Inside the building, Norman and I were whisked through a door with the words WAKE UP, AMERICA on it, and into a huge TV studio where we were guided past equipment and cameras and a boom mic, and by people manning those things, and then to a stage where we were sort of shoved into seats set next to each other. Dozens of bright lights shined down on us.
“Just do the same things you did outside,” the guy with the headset said to Norman, “except for climbing—you’d be off camera.” He retreated and glanced at a big digital clock, counting off time. “Ninety seconds,” he said loudly to the crew.
And then a lady hurried up to Norman and me and patted our faces with a whitish powder that nearly made me sneeze. When she was gone, some guy scooted up and attached tiny microphones to our shirt collars. “Remember, the camera with the red light on is the live one,” he said, before striding away.
It hit me that in a minute, or less, Norman and I would be on national TV. Millions of viewers. Oh boy—I really hadn’t planned for that part. I was feeling kind of tingly, kind of scared. What if I threw up? Or peed my pants? I had to go to the bathroom for like an hour! Or froze when the cameras clicked on? For the rest of my life I’d be known as the Kid Who Freaked Out on the Wake Up, America show.
But then I looked at Norman and calmed down a smidgen. This was just something I had to do.
“Are you okay?” I asked Norman.
“I’m fine, Matt,” he said, looking around the studio. “But did I ever tell you that I consider television to be an archaic medium? Give me quality French cinema any day.”
Whatever!
Kent Cunningham approached and took a seat close to us. Poop! I was hoping for Nancy, who’s pretty friendly, or even Fig, not Kent. He had gray hair held in place by hair goo, but his face looked like he wasn’t even forty: Either his hair was lying or his face was lying. And he was way too serious. And he smelled like guy perfume!
The mic guy slid up and attached a microphone to Kent’s shirt. “Twenty seconds,” said the man with the headset.
Eee-ah eee-ah eee-ah eee-ah eeeh-ah . . . Keep it together, Matt, I told myself, wondering if I could even inhale or exhale.
“Ten seconds!”
Kent gave Norman and me the thumbs-up. “Let’s give the people what they want, gentlemen,” he said. But I had no idea what that meant!
The headset guy put up a hand and said, “On five,” then counted down with his fingers and thumb until they were folded into a fist. We were live!
“Welcome back,” Kent said to a camera, in a voice deeper than it was ten seconds earlier. “I’m here with two brothers from New York City, Matthew and Norman Rambeau.” He turned toward Norman and me. “Good morning, boys,” he boomed, smiling.
Uh. Uh. Answer! I told myself. “Good morning,” I said to Kent, weirdly wondering if my voice had sounded squeaky or girlish. Norman stayed quiet.
Kent gazed at the camera. “America, Matthew Rambeau is making a startling claim, that his brother is robotic, a machine. While this—”
“Pardonnez-moi,” Norman said, “but I am NOT a robot. I am, in fact, an artificial, genetically enhanced, cybernetically integrated, bionically modified life-form.” He grinned at a camera without a red light on. “Model number NRM 2000-B at your service.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” Kent said, throwing on such a tiny smile I wondered why he bothered. “Now, as a veteran newsman I am highly skeptical of such claims. But I have been told by Fig and by my director that Norman has some amazing skills. Robot or not, we may be looking at a child genius and a future Olympian.”
But he is a robot, Kent, and to demonstrate . . . Wait, I was only saying those words inside my head. Ah!
Kent, eyebrow raised skeptically, gazed at my brother and me. “I hate to accuse people your age of fabrications, but when I look at Norman I see a boy just like any boy you might find anywhere in this great nation of ours. So where exactly is the robot?”
My turn to talk! “The robot stuff is on the inside, wires and hard drives, and that kind of junk,” I told him, at the same time thinking, Okay, okay, my voice does work and sounds pretty normal. “But I can show you his power button and some ports. Or if you have a screwdriver—”
“Perhaps in a minute,” Kent said. “But first I think our viewers would like to see some of Norman’s impressive skills.” He leaned toward Norman. “I heard that outside you were multiplying pi times pi. Can you do that again for us?”
Norman froze for a second, looked around in a daze, then started picking his nose. Was America seeing this? So you know, robots have no reason to pick their noses. They are booger free.
“Norman?” Kent pressed. “Pi times pi ?”
“Sure thing, Dave,” my brother said. Dave? Huh? Norman looked at the wrong camera and said, “Pie times pie equals cake. Cake times cake equals ice cream. Ice cream times ice cream equals—”
“Funny,” Kent interrupted, not looking amused. “But seriously, if you could—”
That was when Norman slowly raised his arms like they were being pulled by strings, sneezed, and startled me by doing a sitting backflip. “Four score and seven rabbits ago,” he said, “our crocodiles brought forth a new toadstool . . .”
That was not how the Gettysburg Address went!
Norman then wildly flopped around like he was sparking out, and threw himself onto Kent and went dead. Oh no. Something had gone majorly wrong with Norman!
Kent, his eyes gone wide, looked totally shocked. The studio was silent, like you could hear two ants talking, if two ants were there and they knew how to talk. And then one of Norman’s eyeballs, the one he had trouble with before, fell out and slowly rolled across the stage floor. The freakiest sound in the whole world? The sound of an eyeball rolling across a wooden floor. It was creeping me out!
“Holy Edward R. Murrow,” Kent said, blinking repeatedly like he wanted to make sure his own eyes were okay. “I have no idea what just happened here.” He looked down at dead Norman on his lap like he was wondering how he could ditch him.
Meanwhile, the guy with the headset waved frantically at Kent, then dragged a finger across his throat. Kent exhaled and peered into a camera. “Robotic boy or robotic bust?” he said in his smooth show-host voice. “We’ll continue to keep a close eye on this story.”
When the headset guy gave the all-clear signal, Kent peeled off Norman, stood, and handed the robot to me. “If you ever get this thing working right, give us a call.” He turned and stomped offstage, toward a door that said EMPLOYEES ONLY on it. “I’m out of here!” he loudly announced.
I glanced at Norman, sitting in a lump on my lap and looking completely broken, and gave him a big, warm hug. But I didn’t think he could feel it. “Sorry,” I said to my brother, in case stress from this TV nonsense was what blew him out. He just sat there, broken. All I wanted to do was save Norman by getting him away from the spies and on TV, so they wouldn’t dare try to snatch him. This did not go as planned.
The makeup lady, looking kind of grossed out and kind of sympathetic at the same time, handed me Norman’s runaway eyeball. I slipped it into the empty socket and gave it a twist, tightening it as best I could. Later on my dad . . .
My dad? My mom? Where on earth were they? I wondered. And my uncle and cousin, were they safe? Too many unanswered questions, as big as planets.