If you’re wondering, Gerald didn’t win the contest. Putt-Putt did. I wasn’t there but Reynolds was, and he told me all about it. He said Richard Patel made the whole group come up and accept the prize with him. It sounded nice.
Uncle Ben’s red Toyota pickup pulled into the driveway. He drove to the rear of the house and stopped in front of the garage. I peeked into the back of the truck and saw Monster lying there like a stack of lumber.
“Wait a minute, I’ll help you unload him,” Uncle Ben said.
I’d had him pick up Monster at the exhibit hall for me. I didn’t want to go back and face the BAs.
“I can handle it,” I said. “Monster, get up!”
The robot bent at the waist and sat straight up, then climbed to his feet.
“Now get down,” I said.
He stepped off of the truck, landing perfectly on the two dog bowls at the bottom of his legs.
Uncle Ben stared at me.
“You know, you might have mentioned he could do that before I broke my back loading him in there.”
I laughed.
“How heavy could he be?” I said. “He’s made out of cardboard.”
“Cardboard? Howard, I don’t know what that stuff is, but it ain’t cardboard.”
What was he talking about? Of course it was cardboard. I gave him a sideways glance, then walked over to the robot and tapped my fist against his chest.
It made a rumbling-drum noise, like when you thump the front of a washing machine.
He was right! It still looked like cardboard, but somehow it had transformed into something a whole a lot harder.
“That’s weird,” I said.
Uncle Ben closed the tailgate on his truck and leaned against it.
“Do your mom and dad know about this guy?” he said, pointing to Monster.
I shook my head.
I meant to tell them, I really did, but I couldn’t. Not while the memory of Mr. Jolly still lingered in the air.
“I don’t like to dump a lot of bad news on them at one time,” I said. “I haven’t even told them what happened with the BAs yet.”
Uncle Ben nodded, then looked down at his sneakers.
“They asked about you,” he said. “When I went to pick up the robot, a couple of kids were hanging around there. They wanted to know if you were OK.”
I wondered which kids he’d seen, then remembered the way they’d all looked at me that last night at the exhibit hall.
“I’m awesome. Like always.”
“That’s what I told ’em,” Uncle Ben said.
Then he climbed back into his truck and drove away.
When I crawled out of the tunnel and into the lab, the first thing I saw was the banner.
“WELCOME HOME, ROBOT!” it said.
The banner was hand-painted on an old white bedsheet that hung from the ceiling.
“What is this?”
“I told him not to do it, Howard,” Franklin said grumpily.
Franklin’s large frowning face was displayed in full screen on the tablet, which was propped up on my lab table. He looked irritated. Probably because on top of the tablet, like a little crown, was a paper party hat.
This had Reynolds Pipkin written all over it.
Reynolds was standing at attention in the center of the room. He lifted a tiny plastic horn and blew it like a trumpet.
“Welcome, robot!” he said.
If Monster was moved at all by this presentation, he hid it really well.
“Reynolds, why would you throw a robot a homecoming party?” I said.
“I don’t know. What kind of party are you supposed to throw for a robot?”
He blinked.
“Never mind,” I said.
I told Monster to go stand in the corner. He obeyed.
“Howard,” Franklin said, “it’s probably best to go ahead and get it over with. You know, before you get too attached to him.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
Franklin seemed surprised.
“You know — getting rid of him? You said you were going to get rid of him as soon as the contest was over.”
Oh, right. I did say that. But in my defense, I only said it because I thought the experiment had zero chance of working. I mean, who gets rid of a perfectly good robot? The truth was, I didn’t even know how to get to the goo. That cardboard box had hardened like a turtle shell.
It was the ultimate superpower!
“Well, we’ll see,” I said, scratching my head. “A thing like that could take awhile. It’s not like he has an off switch or anything. I’ll probably have to use . . . algebra.”
Whenever I need to avoid doing something, I say I’m using algebra. It makes it sound complicated.
But Franklin wasn’t listening. He was just glaring at Monster.
“He looks evil,” he said. “Don’t you think he looks evil?”
“That’s how robots are supposed to look!” I said.
“He’s dangerous, Howard. I don’t like him.”
I didn’t know what to say. Franklin had always been a worrier, but it was worse now that he didn’t have a real body. He couldn’t protect me like he used to. I knew that it bothered him. Sometimes it bothered him a lot.
“I could keep him at my house,” Reynolds said.
Finally, something that made me laugh!
“Your house? You can’t even have goldfish!”
Reynolds blinked at me.
“Mother says they stare at her,” he said.