Oliver Fibbs and the Clash of the Mega Robots

by Steve Hartley

  I took the metal plate off the ’s chest and we stared at the tangle of singed wires and soggy rubber tubes inside. They looked nothing like the neat and tidy diagram in the instruction manual.

  Algy whistled and shook his head. It’s a job,’ he said. ‘I can’t help you right now because I’ve got to study for my exams. If you can’t fix it, can I have a go when I’ve finished them?’

  I fiddled here and tweaked there, but nothing seemed to work. The Zybot’s eyes stayed dark, and his metal body didn’t even twitch. In the end I gave up, plonked the in Algy’s room and went to bed.

  The next morning, I got to school and found Peaches had already been working in the library for over on hour. At morning break I went to see how she was getting on at her new job.

  She was busy using the new super-duper copier machine, copying pictures and posters and sticking them up on the walls of the library. She was as happy as The Chuckler, the diabolical prankster in , after he’d started a war between the nations of Flyova and Jumpova.

  ‘If you want to help, you can shred that pile of paper,’ she said.

  She stuck a picture of the school hamsters, Rambo, Rocky and Rooney, over the shredder.

  ‘Zoots nice,’ said Peaches, picking up a book that someone had left on a table. She headed for the bookshelves to put it in its proper place. ‘He came in here at home-time yesterday. He took out a huge book about Australia. He said he wanted to learn about the next country he was going to visit.’

  ‘I’ve not spoken to him yet,’ I said. ‘He hangs out with Bobby most of the time, and he’s so super-cool.’

  ‘I thought he’d be just like Bobby,’ said Peaches. ‘But he’s not. You should speak to him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t want to talk to me . . .’

  I didn’t say any more, because Peaches had growled, and stomped a few paces down the aisle of books. ‘Why would someone put a book by Ronald Durl next to one by Kay Jay Howling? Don’t people know their alphabet?’ She placed her fists on her hips and studied the rows of books. ‘In fact, they’re all out of order,’ she said. ‘This library needs organizing now, before the new books arrive.’

  I turned and headed for the door, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  ‘Oh no you don’t, Ollie,’ she said. ‘We’re going to pull every book off the shelves and put them in neat piles on the floor: one pile for authors with last names beginning with A, another for B, another for C, and so on right through the alphabet.’

  ‘But . . . buy . . . I said I’d help Leon sharpen his pencils,’ I replied.

  ‘Leon Curley can sharpen his own pencils – we’ve got work to do.’

  Pea was like a girl on a mission. Soon, the shelves were empty, and we had a long row of wobbly book-stacks, like crooked tree stamps growing out of the library floor. Every break she grabbed me and hauled me into the library to put the books in each stack into perfect alphabetical order, doing a few letters each day. By the end of the week, I knew what felt like in , when he was lured into a time vortex by Tempus Tinker, and forced to be one of the Egyptian slaves building the pyramids.

  As we finished each letter, and Peaches had the books neatly ordered back on the shelf, she sighed with satisfaction. ‘A place for everything, and everything in its place.’

  Miss Wilkins breezed in now and again to check out how things were going. ‘Keep up the good work,’ she’d chirp, then breeze out again.

  Zoot came into the library a lot, but just said, ‘Hi!’ and sat in the comer to read his big book about Australia. One time, Peaches asked him if he wanted to help us. Zoot smiled and said he was reading a really interesting part of his book and wanted to get to the end, so we left him alone. Bobby didn’t though. He hunted Zoot down every day and dragged him out into the playground.

  ‘What are you wasting your time in here for?’ he said after lunch on Friday, grinning at me and Peaches as we worked on the M pile of books. ‘This place is Yawn Central.’

  Zoot slammed his book shut as his cousin leaned over to see what he was reading.

  ‘I’ve got some Year Twos outside,’ continued Bobby. ‘I said I’d get you to sign autographs for them.’

  Three excited faces peered through the window in the door, and Bobby beckoned the kids into the library.

  ‘Can we have your autograph?’ said the first one in, shoving a tatty piece of paper at Zoot. ‘You’re famous.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ he replied, glaring at his cousin. ‘I’m not signing anything – sorry.’

  The three kids looked confused and disappointed. ‘You said he’d give us his autograph,’ said the smallest one, scowling at Bobby. ‘You said you were his boss.’

  Bobby laughed nervously, and began shoving them back towards the door. ‘Er, well I’m kind of looking after him,’ he answered. You can have my autograph, if you like,’ he said, pulling the newspaper clipping from his pocket and showing the young kids. ‘I’m a famous runner.’

  The kids looked impressed and seemed happy to let him scrawl his name on their scraps of paper. ‘Those’ll be worth a fortune when I win a gold medal at the Olympics,’ he shouted as they the library.

  ‘My boss?’ said Zoot.

  Bobby laughed. ‘I was joking! Listen, can you get George Looney to sign a few pieces of paper?’ he said. ‘Everyone wants his signature, and I said we could get some.’

  ‘No way,’ said Zoot.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ argued Bobby. ‘It’s only a few autographs . . .’

  ‘No way,’ repeated Zoot, more firmly.

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Bobby, raising his hands. He looked over at me and Peaches. ‘Dump that book, and come and have a kick-around in the playground. If you stay in here too long you’ll end up like everyone else in here.’

  Zoot frowned at his cousin. He sighed, pushed his big Australia book into his rucksack and headed out of the library. As Bobby followed him, he nudged the column of books by authors with names beginning with M, then scuttled out of the door. The tall stack wobbled and swayed.

  ‘No!’ cried Peaches as the pile of books tipped over.

  I dashed forward and grabbed for the crumbling tower, but it toppled into the N pile, which crumpled over into the O pile, which smashed into the P pile. One by one, the stacks crashed down until all our carefully arranged books were spread across the floor.

  ‘Well just have to start again,’ said Peaches. ‘At least we’d already shelved letters A to L!’

  On a scale of boring-osity, where 1 is watching Algy play chess against his computer, and 100 is watching Emma and Gemma do ballet (which I have to do a lot of the time), then putting books in alphabetical order would have scored about 15,894,132,947. Doing it twice scored . . . whatever twice that number is.

  Actually, it didn’t take too long to do it this time. We carried on through afternoon break.

  By the time Constanza arrived nine minutes late to take me home, Peaches and I had got all the stacks back in order and the books in the M, N, O and P piles on the bookshelves.

  ‘So sorry I am late again, Ollie,’ Constanza said as she bustled into school. ‘I watch the soups.’

  ‘Soaps,’ I corrected her.

  ‘They are so – !’

  She and Miss Wilkins had one of their whispered conversations. I heard words like ‘celebrity’ . . . ‘newspaper’ . . . ‘film stars’ . . . and ‘dollop’.

  ‘Ollie, why you no say to us about your new friend?’ said Constanza as I climbed into the car. ‘He’s a famous.’

  ‘Zoot’s not famous – his dad is,’ I replied. ‘And he’s not my friend.’

  ‘Who’s Zoot?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Who’s his dad?’ asked Gemma, both suddenly interested.

  ‘Antonio Zipparolli,’ I answered. ‘He’s making a movie in town.’

  Constanza turned to my sisters. I find out George Looney is in the town also,’ she told them.

  ‘What?’ yelled Emma and Gemma together, looking at me fiercely. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Yes
.’

  The twins began to bash me with their ballet pumps. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested,’ I said, trying to defend myself from the battering I was taking.

  They stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at me.

  ‘Has your pea-brain stopped working completely?’ wondered Emma, shaking her head in disbelief.

  ‘You know someone who knows someone who knows George Looney,’ spluttered Gemma. ‘OF COURSE WE’RE INTERESTED!’

  ‘Who’s George Looney?’ asked Algy. ‘Does he play chess?’

  I shrugged. ‘He’s a film star.’

  Constanza sighed. ‘He is bellisimo.’

  The twins were furious that I’d kept them in the dark about George Looney, and didn’t speak to me all weekend: result!

  In fact, I was pretty much left alone by everyone. Mum was busy mending brains, Dad was away at a building-designing conference, Constanza was studying for her English exam and the twins were learning a new dance. Algy’s exams were over, so he shut himself away in the basement, tinkering with the Zybot. He said I was lucky the toy hadn’t blown up completely because my wires were crossed, my grommets were loose and my gaskets were leaky.

  ‘Sorry, Ollie,’ he said,’ but you’re definitely not a mechanical engineer.’

  I trudged miserably back to my room and decided to do what I definitely was at: reading comics. I set out on a mammoth quest to reread every issue from 1 to 433 (not counting , which was the only one I hadn’t got). I settled down to a spectacular weekend of adventure and strawberry milkshakes.

  On Sunday evening, there was a knock at my bedroom door just as I’d started .

  The Zybot stood outside, his red eyes glowing in the dark hallway. With a whirring sound, the toy raised its right hand, and said in a harsh, metallic voice, ‘Give . . . me . . . five . . . dude.’

  It began to break-dance, swivelling its body, turning jerky somersaults and walking backwards, the eyes flashing in a silent disco beat. The did a final backflip, struck a cool pose and cried, ‘Wicked . . . dude!’

  ‘,’ I breathed.

  ‘I made a few improvements,’ said my little brother, peeking round his bedroom door.

  ‘How did you fix it?’

  Algy took the back off the , and pointed out the nuts I hadn’t tightened, and the places I’d got my wires crossed. ‘Mending it wasn’t as hard as I thought,’ he said. ‘But I decided to improve the voice box, so he’d say more, and upgrade the pumps so he’d move better.’

  ‘I wish I wets like you, Algy. I wish I was , then Mum and Dad would leave me alone and stop pushing me all the time.’

  ‘No they wouldn’t,’ he replied miserably. ‘They don’t leave me alone. They never stop pushing me.’

  We both sighed, and stared silently at the Zybot, lost in our own thoughts. After a few moments, Algy said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Ollie. I only wanted to fix the so you could take it to school tomorrow for your .’

  I went cold. I’d forgotten all about time.

  ‘Thanks, Algy,’ I said, taking the remote control from him. ‘But it’d be cheating – you’re the one who’s made it work.’

  I pressed a couple of buttons on the remote. The Zybot jerked as though it had been electrocuted, cried, ‘Would . . . you . . . like . . . a . . . cup . . . of . . . tea?’ then fell flat on its face.

  ‘Besides,’ I sighed, ‘with my luck, it’d say a rude word to Miss Wilkins then destroy the classroom. Everyone would laugh and I’d get detention.’

  ‘Well, what are you going to do then?’ asked Algy, putting the toy back on its feet.

  ‘I don’t know. Constanza burned my toast this morning, and the scorch mark looks a bit like a kangaroo,’ I told him. ‘I kept it. Maybe I could show that.’

  Algy pressed more buttons on the remote control. The Zybot’s eyes flashed. ‘You. . . are . . . doomed!’ it announced, and began to march down the hallway.

  ‘Good luck with that,’ said Algy, a Dr Devious grin spreading across his face. ‘I’m off to terrorize the twins.

  The next morning, I sat in class with the piece of burnt toast in my bag, and listened to some great s. Even the had done something good.

  Bobby Bragg had won his race and been selected to run for the county in the Regional Championships.

  Millie Dangerfield told us she’d met her favourite writer, Jocelyn Wilton, and showed us her new book, , that had been signed by the author.

  Hattie Hurley had done another word-search, with silly words like ‘flibbertigibbet’, ‘whippersnapper’ and ‘kerfuffle’.

  Peaches said she’d been to the National Bottle-top Museum, and showed us a badge she’d made from a lemon-pop bottle top in the museum’s activity centre.

  Jamie Ryder had got a new skateboard for his birthday.

  Toby Hadron said he’d made a lie detector. He asked for a volunteer to demonstrate it, and I don’t know why but everyone looked at me.

  ‘Go on, Ollie,’ called Jamie. ‘Give us one of your big fat .’

  I looked nervously towards Miss Wilkins.

  ‘Go on then, Oliver,’ she smiled. ‘In the interests of science.’

  I sat in a chair at the front of the class, while Toby stuck wires on my ears, nose and big toe. The wires curled into a machine that had dials and switches, and two light bulbs on the top.

  ‘When you lie, your heart beats faster, you sweat a bit more and you blush,’ explained Toby. ‘The machine picks this up. If you tell the truth, the green light comes on, and the machine goes ! If you tell a lie, the red light flashes and the machine goes !’

  ‘Then get ready for a massive pong when Fibbs starts talking!’ laughed Bobby Bragg.

  ‘Right, let’s get started,’ said Toby. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Oliver Fibbs.’

  ! The red light flashed.

  ‘I mean, Oliver Tibbs.’

  ! Now the green light came on.

  ‘How extraordinary!’ said Miss Wilkins. ‘It works!’

  ‘What did you do at the weekend, Oliver?’ asked Toby.

  I thought about how Bobby had been using Zoot to make himself look better . . . and then I thought . . . maybe I could use the Zybot for something after all.

  . . .

  ‘This weekend, I discovered that ’s arch-enemy, the Show-off was building a super- . . .’ I said.

  ‘The Show-off is planning to use the terrifying Megabot to destroy the and rule the world!’

  !

  Peaches smiled. ‘He’s telling the truth!’ she said.

  Millie Dangerfield made a sound like a terrified sparrow. ‘Oh help! Who’s going to save us?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Millie,’ I said. ‘This is a job for . . .

  !’

  !

  Toby frowned and flicked a few switches. ‘The lie detector seems to be broken.’

  ‘It’s M-A-L-F-U-N-C-T-I-O-N-I-N-G,’ spelt out Hattie Hurley.

  ‘Mal-what?’ asked Bobby.

  ‘I tested it this morning,’ said Toby, thumping the metal box with his fist. ‘There was nothing wrong.’

  I went on with my story as he fiddled with the switches.

  ‘The Megabot began its attack . . .’

  !

  Toby began to poke around inside the lie detector. ‘This is most odd . . .’

  I remembered the time in the library when Bobby knocked over our carefully stacked columns of books. . . .

  ‘Oh no!’ squeaked Millie. ‘Are and Captain Common Sense OK?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Millie,’ I replied. ‘They’re alive and well.’

  !

  ‘The cockpit of my pocket ship has a special blast-proof capsule around it. The have been defeated for now, but well be back!’

  !

  Toby stared at the lie detector and scratched his head. ‘It’s working properly,’ he said, frowning. ‘Oliver seems to be telling the truth!’

  ‘Wrong! Wrong! It should have gone !’ shouted Bobby Br
agg.

  ‘How extraordinary!’ exclaimed Miss Wilkins. ‘Well, Oliver, we’ll count that story as your , so you can go and sit down.’

  I’d got away with it: the burnt toast stayed in my bag!

  I pulled the sticky blobs that connected me to Toby’s machine from my ears, nose and big toe, and hopped back to my seat to put my sock and shoe back on.

  The rest of the class did their s, until at last Zoot stood up.

  ‘What did you do at the weekend, Zoot?’ asked our teacher.

  ‘My dad gave me a couple of lines to say in his movie,’ he replied.

  The whole class went, ‘’

  ‘How dramatic!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Zoot shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal.’

  I leaned over towards Peaches. ‘This guy is cooler than the Head Cool Dude at the Cooldude Academy for Cool Dudes in Cooldude County, USA,’ I whispered.

  Melody Nightingale was nearly jumping out of her chair with . ‘What was your first line?’

  ‘“”,’ mumbled Zoot.

  A few of the class tittered, and Zoot went red.

  I was dressed as a duck,’ he explained. ‘I was playing the part of a boy who tries to sell an Easter egg to George Looney as he chases a spy through a shopping mall.’

  He showed us a photo of him and the great film star acting together. Zoot had a big yellow duck costume on, and you could just see his face peeking out through the beak.

  ‘What was your other line?’ asked Jamie Ryder.

  ‘“”.’

  This time the giggling was louder, and Zoot hurried back to his seat.

  ‘How . . . !’ said Miss Wilkins.