Chapter 16

I’ll say this for my new school—it’s not dull. Painful sometimes, but not dull. And now I’m starving.

“Did you learn anything today?” Mom asks.

“I guess so.” I actually learned four things today:

1. My whole body can fit into a space designed only for my head if enough force is applied.

2. It takes two people thirteen minutes to pull me back out again.

3. When you’re thirteen minutes late for gym class, Coach Ed makes you run ten laps around the gymnasium wearing triple-gravity boots.

4. I hate triple-gravity boots.

All of which led to my current starvation situation.

“I’m really hungry, Dad. What’s for dinner?”

“Synthesized hot dogs! And I must say, they look delicious!”

Of course they look delicious. The food synthesizers in our LIV-space kitchens do a great job of, as the brochure says, “re-creating the look of your home planet’s most popular dishes.”

And I guess that’s true. I mean, it looks like you’re eating a hot dog. It feels like you’re eating a hot dog. But it tastes like you’re eating a hot-dog-shaped tube of pencil erasers. Which is probably why Bula likes them so much. It’s also why it’s strange that she’s bawling her eyes out, since this is her favorite meal.

“What’s wrong with Bula?” I ask. “I mean besides all the obvious stuff.”

“She can’t find Fluffles,” Mom says. Dad shakes his head. “We’ve turned this place over looking for him. It’s like he just got up and walked away.”

Bula’s crying gets worse the more we talk about it. All this whining is getting on my last nerve. I kind of wish I had climbed up that robot today before anyone knew she was in there and locked the dome. After all, it’s probably soundproof. Hey… wait a minute!

I look at Dad. “Did she have Fluffles when you pulled her out of the robot this afternoon?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.” Dad’s getting excited now. “Hurry up and finish eating, and we’ll go down to the lab and take a look!”

After dinner Dad, Bula, and I head down to the lab. She’s stopped bawling, but now snot is hanging out of both nostrils. When she breathes in, it gets sucked back up into her nose. Then she breathes out and it dangles down again. Over and over like two slimy yo-yos. Man, little sisters are gross.

We enter the lab, and as we head for the elevator, we see something on the ground near the robot’s foot.

It’s Fluffles. Yikes! It looks like he fell into a blender or something. Dad picks him up. “What the heck happened to you, fella?” he says as he hands Bula the plushy. As soon as she gets a good look at it, she of course starts bawling again. Even worse than before.

Dad takes Fluffles from Bula and heads over to his workbench. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll clean him up, fix him up, and make him even better than he was before.” Really, Dad? You’ve got some industrial-strength snot remover in your toolbox?