Give a 'Bot a Bone

by Nancy Krulik

  Copyright © 2018 by Nancy Krulik and Amanda Burwasser

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 Mike Moran

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  First Edition

  While this book aims to accurately describe the steps a child should able to perform reasonably independently when cooking, a supervising adult should be present at all times. The authors, illustrator, and publisher take no responsibility for any injury cause while making a project from this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are from the authors’ imaginations and used fictitiously.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

  www.realnancykrulik.com

  www.mikemoran.net

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Krulik, Nancy E., author. | Burwasser, Amanda Elizabeth, author. | Moran, Mike, illustrator.

  Title: Give a bot a bone / by Nancy Krulik and Amanda Burwasser ; Illustrated by Mike Moran.

  Other titles: Give a robot a bone

  Description: First edition. | New York : Sky Pony Press, Skyhorse Publishing, [2018] | Series: Project Droid ; #5 | Summary: Logan and Java need to make money fast, but none of their plans work out quite as they intended. | Identifiers: LCCN 2017043704 (print) | LCCN 2017057184 (ebook) | ISBN 9781510726680 (eb) | ISBN 9781510726550 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781510726635 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781510726680 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Moneymaking projects—Fiction. | Robots—Fiction. | Humorous stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.K9416 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.K9416 Giv 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]— dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043704

  Cover illustration by Mike Moran

  Cover design by Sammy Yuen

  Printed in Canada

  Interior design by Joshua Barnaby

  For Emma Claire, the newest leaf on the family tree.

  —NK and AB

  To Lady, Isha, and Shadow, Moran’s best friends.

  —MM

  CONTENTS

  1. Rules, Schmools

  2. Uh-Oh!

  3. Must Dust

  4. A Pretty (Lousy) Penny

  5. Itchy, Itchy! Scratchy, Scratchy!

  6. A Really Ruff Day

  7. Where Wolf?

  8. Bakin’ Bacon

  9. The Great Escape

  10. The Toot Comes Out

  Positively Pawsome Treats for You and Your Furry Friends

  1.

  Rules, Schmools

  Plink. Plank. Plunk

  Plink. Plank. Plunk.

  I sat there listening to the raindrops hit our living room window.

  Plink. Plank. Plunk.

  Plink. Plank. Plunk.

  Boy, do I hate rainy Saturdays. I had nothing to do except look in the mirror and count my eyelashes.

  I was so bored.

  My cousin, Java, wasn’t bored though. He was busy playing with my mom’s smartphone.

  “Hey, Spike,” my cousin asked the phone, “do you know what happened to the leopard that fell in the washing machine?”

  “It came out spotless,” Spike answered. “I’ve heard that one before.”

  Oh brother.

  “I’m so tired of hanging around all day,” I moaned.

  Java’s eyes opened wide.

  He smiled excitedly.

  And then he shouted, “I can do it!”

  Java leaped up in the air and grabbed on to one of the blades of our ceiling fan.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m hanging around, too, ” Java replied.

  I watched Java spin around and around on the ceiling fan until I got dizzy.

  “Get down from there,” I ordered him. “You look ridiculous.”

  “Okay,” Java said. He let go of the fan and landed on the ground with a loud thud.

  “Shhh …” I warned. “Mom’s taking a nap. Can’t you hear her snoring through the door?”

  “Of course I can hear her,” Java said. “My supersonic ears can hear everything.”

  Java wasn’t kidding. He really does have supersonic ears.

  He also has eyes that can shoot laser beams.

  And feet that can spring him up into the air like a rocket.

  That’s because Java isn’t your typical third grade kid.

  In fact, he isn’t actually a kid at all. He’s my android cousin.

  My mom is a scientist. She likes to build things. So she built him.

  My robot cousin’s name is Jacob Alexander Victor Applebaum. But I just call him Java.

  Mom and I are the only ones who know that Java isn’t a real kid. And we can’t let anyone else know. That’s because he’s part of her secret scientific project: Project Droid.

  The whole point of Project Droid is to figure out if an android can fit in with real people. So Java is programmed to do all sorts of real kid things.

  “I meant, I just can’t sit here being bored anymore,” I explained. “I need to do something. There’s got to be some place in this house we can play.”

  I thought for a minute. Maybe there was a place.

  “Let’s go to the garage and kick around a soccer ball,” I suggested.

  Java shook his head. “Your mother’s lab is in the garage,” he said. “We are not allowed to be in there alone.”

  “We won’t be alone,” I told him. “I’ll be there with you. And you’ll be there with me. So neither of us would actually be alone.”

  Java stood there and thought about that for a minute. I could hear his hard drive ticking.

  “That makes sense,” he finally said.

  I smiled as I ran up to my room to grab my soccer ball. At last, I was going to have some fun!

  “Okay, I’ll kick the ball to you, and you kick it back to me,” I said to Java a few minutes later when we were in the garage.

  I gave the ball my ultimate ninja kick.

  It flew around Gunther, my mother’s model skeleton.

  It circled around her big barrel of beakers.

  And then the soccer ball …

  CRASH! CLANK! BOOM!

  2.

  Uh-Oh!

  “Oh no!” I gasped. “This is bad. Very bad. Bad bad bad.”

  Java picked up the small metal machine that had fallen from a shelf.

  “I think it is broken,” he said as one of the blades fell to the ground.

  He didn’t seem upset about it at all. Then again, nothing upsets an android.

  “Give me that,” I said, snatching the metal machine from his hand. “Maybe I can pop that scissor blade back on.”

  I picked up the machine and tried to pop the piece back in place.

  I twisted it.

  I gave it a good shove.

  And rammed it into place.

  Yes! I had fixed it!

  Clink. Clank. Clunk.

  More pieces fell off.

  “Is that what’s supposed to happen?” Java asked.

  Was he kidding me?

  “No
,” I told him. “The blades are supposed to stay on.”

  “What kind of machine is that?” Java asked me.

  “It’s a Snip-De-Frizz,” I told him. “Mom uses it to cut my hair. Or at least she used to. I don’t think we’re going to be able to fix it.”

  “Maybe your mother can fix it,” Java suggested. “She is very good with machines.”

  I shook my head. “We can’t let Mom know we broke this,” I told him. “She can’t find out we were in her lab alone.”

  “But we are not alone,” Java reminded me. “I’m with you. And you’re with me. Remember?”

  “I remember. But for now, we should keep this our secret.” I put the Snip-De-Frizz back on the shelf. “Let’s get out of here before Mom finds us.”

  “What are you looking for, Logan?” Java asked as he watched me frantically scroll down the screen on my laptop.

  “I need to find a store where I can buy a new Snip-De-Frizz,” I told him, biting my lip nervously. “I’ll replace the broken one before Mom finds out what happened.” I scrolled a little faster. “Here it is. They sell it at Hairs and Stuff.”

  “That’s not far,” Java said. His motor began to whir. “I have downloaded the directions to my hard drive. You walk down Ishkabobble Avenue and turn right onto …”

  “Thirty-three dollars and seventy-seven cents?” I shouted. “That hunk of junk costs thirty-three dollars and seventy-seven cents?”

  Java peered over my shoulder at the website. “That is what it says.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money.” I whimpered. “What am I going to do? I can’t just sweep this whole Snip-De-Frizz thing under the rug and forget about it.”

  Java gave me a strange look.

  He smiled.

  Then he shouted, “I can do it!”

  The next thing I knew, my robot cousin was running back toward my mother’s lab. He returned a minute later holding the Snip-De-Frizz.

  What was he up to?

  I watched as Java grabbed a broom from the closet. Then he put the Snip-De-Frizz on the floor, lifted the rug, and started sweeping.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “Sweeping this whole Snip-De-Frizz thing under the rug,” he told me.

  “That’s not what I meant.” I shook my head angrily. Sometimes, Java really grinds my gears.

  Although this time …

  “Thanks, Java!” I shouted, excited. “You just gave me a great idea!”

  3.

  Must Dust

  “Hello, mother dear,” I said in my sweetest voice. Mom had just come downstairs after her nap. And Java and I were right there waiting for her.

  “What do you want?” my mom asked.

  “How do you know I want something?” I replied.

  “Because you always want something when you call me ‘mother dear.’”

  “Well, I don’t want to ask you for an advance on my allowance….” I said slowly.

  “That’s good,” Mom said. “Because you aren’t getting one. Why do you need money?”

  Uh-oh. I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “It’s … um … always good to have money,” I said.

  “That is true,” Java agreed.

  “So I was thinking, since I have nothing else to do, maybe I could do some chores to earn money,” I told her.

  “Well, I do have a few things around the house that could use a good cleaning,” my mother agreed. “Okay. I will give you a list of chores. And I’ll pay you when you’ve finished.”

  I didn’t ask Mom how much she would pay me. No sense making her more curious than she already was.

  Mom went to her desk and started to make a list of chores for Java and me:

  Scrub the toilet

  Unclog the drain under the kitchen sink

  Put the books in ABC order

  Dust the furniture

  Vacuum the living room rug

  Wow! That was a really long list. I figured all that work had to be worth at least thirty-three dollars and seventy-seven cents.

  “Come on, Java,” I said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  “Okay, let’s see what’s next,” I told Java a couple of hours later as I looked at the chores that were still left on Mom’s list.

  I had already scrubbed the toilet—which was super gross.

  Then I pulled nasty ooey-gooey stuff out of the drain under the kitchen sink. Yuck.

  And Java and I had put the books in ABC order. That took us three hours. There are a lot of books in my house.

  “Okay, let’s split up the rest of the list,” I told Java. “We’ll get it done faster that way. And the sooner we get the money, the better.”

  “Sure, Logan,” Java agreed. “You’re the boss.”

  I liked the sound of that.

  I went to closet and got out the vacuum. “I’ll vacuum the rug,” I said. “You dust the furniture.”

  Java gave me a big smile.

  He wiggled his ears.

  And twitched his nose.

  Then he shouted out, “I can do it!”

  The next thing I knew, Java had popped open the vacuum bag. He was throwing dirty gray vacuum dust all over the place!

  On top of the couch.

  Under the chair.

  All over the table.

  Everywhere.

  Cough cough. “What are you doing?” I asked Java as I tried to breathe under all that dust. Cough. Cough.

  “I am dusting the furniture,” Java replied. “Look how nice and dusty everything is now.”

  “What do you mean nice and dusty?” I shouted. Cough cough. “This isn’t nice at all. You just wrecked the whole room. Now I have to vacuum even more.”

  Java gave me a funny look. I could tell he didn’t understand what he had done wrong.

  And I didn’t feel like explaining it to him.

  “How about you double-check that all the books are in the right order,” I said. “I’ll clean up the rest of the living room.”

  “Okay, Logan,” Java said. “I will do whatever you say.”

  I looked around at the dust-covered couch, chair, and table.

  “I know,” I muttered. “That’s the problem.”

  4.

  A Pretty (Lousy) Penny

  “You boys did a great job!” my mother said five hours later as she inspected the dusted—and re-dusted—living room.

  She reached into her pocket.

  I smiled. Here comes the cash, I thought.

  All the scrubbing and dusting and ABC-ing was about to pay off. Any minute now, I would have the money I needed to buy a new Snip-De-Frizz. I might even have a little left over to buy a new deck of magic cards.

  Mom opened her wallet. “I think all this work is worth two dollars,” she said. She handed me two one-dollar bills.

  I stared at the money in my hand. I couldn’t believe it.

  I know I should have said thank you, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  As mom walked out of the room, I shook my head. “Two lousy dollars?” I grumbled. “That’s all we get? For all that hard work?”

  “Wait. There is more money, Logan!” Java exclaimed cheerfully.

  I looked at him, curious. “There is?”

  “Oh yes,” Java assured me. “I found it under the couch cushions.”

  “Good job! How much did you find?”

  Java reached into his pocket and pulled out …

  A dime.

  A nickel.

  And two pennies.

  “Seventeen cents?” I moaned. “That’s no help at all.”

  “And I also found this,” Java said, handing me an old red button.

  I grabbed the button from his hand and angrily threw it on the floor.

  “We’re never going to get enough money to buy a new Snip-De-Frizz now,” I whined. “Not when all we have so far is two dollars and seventeen cents.”

  “We also have a button,” Java reminded me. “Don’t forget the button.”

  5.


  Itchy, Itchy! Scratchy, Scratchy!

  “What are you doing, Logan?” Java asked me later that afternoon.

  My cousin and I were in my room. I was busy arranging my toys by color into piles. Java was staring into space.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I replied.

  “I do not know,” Java told me. “That is why I asked you.”

  “I’m going through my toys to see what I don’t mind getting rid of,” I explained. “Selling my toys is the only way I can think of to make the thirty-three dollars and seventy-seven cents quickly.”

  “But you do not need the thirty-three dollars and seventy-seven cents anymore,” Java said.

  I gave him a funny look. “I don’t?” I asked him.

  Java shook his big, goofy robot head. “No. You need thirty-one dollars and sixty cents. You already have two dollars, seventeen cents, and a red button.”

  Oh brother. Now Java was really pushing my buttons.

  “That’s still a lot of money we need,” I told him. “And we have to get it fast. My hair doesn’t shrink, you know. Sooner or later, Mom is going to want to cut it.”

  I pulled my old jack-in-the-box out of my toy chest. I started to turn the crank. The music began to play.

  All around the mulberry bush

  the monkey chased the weasel.

  The monkey thought …

  POP!

  The jack-in-the-box popped up so hard that the whole box flew out of my hands.

  “I guess I can call it a flying jack-in-the-box,” I told Java. “People would pay a lot of money for that.”

  I reached into the toy chest and pulled out an action figure.

  “It’s only missing one arm,” I said. “No one will notice.”

  “Do humans like old, broken toys?” Java asked me.

  “Sure,” I said, trying to sound really confident. “People buy old things all the time. You should see the kind of stuff they sell at flea markets.”

  “You are going to have a flea market, too?” Java asked me.

  “Yep,” I told him. “Tomorrow. In the park.”