I’m thinking about this mid-May snowstorm, this freak blizzard, and how that’s the same word John Henry Knox has been using when discussing the out-of-nowhere downpour that saved our butts from the bots behind Shop & Save on Saturday afternoon. A freak storm—that’s what he’s been calling it. And now it seems there’s been a second one.
I peer up into the cloud-covered sky—and slip on another patch of ice.
I steady myself just before I fall.
Focus, I tell myself.
I take a deep breath.
Clear my head.
And pay attention to where I’m walking the rest of the way to Things & Stuff.
When I finally get there, I hear Kitty before I even make it around to the back of the store.
He’s yapping and whining and making a series of other noises that the untrained ear might assume were coming from a wounded sea lion instead of a totally healthy dog.
I go around back and find Kitty exactly where I knew he’d be. He’s pawed the snow away from in front of the big, nasty Dumpster, and has been attempting to squeeze himself into the two-inch gap between it and the dirty pavement of the parking lot. He’s been at it for no more than five minutes, but his belly, which is usually fluffy and golden brown, is already all matted and black. His head, meanwhile, looks like it was dunked in oil, plus there’s a banana peel stuck to his back.
“Dude,” I say to him.
Kitty gives me a yap, then once again tries to cram himself under the Dumpster.
I rush over and yank him back before he can get any messier, if such a thing is even possible. Then, choosing the least disgusting spot on the grimy ground in front of the Dumpster, I get down on my knees and peer beneath it.
Something’s definitely there.
And whatever it is, I know Kitty’s not going to let me take him home until he gets it.
So I stick my arm under the Dumpster and drag the thing out.
And what is it?
A sock.
A very, very dirty sock.
It’s an exact match for the one Kitty has back home.
This is what he’s been so desperate to get these past few days.
I toss the sock to the dog, and as soon as he’s got the disgusting thing clamped between his teeth, he leaps into the air, spins in circles, rolls around in the snow, and just generally goes nuts.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the guy so happy.
39.
I LET KITTY HAVE A moment with his sock.
Then I give his leash a tug and we start off.
My plan is to head home.
If Edsley is either dumb or bold enough to still be there, I’m going to drag him outside and not-so-gently dunk his head into the snow.
But I don’t make it home.
I don’t even make it more than a dozen steps.
Just as I get back around to the front of Things & Stuff, something strange happens.
My leg—it starts shaking like crazy.
It freaks me out a bit.
Okay, fine—it freaks me out a lot.
And maybe, just maybe, I let out a little shriek.
Because it’s not until I set a hand on my wildly vibrating hip that I remember what’s in my pocket.
The data-eater.
40.
I SPOT A STOP SIGN at the corner, just a handful of feet from Things & Stuff.
I pull Kitty over to it and tie his leash to the pole.
Then I dig the data-eater out of my pocket.
The thing’s going crazy. The top part of it, the little dish—it’s shaking so fast the edges are a blur, and if I hold on to the handle part too hard, the vibrations run through my wrist and down into the bones of my arm.
I hold the gadget out toward Things & Stuff, and it feels like the shaking intensifies. I pull it back, and it seems, just slightly, to weaken.
I try to remember what Mikaela told me about the data-eater. Something about it scanning for zones of “denser-than-normal data output.” And the example she gave, about how if you stood next to a supercomputer, the thing would “buzz like a hive of bees on sugar highs.”
Turning the gadget over, I find a tiny switch. It’s not marked, but I flip it anyway, and the shaking begins to slow.
As soon as the data-eater stops buzzing, I stick it back into my pocket and head right up to Things & Stuff. The store’s front is made up entirely of windows, but the place is so cluttered with racks of things and shelves of, well, stuff that it’s nearly impossible to see inside.
I try to anyway, stepping up to the window and popping onto my toes to peer over a tower of magazines blocking my view. I see glitzy cell phone covers and cheap plastic sunglasses and hairbrushes that look like they’ve definitely had more than one previous owner, some of them possibly of the feline variety, but nothing else out of the ordinary.
I’m about to stop there—to turn around, grab Kitty, and continue home. But then I hear Dan in my head. All those things he said about Mikaela being brilliant and me being stubborn. About how she might even have a gadget that could help us finally find the missing bot.
I take a deep breath—and make a decision.
I’m going to listen to Dan.
I’m going to give in.
I’m going to believe, at least temporarily, that Mikaela’s gadget has detected something interesting inside Things & Stuff, whether or not it’s the walking, talking, butt-blasting bot that’s been eluding me for nearly a week.
And so I push open the door and head into the store.
A little bell dings above me.
Half a second later, I hear it—the flat, cold, emotionless tones of a robot:
“WEL-come to THINGS and Stuff. How may I HA . . . HA . . . HELP youuu?”
41.
IT’S HIM.
The missing robot.
I don’t need Edsley there to confirm it.
He looks just like Greeeg, the bot Dan sent me last week—before I fed the guy a water balloon and SQUAH-POOMed him into a heap of nuts and bolts and overripe bananas, that is.
The bot’s down at the far end of the store, a stapler pinched in one claw and a salad spinner dangling from the other. He places the items on a shelf beside a 1,000-count package of those fuzzy little circles you stick on the bottoms of chair legs, then comes down the aisle toward me.
It’s only then that I see the sticker on his shiny torso. HELLO, it says. MY NAME IS: KLAUS.
“GREE-tings cus-TOM-er,” the bot says once he reaches me. “You are my FIRST cus-TOM-er.”
Customer?
I have to read the bot’s sticker another couple times before the ridiculous realization finally fixes itself in my brain. The bot, Klaus—he works here. And I guess it does make a certain sort of twisted sense. The bot’s were programmed to help people.
As if proving this point, Klaus repeats what he said when I first stepped into the store:
“How may I HA . . . HA . . . HELP youuu?”
I consider the question. And of course the thing that I’ve been eager to do all week—serve the bot the same last meal I served Greeeg—comes right to mind. But I can’t really tell Klaus that he can help me out by permanently ending his career as a Things & Stuff employee, can I? I can’t tell him that I’d like nothing more than to shove him into a swimming pool and turn him into a bunch of harmless scrap metal and once-compressed comestibles.
Speaking of which—I’m totally unarmed.
I quickly scan the racks and shelves on either side of me, but I can’t find any bottles of water. The only liquid-y thing I see, between a sombrero and an umbrella with a pickle-shaped handle, is a jug of laundry detergent. But would that even work? Would that make Klaus go SQUAH-POOM?
“Will you be MAK-ing a PUR-chase on this FINE daaay?”
The tinted round pieces of plastic that are the robot’s eyes flicker rapidly.
He’s excited.
Like he’s been waiting days for his very first customer to walk into the store.
“Um,” I say, looking over the racks and shelves again. Because if buying something from the bot will buy me a little more time to figure out what to do, I’m more than happy to make a purchase.
Finally, I spot a pocket thesaurus. It’s cheap, and pretty much the only thing in the store I can ever imagine actually using.
I go to grab it as Klaus scoots behind the cash register.
“One POCK-et the-SAUR-us,” he says as I make my way to the counter. “That WILL be two DOLL . . . DOLL . . .”
“Dollars?” I offer.
“Two DOLL-ars and FIF-tee ceeents,” the bot finishes.
I reach for my wallet—and a door at the back of the store bangs open, smacking the wall behind it so hard I literally jump. A man storms out. It’s Stan. And when the kid-hating owner of Things & Stuff sees me standing there in his store, he assumes the worst. I can tell just from the way he glares at me that he thinks I’m there to cause some major trouble.
And for the first time in his life, the guy just might be right.
42.
STAN STOMPS OVER TO THE counter, his eyes glued to me.
“What’s going on here?” he demands as soon as he’s close enough to snatch my collar should I try and make a run for it.
“GREE-tings, Boss,” Klaus answers. “CURR-ent-lee I am MAK-ing my FIRST saaale.”
Stan takes a look at what I’m buying. And then his eyes are right back on me, more suspicious than ever. Probably because I’m twelve years old and out shopping for a pocket thesaurus on a snow day. Clearly he doesn’t know the kind of kids I usually hang out with.
Before the guy calls the cops or snatches up his pickle umbrella and chases me out of the store with it, I change the subject.
“Cool, uh, robot,” I say, jerking my chin in Klaus’s direction.
“Who sent you?!” Stan barks.
I take a step back, my heart rate rising.
“It was Glen, wasn’t it?”
“Glen?” I say. “I don’t know any—”
“Don’t you play dumb with me!” Stan snaps. “Glen. Owner of Glen’s Bags & Rags. That punk’s always had it out for me. I knew he’d get wind of my new employee here sooner or later, and that he wouldn’t waste any time trying to steal him away. You just tell him that the bot works for me.” Stan stabs a finger into his chest. “I’m the one who found him. It was my Dumpster he was digging around in. And I’m the one who’s been spending an arm and a leg keeping him fed.”
“OH yes,” says Klaus. “That re-MINDS meee. Were you COM-ing to GET my LUNCH or-der, Boss?”
Stan whips his head toward the bot.
“Lunch?!” he cries. “It’s not lunchtime yet. I only just got back from bringing you breakfast! You can’t be hungry already.”
“I am HUN-gry al-READ-y. It is HARD work STOCK-ing shelves, SWEEP-ing floors, TAK-ing CARE of cus-TOM-ers.”
“What customers?” Stan says. He flicks his fingers toward me. “You just said this was your first one.”
Klaus’s eyes begin to glow a fierce and fiery red.
“FEED KLAUS LUNCH BOSS TIME FOR LUNCH FEED KLAUS OR ELSE KLAUS—”
“Okay, okay,” says Stan, stopping the bot before he fries a circuit—or fires a food-cube.
Which, judging by the collection of small square holes in the wall behind him, he’s done more than once before.
“You want the usual?” Stan asks the bot.
“Yes. I WOULD like the USE-u-AL. Six MEAT-ball subs, EX-tra MEAT. Nine OR-ders of cheese fries, EX-tra cheese. Two PIZZ-as with ev-er-Y-thing ON them, EX-tra ev-er-Y-thing. And LAST of all, one small SAL-ad, DRESS-ing on the siiide.”
“Got it,” Stan says.
But he doesn’t go to get the bot his meal.
He goes right back to glaring at me.
I know he’s not going anywhere until I make my purchase and leave his store.
So I slide my wallet out of my pocket and set a five on the counter. Klaus stabs it with a claw and deposits it in the cash register, then pokes around the drawer for my change. He holds it out to me—a pair of dollar bills shish-kebabbed on one claw and a couple of quarters pinched between the other.
“Here is YOUR change,” Klaus says. “Have a SPLEN . . . SPLEN . . . SPLEN-did daaay.”
I take my money.
Grab my thesaurus.
And go.
I’ve got some serious work to do.
43.
I HURRY HOME AS FAST as I can, Kitty galloping beside me, his new very, very dirty sock flapping out of his mouth like a victory flag.
We barrel through the door and into the kitchen.
There’s a puddle on the floor where Edsley was standing before, plus some waffle crumbs and a splatter of syrup. But no Mike.
I lunge for the phone and, not even thinking about it, I punch in Dan’s number.
Yes—I know we left things on a pretty tense note last night. And nothing has really been the same between us ever since he accidentally unleashed a horde of endlessly hungry, dangerously flatulent robots on our unsuspecting town. But now we can put all that behind us. Together, we can get rid of Klaus, and then everything can go back to how it used to be. To how it’s supposed to be. And I don’t even care if Dan really, truly does want to spend our time together talking about the vastness of the universe and the possibility that aliens might exist. Whatever. As long as we’re together, and things aren’t so flipping weird. Right now, that’s all that matters to me.
But none of the above can happen if Dan doesn’t answer the phone.
Which he’s not.
The thing rings and rings and rings—and then, half a second before the call gets sent over to voice mail, someone finally picks up.
“Dan,” I say, “you’re never gonna believe it, man, but I—”
“Hey. Nerd engine. It’s not your boyfriend.”
It’s Derek, Dan’s older brother.
“Danny boy’s not here,” he says.
My thoughts, which have been zipping around at the speed of light, screech to a halt.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Derek says. “Out.”
My thoughts start up again, but move now in a different—and significantly less pleasant—direction.
“He was here for a while with some girl,” Derek continues, “but then they left. I’ve never seen her before. But Ken—she was, like, seriously wacky. And I’m not just saying that ’cause she was hanging out with my brother. You should’ve seen her. And heard her. She showed up with this big suitcase, and she wouldn’t stop talking about aliens. Like, UFOs and all that. And she kept saying they were gonna make history. And I was all, What, you gonna break the world record for dorkiness? You gonna start your own country and name yourselves King and Queen of the Dweebs?”
Derek pauses for a second, probably to give me a chance to appreciate his oh-so-funny jokes.
“Ken?”
I don’t answer.
“Aww, Kenny Ken,” Derek chuckles. “Did I just bweak your widdle heart?”
44.
I HANG UP WITH DEREK and right away dial the phone number of the next one of the guys I think of.
That guy happens to be John Henry Knox, and over at his house, several people answer the phone at once. It’s John Henry’s little sisters, all five or six of them—I can never remember how many there are. But the way they’re giggling and shrieking in my ear, there may as well be five or six hundred of them.
“HELLO?!” I shout through the noise.
There’s a barrage of laughs and screams, after which one of the girls shrieks, “It’s a boy!”
I cling to that string of sensible sounds like it’s a life preserver and I’m adrift in a violent, churning sea.
“YES!” I say. “I’m a BOY! And I REALLY NEED TO TALK TO YOUR BROTHER!”
Shriek.
Giggle.
Shriek.
And then, at last, a couple more words:
“You can’t!”
; Giggle.
Shriek.
Giggle.
“WHY NOT?!”
Shriek.
Shriek.
Giggle.
Shriek.
“He’s not here!”
“He’s out!”
“He’s with a GIRL!”
SHRIEK.
GIGGLE.
GIGGLE.
GIGGLE.
SHRIEK.
My ears are ringing, but the girls are still loud enough for me to hear them start to sing:
“John and Mikaela sittin’ in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes—”
I hang up.
But two seconds later, I’m dialing again.
45.
I CALL JERRY.
His mom picks up, and after making sure I’ve fully recovered from last night’s fake sickness, she tells me the same thing the Knox girls did—though in a much more gentle, non-headache-inducing way.
“He went out with Dan and John Henry. And a girl. Michelle? Mickey? Mikaela? That’s it—I’m pretty sure her name was Mikaela.”
Next up is Max.
It’s his dad who answers, and as soon as he finds out that it’s me calling, he says, “Isn’t he with you? A bunch of the guys came over to get him. I guess I just assumed you were with them too.”
Then I call Alan, and Amir, and Simon, and Chris, and Rob.
I get the same story every time.
All my friends are hanging out somewhere together, and I didn’t get an invite.
Probably because I made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t interested in doing any of what they’ve been interested in doing lately.
Oops.
46.
I STAND THERE IN THE kitchen for several minutes, just staring at the phone and feeling sorry for myself.
I’ve never felt so alone.
But I’m not.
A loud, booming laugh informs me of that.
I follow the noise into the living room, and there I find Edsley.
He’s lounging on the couch in my favorite hoodie and my coziest pajama pants, watching some sort of game show on TV. He’s got a box of cereal on his left, a carton of milk on his right, and a blanket of crumbs covering his lap.
Revenge of the EngiNerds Page 6
