The school fair started at noon. All morning the house had been filled with the mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked muffins.
“Are we all ready?” said Mum for the tenth time. “You’ve got the cakes?”
“Yes, ma’am. The muffins are secured and ready for transportation,” said Robin.
“What’s left of them,” muttered Jess.
Mum blushed. “I just wanted to make sure they were all right before we unleashed them on the public!”
“You look very smart today, Robin,” said Dad, who had the weekend off for a change. “I like your suit. In fact I’ve got one just like it.”
“We didn’t think Grandma’s coat really suited him,” said Jess.
“He looks like Batman’s butler now,” I said.
“Except Alfred doesn’t have a beard … or curly hair!” Jess pointed out.
As well as borrowing Dad’s suit, we’d found a wig in a charity shop. It didn’t quite fit the look I was going for, but it was better than a dog-chewed woolly hat. Jess had painted the Barbie skates black so they looked more like shoes too. It was quite a makeover, but it had all helped to persuade Mum and Dad to let Robin stay.
It hadn’t been easy. Mum had actually screamed when she saw the robot had returned. Luckily Grandma was back from InventorCon and came round straight away when we phoned. She gave Robin what she called a “full medical and software update”.
“He’s perfectly safe now,” she told Mum, giving us a wink. “I switched him off and on again!” she whispered. “If he has another funny turn, you know what to do…” Grandma raised a finger and jabbed it upwards.
The robot was no longer linked to my console, but Grandma had reprogrammed remote access to activate from a special code we could send Robin via Wi-Fi, should we need to take control in future.
Mr Burton had no idea we’d been involved in Robin’s ‘malfunction’, but he still came round to complain about the damage ‘our’ robot had done to his house.
Grandma answered the door. We didn’t hear what she said to him, but the old man didn’t stay long. When I asked her how she knew Mr Burton’s name was Donald, Grandma looked strangely shifty and said it was, “A long story … for another time.” She refused to say more, no matter how much me and Jess begged.
It took most of the week and multiple batches of muffins to convince Mum to give Robin another chance. The fact that Rosalyn phoned to say she was never coming back, no matter how much Mum paid her, probably helped too.
The school hall was already busy when we arrived. There were tables set out along the walls and down the middle, selling everything from cakes and plastic beakers of warm, spicy apple punch to Halloween decorations and Christmas cards.
Robin delivered his tins to the cake stall. Ten minutes later word had spread about the apple-and-cinnamon muffins and there was a queue stretching out of the door.
We met up with Ivana and Ali, and at the end of the first row of stalls we bumped into Mrs Badoe.
“Oh, I am sorry!” she said. “I forget there’s a lot more of me these days!”
“When’s the baby due, miss?” Ivana asked.
“Just after Christmas, so you’ll be getting a new teacher next term.”
Ivana and Jess groaned, which made Mrs Badoe smile, but she was anxious to move on. “I heard about some amazing apple-and-cinnamon muffins,” she said. “I’m hoping they haven’t all gone!”
“I wonder who our new teacher will be?” said Jess as Mrs Badoe hurried away. “Whoever it is won’t be as nice as her.”
“Hey, why don’t we go and have a look over there?” said Ali, changing direction so suddenly I almost walked into him. Then I saw why.
Olivia, Brett and Drool were gathered round a Halloween stall up ahead – we would have blundered straight into them.
Brett saw us and nudged Olivia.
“Uh-oh!” said Ivana.
But then a strange thing happened. Rather than homing in on us, they turned and fled in the opposite direction. If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought THEY were scared of US!
“What’s with them?” said Ali.
“Maybe Brett’s decided he should stop being such a BEAST to everyone!” said Jess. We both burst out laughing until we realized Ali and Ivana were staring blankly at us. They knew nothing about the video we had of Brett. But he did and that was what mattered.
We’d cornered Brett earlier in the week and shown him the clip. He’d looked so shocked and confused I’d felt sorry for him, until I remembered all the times he’d picked on Ali and everyone else. We’d promised not to tell anybody about his Beauty and the Beast moment if he stopped hassling people at school.
So far it seemed to be working.
It was time for Jess to go in goal on the penalty shoot-out stall (Mrs Badoe had let her and Liesha share goalkeeping duties), so we followed her outside.
There was a row of games at the edge of the field, offering high-octane thrills like Guess the Number of Smarties in the Jar, and Bash the Rat! (The stallholder dropped a knitted grey rat down a piece of old drainpipe and you had to try to whack it with a plastic rounders bat when it fell out at the bottom.) They were the kind of games that got Dad all nostalgic. His absolute favourite was the Coconut Shy. It was also his nemesis. Every year Dad tried, and failed, to knock one of the coconuts off and win a prize.
Unlike Dad, it turned out that Robin was really good at all the games – and I mean REALLY good. After he’d guessed the number of Smarties in the Jar EXACTLY and Bashed the Rat so hard it almost went into orbit, we had to tell him to take it easy in case people got suspicious.
“You mean I should fail deliberately?” said Robin. “Like your father does?”
“Just be a little less robot and a bit more human,” I told him.
“Yeah – be rubbish like the rest of us!” said Ali, laughing.
Dad was still trying his luck with the Coconut Shy and as usual failing miserably. On the rare occasion he actually hit one of the coconuts, it still didn’t fall off.
Robin watched for a while, then when Dad’s turn was over asked if he could have a go.
I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. Dad wouldn’t be happy if Robin knocked all the coconuts off with his first attempt! I didn’t want to give him and Mum any reason to change their minds about keeping the robot. But Robin was already lining up his first throw.
“Remember – less robot, more human!” I whispered in his ear.
“Very well, Master Just Jake,” said Robin and hurled the ball at the line of coconuts.
It struck the target, but the fruit didn’t fall. I winced.
“Nice shot!” said the stallholder.
Robin threw again. This time he hit the coconut in the middle. Again the ball bounced off.
“Unlucky!” said the man. “Just not quite enough power!”
Dad frowned.
“ROBIN!” I hissed, but the robot didn’t seem to hear.
When his final throw cannoned into the last coconut in the line, the wooden ball actually split in two, but the coconut still didn’t budge.
“I think you could say that one was hard enough!” said Mum.
“There’s something going on here!” Dad strode up to the line of coconuts and tried to lift one off its stand. “Ha! Just as I suspected! They’re glued on!”
The stallholder tried to move Dad away, but Robin clamped his shoulder with a robotic hand. “I think you owe this gentleman an apology,” he said. “And a prize!”
“All these years,” said Dad, clutching an armful of coconuts. “I thought it was ME!” He shook his head. “You just can’t trust some people!”
“You know robots are programmed to always tell the truth,” I said. “Robin, for example – he wouldn’t be allowed to lie even if he wanted to.”
“Is that right?” said Dad. “I’m impressed the way he saw what that bloke was up to.”
“Robin’s very good at spotting fakes,” said Jess, back from her shift in goal. “It’s been quite useful actually.”
“I wish I had a robot for a babysitter,” said Ivana.
“Yeah, you two are well lucky!” said Ali. “Robin’s AWESOME.”
Me and Jess exchanged a look.
We didn’t say anything, but I could tell my sister was thinking the same as me: Ali and Ivana were right – having a robot for a babysitter WAS kind of awesome.
“Um, Jake?” Ali tugged my sleeve and pointed to where Robin was juggling coconuts for an admiring crowd of onlookers. “Those coconuts he’s juggling. They’re not ALL coconuts!”
The dog was fine, though he did keep walking in circles for a while afterwards. But, to be fair to Robin, Digby is small, round and hairy – it was an easy mistake to make.
The End (… for now!)