The Luke Abbott Method
to Perfect Sundae Assembly:
Layer one: Chocolate sauce, the thin kind that sort of tastes like a can.
Layer two: Vanilla ice cream. Not ice milk. Never ice milk. What kind of dessert-hating monster invented ice milk, anyway?
Layer three: Mini marshmallows, or any sort of gummy candy that tricks your brain into forgetting you were eating ice cream, until . . .
Layer four: More vanilla ice cream. A really thick layer.
Layer five: Exactly two squirts of warm peanut butter sauce. None must touch the side. If a drop of peanut butter sauce touches the side of the cup, you must throw it all away and start over.
Layer six: A swooshy layer of chocolate ice cream that tests the very laws of gravity, leaning over to one side so far, old ladies make gasping noises and whip out napkins every time you move.
Layer seven: Hot fudge. Thick, gooey hot fudge that completely covers all the ice cream. Someone looking at the top of your sundae must think that you are holding a cup of hot fudge only. Which would not be an entirely bad idea, actually.
Layer eight: A drizzle of caramel, using a zigzag method. Exactly three zigs; exactly four zags. There may be no clumps of caramel. If you will have to chew, you must throw it away and start all over again. This is science, people! It must be exact!
Layer nine: A cherry, even though cherries are really gross, but your mom likes them so you order one just to give it to her. It’s your way of saying thank you for all the times she saved your cheeks from the maws.
But just as we pulled into the ice cream shop parking lot and parked the car, instead of getting out, Mom took a deep breath and looked at me very seriously.
“I know you hate it that your brother’s leaving,” she said. Aha. The real reason she wanted to get ice cream.
I groaned, flopping my head back against the seat rest. I should have seen the ice cream trick coming. Moms were crafty. They almost never suggested unhealthy food without a catch.
“It’s okay, Luke,” she said. “I hate it, too.”
I opened one eye and turned my head to look at her, surprised. “Really? I thought everybody thought it was the best idea ever. The aws do. Dad does. I figured I was the only one.”
“Well, it is the best idea for Rob,” she said. “But it makes me scared. I think it probably makes you scared, too, huh?”
I tried to shake my head. I was mad, not scared. Only babies and girls got scared. Manly men got mad. And I was a manly man, so I was . . . okay, I was scared. And I could never hide anything from my mom. I nodded. “Sort of,” I said. “But I’m mostly just scared that he’ll forget about me.”
Mom nodded, like she totally got it, and shifted back in her seat, too. “You know, when he was two years old he asked for an army set for Christmas. I didn’t even know what an army set was. And I was shocked that he did.” She ran her thumbnail around the steering wheel, knocking dirt out of crevices while she talked. But her eyes looked like they were looking at something much farther away than the steering wheel. “So we found him an olive green shirt, some camouflage pants, a canteen, little boots, a compass, binoculars. He was so happy. He didn’t care about anything else he got that year. We thought we’d never get him out of those clothes. Dad would wash them, and Rob would put them right back on the next day. Sometimes he refused to take them off at bedtime.
“Of course, that was before you were born,” she said, glancing over at me. “And we thought it would just be a phase. But after you came along, he had someone to play army with. And he never seemed to get over it. You loved playing it, too, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Of course I loved playing it. That was the problem. I loved playing it, and I would still love playing it, but now it was real for Rob, and I could make all the walkie-talkie noises with my mouth in the world, but it wouldn’t be good enough. Not compared to the real thing.
She reached over and put her hand on my arm. “So I keep telling myself, this is what Rob has been wanting to do since he was two years old. And that makes it the best thing for him. And it scares me to death, thinking about him being sent to a strange, dangerous place. But I have to let him go because I love him. And you and I will just have to eat a lot of ice cream while he’s gone.”
“You mean eat a lot of ice cream forever, because he won’t come back.”
“He won’t forget you, Luke,” she said. “He’ll be back.”
“Yeah, but it won’t be the same,” I said.
“Nope, probably not exactly the same,” Mom said. She pulled her keys out of the ignition and dropped them into her purse. “But he’ll still be your brother.”
“He’s not my brother. My brother wouldn’t just go off and leave like this,” I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t spoken to Rob in a long time, so my parents knew I was mad at him, but I hadn’t really said out loud what I was thinking.
“Oh, Luke,” Mom said, pressing her hand to my cheek. Even though I was mad and trying to be tough, I couldn’t help but lean into her cool palm. I don’t care how mad or tough a guy is, a mom hand is a mom hand, period. “It’s eating Rob up inside that you’re so mad at him. And I know it’s eating you up, too. Why don’t you try to forgive him? It would mean a lot to me.”
No, I wanted to scream. I’ll never forgive the traitor! I wanted to rant and rave and make her, and everyone else, understand why I was so upset about him leaving. But I met Mom’s gaze and it looked so hopeful, and her palm felt so cool on my cheek, I couldn’t do it. “I’ll try,” I said, even though on the inside I knew I wouldn’t.
Mom smiled, and this time her lips weren’t stretched-out worms, but actual smile-lips. “Good,” she said. “I was hoping you’d say that.” She unbuckled her seat belt and slid her purse strap up onto her shoulder. “Now. Are you ready to build one of your famous nine-layer sundaes?”
I tried my best to smile. “Sure,” I said.
But I must not have been very convincing, because she paused with her hand clutching the door handle and frowned at me. “Is there something else bothering you, Luke? You haven’t been yourself lately.”
Immediately I thought about November 12th, when Randy would be battling aliens without me, and when I’d be battling Missy the Cruel on my own team. My stomach twisted up into half-angry, half-sad knots, and suddenly there I was again, not hungry. And on nine-layer sundae day, too. The cruelty of robotics would never end.
But Mom already seemed so bothered by the thing with Rob. Worried about him, worried about me, probably worried that we would never speak again, or that Rob would go off to a war thinking I hated him. And who knew what other sad things moms thought about. I didn’t want to add to it.
“Nope, I’m good,” I said, forcing a big nine-layer-sundae-eating smile.
It must have been convincing, because Mom’s frown disappeared and she pushed open her door.
“Dibs on the cherry,” she called as we headed up the walk to the ice cream shop door.
CHAPTER 16
PROGRAM NAME: Enemy Down
STEP ONE: Rabid robot returns to mat
STEP TWO: Rabid robot moves to new home base
STEP THREE: All other robots cheer and toss their pincers in the air
I couldn’t have been any less motivated to go to robotics on Wednesday. Now it wasn’t just messing with my gaming on Monday and Wednesday. It was messing with the greatest gaming tournament of all time. It was messing with my life, and I didn’t like it one bit.
The only thing that could have made practice worse was for Missy to be back.
So of course she was. She was standing by the computer with her hands on her hips when I walked into the room.
“I heard you messed up the robot,” she said. “Way to go, Loser Luke. I’m not surprised, by the way. You mess up everything.”
“Even wishes,” I said. “Because I was wishing you wouldn’t come back and here you are.”
Missy looked shocked. I’d never outright fought bac
k with her before. I pulled up one side of my lip and tried for a menacing snaggletooth grimace just to drive the point home. Apparently I was in no mood to be messed with today.
“Well, you may be better at wishes than you know,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be an insult—like You’re so bad at messing things up, you even mess up messing up—or if I detected a tiny hint of sadness in her voice. “And what’s wrong with your lip?” she added.
But before I could say anything, the rest of the team arrived, Stuart’s pockets bulging so far out he almost had to turn sideways to get through the door. He was definitely not going to run out of seeds again.
Mr. Terry came in right after them, a bandage placed over his eyebrow. I’d heard him tell a kid in Life Skills class that he’d cut it while boxing at the gym. I couldn’t blame him. What guy would want to tell other guys that his face got beat up by a three-pound plastic toy?
“Okay, troops, we have a lot of ground to cover,” he said. He slapped a giant manual down on the robotics table. “So let’s get started. First off, we need to learn how the programming works, so we can minimize future, er . . . accidents.”
“Is Principal McMillan okay?” a Jacob asked.
“I heard he’s in the hospital,” the other Jacob added. “I heard it’s bad. Really bad.”
“Oh, we should put together a fund-raiser,” Mikayla said. “I’ll take charge of the talent portion. I know just which talent to feature.” She kicked off one flip-flop and fanned her toes.
Mr. Terry held out his hands. “No need to put together anything. Principal McMillan is totally fine. He’s in his office, not at the hospital. He and both of his eyebrows.” He touched the bandage gingerly. “Now, we really need to focus on the tasks at hand. This robot will be competing against other robots in less than a month, and he isn’t even programmed to get out of the start box.”
“Um, excuse me, Mr. Terry?” Missy asked, raising her hand, doing her Inquisitive Student Act that everyone who ever had a class with her knew oh so well. It was one of her more annoying classroom traits, of which I had compiled a comprehensive list.
Missy Farnham’s Most Annoying Classroom Traits:
1.The Inquisitive Student Act, where she raises her hand and her eyebrows and asks the teacher a question that she already knows the answer to but also knows is just the kind of question that will impress the teacher and make him say he wishes more students were like her.
2.The Extra Credit Act, where she tells the teacher that she “accidentally” finished all the work way ahead of everyone else and is wondering if there’s any way she can go above and beyond.
3.The Rat Out a Quiz Act, where she gently reminds a teacher who has forgotten that we have a quiz that she knows nobody else in the class has studied for.
4.The Missy the Cruel Act, where she acts like herself.
“Yes, Missy?” Mr. Terry looked a little pained. Maybe he was on to her annoying classroom traits, too. This was a possibility that rocked my world a little. What if even the teachers didn’t like Missy Farnham? That almost seemed kind of sad.
“I was just wondering . . . how do you know our robot is a boy?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said he isn’t programmed to get out of the start box, but I wasn’t sure how you knew he was a boy.”
“You know, that’s a pretty good point,” Mikayla added. “He does have a lot of jewels on him. I think he looks much more girlish than boyish.”
“I built him,” Missy snapped at Mikayla, and then gathered her face into a sweet smile for Mr. Terry. “I mean, when I was designing her, I was clearly picturing a girl. In fact, I’d kind of named her Rosie.”
“Rosie?” the Jacobs said in unison. They also wrinkled their noses in unison. If there were such a sport as Synchronized Jacob-ing, these guys would have a million trophies.
Missy narrowed her eyes at them. “Yes. Rosie the Rallying Robo-Raccoon.”
“Aw, that’s pretty,” Mikayla said. “I agree, she looks like a Rosie.”
Mr. Terry was rubbing his eyelids. “Okay,” he said steadily. “She’s a girl. Fine. It doesn’t really matter. Rosie doesn’t know how to get out of the start box, either. So let’s start with page one.” He opened the giant manual.
“She would have if I’d been here,” Missy muttered.
Mr. Terry stopped. “Do you know how to program, Missy?”
“Of course I do,” she said.
Oh, yeah, I forgot:
5.The Know-It-All Act, where she suddenly knows even more than the teacher and isn’t afraid to show it.
“Wonderful!” Mr. Terry exclaimed. “We have our programmer, you guys.” He slammed the book shut, picked up the robot, and presented it to Missy. But she kept her arms crossed and didn’t take it.
“No, you don’t,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Terry asked.
“I mean, I can’t program for you.”
“Why not? I thought you said you could do it,” I said, waiting for the delicious moment when Missy was going to have to admit that she was only bluffing and didn’t know how to program the robot at all. “That wasn’t a lie, was it?” I pressed, leaning in eagerly.
“Of course it wasn’t a lie, glue-eater,” she spat. “It’s not that hard to program a dumb robot, you know.”
I tried not to let that one sting, given that programming our robot had seemed pretty much impossible to me.
She turned back to Mr. Terry and sighed. “I was going to wait and tell you privately,” she said. “But since you’re all so rudely staring at me, I guess I’ll say it now. I was gone last week because I was at my grandma’s. My dad moved out and my mom and brother and I have to go live with my grandma now. So I’m changing schools. Starting next week, I’m going to be at Goat Grove.” She swiveled toward me. “Are you satisfied?”
Actually, I wasn’t. Even though I really, really wanted to be. Missy the Cruel, moving away at last! I had wished and prayed for this day for most of my life. And now it was happening. And I wasn’t satisfied. I was a little sad for her.
I tried to imagine what it would be like if Dad moved out on me and Mom and Rob. I tried to picture living with Maw Shirley and Paw Morris and having Friday dinners without him and watching bowling tournaments without him and riding the school bus home from school without Dad asking me questions in a robot voice. I couldn’t even envision it. It would be terrible.
I must not have been the only one to think so. Mikayla made a little squeaky noise and flung her arms around Missy’s shoulders. The Jacobs shuffled their feet and cleared their throats a bunch.
Stuart stopped chewing and said, “Wow, Missy, that stinks.”
“I feel so sorry for you,” Mikayla wailed into Missy’s shirt.
At first Missy looked startled, and then her face hardened into something else. She shrugged out of Mikayla’s hug disgustedly. “Stop it. This is why I was going to tell Mr. Terry in private. I don’t need people feeling sorry for me just because my dumb dad moved out. And I especially don’t need losers like you guys feeling sorry for me. I don’t even care that he moved out. I won’t miss him at all. I don’t care if I never lay my eyes on him again. As far as I’m concerned, he might as well be dead.”
We all stood around in stunned silence. Even Missy looked like she couldn’t believe someone had just said that. Her eyes were round and her mouth was hanging open.
And then suddenly there was a noise in the back of the room. Something between a cough and a growl. We turned just in time to see Lunchbox Jones pick up his backpack and his lunchbox and storm out of the room, knocking into two desks on his way out. After he left, we heard the metal clang of something—a fist, maybe?—hitting a locker. We all jumped, even Mr. Terry, and then went back to awkwardly standing around, nobody sure what was supposed to happen next.
Finally Missy seemed to snap out of it. She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Well, it’s true,” she said and flounce
d out of the room, her ponytail bouncing up and down between her tiny shoulder blades between every step.
Mr. Terry shuffled back to the table and set the robot down, then picked up the manual again. “I guess that means we’re back to square one,” he said, opening the book on the computer table. “Let’s start with what makes a robot a robot. According to this book, a robot is a machine that is able to perform actions that are controlled by a computer.” He patted the computer monitor as if he were petting a dog’s head. “The robot can be designed to look like an animal or a human, and—”
“Mr. Terry?” one of the Jacobs asked.
Mr. Terry stopped, looking almost afraid of what might come from this interruption. “Yes, Jacob?”
“Does this mean we have to keep the name Rosie?”
CHAPTER 17
PROGRAM NAME: The Strong, Silent Bot
STEP ONE: Bot runs into other bot
STEP TWO: Bot talks to other bot
STEP THREE: Other bot’s system crashes and stalls out
By Thursday morning, it had really sunk in that Missy was leaving Forest Shade Middle School. Now that I wasn’t listening to her sad and awkward story about her dad leaving, I could pretend that it was nothing but good news. No more Loser Luke, no more glue-eater songs, no more spending time daydreaming that a monkey would escape from the zoo, come to Forest Shade, burst into Missy’s first period class, and fling poo into her hair. I could spend my daydreaming time on something much more productive. Like how I was going to get to that Alien Onslaught tournament.
My current plan involved somehow exposing all the Forest Shade Robo-Raccoons except myself to smallpox so they would have to be quarantined. It was a long shot, but it was all I had.
“Walter, my man!” I shouted while I was still half a hallway away from my locker. His spine straightened, unsure. “What’s on tap today? Pop Rocks? Chocolate-covered mints? Homemade caramels? You know how I love your mom’s homemade caramels. Hit me with it!” I had reached him with my palm outstretched. At first he just gazed at my hand uncertainly, but then he dug into the front pocket of his backpack and pulled out a pink-and-white-striped straw.
How Lunchbox Jones Saved Me From Robots, Traitors, and Missy the Cruel Page 9
