In the pit, we slaved over our robot. Noah ran a software diagnostic, and Latrell and Kevin agonized over each physical connection and bearing. We had to coax every microgram of performance out of Tin Man to keep our hopes alive.
I could see Abigail’s fingers trembling as she worked the joystick. I can’t say for sure if she was rattled before, but right now she was scared to death. I looked down at the stopwatch in my hand, and realized that I’d forgotten to start it. The atmosphere was that tense.
Tin Man had a big lead on the other three robots, but we knew that meant very little. None of the competition in this heat was battling us for that last spot in the finals. At this point, our opponent was the clock.
Tin Man reached the pole, and Abigail pressed the control to deploy the mini-bot. We held our breath as the magnet locked onto the metal of the pole. With a high-pitched whirring sound, the wheels engaged, and the small unit climbed the pole.
Ding! The bell sounded as the mini-bot reached the top.
The round was over, but the uncertainty had just begun. Had our time garnered enough points to keep us in the all-important fourth spot? Or had we dropped to fifth, out of the finals? We stood in a circle, holding hands and watching the scoreboard.
One by one, the names of the finalists began to appear.
1. Cold Spring Harbor
2. Orchard Park
3. Abercrombie Prep
4. Academy for Scholastic Distinction
We were in.
UNCONTROLLED
DONOVAN CURTIS
IQ: 112
I leaped up out of my seat, fists punching at the air.
“Yeah! Go, Tin Man!”
At that, I was several seconds behind the Daniels, who were whooping and high-fiving like madmen, drawing annoyed looks from the spectators around them. Even Katie, who was not much of an athlete these days, was on her feet, cheering.
I couldn’t help wondering what it must have been like to be in the pit just then—all those guys going nuts as they got ready for the final contest. I could see Oz talking to Abigail, plotting strategy for the battle that lay ahead. She was the driver. Everything depended on her. I knew how it felt when the controller was in your hand.
The Daniels were analyzing the upcoming showdown like it was the pitching matchup for game seven of the World Series.
“Obviously, Tin Man is the best robot,” Nussbaum expounded. “If he wasn’t, we couldn’t have won the autodirected competition.”
“Yeah, but Cold Spring Harbor has been pulling further ahead of us every round,” Sanderson worried. “If we can’t pick up our driving, we’re toast!”
Considering those guys had come to make fun of the parts of the meet they didn’t sleep through, they seemed pretty involved in it now.
It took about twenty minutes to set up the grand finale, which involved having the robots place inflated rings of different sizes onto strategically placed pegs. It was the bread and butter of any meet, and we had practiced it endlessly. Each ring carried a different point value. Also, the round would be timed, with bonuses for early completion. It would be tough driving, but there was reason to be hopeful. You had to be constantly aware of what balance of speed and accuracy would get you the most points. A guy like Noah could spit out calculations like that faster than a computer.
A tense silence fell in the auditorium as the four robots were moved into their positions on the floor. Standing beside Cold Spring Harbor’s gleaming Pot-zilla, poor Tin Man looked like a soapbox racer next to an Indy car. Albert Einstein’s banana barely reached the lowest position of the front-runner’s lifting arm. Tin Man vs. Pot-zilla; David vs. Goliath.
The whistle blew, and they were off. Chloe slipped a green ring around one of Tin Man’s lifting forks, and our robot started across the course. The four competitors placed their first rings successfully, but Abercrombie Prep was beginning to fall behind as they came back for more.
“Let’s go, Tin Man!” barked Sanderson.
“You can do it, dude!” Nussbaum added.
I held my breath when I saw the next ring. It was one of the black ones—small ring, small hole. Harder to handle, but with the highest point value. Orchard Park wasted precious seconds tightening a loose wheel. Tin Man lumbered back toward the pegs. The lift mechanism rose almost to its apex. It was going to be tricky—one false move, and that ring would hit the floor, taking the Academy’s hopes with it.
The tiny ring found its place. The auditorium burst into applause, and Tin Man swung around for the next pass. Pot-zilla was hot on his heels, but with our hardest ring already in place, it was: advantage, Tin Man.
Our next ring was pink, the largest. That was when it happened. As Tin Man crossed the floor, Pot-zilla put on a sudden burst of speed. The swerve seemed completely natural, but it was just enough for one of the arms to sweep into Tin Man’s path. It bumped lightly into the pink ring, knocking it off Tin Man’s fork. It made no sound when it hit the floor, but it might as well have been a bomb blast.
A gasp went up in the auditorium.
“No-o-o-o!” chorused the Daniels.
Oz was on his feet, shouting at the judges, who were waving him off.
Abigail was panicking, fumbling to pick up the dropped ring. Pot-zilla motored past. Soon after, Orchard Park and Abercrombie followed.
I jumped up. “That was on purpose!”
Katie shot me a sharp look. “Donnie, don’t you dare!”
But I was already running. I don’t know what I thought I could accomplish. At minimum, I had to calm Abigail down, talk her through the operation of picking up the fallen ring, get everything back on track.
I pounded down the stairs, and leaped to the floor.
Chloe was the first to notice me. “Donovan?”
One by one, the team members recognized me. Faces lit up. Cries of greeting rang out. But this was no time for a reunion. Our chance of winning the robotics meet was slipping away with every tick of the clock.
“Donovan!” Abigail was last. Her eyes were huge, her expression desperate.
I started shouting instructions, struggling for calm myself. “Take the joystick and—”
She had a better idea. She thrust the controller into my hands, and backed away, panting.
What could I do? I lowered the lift mechanism, tipped up the ring and skewered it with one of the forks. Then I delivered it to its destination, deftly raising it, and placing it onto the peg.
Wasting no time, I wheeled Tin Man around and headed back toward Chloe. She looked devastated, shaking her head tragically. I understood the message instantly. I was too late. Pot-zilla had already picked up the final ring and was headed toward the peg and victory.
I saw red. After sabotaging us, Cold Spring Harbor was not going home with first prize. Not while I had the joystick in my hand. I drove Tin Man right into the path of the big shiny pot.
“Donovan!” shouted Oz. “Stop!”
Pot-zilla was bigger and heavier, but Cold Spring Harbor didn’t know that Tin Man had a secret weapon—a powerful motor in the lift mechanism, one that had polished every floor in the Academy for Scholastic Distinction.
A split second before impact, I engaged the forklift. Tin Man picked up Pot-zilla bodily, the larger robot’s Mecanum wheels spinning without traction.
Absolute pandemonium broke out. The Cold Spring Harbor kids were screaming, but my team was matching them in volume. The head judge was blowing his whistle, but it could not be heard over the general din. Neither could Schultz, who was shouting at me from behind Chloe. Anyway, I couldn’t stop now. Tin Man was a bundle of circuits, incapable of revenge fantasy, but I was all too human.
Cold Spring Harbor’s driver was trying to free Pot-zilla by thrashing with its lifting arms. I needed to act fast. Tin Man had been designed for competition, not combat, so I had to improvise a little. I swiveled ninety degrees and, using Pot-zilla as a battering ram, I charged the scorer’s table.
Oz hollered, “Do-o-o-on-o-o-o-va-
a-an!” It came out a ten-syllable word.
But I was committed. The judges scrambled for cover as I slammed that big pot right into the steel-reinforced corner of the table. Pot-zilla bounced off, dented. One lifting arm hung limply by its shiny bulk. The other reached for Tin Man with evil intent. I backed my robot away.
A shriek behind me penetrated even the chaotic noise of the crowd. Noah bounded onto the scene. He snatched up one of the judges’ abandoned chairs, and brought it down, WWE style, on Pot-zilla’s polished crown.
Wham! And then again. Wham! Wham! Wham!
If the cybernetic pot hadn’t been finished before, it was finished now. It wobbled once, and keeled over, lying there, an upended cockroach, wheels turning like struggling legs.
The auditorium had been rocking with excitement, dismay, horror, laughter, and outrage. But now that the action seemed to be over, a strange hush fell as people waited to see what would happen next. Considering the craziness of the situation, it was a strangely familiar moment to me. The impulsive act was over, but the consequences had not yet descended on my head. It was as if time had ground to a halt, and we were all frozen there. What the future held I couldn’t predict, but I had a sense that it had something to do with Dr. Schultz, pushing through the throng toward me, his face a thundercloud.
A high-pitched voice suddenly cut through the eerie silence. “Donnie—” It was Katie, struggling down the grandstand steps. “Donnie—it’s time!”
I was so wrapped up in the insanity that I wasn’t thinking straight. “Time for what?”
Chloe wasn’t like me. She was in the gifted program for real. “The baby!” she exclaimed. “Katie’s having the baby!”
UNEXPECTED
CHLOE GARFINKLE
IQ: 159
<
The yellow minibus squealed up to the emergency entrance of St. Leo Medical Center, and the disqualified Academy robotics team piled out, bearing Katie Patterson with us. While Oz and Donovan handled the patient registration, Katie and the rest of us lay on the waiting-room carpet, practicing Noah’s breathing technique.
“Don’t worry,” Katie assured the two bewildered Daniels. “This pregnancy is a group effort.”
“Cool,” said the taller one, but he looked a little unnerved.
A door swung open, and an orderly appeared, pushing a wheelchair. “Mrs. Patter”—he gawked at us on the floor—“what’s going on down there?”
“It’s okay,” Latrell told him. “We’re the birthing team!”
“We only do robotics in our spare time,” Noah explained.
Katie was loaded into the chair and brought to a case room. We followed, every last one of us. The staff wasn’t too keen on that, but they had no choice. We were all her coaches, except for the Daniels, and they kept their mouths shut for a change. I’d never seen them so well behaved.
We were in there forever, breathing and timing contractions with our robotics stopwatch. We studied the final sonogram, and kept a close eye on the fetal heart monitor that Katie wore. Everything was fine, but Donovan seemed really scared, even more than his sister, and she was the one having the baby. He spent most of the time on the phone, trying to locate his parents to let them know what was going on. We all took turns calling home to inform our families that this robotics meet was going on a lot longer than usual.
Finally, the doctor decided it was time to take his patient into delivery. As the brother, Donovan went too. The rest of us congregated in the waiting room to—well—wait.
You could tell the two Daniels were pretty cowed by the whole adventure.
“So is this, like, business as usual for the gifted program?” the taller one asked. “I mean, do you do this kind of stuff a lot?”
Oz favored him with an exhausted chuckle. “You mean trash a robotics meet and have a baby? No. It’s fair to say this is a big day even for us.”
“What’s going to happen to us?” Abigail wondered anxiously. “Do you think we might be banned from future competition?”
Oz shrugged miserably. “I don’t know. Interfering with another robot is a very serious offense. There are bound to be consequences.”
“It was worth it!” the shorter Daniel exploded. “I’ve known Donovan since first grade, and that was him at his best! Real gladiator stuff!”
“It was WWE,” Noah amended.
“You were great too, kid,” the other Daniel assured him. “Mess with you and pay the price. I learned the hard way.”
I spoke up. “What Donovan did was against the rules, but it was right. Cold Spring Harbor interfered with our robot before he interfered with theirs.”
Our teacher sighed. “That’s assuming the judges noticed. If they didn’t, they’ll see the attack as unprovoked.”
“But effective,” Noah put in.
Kevin rubbed his hands together. “It was beautiful to see that tin pot with a big dent in it.”
“I was hoping the arm would fall off,” Latrell added wistfully.
“Well, they definitely didn’t deserve to win,” Abigail said reluctantly. “Even if that means we can’t win either.”
Jacey opened her mouth to speak, and I braced for one of her odd random comments. Instead, she said softly but with conviction, “Way to go, Donovan.”
It hit me just then how different we all were since Donovan had been mistakenly sent to the Academy. The mayhem that had ended the robotics meet would have freaked us out a few weeks ago. Now we were gloating over having destroyed our enemy. If Oz had hoped Donovan would become more like us, here was proof that the opposite was true. We had become more like Donovan.
I love my school, but I’d always yearned for us to be a little more normal.
<
We’d been cooling our heels for about an hour when Dr. Schultz came into the waiting room. The superintendent’s hair was wild, his tie undone, his normally immaculate suit rumpled.
Spying us, he rushed over. “Any news?”
“Nothing yet,” Oz informed him.
He looked frazzled. “I’ve got your robot in the trunk of my car, but the rest of your equipment is in the storage room at the auditorium. All except the YoukilAde. That got spilled out in the … confusion.”
“What did the judges finally decide?” asked Oz, and I could tell he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“You were disqualified and so was Cold Spring Harbor,” the superintendent reported. “Orchard Park were the winners, but I don’t think that means much this year. The whole thing was a major fiasco. This is supposed to be a friendly science competition, not a gang rumble.”
“Are we in really big trouble?” Abigail asked in a small voice.
“I’m honestly not sure,” replied Dr. Schultz. “I inquired several times, but no one would give me a straight answer. The judges have never dealt with this kind of misconduct before. That might work in our favor.”
“We should probably keep a low profile in the robotics association for a while,” Oz suggested, and we all chimed in our agreement.
Low profile or not, this was one robotics meet I’d never forget. The image of Donovan working the joystick, exacting Tin Man’s revenge, would forever be burned onto the inside of my eyelids. I’ll bet the others—even Abigail—felt the same way.
<
It was then that the heavy swinging door was flung wide and Donovan staggered out to the waiting room, wide-eyed and white-faced. He was quite a sight in green scrubs and a surgical cap. “It happened,” he rasped.
“And?” I prompted eagerly.
“It’s a girl,” he managed. “Katie had a baby girl!”
The waiting room erupted in cheers and we mobbed him with backslaps and congratulations.
<
Okay, that wasn’t a hypothesis. It was just awesome.
“Dude, you’re an uncle!” the taller Daniel exclaimed. “You did it!”
“Katie did it,” I amended. I threw my arms around Donovan and gave him a big hug.
He seemed startled, and I admit it was a little closer than any of the others got. But I was just so happy for Katie. I knew the day Donovan stepped into the robotics lab that there were great things ahead. And this was the greatest of them all.
Donovan worked his way through the well-wishers and nearly jumped out of his scrubs at the sight of Dr. Schultz.
“You can’t blame Donovan,” I jumped in. “Cold Spring Harbor started it.”
The entire team burst into a babbling description of how our opponents deliberately knocked the ring out of Tin Man’s control.
“I couldn’t let them beat us,” Donovan finished. “Not that way.”
“I don’t appreciate rule breaking,” the superintendent said gravely. “School spirit, however, is something I appreciate very much. Whatever else you are, Donovan Curtis, you’re a loyal teammate.” He smiled. “And please pass on my congratulations to your sister, her husband, and their new daughter.”
“Wait a minute!” Noah’s brow furrowed. “It can’t be a daughter. The sonogram clearly showed a boy.”
Oz laughed. “Well, I guess you were wrong about that.”
The look on Noah’s face as he took in the enormity of that statement was sheer wonder. “Wrong …” he repeated, dazed. “I was … wrong.”
“It’s no big deal, Noah,” I told him gently.
“It’s a colossal deal. I’m never wrong.” All at once, his normally serious expression dissolved into a large goofy grin. “This is the greatest moment of my life!”
“Maybe, if you get really lucky, you can be wrong again someday,” Donovan teased.
Noah considered this. “I’ll work on it in summer school.”
“No, you won’t.” Oz was jubilant. “This class was short fourteen hours of Human Growth and Development instruction. But remember, real-life experience counts as triple time—”
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