It’s kind of disappointing how ideas that seemed GREAT at the planning stage suddenly feel COMPLETELY LUDICROUS on a chilly Friday evening when you’re walking next door to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in front of your neighbour’s house!
Part of me hoped that Rosalyn would demand to know what we were doing and stop us from going out, but she didn’t even notice us leave.
I started to wonder if we really needed to rescue Robin. I mean, hadn’t we WANTED to get rid of him? I remembered all the times he’d embarrassed us and how Robin wouldn’t let us do anything until our homework was finished; how he’d always know if we tried to fake being ill. On the other hand, he had helped me and Ali defeat the big boss in Revenge of the Robots and, unlike Rosalyn, Robin actually seemed to like spending time with us.
Then I started thinking about Robin trying to sing when we were baking. Robots weren’t supposed to feel emotions, but maybe Robin was different … special?
We had to rescue him. He was our robot! No! More than that – he was our FRIEND.
There was no way we could abandon him to Mr Burton, even if getting him back did mean totally embarrassing ourselves in public – again!
At least it was nearly dark. Hopefully there’d be nobody around to see us make fools of ourselves this time.
So there we were, standing on Mr Burton’s doorstep, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ like a pair of really confused carol singers. Jess was really going for it – belting out the song like it was the final of Britain’s Got Talent.
Now I’ll admit that sometimes I’m not as kind to my twin as I could be but, when I tell you that Jess can NOT sing, I’m not being horrible because she’s my sister – it’s simply the truth. If your ears were unfortunate enough to hear my sister sing, they would tell you exactly the same thing.
I was doing my best to join in because Grandma said that Robin was programmed to respond to both our voices. Digby was there too, doing what he always does when Jess sings: throwing his head back and HOWLING! (I don’t know if he’s complaining or joining in. Dogs have strange taste in music…)
The noise we were making was quite … something. Thankfully ‘Happy Birthday’ is a short song, so we got to the end pretty quickly. Then we looked at each other, not sure what was supposed to happen next.
Usually this was the point where someone blows out the candles and everyone gets a slice of cake. Of course on this occasion there was no cake. What we wanted was some kind of sign that Robin had heard us. But the house was silent.
“Maybe we should sing it again?” said Jess.
So we did.
Again.
And again.
And—
Mr Burton’s front door flew open and the old man shot out like the house was on fire.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” he shouted, flapping his arms at us. “STOP THAT INFERNAL RACKET THIS INSTANT!”
Believe me, I wanted to stop, but with the door open this was our best chance of getting Robin to hear us. So we kept singing.
I saw movement in the hallway behind Mr Burton and for a moment I thought it was the robot. Then I realized that the shape filling the doorway was too short and too wide … and it was pointing a mobile phone at us.
“This is going straight on YouTube,” said Brett, laughing so hard he was struggling to hold the camera still. “Two Losers and a Dog Sing ‘Happy Birthday’! Viral for sure.”
Of course we had to choose an evening when Brett was visiting.
We reached the end of the song and this time we did stop.
“Mum said it was your birthday,” said Jess, giving Mr Burton her best innocent smile. “So we thought it would be nice if we came round to sing to you.”
For a few seconds the old man was so taken aback he just stared at us. Then he scowled.
“Your mother is mistaken,” he said. “It’s NOT my birthday, so you can go away.” Then his eyes narrowed and he leaned closer. “I know what you’re up to,” he hissed. “But it won’t work. You’re not getting it back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying not to shiver.
Brett was still laughing as we walked away. “Weirdos!” he shouted.
“That better have worked,” said Jess.
I nodded. If Robin hadn’t heard our singing, all we’d done was give Brett a new video to humiliate us with.