How Lunchbox Jones Saved Me From Robots, Traitors, and Missy the Cruel

by Jennifer Brown

  “Who here got this paper?” Mr. Terry asked. He held up the orange sheet of paper that I recognized as the one I’d recycled the night before. “Ricky Raccoon handed them out at the end of the day yesterday. Anyone?”

  A boy up front raised his hand. “Who is Ricky Raccoon?”

  “Our mascot, dummy,” Amber Watts said, rolling her eyes.

  “I thought our mascot’s name was Robert,” Jessie offered.

  “I heard it was Rudy,” Gannon Match said.

  “My mom said it was Ralph,” Melody Stemp added.

  Steve Samuel shook his head. “Our mascot’s name is Doris Verde.”

  Incredulous echoes of Doris? rang around the room.

  “Doris doesn’t even start with an R,” Amber pointed out. “That makes no sense at all. Ralph sounds way better than Doris. But it’s not Ralph, either. It’s Ricky. Mr. Terry should know.”

  “I don’t see why it should have to start with an R,” Jessie said, turning all the way around in her chair so she was facing the whole class. “There’s no reason why Bruce wouldn’t be a perfectly fine name for a raccoon. Or Ellen.”

  “Yeah,” said Steve. “Or Doris. Because her name really is Doris.”

  “Ladies, fellas, let’s get back to the subject at hand,” Mr. Terry kept saying, but nobody was really listening anymore. The Great Raccoon Name Debate of Room 109 had gotten too far under way. He raised the paper into the air. “Did anyone get a flier?”

  And then suddenly there was a voice.

  “I got one,” it said.

  Only it was a really deep, strange voice that had a bit of a booming, window-rattling quality to it. So it sounded more like:

  (with dead trees and birds and stuff that fell out of the sky surrounding it).

  Immediately, the whole room went quiet. And it was one of those uneasy quiets, like we were all holding our breath and counting the seconds between thunder and lightning to see how close a storm was. Even Mr. Terry looked surprised. Together, as if our heads were all attached, foosball-style, we turned and gawked at the source.

  “I got one,” the voice repeated, and it was clearly coming from the mouth of the kid sitting at the desk in the very back of the room.

  Lunchbox Jones.

  Nobody had ever heard Lunchbox Jones speak. Most people thought Lunchbox Jones couldn’t speak. That he’d lost the ability to form words when he was in the state penitentiary, perhaps. That his vocal cords had been ripped out by the mountain lion he supposedly fought with his bare hands. That he’d permanently damaged his throat while eating his old art teacher. That he’d taken a vow of silence to cover up all the murders he’d committed.

  Everybody knew Lunchbox Jones, but nobody knew Lunchbox Jones. Not really. All we knew about him was that he carried a blue lunchbox everywhere he went and that he was pretty much always in trouble for something nobody ever saw. And that he was scary. Really, really scary.

  All-Time World History Ranking of Scariest Things That Ever Scared Anyone:

  8.Snakes with fangs. Also, snakes without fangs.

  7.Spiders, especially the kind that hop toward you when you get close to them with your shoe, like you messed with the beast and now it is on and they are about to devour you, so bring it, bro.

  6.Clowns hiding in closets.

  5.Seeing anyone you know while shopping in the underwear department of any store. Especially if the person you know is Mrs. Poole, your old music teacher from elementary school, and she stops to have a big, long conversation with your mom about how much she misses you, while holding underwear in her hand the entire time.

  4.Sock puppets, especially the kind where one button eye is half falling off and bounces around on its sock cheek every time it moves its mouth, making your own eye suddenly feel a little bulgy and loose.

  3.Movies featuring heavily breathing dudes in masks carrying unconventional weapons through foggy, wooded areas.

  2.Actual serial killers.

  1.Lunchbox Jones.

  Lunchbox Jones had frizzy hair that went to his shoulders, and he always wore a camouflage jacket. One theory was that he wore the jacket to make it easier to stalk his prey on the walk home from school. But nobody could say for sure if his prey was of the animal or people variety. Either way, if you were sucker enough to walk your dog on Lunch-box Jones’s route home from school, one of you was pretty much a goner as far as the rest of us were concerned.

  Nobody had a clue what was in his blue lunchbox, but so far Forest Shade Middle School hadn’t found a student brave enough to ask. There were rumors about what might be in there—a human heart, various poisons and implements of torture, a very tiny rabid wolverine—but the only thing we could all agree on was that none of us wanted to find out for sure.

  Even Mr. Terry seemed kind of stunned that Lunchbox had spoken up. He paused and stared for a moment, then swallowed and stammered, “G-goo-good. I’m g-gl-glad.” Then he seemed to collect himself. He cleared his throat a bunch of times and then focused his attention on the rest of us, as, one by one, heads turned back to the front of the room. But I guess I must have been last to look away, because suddenly Lunchbox zeroed in on me, making all my guts liquify immediately. He glared and then, without warning, bared his teeth at me and snapped them together. Clack! Only it sounded like:

  (with femurs and skulls and stuff flying out between his molars).

  I gasped and quickly faced front again.

  “Anyone else get a flier? Besides, er, . . . besides Mr. . . . um . . .” Mr. Terry trailed off. Even he didn’t seem to know what else to call Lunchbox. Even Lunchbox’s parents probably called him Lunchbox. If he had parents. Some kids believed that he was hatched in a lab experiment gone awry.

  I slid down a couple of inches in my seat. No way was I going to say anything now about getting that flier.

  “Well, that’s okay,” Mr. Terry said, though he looked a little defeated. “I have plenty of leftover fliers here. But first I thought you might like to see what robotics is about.”

  He reached into the box and pulled out a machine. It was silver and white, with black rubber wheels that looked like they belonged on a tank, and a bunch of wires and arms and cords sticking out in every direction. “This is our robot,” he said. We all leaned forward.

  “What do you do with it?” Darius Smith asked.

  Mr. Terry gazed at the robot doubtfully. “Well, we program it to perform certain tasks.”

  “Like bring you the newspaper and mow the lawn?” Several girls giggled, and Darius looked around, like it hadn’t been a joke but he was proud that it turned into one.

  “Not exactly,” Mr. Terry said. “More like to knock little bowling pins down with a Ping-Pong ball or push a block into a square.”

  Jessie made a face. “That’s all?”

  “You make that awesome robot, and all it does is push a block into a square?” Amber said, and Mr. Terry nodded.

  “Do you get to take down any bad guys in the square, at least?” Gannon asked.

  Mr. Terry’s mouth drifted down to super-mope. “It’s very exciting.”

  “It doesn’t sound very exciting,” Darius said.

  “It sounds really boring,” Jessie added. “I agree with Gannon. Bad guys are way cooler than a block and a square.” There were murmurs of agreement.

  “Here. I’ll run a program for you. You’ll see,” Mr. Terry said. He leaned over the robot and fiddled with some buttons, then scratched his head and fiddled with the buttons some more. Finally, he stood, took the robot to the worktable at the side of the room, hit one last button with great flourish, and stood back with his hands on his hips.

  We all leaned forward, our eyes trained on the robot. It whirred to life, lifted a few centimeters on its wheels, made a sound like parts spinning, revved up, and moved forward about two inches.

  Then it flopped over on its side and abruptly powered off with a pop! and a puff of smoke.

  We were all silent for a moment, staring at the dead robot. Mr.
Terry scratched his head.

  “Was it supposed to do that?” Jessie finally asked.

  “Definitely not,” Amber said, waving her hands in front of her face. “It smells.”

  Steve laughed, waving his hand around, too. “You programmed your robot to fart, Mr. T.?”

  The class erupted into laughs that turned into dramatic coughs as we all began waving our hands in front of our faces. We were all laughing and coughing and talking so loudly, we barely heard the bell ring.

  Mr. Terry picked up the robot forlornly. “Class dismissed.”

  CHAPTER 4

  PROGRAM NAME: Pressure

  STEP ONE: Robot bumps into wall

  STEP TWO: Wall bumps back

  STEP THREE: Robot bangs its head on wall until ear gear falls off

  “Mr. Abbott, may I see you for a moment?”

  I had been happily heading out to the car rider line after school, bending and flexing my fingers as warm-up for alien battles with Randy. I turned at the sound of my name. Mr. Terry was trotting after me, his too-short tie bouncing up and hitting him in the chin with every step. I stopped, inwardly groaning. Getting held up after the final bell by a teacher when you could literally see your escape vehicle right there at the curb was torture. Sort of like being let out of jail only to find that the door was jammed and you’d have to wait for the locksmith to get there. And while you’re waiting, they find other stuff to put you back in jail for.

  Mr. Terry was out of breath by the time he reached me, and he had to take a minute to recover. I could see Dad craning his neck toward us. He probably thought I was in trouble.

  Wait. Was I in trouble? Had Mr. Terry finally looked up at the ceiling tile? Oh, great. I was about to get reamed right in front of my dad. Double trouble. Just put me back in jail, please!

  I held up my hands. “I swear, only thirteen of the pencils are mine. I’ve been having a trajectory problem because of Amber’s new super-puffy hairdo.”

  A look of confusion crossed Mr. Terry’s face, but he shook it away. “I wanted to talk to you about robotics.”

  Oh. He must have seen the raccoon hand me the flier, and he knew I’d been lying in class earlier by not admitting to having gotten one. “I forgot all about the flier,” I blurted. “Well, I didn’t really forget. It’s just that Lunchbox Jones is scary and I like my schedule the way it is.” In my head, that made perfect sense.

  The confusion on Mr. Terry’s face deepened, and it occurred to me that maybe I just needed to stop talking altogether.

  “I was thinking you’d be a great fit for the team,” he said. “We start next Monday right after school. Will you consider coming?”

  Now it was my turn to look confused. Or maybe not so much confused as completely shocked and mystified. Nobody had ever wanted me on a team before. “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want me? I don’t know anything about robots.”

  “Because I think you would be an asset to our team,” he said. I raised one eyebrow, and he let out a sigh. “Okay, listen, I’ll level with you. We haven’t won a robotics tournament in . . .” He paused, tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Ever. We have never won. And I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re something of a video game master.”

  “What grapevine?” I said. “Who called me that?” Video game master? Me? Who would have said such a thing? Of course . . . I’d never thought about it before, but I was sort of masterful. I did have my mastering moments. I cleared my throat. “I mean, not that it’s not true. I do have a pretty good system, especially when it comes to the pod creatures. You see, I take the controller and . . .”

  Mr. Terry sighed. “Okay, I overheard you say something to Walter about it once, that you like to play video games. And I talked to Mrs. Henley and Ms. Borchevic, and they both said you’re doing really well in your math and science classes.”

  “I’m not exactly a master of math and science,” I said. “Well, not unless Mrs. Henley and Ms. Borchevic said . . .”

  “Do you like computers, Luke?” Mr. Terry interrupted.

  I shrugged. “Sure. Who doesn’t?”

  He beamed. “See? You’re perfect. We need someone who can lead us to a win, and I think that someone might be you, Luke Abbott.” He poked a finger in my chest when he said that last part. I rubbed my sternum where he’d just poked.

  “But I don’t know anything about robots. Or leading. Or winning.”

  He sighed again, scratched his mustache, and looked around elaborately before leaning in and putting an arm around my shoulders conspiratorially. “Okay, you’re right. The truth is, I need warm bodies. We haven’t won a game ever, and Principal McMillan is threatening to pull the plug on the program. I bought that robot with my own money, Luke. Do you know how much a robot costs?”

  “Um . . . thirty bucks?”

  “That was a rhetorical question, Luke. You’re not supposed to answer those. And, no, nowhere near thirty bucks. A lot more than thirty bucks. I was told Forest Shade would never win anything, but I was certain, Luke. I was certain that a robotics program would pull Forest Shade out of its losing slump. I thought it would turn everything around, and soon we’d be the school to beat. I would be a hero, Luke. The hero of Forest Shade Middle School. But we haven’t turned anything around. And we’re running out of chances. Principal McMillan isn’t going to fund a robotics team forever, Luke. Do you know how much it costs to keep a robotics team up and running? Even a losing one?”

  “Um . . .” That seemed like another one of those rhetorical things he’d talked about, so I didn’t answer.

  “A lot.” He patted me on the back and straightened up. “So you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Totally.”

  “You get why I asked you?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And I’ll see you Monday after school for our first practice?”

  “No.”

  He frowned.

  “I get it, Mr. Terry, I totally do. But I like my schedule the way it is.” I reached up and patted him on the shoulder the same way he’d just done to me. “Good luck putting together your team, Mr. Terry. See you tomorrow! Oh, and just forget what I said about the pencils. I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  I turned and headed for Dad’s car.

  “Hey, buddy,” Dad said as I slid in. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Mr. Terry needed to ask me something.”

  “About what?”

  “Nothing important. Just robotics.”

  “Why would he be asking you about robotics?”

  “No reason. We can go now.” I clicked on my seat belt, settled back in my seat, and closed my eyes, my fingers twitching around an imaginary video game remote. Another long day, done. Aliens, beware, Lucky Shot Luke, newly titled video game master, is coming home to the Ultimate Gaming Zone.

  Dad started to put the car into gear, but we were both startled by a knock on the window. I opened one eye to see Mr. Terry standing there, rapping with his knuckles.

  I rolled down the window slowly, letting in the sounds of school buses and doom.

  Mr. Terry looked over my head. “Hello, Mr. Abbott, I was wondering if I might speak to you about something for just a moment.”

  “Sure,” Dad said, glancing at me uncertainly. I shrugged, tried to mouth, He’s crazy. We should call the police! But he wasn’t watching anymore.

  “I was just talking to Luke here about our robotics program. I think he has the potential to be a great asset to our team.”

  Dad glanced at me again, only this time he looked proud. Not good. “Really? Well, that’s wonderful news. . .”

  I slid even deeper into my seat, squinching my eyes shut and wishing that this wasn’t happening. When teachers and parents got together and started saying things about your potential, your free time was pretty much a dead duck.

  “And we just happen to have space for new members,” Mr. Terry said. “A rar
e opportunity for the students.”

  “You don’t say. What luck!”

  “And I thought Luke might want to get his application in before the rush of interested students . . .”

  I tuned them out, wishing with everything I had that they would stop talking. But they didn’t.

  Ten minutes later, I was officially a member of the Forest Shade Middle School Rallying Robo-Raccoons.

  CHAPTER 5

  PROGRAM NAME: The Aws

  STEP ONE: Bots enter house

  STEP TWO: Bots make lots and lots of noise

  STEP THREE: Bots go after programmer’s cheeks with pincers and squeeze

  It was a Friday night. Most of my friends rejoiced on Friday nights. For them, Friday night meant going to the movies or the mall or football games and parties. For Randy, it meant unlimited alien-destruction time. For Walter, Fridays were for tinkering around in a car wonderland with his uncle.

  For me, Friday nights meant the invasion of the aws.

  Forever ago, my mom and dad were next-door neighbors. This was before my mom started wearing glasses and my dad started complaining about people leaving lights on in rooms that nobody was in. They were friends when they were kids, and then they started dating when they were teenagers, and after college my dad literally married the girl next door.

  Because of this, their parents—all my grandparents—were friends. Best friends. In fact, they still lived next door to one another. They were so close, it was nearly impossible to see one set of them without the other. They were “the grandmas and the grandpas,” or sometimes “the mamaws and the papaws,” or even “the maws and the paws,” or, as I’d called them since I learned to talk, simply “the aws.”

  The maws half of the aws was made up of two busy ladies who looked remarkably alike. They were both short with tiny hands and feet, and both had curly white hair. They both talked all the time, sometimes even saying the same thing at the same time, and they both came at you with cheek-pinching claws whenever they saw you. The only way to tell them apart was that Mom’s maw, Maw Shirley, always wore an apron and kept butterscotch candies in the front pocket. Dad’s maw, Maw Mazie, didn’t like butterscotch and always complained to Maw Shirley that she should carry cinnamon candies, instead.