Parker Bell and the Science of Friendship

by Cynthia Platt

“Yes!” Parker said. Her dad always understood. “You need a basic plan before you can build a robot, too.”

  Her dad popped a cookie into his mouth. “Sometimes it’s good to start with what you already have in the kitchen,” he said, heading for the stairs. “Then you can build a more complicated recipe from there.”

  Parker, Cassie, and Theo nibbled on their cookies and thought hard.

  “Maybe we should just start building the first robot like I did in the trivia game,” Cassie said. “First its head, then its body. Like Ultra-Megabot.”

  The skin on Parker’s nose began to twitch. She felt like she had been shooting down all of Cassie’s ideas, and that wasn’t good teamwork. So how was she supposed to tell her BFF that you couldn’t actually build a robot that way? She hoped Theo would say something before Parker had to. He seemed like he also knew a bit about robots.

  But Theo kept eating his cookie and didn’t say a word. It figured he had to pick that moment to stop talking again. It was all going to be up to Parker.

  “The thing is,” Parker said, “you can’t really build a robot that way.”

  “I did in the game!” Cassie replied.

  “I know, but a game is just a simulation,” Parker said. “You have to try to build one in real life to make sure your simulation works.” She paused and took a deep breath. “And I’ve made lots of robots. You can’t do it that way.”

  “Then how can you do it?” came a Theo-size voice from behind his cookie.

  It was the perfect question. This was how science was supposed to work! By asking questions and trying to find answers, even if they weren’t the ones you were looking for when you started.

  “First you have to put a motor together,” Parker said. “And figure out what kind of power the robot is going to use to run.”

  “Like plugging it into the wall or something?” Cassie asked.

  “Exactly!” Parker said. “Except we wouldn’t be able to plug these in during the assembly. So we’d need batteries or another power source.”

  “Cool!” Cassie said. “Can we use solar panels?”

  “It would be tricky,” Parker said. “We’d need to find a way to use the panels to precharge a battery since there’s not enough sunlight in the auditorium, but we could probably do it.”

  “Fierce!” Cassie said. “Then what?”

  “Then we need to connect all the robot’s moving parts to the power source.”

  “Like wheels?” Theo offered.

  “And the squeaking sounds!” Cassie added.

  “And a jaw that opens and closes to eat poop,” Parker said. “Which will be gross and fierce robotics all at the same time.”

  “So where do we get all this stuff?” Cassie said.

  That was an easy question. “I have a lot of it here, actually,” Parker said.

  Together, they started digging through the Mad Science Lab. Theo found a wheel carriage in a robotic bug kit that they could use for the running robot. Cassie found a model of a shark Parker had built two years ago with a jaw that could open and close. Now they just had to figure out how to make a robot squeak.

  Parker went through a few robot kits and bins of parts but couldn’t find anything that would work. Then she looked at Ultra-Megabot. The long-lasting LED light bulb went off in her head. She had a great idea, but it wasn’t going to be easy to do.

  Parker picked up the Ultra-Megabot robot she’d built herself and started sifting through her tools.

  “What are you doing?” Cassie asked her.

  “Ultra-Megabot has a voice recorder in him,” Parker replied. “You can play his voice or up to five others.”

  “Cool!” Cassie said.

  “Fierce!” Parker agreed. “I’ve never used the voice recorder. I always liked using his real voice. So I’m going to take him apart and use the recorder for the guinea pig squeaks.”

  Theo’s jaw dropped. “You’re going to destroy Ultra-Megabot?”

  “We need his parts,” Parker said.

  Even though it meant taking apart a robot Parker had spent two months putting together, Cassie had been right: sometimes you had to sacrifice for science. Parker realized that now. Just as the cricket she planned to eat would realize it when it was her turn to feed Snodgrass.

  Carefully, Theo and Cassie took the pieces from the kits and laid them out on a worktable. There were wheels, legs, gears, and control panels with energy inputs, power buttons, and microcontrollers everywhere. Then the two helped Parker take Ultra-Megabot apart. They did it in surprisingly little time, considering how long it had taken Parker to put him together.

  For the robots’ bodies, they used plastic Slinkys to make fake ribs. The three friends jerry-rigged solar panels so that the panels connected through each robot’s control board to rechargeable batteries. That way the robots could be put out in the sun to get the batteries good and ready, but they wouldn’t need direct sunlight to make them run. The team decided not to use remote controls so the robots would move entirely on their own and seem more like real guinea pigs.

  Parker’s mom popped into the Mad Science Lab. “Do you three scientists at work need me to pick up any supplies for you?”

  “We’ll definitely need some furry material from the fabric store to cover the robots,” Parker said.

  “And some shiny buttons for eyes too, please!” Cassie added.

  “Done!” Parker’s mom said with a smile.

  Sure, her mom might not be like her in any way, but she still really understood Parker’s love of science sometimes. Especially when that love of science didn’t mean taking apart the toaster. Or the emergency radio with the crank. Or the hand-held mini-vacuum.

  Okay, so Parker had taken apart a lot of appliances. But when she wasn’t doing that, her mom was totally into Parker’s experiments.

  * * *

  It took them hours to build most of the robots, and Parker’s mom had to go to three different stores to get all the materials they ended up needing. By the time her friends left, there was only one last robot that still needed to be finished, and Parker had to do this part on her own. She took Algebra out of his cage and put the voice recorder down next to him. She had to fiddle with the device to figure out how to make it record, but after some trial and error, she got it working.

  “Okay, sweet furry boy, now’s your chance to be a scientific star!” she told him.

  At first Algebra didn’t make a peep. Then he started to purr when she petted him under the chin. Sound number one: recorded! But how was she going to get him to squeak nice and loudly when he seemed like he was in a quiet mood?

  Parker thought it over. If guinea pigs’ wild cousins squeaked to communicate with one another, maybe this guinea pig in her house would do the same if he saw another guinea pig. She carried Algebra and the recording device across the room and held her little piggy up to her mirror.

  Algebra looked. Algebra sniffed. Then he sniffed again.

  Finally, he started squeaking. At first it was soft little tweeting noises: voice recording number two! But soon enough he got going for real with some good, loud squeakiness.

  Voice recording number three was done. Those three sounds were all they really needed to show how guinea pigs communicated. So, okay, one of the recordings started to play when it wasn’t supposed to. But after Parker hit play and stop multiple times with no problems, it seemed like this little bug had worked itself out. She was sure that wouldn’t happen again during their presentation.

  She snuggled Algebra close to her. “I knew you’d be a great lab assistant,” she said, smooching his head.

  The fact was, between recording Algebra and all the hard work her team had done, Parker was in mad science heaven. She just knew that she was going to follow in the footsteps of Jane and Mae and win the gold medal for science!

  Chapter 12

  Bad Scientist at Work

  It was finally the day of the Animal Adaptation Presentations and Parker was running late. Not horribly late, but stil
l pretty late. No matter what her mom thought, it was hard work picking just the right outfit for such a big day.

  Her dad knocked at her bedroom door.

  “Time to get dressed!” he said. “Mom’s holding the fort in the bakery so I can make you a special breakfast. But she has to leave for school soon.”

  If there was one thing that could get Parker moving quickly, it was her dad’s cooking. She could already smell bacon from down the hall.

  “Okay, I’ll be right there!” she told him. Then she turned to her closet.

  Parker already knew that you had to look your best to feel your best. Since her theory about dressing like a fierce animal to show her fierce interest in science had yielded good results before, Parker felt she could rely on it again. She put on her best leopard print dress with black leggings and black ballerina flats. A leopard headband completed the outfit.

  “You look fierce,” her dad said as she walked into the kitchen.

  “Thanks, Dad!” Parker said with her hugest smile.

  Her dad had always understood her fashion sense. Not that he dressed fancy himself. He usually wore jeans and was covered in flour. Her mom was even worse. Sure, she had to wear sweatpants to work as a PE teacher, but she did not have to wear them at home. She just liked to. Parker tried hard to respect her parents’ personal styles of dressing, but it wasn’t always easy.

  She could always appreciate her dad’s personal style of cooking, though: scrambled eggs, bacon, and a little cup of fresh fruit with yogurt on top.

  “I figured you could use some protein,” her dad said. “For the big day.”

  “Well, if you want to be like a leopard, you have to eat like one,” Parker agreed. Today, she was going to be as strong as a leopard. And she was going to show the whole school that she could understand what made animals tick, like Jane Goodall did with chimpanzees, and be a scientific trailblazer, like Mae Jemison was when she became the first African American woman in space. To make it even better, Parker was going to have her best friend and her slowly-getting-to-be-good friend right there with her!

  * * *

  For such a big day, it sure did drag by. The presentations weren’t until the afternoon and the wait was endless. Parker wished she was better at waiting.

  She tried to observe Snodgrass in his tank. She tried to focus on what it would feel like to have a live, moving cricket in her mouth. Normally this would have made the waiting easier. But this presentation was much bigger than the Big Science Announcement. The whole Triathlon was on the line.

  None of her usual tricks were working. All she could think about was how it felt like the Animal Adaptation Presentations were never going to start.

  Somehow, suddenly, her lunch was in her stomach, recess was over, and Triathlon teams were getting ready in the auditorium. Parents and grandparents started to arrive. The other classes in her school sat on the floor in front of the presentation area Ms. Garcia had set up.

  Parker’s parents filed into the room and squeezed into chairs next to Cassie’s parents and Theo’s dad.

  “Is your mom coming too?” Parker whispered to Theo.

  Parker kept thinking she’d seen Theo get as red as you could get without being a tomato frog. But he kept managing to get redder. She had maybe started to figure out how to get Theo to talk more, but she wished she could also figure out a way to help him feel less red and worried all the time.

  Theo took a deep breath. “My mom lives in Chicago now,” he said in a voice even quieter than Parker’s. “That’s why I started taking the bus. Dad doesn’t have time to drop me here and get to work in the morning.”

  Parker had not been expecting that at all. She wondered if his mom moving was part of the reason why he looked so anxious all the time.

  “Are they divorced?” Cassie asked.

  “Not yet.” Theo’s eyes dropped down to the floor. He looked so sad.

  Parker knew she had to do something to make him feel better. This wasn’t about proving her hypothesis and predictions anymore. It was about being a good friend. She had an idea. She almost couldn’t believe she was about to say it out loud.

  “Would you want to build a contraption to feed your chickens together sometime?” she asked him. “I built one for Algebra and it’s amazing.”

  She’d actually just offered to spend more time with Theo. The weird thing was, she wasn’t dreading it. Sure, she had started the experiment with him mostly so he wouldn’t steal Cassie from her. But Theo was all right. And she really did want to be his friend now.

  Just as Theo opened his mouth to reply, Aidan, Braidan, and Jaidan’s mom walked into the auditorium holding a live chicken in a cage. Aidan was next to her, holding a tiny chick and a dozen eggs in a carton under his arm.

  “The Dempseys are doing chickens?” Cassie said.

  “Why does everyone love chickens so much?” Parker asked.

  This time Theo didn’t turn red. He turned a little bit green. At that moment, he looked surprised and a little bit worried, like her mom had when she found the bacteria Parker had grown in her Mad Science Lab using gunk from inside her own nose.

  “But we have robots,” Parker reassured him. “Fierce guinea pig robots.”

  That sounded bonkers even to her. If there was one thing guinea pigs weren’t, it was fierce.

  Cassie raised a doubtful eyebrow, but Theo came in for the save. “Squeaking, running, poop-eating guinea pig robots with hordes of babies,” he said.

  “Which clearly show their adaptations while also showing off our amazing engineering skills,” Parker added with a huge smile.

  With a shake of her head, Cassie said, “I guess you’re right. But that chick looks super cute and fuzzy.”

  Ms. Garcia called the classes to order. It was time for the Animal Adaptation Presentations!

  First, there was one on monarch butterflies. The girls from Mr. Tanner’s class had made a model of a monarch eating from a milkweed plant.

  “That looks beautiful!” Parker said under her breath.

  The monarch team did a fierce presentation with lots of cool information. There wasn’t a boring poster in sight. They clearly had done some hard work.

  Next up was a presentation on porcupines and then one on snakes and how they shed their skins and open their jaws. There was another presentation on fish that live in deadly coral in tropical seas. That team had brought in a whole fish tank. Parker felt terrible that she’d made such a fuss about bringing in live animals. But live animals sitting in tanks and cages still weren’t real science or engineering.

  Then the Dempsey Triplets and their chickens were up.

  Jaidan and Braidan were being surprisingly quiet and well-behaved, though they didn’t add much to the presentation. Aidan did all the talking, and he carefully explained how hard an egg’s shell was, how the mother hen’s dense feathers kept her and her eggs warm, and how the down of the chick insulated it after it cracked out of its egg.

  He said all the things Theo probably would have said for a chicken presentation.

  He also had a papier-mâché model of a chick’s shell to show how it was harder in some places than others and how a chick got out when it was ready to hatch.

  Aidan had given a totally fierce and totally scientific presentation. Parker was about to tell him just that when Ms. Garcia called her team up.

  Their presentation was last, and Parker was ready. She stood up straight and tall and turned on the first two guinea pig robots. Cassie talked about all the babies they can have, and how guinea pigs can run fast to escape predators, as Theo set up the eater robot. The other kids at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary loved the poop-eating guinea pig. Theo even used a good, loud voice to tell the audience about the nutrients the piggies gained from doing something so gross.

  Their team was slaying its Animal Adaptation Presentation!

  Then Parker turned on the squeaking guinea pig robot and began to explain how they used noises to communicate. She tried to turn from the purr
(noise number one) to the soft tweeting sounds (noise number two), but all she got was a big earful of noise number three: Algebra’s loudest, most in-your-face squeaks.

  And she couldn’t turn them back off again.

  Cassie and Theo tried to help, but the switch not only stopped working, it broke off! Maybe the recording device was too old and didn’t work properly anymore? Maybe Parker hadn’t hooked it up right? Guinea pig squeaking filled the auditorium. It wouldn’t have been too bad, except the noise set the hen to squawking as well. Even the little chick got in on the noise-making action.

  Soon the whole auditorium was filled with robotic and real animals making a lot of loud noises. Everyone looked startled by the racket, even the fish in the tank. Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, Parker knocked the pellet-eating robot off the presentation stand and it made a beeline for the kindergartners sitting on the floor in the front. The jaw of the robot opened and closed. The little kids screamed and scrambled to get away.

  It was complete chaos.

  For the first time in her life, Parker didn’t feel like a mad scientist. She felt like a bad scientist. And it wasn’t a very good feeling.

  Chapter 13

  (Not So) Gold Medal Science

  Parker made a dive for the pellet-eating guinea pig and hit the off switch. The kindergartners stopped screaming, but then they started doing something even worse: giggling. The robot and chicken noises were joined by the horrible laughing sounds of first the little kids, then the whole school.

  “What are we going to do?” Cassie asked.

  “Did you bring any tools to remove the batteries?” Theo asked.

  With a sad shake of the head, Parker said, “No, I didn’t think of it.”

  They handed the squeaking robot around, each trying to do something (anything!) to stop the noise, but nothing worked. The guinea pig kept squeaking, and the hen seemed to think the robot was talking to her, so she kept clucking right back.