“Any sign of your shiny, green-haired mystery man today?” Shelly asked Newton the next morning. Newton, Shelly, and Theremin were walking through the school halls to their next class.
Newton shook his head. “Not yet, and I’ve been looking,” he replied. Then he looked down at his tablet. “So, what’s this new class that popped up on the schedule that we’re going to? Phys Ed? Is that the name of a scientist?”
“It’s short for Physics of Physical Education,” Shelly replied. “We’ve always had the gym that any student can use in their free time, but this is the first time Phys Ed is an official class. Only a few professors were ever interested enough to teach it.”
“Why?” Newton asked.
Shelly shrugged. “Maybe mad scientists are more into mental education than physical,” she replied. “Anyway, Mumtaz thinks it’s important to be active.”
“That’s one good thing about being a robot,” Theremin chimed in. He rapped on his metal body. “I’m fit as a fiddle, if that fiddle were made of metal! As a matter of fact, I’m exempt from the class.”
“So why are you coming with us?” Newton asked.
“And miss the chance to see other kids humiliated, for once?” Theremin asked. “I wouldn’t miss it!”
Newton started to feel nervous. “Humiliated?”
“I don’t think it’s what Mumtaz had in mind, but most of the classes involve tasks that no human can accomplish. You’ll see . . . ,” Theremin hinted.
“Don’t worry, Newton, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Shelly said. “We’ll probably just do simple exercises and jog around a little.”
But when they got to the gym, their jaws dropped. A massive structure had been erected. Rope bridges and hanging ropes led from one end of the gym to the next, suspended over giant glass tanks. One was a water tank that held sizzling, sparking, wriggling creatures. Another contained a swirling vortex.
“What is that?” Newton wondered out loud.
“It is an obstacle ropes course,” said a mechanical voice next to him. “Don’t you know anything, newbie?”
Newton turned to face Odifin Pinkwad—or rather, Odifin Pinkwad’s brain, since the unusual student was actually a brain floating in a jar of purple liquid. Odifin spoke through a speaker on the jar and was rolled around the school atop a metal table with wheels that was pushed by a skinny, slouching, greasy-haired teenager named Rotwang.
“I know some things, Odifin, but not everything,” Newton informed him. “I still don’t have my memory back.”
“You’re still sticking to that story, are you?” Odifin laughed. “Ha. Pathetic!”
Theremin glided between Odifin and Newton. “Why are you here, Odifin? You’re exempt from gym, just like I am.”
“I want to show that I’m superior, so Rotwang is going to participate for me,” Odifin said, spinning his tank to indicate the teenager next to him, “as any well-trained personal lab assistant would.”
“Right. What he said,” Rotwang grunted.
The sound of a shrill whistle pierced the air. All eyes turned toward a six-year-old girl with red hair, wearing a white tracksuit and a whistle around her neck.
It was the gym teacher Professor Juvinall.
“I almost forgot she was teaching this,” Newton said. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“You mean because you called her a little kid,” Theremin pointed out.
“But she is,” Newton replied. “She’s only six years old!”
Professor Juvinall blew her whistle again. “Quiet, everyone!” she yelled, in a voice that was exceptionally loud for a child. “Welcome to freshman level Phys Ed. I only ended up teaching this class because we drew straws, and I got the short one.”
“That’s because she is the short one,” one of the students muttered. Juvinall’s head snapped in the direction of the sound.
“Who said that?” she asked.
All the students froze. Nobody responded. Juvinall slowly turned to glare at Newton.
“Was it you, Warp?” she asked.
“N-n-no, Ms. Juvinall,” Newton said nervously. “Not me.”
Her green eyes narrowed. “It better not have been,” she said. Then she addressed the class. “Okay, so to make things interesting, I personally designed this fun little course for this class. I call it the Obstacle Course of Doom.”
Frantic whispers rose up from among the students.
“To be more accurate, you’ll know it as the Ultimate, Inescapable Obstacle Course of Death, Doom, and Destruction, and it’s a beauty,” Professor Juvinall said. “Designed to test your mental as well as your physical strength. Let me give you all a quick tour.”
She pointed to a wall built with various contours. “First, you scale the Geometric Shapes Wall—where the triangles, squares, pentagons, and polygons will continuously change shape as you climb. Second, you grab any of those hanging tentacles and swing over the Electric Leech Lagoon.” She paused and smiled. “They haven’t eaten anything today.”
Whimpers and gasps rose up from the students.
“Next, you run across the Sodium Bromide Bridge before it dissolves, jumping between the Matrix of Death Laser Beams as you go,” Juvinall continued.
“Death lasers?” Newton whispered.
“Then you crawl your way through the Giant Web of Sticky Spider Silk.” she said. “And if you don’t get stuck, you’ll come out on top of the Vortex Tank where there is an escape hatch with a panel of buttons. To open the hatch, you’ll see a sequence of flashing colored lights on the panel. You’ll have twelve seconds to punch in the correct sequence. If you run out of time, a trapdoor will open and you’ll drop into the center of the vortex, which will send you who-knows-where?”
“If you successfully cross the tank, your last challenge will be to jump down and hop through a line of inflatable pool toys,” she said, pointing to lines of plastic pool toys of ducks, swans, unicorns, and dolphins at the end of the course.
“That last one seems kind of easy, doesn’t it?” Theremin whispered.
“Shhh! Don’t let her hear you,” Shelly warned. “We don’t need her to make this any harder!”
“So, is everyone ready to tackle the Ultimate, Inescapable Obstacle Course of Death, Doom, and Destruction?” Juvinall asked.
“Um . . . ready,” the students mumbled cautiously, barely audible.
“Well, ready or not, we’re starting!” she said. “The course can handle three victims—I mean, participants—at a time.”
She looked down at her clipboard. “Up first: Rotwang on behalf of Odifin Pinkwad, Mimi Crowninshield, and Newton Warp!”
Newton looked at Shelly and Theremin, worried.
“You’ll do great, Newton,” Shelly said, but she sounded worried too. “I’m sure Professor Juvinall wouldn’t let anything bad happen to any of us.”
“I hope not,” Newton muttered.
“Warp! Get over here!” the teacher barked.
Newton jogged over to the start of the course and stood between Mimi and Rotwang. Mimi cracked her knuckles and stared up at the imposing wall with a fierce look of determination in her blue eyes.
“Let’s do this,” she said.
“On my whistle,” Juvinall said. “On your marks, get set . . .” Tweet!
Newton took off running and started to scramble up the Geometric Shapes Wall. From the corner of his eye he could see Mimi quickly moving up next to him. Rotwang was so tall that he easily scrambled to the top of the wall and pulled himself up.
By the time Newton reached the top of the wall, Rotwang was already holding on to a tentacle and swinging across the water tank. His long legs splashed against the water, and the electric leeches snapped at his ankles with their tiny toothy mouths.
Good thing I’ve got extra-grippy fingers! Newton thought. He took a deep breath, grabbed on to a tentacle, and swung himself across the pool. He could hear cheering in the background. “Go, Newton! You can do it!”
He landed on the other side of the tank with a thud. In front of him, Rotwang had already begun to race across the Sodium Bromide Bridge, which was starting to bubble and dissolve. His feet were so big that he kept hitting the Death Laser Beams.