Chapter 6:
The Best Science Fair Ever
I managed to drag Ralph home with Mr. Mac’s help. He loaded Ralph up onto the rolling dolly he uses to move boxes around in the store, and together we wheeled him out the door.
Outside, the sun was starting to go down. We paused for a second so that Mr. Mac could lock up the store and hang up a sign saying BACK IN 5 MINUTES! that I had made for him last year. I copied a picture out of Alice in Wonderland, of the white rabbit tapping his watch, and Mr. Mac liked it so much that he laminated it. As Mr. Mac looked for his keys, I took a moment to look around. The red and orange light from the setting sun made everything look prettier than usual. Across the street, Andre was stepping out the door in his crisp blue bus driver’s uniform, getting ready to work the late shift. Usually, my mom says I’m not allowed to call adults by their first names, but whenever I said “Mr. Andre” he said, “You make me feel like a crumbly old man!” In my head, I liked to pretend that Andre was secretly a vampire, because he worked at night and stayed home during the day. When he was getting ready for work, he would blast house music so loud that if you didn’t want to hear it, you’d better have some earplugs. Sometimes he left his curtains open, and you could see him dancing as he prepared to leave for the evening. “See, that’s the kick drum,” he told me once at a summer block party as the steady beat filled the whole block. “That’s what makes it kick!”
Next to Andre’s apartment building, Miss Gina and her father, Mr. Armstead, were sitting on the front porch of their bungalow. Mr. Armstead was ninety-five years old and sometimes had a hard time hearing well or remembering details, but he always said hello to me when I passed by. Miss Gina worked part-time for a family that lived downtown, taking care of their baby and cleaning their house. After work, she always wheeled Mr. Armstead out onto the porch because she said it made him feel happy and calm to watch the street in the evening. Sometimes he would yell at kids if he didn’t think they were doing something good, sometimes he’d read the newspaper, and sometimes he would sing a song he remembered from being in the church choir. “My father was president of the men’s choir at First Baptist for twenty years,” Miss Gina always said. “He may not remember much, but he remembers how to use them pipes!” She was the best cook in our neighborhood, and the smoky smell of rib tips or the sharp, earthy smell of collard greens was often drifting from her front door if you passed by on a Sunday or a holiday. For Christmas, she would sometimes make a caramel cake, golden and glossy, and would let me have a slice if I helped her clear the snow off her car and put salt on the sidewalk.
When Mr. Mac had finally locked the door, we carefully wheeled Ralph over the sidewalk, going really slowly so we wouldn’t hit one of the big cracks or holes in the cement and accidentally send Ralph flying to his doom. I frowned to see some litter on the ground, especially since there was a trash can a few feet away at the bus stop. There’s nothing I hate more than litter in my neighborhood, especially when someone leaves a glass bottle on the ground and it breaks—don’t they worry that kids or pets might cut themselves?!
When we got to my building, our upstairs neighbor, Mr. Muhammad, was checking the mailbox. His daughter, Aisha, was behind him, absent-mindedly playing on her phone, and her big brother, Zaid, was doing the same. As we approached, the three of them looked up and did a double take, staring at me, Mr. Mac, and our strange passenger.
Aisha’s eyes went wide. “Maya, what is that?” She adjusted her hijab nervously, and her text ringtones started going off right at the same time, as if her phone were jealous that she had stopped paying attention to it. Zaid chuckled.
“Aw, come on, Aisha!” he said. “You know Maya the Mad Scientist is always up to something. It’s probably just her latest experiment. Hopefully it turns out better than your drone copter, Maya!”
I grimaced. Last year, I had tried to make my own drone out of some old remote-control toys I found at the thrift store, and it ended up crashing into the Muhammads’ kitchen window.
“Don’t listen to the boy, Maya,” said Mr. Muhammad. “He has a lot to say for someone who tried to install a speaker system in his father’s car without permission and almost set the engine on fire.” He narrowed his eyes at Zaid, who blushed. Mr. Muhammad turned back to me, then looked at Ralph’s metal bucket head. “Your project looks very . . .” He kept looking at Ralph, clearly trying to find something to say that wasn’t too impolite. “Unusual. Have a nice evening. Tell your mother I said hello.” The three of them collected their mail and went into the building.
“Yes, my mother, of course,” I said a moment after they had gone.
“She’ll love Ralph! Don’t even worry,” said Mr. Mac reassuringly. He lifted his finger to the doorbell to buzz up to our apartment—but the door flew open again. It was Mom, with Amir balanced on her hip.
“Hey there!” She smiled at Mr. Mac. “I was in the basement doing laundry and I heard you all . . .”
Her mouth fell open as her gaze drifted to Ralph. Amir’s eyes went wide.
“What . . . is . . . that?”
I swallowed, and then I started talking. Fast, not wanting to give any moment of pause where Mom could jump in and tell me no. “He’s a robot his name is Ralph and Mr. Mac’s son made him his son Christopher he went to standard um I mean Stanford you know the school in California it’s famous anyway Mr. Mac said I can keep him and anyway how will I ever be a scientist if you never let me practice at home and he doesn’t need food or water or to be walked outside and I’ll take care of him I promise and can I keep him?” I stopped, gasping for breath after my nonstop babbling. “Please?”
She looked at me, then looked back at Ralph, then back at me. She seemed to be at a loss. Clearly she wanted to tell me no but couldn’t think of any good reason to. What was she supposed to say? No, young lady, no robots in the house? She turned back to Mr. Mac for guidance. “Mr. Mac, how do you feel about this? And what does it do? Does it even work? Is it dangerous?”
He chuckled. “I’m sorry, Natasha. I should have called you first! No, it doesn’t work. At least, I don’t think it’s finished.” He hesitated, and in a flash, he and Mom exchanged a look that I didn’t understand. “I gave Maya Christopher’s notes. I thought maybe she could learn a thing or two. Might be a fun project for our young Madame Curie here. And if you get sick of having ol’ Ralph in the house, you can always send him back to his granddaddy.”
And that was that. Ralph was mine. My very own real-life robot.
On Monday, I sat in class, struggling to focus. “The blue whale is the largest mammal in the world,” said Ms. Rodríguez. “It weighs as much as three hundred thousand pounds. Is everyone writing this down, class? Good. The blue whale is made of Cap’n Crunch cereal. The blue whale loves bowling.”
Okay, she didn’t actually say that last part. I honestly can’t tell you everything Ms. Rodríguez was saying about blue whales. Normally, science is my favorite, but on this day, I could barely pay attention. By the time we got Ralph into the apartment, it was late, and I hadn’t gotten a chance over the weekend to really check him out or flip through Christopher’s notebook. I practically bounced in my seat, I was so eager to get home and look it over. How did Ralph work? Could I get him to walk and talk? How did those special wheel-feet move? What kinds of things did the LED panel display?
Suddenly, the bell rang, and I snapped back to reality. Time for math. I reached into my book bag to find my math book, when Ms. Rodríguez cleared her throat loudly.
“Okay, everyone. Line up. It’s time for us to go to the auditorium for the science fair information session.”
The science fair. Today was the special meeting! At our school, fifth grade is the first year that you get to do the real science fair, the one with judges and prizes and presentations. I had been looking forward to this since I was six. Every year, my class would go visit the older kids and see their projects, and I would dream of the day when I could do something really special, something that would show everyone what a great scientist I was. And now it was finally going to happen!
We filed down the hallway, down the stairs, and into the auditorium. Ms. Montgomery was standing on the stage with a white lab coat and a table full of beakers. She looked unbelievably cool. And, I suddenly realized, if Ms. Montgomery was here, that meant her class was here! And that meant . . .
“Ay, Maya! Over here!” Jada and MJ were already seated, waving frantically. I waved back, my heart bursting. I missed seeing them during the day so much. Maybe I could squeeze in a few minutes to make some plans with them—they could come over and see Ralph and help me read through the notebook. Maybe not this week, not on short notice, but I bet we could make it work next week. MJ’s uncle would pick up Jada and give them both a ride across town to my house. I would come out and say hi, and we would all hug, and we would work on Ralph together. We would get him to work, and then . . . I paused, realizing I was twenty steps ahead of myself. I probably wouldn’t even get to sit with them. Nervous, I looked at the front of the line, where Ms. Rodríguez was sternly guiding my classmates one by one into their seats. When she got to me, the row was full.
“You can sit in the next row, Patricia.” There goes that name again, I thought. But I wasn’t going to complain, because sitting in the next row meant I got to sit with Ms. Montgomery’s class! I nodded, spun around, and slid into the empty seat next to MJ. I quietly dapped him up and opened my mouth to tell him about Ralph, but he spoke first.
“Yes, have a seat, Patricia,” he whispered. He giggled. “Why ain’t you told her your correct name? Or do you go by Patricia now?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. “She’s mean. I’m scared to talk to her.”
“Hm,” said MJ, fiddling with a fidget spinner in his lap. “I think you need to be RRB.”
I was confused. “What’s RRB?”
Jada leaned over and joined our conversation. “It means Really, Really Brave. It’s something Ms. Montgomery says to us. Like if we’re stuck or don’t want to try something. ‘You need to be RRB!’ ”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I definitely wasn’t feeling RRB this year. Or even RB. Not even kind of B. Mostly, I was feeling RRS. Really, Really Shy. I started to say so and to get to the business of inviting them over, but Jada kept talking. “Did y’all see what Juan Pablo was doing at lunch?”
“Ohhhh my gosh, yes,” said MJ. “That was too much.”
I felt myself getting smaller inside, and my heart was beating fast. Was I turning into an ant? What was wrong with me? I was almost afraid to ask, but I made myself do it anyway. “Who’s Juan Pablo?”
“Oh . . .” Jada frowned, and I could tell she felt bad. “He’s a new kid in Ms. Montgomery’s class. He’s really funny. I’m sorry, Maya. I forgot you don’t have lunch with us.”
“No problem.” I tried to say it normally, but it came out in a scratchy voice. I looked down at the floor, scared that I might start crying. My mind shot back to the moment when Ms. Rodríguez got my name wrong, and then to the moment when I cried on the playground. My ears felt hot, and I felt a lump in my throat, just as I had then. What was happening to me? These were my two closest friends, and now they had a whole other life without me. A whole language of secret code words, and funny stories about people I had never even met. Were MJ and Jada leaving me behind? I thought I might disappear into thin air. Just a kid at the end of the line, a kid with no friends, without even her real name.
MJ must have seen the look on my face, because he frowned, concerned. He poked me on the arm and quickly changed the subject. “Look what Ms. Montgomery is doing!” Up on stage, as Ms. Montgomery waited for the last few students to take their seats, she had quietly begun to do a science demonstration. She was pouring liquids from one beaker into another—and when she did, they would instantly change color, as if by magic. A liquid was a dark purple-blue in one beaker, and as she poured it into an empty beaker, it suddenly flashed bright pink. Then she poured some of the blue liquid into another beaker, and it instantly turned a vibrant green. Every time she did it, the students watching her in the front rows went oooh and ahhh.
“Now that is incredible,” said Jada. “Isn’t it?” She and MJ both looked at me, their eyes wide. I almost didn’t have the heart to tell them, but Jada knows me too well. “Oh boy, here we go. Doctor Maya knows the secret behind the magic show.”
“Sorry,” I said awkwardly. “If you don’t want me to tell you, I won’t.”
“No, tell us, Doc.” MJ leaned forward and put his head on his hands.
I sighed. “The dark purple stuff is cabbage juice. It’s an indicator, which means it can tell us if something is an acid or a base. The second beaker must have a bit of something acidic in the bottom, maybe vinegar or lemon juice. The other beaker has something that’s a base. Probably baking soda. They look empty but they’re not. We just can’t see the small amounts from this distance. When she pours the indicator in, it touches the acid or the base and changes color.”
“Let’s give her a round of applause!” said MJ to an imaginary audience. Jada began clapping her hands in a tiny motion as though I had just sung an opera. “Bravo, bravo!”
I smiled. This was the old familiar feeling of being seen and noticed by my friends. They were always proud of my science knowledge, even when I insisted that it wasn’t a big deal. Like in this case, it happened that I had seen the same demonstration at the Museum of Science and Industry last time Auntie Lou took me. The museum staff person even let me try it myself and told me how to make the cabbage juice indicator at home. Still, it was reassuring to feel normal again, even for a few minutes.
Just then, the auditorium got silent as Ms. Montgomery began her presentation about the science fair. She passed out information packets with due dates, assignment requirements, grading rubrics, and lists of websites to use for research and ideas. But as she spoke, I could only think of one thing. I imagined myself on the stage, wearing a real lab coat, impressing everyone with my fantastic creation. I didn’t know what it would be yet. But I knew I had to make this the best science fair ever.