“Your sister reeeeally doesn’t like that number seven,” said Ali.
The referee showed Jess a yellow card, then helped the opposing striker back to his feet.
It was Friday after school. An icy wind cut across the field as me, Ali and Ivana shivered on the touchline. Our Year Six football team was playing a school from across town. The game was barely ten minutes old, but Jess had already delivered three bone-crunching tackles. Pretty impressive when you consider she plays in goal!
“Go and get warmed up, Ali,” said Mrs Badoe, waddling down the touchline towards us. “We’ll have to take Jess off if she carries on like this.”
“But I’m rubbish in goal!” said Ali, doing a few half-hearted stretches.
“At least you won’t get yourself sent off.” Our teacher frowned and rubbed the bump protruding from her coat.
“How’s the baby, miss?” said Ivana.
“She’s kicking just like Jess today!” said Mrs Badoe, chuckling as she walked back down the touchline.
“Jess is in a bad mood because of that robot,” said Ivana, pointing across the pitch to where Robin and Digby were watching the game with Mr Burton.
I nodded. By breaktime the day after THE INCIDENT, word had spread that the Carly-G trainers Olivia had been bragging about were fake. Olivia probably knew it was Brett who had spilled her secret, but she still took it out on Jess.
“Why’s your robot standing with Brett’s grandad?” said Ali.
“I don’t know.” I’d been wondering why Mr Burton was even here – neither Brett nor Olivia played football.
The old man had been sniffing around Robin ever since that first day after school. Just that morning I’d caught him spying on us through binoculars from an upstairs window. I wondered if he’d realized that Robin was actually a robot.
As I watched, Robin waved his wooden rattle and shouted words of encouragement to the team.
Of course, rather than yelling “good pass” or “nice shot” – like a normal person – the robot was urging Northfield Park Year Sixes on with phrases such as, “Play up, chaps! Their backs are wilting!”
It was like he’d looked up a list of ‘Things to shout at a football match’ – from the 1900s!
“Is he like this all the time?” Ivana asked.
I nodded. “We had to go for a haircut after school on Wednesday, and he tried to get Mr Rossini to give Digby a shave! I swear he thinks that dog is our REALLY HAIRY little brother!”
“I thought robots were supposed to be clever,” said Ali.
“Yeah! Trust us to get the world’s first stupid one!” I shook my head. “I reckon Grandma programmed him in a hurry and forgot to include some important bits of information – like the small fact that Digby IS A DOG!”
Ivana giggled.
“I wish I could see the funny side,” I said. “We almost got done for shoplifting last night!”
Ali stopped his warm-up and stared at me. “What happened?”
“You know that sign above the baskets in the corner shop? Where it says PLEASE TAKE ONE?”
Ali nodded.
“Well, he did! Our dopey robot thought it was a free basket to carry your shopping home in! The guy in the shop chased us down the road IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!”
“I suppose that is what it means literally,” said Ali.
“The trouble is he takes EVERYTHING literally! He’s got no common sense!”
“That’s robots for you,” said Ali.
“Yeah, and I’ve had enough. Films make robots look really cool, but in real life they’re just a pain!”
“You should tell your parents,” said Ivana.
I snorted. “Dad’s always away driving his lorry. I tried talking to Mum, but she just went on about how if she didn’t have to do three jobs we wouldn’t need a babysitter. But she does, so we do, and we can’t really afford to pay anyone. That’s why Grandma offered to make us a robot babysitter.”
“If you think about it,” said Ali slowly, “a robot’s just a computer on legs.”
“So?”
“So … computers are always going wrong, aren’t they? My brother’s laptop stopped working when he spilled a can of Coke on it.”
I looked at him. “So you think that if we spilled some Coke on Robin – accidentally on purpose – he might stop working?”
Ali nodded. “He’ll be all like…” My friend started making choking sounds, twitching his shoulders and waving his arms around.
“STOP IT!” said Ivana. “That’s horrible!”
Ali stopped.
Ivana was right. I didn’t want to actually harm the robot, just make Mum send him back to Grandma. Before I could think any more about it, there was an audible crunch from the pitch, followed by a howl and the sound of the referee’s whistle.
“Uh-oh!” said Ali. “Looks like I might be going in goal after all!”
“Mrs Badoe said I’m not allowed to play for the next two matches!” Jess flung her football boots across the kitchen. Digby ran after them, thinking it was a game.
“AND she might choose Liesha for the penalty shoot-out stall at the fair now!”
“Just because you got sent off?”
Jess nodded. “It’s all HIS fault.” She scowled at Robin, who was trying to wrestle her boots back from the dog.
“I’ll put these by the back door, Miss Jess,” said the robot, dragging Digby across the floor, still attached to the boots. “You can clean them when we’ve finished making the cakes.”
“Cakes?” I said. “What cakes?”
“To take to Olivia’s party,” growled Jess.
“That’s TOMORROW?!”
Olivia was having a pool party and picnic at the local sports centre. She’d invited the whole class.
“Do we have to go?” The thought of being anywhere near deep water when Brett was around seemed like a really bad idea. “Olivia only invited everyone so she can show off and get more presents!”
“You think I haven’t begged Mum not to make us go?” said Jess. “You know what she’s like. Just cos she’s friends with Olivia’s mum, she thinks me and Olivia must still be friends too!”
“But why do we have to make cakes?”
“Because we could only afford a small present, Mum thinks it’d be nice to take cakes for everyone.” Jess shook her head. “I told her there was NO WAY I’m making cakes for HER, with HIM!”
“What did she say?”
My sister’s brow scrunched into a concertina of rage. “She wasn’t even listening! She just told me we might need the new packet of sugar in the cupboard…”
Jess stopped suddenly, and the frown fell from her face.
“Oh!” she said. “Now there’s an idea…”
“What?”
“I think I might have found a way to get rid of that robot!” she said.
