppy ears and a segmented tail on the back.
“Check it,” Andrew said, before turning back to the robot. “Sit!”
The walker folded its hind legs and its rump landed on the floor. The other students giggled and clapped.
“Down,” Andrew ordered.
The walker pushed its front legs out until it looked like a little robot dog, eagerly waiting for its next command.
“Good boy,” Andrew cooed.
The segmented tail wagged back and forth.
“That’s my favorite part,” Jamal Watts said with a laugh.
I’d seen enough. I backed out of the crowd, Noah close on my heels, and rejoined Sam at the worktable. “So, you were being sarcastic when you said I would love it.”
Sam shrugged. “Well, yeah. Can’t you tell by now?”
“No,” Noah and I said in unison.
“Too bad.” Sam smirked as she went back to oiling one of Raider’s wheels. She’d been a big help with robot maintenance, especially after the confetti incident.
Noah pulled his laptop out of his backpack. “You know they already make toy dog robots that can do all the stuff Andrew’s can, right?” He opened his computer and turned it on, then leaned closer. “I think that little tail is actually from one of those toys.”
“It probably was,” I agreed. Then I sighed, remembering what my dad had said about second chances. “But… it must’ve been difficult to retrofit it onto an Imperial walker.”
“It’s an AT-AT, to be precise,” Sam chimed in. “All Terrain Armored Transport. Not to be confused with the new AT-M6 that—”
Noah rolled his eyes. “We get it. You’re a fan.”
Sam simply smiled as she greased another wheel. She was a huge science fiction fan. She could not only name all the Star Wars vehicles, but knew all the alien species, what planets they were from… It was crazy impressive.
Noah leaned in again. “And why are you taking his side anyway?”
I raised both hands. “I’m not. I’m just saying—”
“What do you think, Junior?” Andrew asked as he set his robot on our worktable. “Voice recognition and everything.”
“That’s a pretty cool design,” I admitted.
“Yeah, we’ll have voice recognition as soon as I install this update,” Noah explained as he tapped away on his laptop.
Andrew leaned in for a closer look. “You forgot to hook it up, genius.”
Noah reached over and flicked Raider’s antenna tail. “Wi-Fi.”
“Oh,” Andrew scoffed.
Noah tapped a few more keys. “And… done.” He closed his laptop and leaned back. “Raider, where’s Tom?”
The robot rotated until he faced me. “Hello, Tom,” came a robotic voice from a tiny speaker in front.
I laughed. “That’s so cool.”
“I added facial recognition last night,” Noah explained. “Raider, where’s Sam?”
The robot rotated again until he came face-to-face with Sam. “Hello, Sam.”
“Wow,” she said. “Way to go!”
“Not bad,” said Andrew. “Do me next.”
“I didn’t program your face, but…” Noah spun the robot to face himself and then motioned Andrew closer. Andrew leaned in. “Raider, this is Andy.”
Andrew jumped back. “My name is Andrew.”
“Raider, find Andy,” Noah instructed.
The robot rotated, tracking Andrew’s movements. “Hello, Andy,” he said.
We laughed as Andrew tried to move out of Raider’s line of sight. “It’s Andrew,” he repeated with a scowl.
“Hello, Andy,” Raider called again.
Andrew shook his head as he scooped up his robot and moved to one of the other worktables.
Noah leaned over to me. “I thought you’d appreciate that… Junior.”
I laughed harder. “You don’t know how much.”
The rest of the class period flew by as the three of us made more adjustments to Raider. It turned out that Noah had added another surprise to our robot—an invisible leash. It was a small transmitter that clipped to a
person’s belt. Raider would follow whoever wore it. I got to be the one to test it and it worked like a charm. When I left the classroom, Raider obediently followed me down the hall toward the elevator. Again, it was no big deal to see a robot following a student through the halls at Swift Academy. Noah told me he’d gotten the idea from Jessie Steele and her book bag on wheels that followed her wherever she went.
Raider and I boarded the elevator with a couple of other students and headed down to the first floor. However, when the elevator stopped at the second floor, screams echoed from the adjacent hallway.
As we bolted from the elevator to see what was going on, I heard our robot’s motor behind me, so I knew the invisible leash was still working. I skidded to a stop in front of the biology classroom along with everyone else. Students scrambled out the door, followed by dozens of white rats!
Some students laughed, recording the debacle on their phones, while others recoiled in disgust. Jim Mills was one of the laughers. He stepped forward and scooped up a rodent.
“Hey, it’s just a toy,” he announced.
As soon as he said it, I noticed the faint whirring sounds of tiny motors underneath all the laughter and squealing.
Jim shook the mechanical rat and a small glass vial fell out and smashed against the floor, leaving a pool of liquid among the tiny shards. I was close to Jim, so the smell hit me like a slap to the face. My nostrils were assaulted by the sulfurous tang of rotten eggs.
“Stink bomb.” I barely got out the words before I was pushing my way back through the crowd.
Turns out, I didn’t need to say anything. Students coughed and gagged as the pungent vapor cloud expanded. The hallway cleared in record time.
6 The Disconcerting Incursion
“OKAY, RAIDER,” NOAH SAID. “FIND Tom.”
The robot spun in a circle until he faced Sam. She held out her phone, recording the entire thing. Raider spun a little more until he faced Amy, pausing on her for a moment before rotating again. He paused again when he was facing in my direction. I was thirty meters down the track, so the robot’s motor whirred as he closed the distance. When he finally reached me, he stopped and angled his head up to my face.
“Hello, Tom,” Raider greeted through his electronic voice.
“Very nice,” Sam said, still recording.
The four of us had gotten together after school. Sam wanted to feature our robot on her blog, and the academy’s large running track was the perfect place to put Raider through his paces. Since Noah had worked most of the bugs out of the robot’s programming, we were finally ready to show him off.
I still had the invisible leash clipped to my belt, so Raider obediently followed me as I walked back to my friends.
“And since Raider has his own AI, he can add other faces to his facial recognition database,” Noah explained, mugging for the camera a little. My best friend wasn’t camera shy by any means.
In contrast, Amy was silent, standing just out of frame as Sam recorded the robot and us. Amy was a whiz at editing and animating, so she was happiest working behind the scenes.
“What else can he do?” Sam asked, aiming the camera back at Raider.
“This is a cool one,” I said, leaning over the robot. “Raider, patrol.”
His motors whined as he sped off. When he was about ten meters away, he began to circle our group in a slow arc, pausing every five meters to turn away from us, scanning for threats.
Sam recorded Raider’s actions for a bit before aiming her phone back at me. “So, I heard you saw the rat prank firsthand today.”
“I thought this was about our robot,” I replied.
Sam shrugged. “I report on all Swift Academy activity.” The camera lens remained focused on me.
Noah jumped into frame. “I wish I could’ve seen it. It sounded hilarious.”
I waved my hand in front of my nose. “Not if you’d smelled it.” The stench still lingered as if part of it was stuck in my nose.
“Was it as bad as Stinky’s fiasco?” Sam asked.
I laughed. “No way.”
Last year, Steve Krieger had a chemistry mishap that reeked so bad, it had cleared the entire second floor of the academy. And so his new nickname was born—Stinky.
Sam switched her phone to selfie mode. Amy squeaked, quickly ducking out of frame. “Who could be behind these pranks at our school?” Sam asked the camera. “Who is the blurred blogger on the Not-So-Swift Academy blog? Someone with a grudge against the school, maybe? An outsider, perhaps?”
Sam was always interested in a good conspiracy theory, but I could see where this one was going.
“Can you cut a minute?” I asked.
She tapped her screen to stop recording. “Sure, what’s wrong?”
“So, is this how you’re going to get back at Andrew?” I asked. “Make everyone think he’s the blurred blogger?”
“Oh, yeah,” Noah said. “That’s a good one, Sam.”
“Who says I’m getting back at him?” she asked. “What if he really is the one behind the pranks?”
“They did start the day he arrived,” Amy chimed in.
I shook my head. “Yeah, but how could he have set up that elevator prank on his first day of school? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Ah!” Sam raised a finger. “But what if the prankster and the blurred blogger are two different people?”
“Hey, that’s a thought,” Noah said. Then his brow furrowed. “Wait, why is that a thought?”
“Because the blogger could’ve just used the footage from everyone’s phones,” Sam replied.
“That’s true.” Amy nodded, then glanced down and shifted uncomfortably. “It seems like everyone uploaded the footage to their video channels.”
I had to admit it—Sam had a good point. There were a bunch of free programs out there that let users save videos from websites—I had a couple myself. Even the simplest editing programs could have cut together the montage of Amy getting covered in confetti. And the blogger seemed to have it out for Swift Academy. It sounded like something Andrew could’ve done.
“But why would he dump on a school he was attending?” I asked.
Sam’s eyes lit up. “Maybe he’s a spy. What if he’s just here for a couple of weeks before going back to Bradley?”
I thought of the expression I’d seen on Andrew’s face when I’d made that dig about him not being at Bradley anymore. I had a feeling there was more to that story.
After a beat, I let out a long sigh. “My dad says I should give him a second chance.”
“What?!” my friends said in unison.
“After what he did to everyone’s projects?” Sam asked. “After what he did to me?”
Amy crossed her arms. “I’m surprised that anyone in this school is even talking to him.”
I laughed nervously. “I know, right?”
I wanted to take my dad’s advice. I usually did. But my friends had a point. How could any of us ever trust Andrew again? Then again, he and I had been friends once. I don’t know why he slowly morphed into a bully, but maybe there had been a reason. Maybe if I gave him a second chance, I could find out.
Raider halted his patrol and scooted back to us. “Hello, Tom,” he said as he stopped in front of me.
“Did you tell Raider to stop?” I asked Noah.
Noah crouched beside the robot. “No, I didn’t.”
Raider spun to face Noah. “Hello, Noah,” he greeted. “Tom Swift sleeps with a teddy bear.”
Noah burst into laughter. “What was that?”
Raider turned to face Amy and Sam. “Tom Swift sleeps with a teddy bear.”
Amy gasped, while Sam slowly raised her phone, ready to record.
I pointed to her, glaring. “Don’t you dare.”
“Tom Swift sleeps with a teddy bear,” Raider repeated. “Tom Swift sleeps with a teddy bear.”
With lightning speed, I reached down and flicked the robot’s kill switch. Raider went silent before he could get
another word out.
“First of all, I do not sleep with a teddy bear,” I insisted. “And even if I did, how could he know? Raider has never been in my room. I’ve only worked on him in the garage.”
My three friends exchanged glances before completely losing it.
I nodded at Noah. “Did you make Raider say that?”
Noah shook his head, managing a straight face only long enough to get out, “Not me, man. I’ll have to check the program tonight.”
I hadn’t been lying. I didn’t sleep with a teddy bear. At least, not since I was a little.…
I shot to my feet and glanced around. The school grounds were mostly empty, but there were a few students here and there. Some were reading books while others seemed to be working on inventions of their own. None of them had their attention on me or my cackling friends.
I shifted my gaze to the school itself, spotting a student peering down from a third-floor window. He ducked out of sight when he saw me looking, but not before I could make out who it was—none other than Andrew Foger.
My face flushed with anger. This kid was making it really hard to follow my dad’s advice.
7 The Pigment Infringement
“ALL RIGHT, GANG.” MR. OSBORNE SLAPPED a large ice chest on his desk. “Can anyone tell me why I had to drive with the windows down when I brought this thing to school today?”
I raised my hand, along with a few other students. Mr. Osborne pointed to Evan Wittman.
“Because of the carbon dioxide?” Evan asked.
Mr. Osborne slapped the cooler again. “Correct. As you all know, dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. And if it’s in an environment above minus seventy-eight degrees Celsius, it sublimates, or moves directly from solid to gaseous form.” He pointed to himself. “And since I’m human and breathe oxygen, expelling CO2, with the windows up, I could’ve passed out and plowed into a tree.”
I glanced over to Andrew’s worktable. Same as the rest of the morning, he didn’t look my way.
As far as my friends were concerned, Andrew was definitely either the prankster, the blogger, or both. Our hacked robot was all the proof they needed. I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced about the other pranks, but I was furious he’d hacked Raider, and I was relieved that no one had been around to record the hijacked bot. If there was no footage, then at least I wouldn’t be on the next episode of the Not-So-Swift Academy. I hoped that was the case, anyway. Noah didn’t think Andrew could access Raider’s eye cameras when he hacked in, but either way, my best friend vowed to beef up security so it wouldn’t happen again.
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