Chapter 8:

High Five, Maya

There are a lot of reasons Auntie Lou is the best. She always tells the best jokes, she always listens to me when I’m feeling down, and she always lets me pick a movie when I sleep over at her house. And when we spend time together, she makes me feel like the most important person in the world.

But today, I was hardly listening as we strolled through the Museum of Science and Industry. We had just finished walking through the giant airplane they have suspended from the ceiling, and Auntie Lou wanted to take Amir to see the baby chicks in their incubators. “How does that sound, Maya?” she asked. I think she expected me to argue, because I’ve seen the baby chicks so many times and I wanted to go back to the exhibit about tornadoes and lightning. But I was down for anything that would distract me from thinking about Ralph, so I just nodded. Amir rode along in his stroller, babbling happily as Auntie Lou pointed out different things to him. “Yellow, Amir! That wall is yellow! Oh, a train! Look at the train!”

Amir bounced in his seat and pointed at a doorway off to our left. “Go! Go! Go!” he said insistently. “Over there!”

Auntie Lou and I both looked toward where he was pointing. Above the doorway, a glowing neon sign said THE POWER OF POWER. My heart leaped. Auntie Lou pulled a museum map out of her pocket and peered at it.

“Huh,” she said. “Must be a temporary exhibit. Let’s go check it out! The chicks will still be there.”

Inside the exhibit room were a series of glass cases and display tables with all kinds of power sources on them. I looked up at Auntie Lou. “Can I walk around if I stay in this room?” She nodded, transfixed by a glowing model of an electron.

I wandered from case to case. One of them displayed a replica of the “Baghdad battery,” an ancient relic found in Iraq that is believed to be one of the world’s oldest batteries. It was a pot with pieces of copper and iron inside, and scientists had done tests to show that the pot once contained some kind of acidic liquid. This reminded me of a science project from one of my books, where I made a battery out of a lemon. The acid that makes lemons taste sour could also conduct electricity. I turned to look for Auntie Lou so I could show her, but then I heard a voice from the center of the room. “Demonstration starting in one minute!” I hurried over to see.

At the demonstration table, a person with long purple braids and gold-rimmed glasses was smiling at a small crowd. They had on a lab coat decorated with colorful buttons and badges. One said “My other car is the Starship Enterprise,” one said “Ask me about the periodic table!” and one said “Kai—they/them.”

“Hi, everybody!” they said cheerily. “My name is Kai, and I hope you’re all enjoying the Power of Power exhibit today! In this demo, I’m going to show you a few different power sources and talk about how they work!” I squinted, trying to read the rest of Kai’s buttons and badges. Dream job, I thought to myself.

“But first, let’s have a quiz! Who can name all the batteries on this table? Yes, you! Wanna give it a try?”

Kai pointed at an eager-looking teen boy, who grinned confidently as he pointed at the array of batteries on the table. “Okay, um . . .” he said. “That one is double-A. And those are . . . C?”

“Ooh, close, but no banana!” Kai gave him a sticker anyway for participating, and even though he was old enough to be in high school, he stuck it proudly on his chest. “Anyone else care to take a shot?”

“Go for it, Maya,” a voice whispered near me. I looked up, and Auntie Lou had appeared behind me. She put a hand on my shoulder in quiet encouragement. Amir was . . . a little more obvious.

“Maya!” he chanted in a rhythm, like my name was a song. “Maya! Maya! Maya!”

Kai looked over at our little trio and smiled. “Well, somebody has faith in you! Wanna give it a shot, young Padawan?” Kai winked as they said that last part, and pointed at my shirt. I looked down and remembered that I was wearing a shirt with Rey from Star Wars on it. I gulped. I don’t like speaking in front of a lot of people, but . . . I looked over the line of batteries on the table. “Sure, why not,” I said.

I stepped up to get a closer look and spoke slowly. “Well, like he said, this one is double-A.” I looked at the next one, rectangular with two round terminals at the end. “This one is actually a 9-volt.” Kai nodded. “This one is . . . This is a copy of the Baghdad battery! I just read about that over there, in the exhibit case. Um . . .”

I could feel everyone looking at me, curious and waiting, and my ears started getting hot. But I felt Auntie Lou’s hand on my shoulder and tried to ignore everyone else. “This one is a lithium-ion battery. It’s what they use in cell phones. This one is another really old type of battery that Benjamin Franklin used to experiment with. It’s called a Leyden jar.” Behind me, I could hear the teen boy whisper loudly, “How did she know that?”

My ears got hotter. “I saw it in a book about electronics.” Auntie Lou turned and spoke directly to the boy, loudly.

“She saw it in a book!”

Kai nodded approvingly and smiled at me. “And how about the last one?”

“Well, that’s not technically a battery,” I said, looking at the shiny black thing at the end of the table. “It’s part of a solar panel.”

“Phennnnnomenal!” Kai shouted. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

I took a deep breath, willing my ears to return to normal. “Maya.”

“Let’s give Maya a hand, everybody!” The crowd clapped approvingly. Auntie Lou tried to be slick about taking a picture of me on her phone in front of the table, but she was so obvious about it that I had to turn and smile for the shot.

Amir decided to celebrate in his own way. Just as Kai was about to continue talking about power sources, Amir pulled a bag of Goldfish crackers from some hidden corner of his stroller and threw it at the teen boy. “Have some! Want foldfish? I share.”

“Ooookay, that’s our cue to exit,” said Auntie Lou. She started to turn the stroller around, apologizing to the boy over her shoulder, while I picked up Goldfish from all over the floor. I can get embarrassed about myself, but I don’t get embarrassed over Amir. He’s just a baby, and when you have a baby in your life, you have to accept that you’re gonna find yourself cleaning up some “foldfish” now and then when you’d rather be doing something else.

“Oh, just a sec!” Kai called after us. “Come back in five minutes when the demo is done? I have a special prize for the Padawan here.”

Auntie Lou nodded, and we hung around the edges of the exhibit for a few more minutes. She let Amir out of his stroller for a while, and I held his hand as he toddled around the room, looking up at the models explaining wind power and hydropower and geothermal power. He was giggling over a misty pipe that shot out steam like a geyser when Kai appeared next to us.

“Hey there!” Kai said as Auntie Lou wandered over, still trying and failing to take candid pictures. Kai suddenly turned to Auntie Lou, startled, and squinted. “Wait. Ms. Robinson?”

Auntie Lou jumped, excited. “Kai Woodson! From Ogden Park summer camp? I haven’t seen you since you were in fourth grade. Oh my goodness. Look at you, working at the science museum!”

Kai beamed. “Yes! Best counselor ever! It’s so great to see you. I’m in college now. Been an intern here for three months.” They turned to me. “And I have to tell you something. I’ve done that quiz a hundred times. And you’re the first one to ever get all those power sources right.” I gaped up at them, unsure what to say. Didn’t other people read about the Baghdad battery? The glass case explaining what it was was right there in the room!

“So,” Kai continued, “I have a special prize for you.” They reached into their lab coat and pulled out a big red envelope with a flourish. “This is a gift certificate to the museum store! I hope you get yourself something special.”

My jaw dropped. “Thank you!” That didn’t feel like enough, but I didn’t know what else to say.

“You earned it!” said Kai. “See you around, Padawan.”

I stood there for a few seconds, staring down at my red envelope. Then, suddenly, I ran after Kai. They turned around as I tugged slightly on the back of their lab coat.

“Um, sorry to bother you,” I said. “But I have a question. Have you ever heard of something called a triple-Z battery?”

Kai paused, looking up at the ceiling before snapping their fingers. “Triple-Z . . . Why does that sound familiar? Oh, yes! I know!” They leaned toward Auntie Lou, speaking in a low voice. “Hey, I’m on break right now. We do have one of those batteries, and it’s in the back. Since it’s Counselor Lou and all . . . I can show you if you want. Just a quick peek.”

I gave Auntie Lou my best puppy-dog face. “Please, please, please? Just a quick peek?”

Auntie Lou looked at her watch, then nodded. “Sure, just for a minute. Then we need to keep moving because Amir has to nap soon.”

Kai led us through a door that said STAFF ONLY. I looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of all the secrets behind the exhibit. Lab tables covered in electrical components stood throughout the room, and museum staff with goggles on leaned over their work. “Hey, Kai!” said one as we passed. “Giving a little fan tour?”

“You know it!” said Kai, waving back. Super-duper next level ultimate extreme dream job, I thought. “Here it is,” said Kai, gesturing toward a counter with . . . well, with a giant battery on it. I’m not sure what I expected.

Auntie Lou, frowning, apparently felt the same way. “Is there something that makes this battery special or different?”

Kai nodded eagerly. “Remember when Maya identified the lithium-ion battery on the table? Well, it’s true that those are the batteries we use in our phones. They’re small and cheap. But making them is bad for the environment, and they create a lot of waste. And the people who mine the metals to make the batteries have really tough working conditions and don’t get paid enough money. So the triple-Z battery is an experimental model that doesn’t require lithium. It was invented by some scientists out at Stanford. Instead of lithium, it uses maltodextrin, which is a type of—”

I slapped my hand on my forehead. “Sugar!”

Kai looked surprised. “That’s right.” They looked at Auntie Lou, who shrugged.

“She reads the whole side of the cereal box, this one,” she explained.

It was true. One time when Amir was throwing a morning tantrum and I had nothing to do with myself, I spent twenty minutes looking up the ingredients in my morning cereal, just to see what all those things with the long names are. Maltodextrin. A type of sugar. That’s why Christopher wrote “sugar” in his notebook. It wasn’t a shopping list at all. It was an idea for a battery prototype.

Breaking out of the cloud of my own brain, I looked back up at Kai. “Do you know where I can get one of these?” I asked. “I need it for a project.”

Kai paused for a moment, thinking carefully. “How much do you love science, Padawan Maya?”

“A lot,” I said truthfully. “A lot, a lot, a lot.”

Kai ran their finger back and forth over their chin. “I can tell that that is true. Okay, well, listen. We had one of these batteries out for display, and then it malfunctioned. So we ordered a replacement. They’re hard to get, because it’s just a prototype. A model to show how an idea works. It’s not something you can just buy in the store. The replacement came in the mail yesterday, but in the meantime, I managed to fix this one. So now we have two of them. And this exhibit closes in three days.” Kai looked at me very, very seriously. “I can give you this one. If you don’t mind the fact that it’s, you know, used. And if you promise to use it for something awesome.”

“I promise!” I squealed. All of the staff working at their tables looked over at me, startled. I lowered my voice. “I mean . . . I promise. Sorry. I’m just really excited.”

Kai nodded very seriously. “Hey, I get it. Science will do that to you.”

The next day after school, I made myself my favorite sandwich: peanut butter and honey and banana and cinnamon and jelly. (The PBHBCJ may sound weird, but don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.) Then I trudged into my room . . . and there, the battery was waiting. When I saw it, angels started singing and I heard the sound of harps and violins, and a mystical light shined down on it like the Sword in the Stone. Okay, that didn’t actually happen, but it sure felt like it. I threw my book bag onto my bed and ran over to examine the battery. It seemed to stare back at me. Okay, what you gonna do? Got something to say to me, girl?

It was huge. Like the size of a small dog. Kai had wrapped it in plastic and cardboard for us, and Auntie Lou had hauled it up the stairs for me while I held Amir’s hand. “You see,” she grunted, her forehead sweating. “Oof. This is why your auntie goes to the gym.”

I looked over at Ralph, who had stood in the corner of my room ever since the night I brought him home. Amir had thought it would be fun to play dress-up with him and had thrown a flowery hat on his head and wrapped a winter scarf around his neck. I went over and took the clothes off him so he could have some sense of dignity, but he still looked very funny. What kind of expert scientist designs a robot with a bucket for a head? I thought.

I dragged Ralph into the middle of the room, ripped the wrapping materials off the battery, and consulted the notebook. One page had a rear-view drawing of Ralph’s torso, and there was a tiny square that was labeled POWER ACCESS. I looked at the back of Ralph’s body. Sure enough, right where it was supposed to be, I saw a small sliding panel. It was so flat against the metal surface that I never would have even noticed it without the diagram. I pushed it, and with a quick springy motion, the back of Ralph’s torso popped open.

Whoa. Inside, there was . . . a lot of stuff. I went over to my desk drawer, pulled out a flashlight, and shone it into Ralph’s body so I could see better. Once I got a good look, it was definitely overwhelming, but at least I recognized some of what I saw. I got an electronics kit for Christmas last year, and the basic pieces seemed mostly the same. I saw wires, resistors, LEDs, and . . . what was that last thing called? I went to my bookshelf and threw aside a bunch of old papers and Eyewitness books until I found it. Electronics for Kids. I had gotten this book used at a library sale, so it was covered in heavy plastic. I flipped through to the last page, where there was a photo glossary. Resistors. Those were the things that had tiny stripes and limit how much electricity can flow through a circuit. LEDs—those were tiny lights. I always remembered that because my flashlight said “high-powered LED” in bold type on the side. And diodes. That was the one I had forgotten. Diodes keep the electrical current flowing in one direction.

This was interesting, but I was looking for one thing: the battery terminals. Even though the triple-Z battery was enormous, I figured it should work the same as any other battery, with a positive and a negative side. And sure enough, right in the center of Ralph’s torso was a large plastic casing. On the inside, the top was engraved with a small plus sign and the bottom was engraved with a small minus sign.

Here we go.

I lifted the giant battery and slid it into the battery case, making sure that the positive and negative sides matched with the plus and minus signs. I closed the back panel. Only then I did I realize I had been holding my breath. I exhaled with a big whoosh and walked around to face the front of Ralph.

His eyes were glowing.

“Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhh! Ah! Aha! I did it!” I began to dance around the room. I had done it! I had activated a robot! “We did it, Christopher!” I heard myself say it out loud before I really understood what I even meant by it. It was like, using the notebook, the two of us had cooperated to do something amazing.

As I danced, Ralph’s eyes followed me with a tiny whirring noise, his motion-sensing cameras tracking my moves.

Suddenly, he spoke.

USER DETECTED. INITIATING INTRODUCTORY SE-QUENCE. GREETINGS. I AM RALPH. ON SYSTEM RESET, NEW VOICE COMMAND REQUIRED. PLEASE STATE PRIMARY USER NAME FOR VOICE COMMAND.

I froze. Holy cow. This was the most incredible moment of my life. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wait to—

ON SYSTEM RESET, NEW VOICE COMMAND REQUIRED. PLEASE STATE PRIMARY USER NAME.

My bad. “Maya,” I said. “My name is Maya.”

NEW VOICE COMMAND ACCEPTED. HELLO, MAYA. I AM RALPH. INITIATING INTRODUCTION SEQUENCE.

His head dipped down slightly, then sprang back up.

I AM RALPH. I RESPOND TO VOICE COMMANDS. CURRENT VOICE COMMAND KEYWORD IS “RALPH.”

Right, got it. That was smart. Christopher had built Ralph to respond to commands only using his name as a keyword so he would know when someone was giving him directions or just talking. Similar to a phone, or a smart speaker. Without the voice command, Ralph would be overwhelmed by people talking around him and wouldn’t know the difference between instructions and regular conversation. I wondered how well the voice commands worked.

Only one way to find out.

I got up and ran to the doorway. “Ralph, come over here,” I said. He rolled toward me, his Mars rover feet going right over the blocks Amir had left on the floor, without an issue. Amazing. “Give me a high five.” He stared at me blankly, silent.

“Okay. So you don’t do anything without the voice command.” Just as I’d suspected, talking with Ralph was a game of Simon Says—if you forgot the voice command, he wouldn’t follow directions. “Um, Ralph, give me a high five.”

HIGH FIVE, MAYA.

He held up his hand, which had only three fingers. So I guess it was a high three. Good enough. I reached out and touched it with my own hand. Okay, so he knew what a high five was. Had Christopher programmed that into his vocabulary or did he learn it from me? I needed to do some further testing. I looked around the room at the messy packaging from the battery. “Ralph, pick up the cardboard.”

WHAT IS CARDBOARD?

I picked up one of the pieces and waved it in front of his camera eyes. “Ralph, this is cardboard.”

CARDBOARD. SCANNING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR CARDBOARD.

His eyes whirred around, then he began to move around the room, picking up pieces of cardboard. “Aha!” I pounded on the wall in excitement. Ralph could learn! He could learn new things! After a minute, he stood in the middle of the room, holding a stack of cardboard in his three-fingered hand, patiently awaiting more directions.

I opened the bedroom door and walked out to the kitchen, then called back into the room. “Ralph, come in here, please.” He rolled out of my bedroom and onto the tile floor. I pointed to the recycling bin next to the back door. “Ralph, put the cardboard in here.” He dropped the cardboard into the bin.

“Oh my gosh.” This was gonna be a game-changer. “You . . . you can do my chores.”

Ralph stared back, emotionless. His camera eyes were large and round. His mouth was a thin, dark line in the middle of his funny bucket head. “Ralph, can you smile?”

I CAN SMILE, MAYA.

Suddenly, a line of green LEDs appeared across his mouth, curving upward into a friendly smile.

I stared at Ralph. He stared back at me, smiling with that goofy green-light smile. This was easily the coolest thing I had ever done or seen. I wanted to show everyone! My mom, my dad, Auntie Lou, Mr. Mac.

And most of all, Jada and MJ.

When their names popped into my head, I suddenly felt sad. When would I get a chance to tell them? Or show them? And if I did, would they even care? Maybe Ms. Montgomery had a thousand robots that she let them play with every day.

I felt a wave of loneliness wash over me, and the lump-in-the-throat feeling came back. I reached out and tapped Ralph on his metal bucket forehead.

“Oh, Ralph. Maybe you can be my friend,” I said without thinking.

Slowly, he reached out one creaky arm and gently extended a metal finger to tap me right back, in the center of my head.

MAYBE YOU CAN BE MY FRIEND.