Chapter Four

When I got home that night, I was exhausted. On our shirts we’d each painted a robot that Maya had sketched out—it had a big round snowman-like head; a chunky body; two accordion arms; and two stiff, straight legs. It actually looked pretty funny. We’d used orange and gray paint—our school colors—and had written The Rockin’ Robots on the back in chunky black puffy paint. I’d never used paint like that, but Maya was an expert. She showed us how you had to hold a steam iron above the dried paint on the hottest setting to make the paint puff up.

Maya’s mom had grilled us cheeseburgers and made a yummy tomato and corn salad for dinner. While we ate, Leila told us about how she had a little brother (in addition to her sister), and how they’d moved to town from Pakistan a few years ago. Her sister was planning on going back there after college—she wanted to start a company that made robots to help farmers. Apparently, they could do things like water soil and pick plants. I had no idea robots could do that, and it got me thinking about robots to help us at football practice. It’d be pretty cool to have a robot fill footballs with air (my least favorite job, since the machine broke down all the time) or pick up footballs that had been thrown far afield. I made a mental note to talk to Coach about that.

I was in the kitchen getting a drink when Dad walked in. He was looking at his phone distractedly. “Hi, Soph. Good day at school?”

“Yeah,” I answered, sipping my water.

“When did you say the hackathon was again?” he said, still glued to his phone.

I tried not to sigh. “Saturday.” It was like my parents had amnesia about any of my plans but always remembered my sisters’ perfectly.

“Hmm.” His forehead wrinkled.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just checking,” he replied, but he was still looking at his phone, and I could tell he wasn’t really focused.

Normally I wouldn’t just let it drop, but he was preoccupied—and I was tired—so I put my glass in the sink and headed upstairs. That’s when I heard the shouting.

I recognized Pearl’s screaming right away. Even though she was only five, she had a voice that rivaled Coach Tilton’s.

“Noooo!” she was yelling at the top of her lungs.

“Pobrecita,” Abuela’s soft, calm tones answered her. “Poor little girl.”

I couldn’t hear the problem or response, but Pearl was clearly upset. I wondered what it was this time—maybe she couldn’t find her favorite teddy bear or her socks didn’t match. I swear, five-year-olds got upset about the weirdest things.

“Sophia!” Dad yelled from the kitchen. “Mom got called in for an emergency tonight. I’ve got to finish a work thing . . . Can you help Abuela?”

I sighed. It wasn’t exactly how I had wanted to spend my evening, but I was used to it. “Got it!” I called out. I dropped my backpack with a thud in my room and headed into Pearl and Rosie’s bedroom.

“Whoa!” I gasped at the mess. There were clothes strewn everywhere and books on the floor. In the middle of it all, Pearl was flopped facedown, having a full-blown temper tantrum.

“She wants to wear her leotard to bed,” Abuela explained to me, hands on her hips. “But she wore it all day.” I remembered that today was Pearl’s second dance class, and I knew how excited she’d been about it. The class must have gone well, seeing as she refused to change out of her leotard.

“I told her that ballerinas dance in leotards. They do not sleep in leotards.” Abuela sighed. “I’m supposed to call Marissa in a few minutes,” she went on, tapping the gold bangle watch on her wrist. Marissa was Abuela’s older sister who lived in a senior citizen complex an hour away from us.

“Go call her, Abuela. I’ve got this,” I told her firmly. “Where are Lola and Rosie?”

Abuela took a long breath. “Lola is watching a documentary about German shepherds, and Rosie got tired of Pearl’s screaming. Who can blame her? She’s waiting for me to read her a bedtime story in Lola’s room.” She pointed at Pearl, who’d stopped sobbing but refused to get up off the floor. “This little one . . . ay dios mío.”

I plopped down next to Pearl and put a soothing hand on her back.

“Pearlie Girlie,” I said, using my nickname for her. Abuela blew me a kiss and tiptoed out the door. “Did you have fun at ballet class today?”

Pearl looked up at me with a tearstained face and nodded. “So, so, so much fun,” she said, choking back sniffles.

“That’s great,” I said gently. “But you need to change for bed now.”

Pearl’s eyes welled, then scrunched together. “I’m not taking off my leotard!” she said, hiccupping.

I tried not to laugh. Her little face crumpled, and she looked so determined. She was a lot like me, actually. So I knew exactly how to get her to do what I wanted.

“Okay, sure. I’m going to put on my pajamas,” I began, standing up. “I just thought it would be cool if we both had on our pj’s and had a little dance party before you go to bed. I was hoping you could teach me what you learned.” I shrugged. “But if you don’t want to . . .”

Pearl looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Wait!” And just like that, her tears were gone.

A few minutes later we were both in our pajamas. By the time Dad came upstairs, Abuela and Rosie had read together, and everything was under control. Pearl showed us some turns and kicks that didn’t look exactly ballerina-like but, I had to admit, were pretty adorable. We cracked up when she spun so fast, she got dizzy and toppled into Rosie.

As we tucked both of them into bed, Dad gave me a kiss on the head and said, “You’re magical.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, feeling proud. My sisters could be a pain sometimes, but I loved them.

“Sophia, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Dad said as I headed for my room.

“Okay, but I have some reading to do for English class,” I replied, flopping on my bed. “Plus, I’m supposed to have a group chat with my coding group.” It was getting late, and I was feeling kind of sleepy.

Dad leaned against my doorframe. He looked tired, too. “The thing is, honey, we’re going to need your help with the girls this weekend,” he said.

That wasn’t a surprise. I turned on the lamp on my nightstand and sighed. Last weekend, my sisters and I had played dress-up and made brownies when my parents went out, and the weekend before that, we’d gone on a scavenger hunt outside. I had fun with them, but I had the hackathon on Saturday. Sunday was my only free day. I blew out my breath. It was going to be a busy weekend.

“What about Mom and Abuela?” I asked, taking my book and tablet out of my backpack. The tablet was a Christmas present—it was one of the cheap ones and could be kind of slow, but I was glad to have it.

Dad looked at me, his eyes sad. “Mom has to work the day shift, and Abuela is going to Marissa’s.” He paused, weighing his words. “I was asked to give a speech at a real estate conference. I couldn’t say no—it could bring me a lot of new clients.”

I was going to argue, but was too tired. “Okay, fine,” I said resignedly, flipping to the assigned chapter for tonight. “Night, Dad.”

That was his cue to leave, but he wasn’t moving. He ran his fingers through his hair, which he only did when he was anxious. “Uh, the thing is, sweetie, I need you to watch your sisters on Saturday.”

I dropped my book onto my comforter. “What? But Saturday’s the hackathon.” I’d thought he had been talking about Sunday.

He looked at me apologetically. “I know. I’m sorry, honey. Your mom and I tried to figure something out, but my conference is all day, and we’re really in a bind.”

I was slowly realizing what was happening, and it did not sound good. “Why can’t Abuela watch them?”

My dad came over and sat on the bed. “Marissa is going to have surgery on her knee next week. I’m sure everything’s going to be fine, but Abuela is worried and wants to accompany her on her last doctor’s appointment before the surgery.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “She does so much for our family, Sophia. I—I just didn’t want to ask her to cancel her plans with her sister.”

A big lump had started to form in my throat. Abuela did do so much for our family. I thought about how I would feel if one of my sisters were having surgery. I looked away, trying to hold back the tears, but it didn’t help. A tear slid down my cheek, and I angrily swiped it away. “But I had plans! Does that mean nothing to you?” As I heard myself, I realized I sounded way ruder than I intended. Dad gave me a stern look, and I cast my eyes down at my book.

“But what am I going to tell my friends, Dad?” I said, glancing up at him. “They’re counting on me.”

My dad had a sympathetic expression. “I’m so sorry, honey. If there was another way around this, we’d do it.” He patted my knee. “I’m sure there will be other hackathons for you to participate in,” he said. His phone began to buzz, so he leaned over to kiss the top of my head and walked out.

I rolled onto my stomach, my fists clenched. I couldn’t believe my parents were doing this to me. I was so angry, I punched my pillow. Not only was Mom not going to be able to come to the hackathon, now they were saying I couldn’t even go!

Tyson often said he was tired of getting “the short end of the stick” when he was given a sucky job at football, no matter how hard he worked. I understood what he meant. It didn’t matter how much I babysat my sisters or how much I cared about the hackathon—now I wouldn’t even be able to participate. I was getting the shortest end of the stick possible.

I flipped over onto my back. I had little glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on my ceiling. When I was younger, I used to make wishes on them. I stared at them now, wishing they could help me.

I knew that we couldn’t make any changes to our team after one o’clock tomorrow, or we risked getting disqualified. That meant I should tell my friends now about my problem. But . . . what if I could persuade my dad to get a babysitter, or come up with some other solution? I knew my parents were against having babysitters. The last one had been a disaster. It was a high-school girl named Becky whom Abuela had met at Pearl’s dance studio. She’d spent the whole time texting her friends, eaten all of Mom’s favorite pretzels, invited her boyfriend over, and ignored my sisters. Lola didn’t like her, and it upset my parents. Ever since then, they never felt comfortable with anyone other than family taking care of my sisters. Plus, we didn’t exactly have a lot of extra money, and babysitters were expensive. “But maybe I can convince them to do it, just this one time,” I muttered to myself.

While I was trying to figure out what to do, Leila’s name popped up on the chat screen on my tablet. Mrs. Clark had set up a group chat program for anyone in coding club, which made it easier to have conversations on our computers and share documents for when we talked about coding projects.

Why tell them now? I rationalized. I could find a babysitter and convince Mom and Dad. Even though I wasn’t quite so sure. I knew a few older teenagers—like Tyson; Alex, Lucy’s older brother; and I’d just met Tania, Leila’s older sister—but I felt weird asking them to babysit. Besides, I knew my parents wouldn’t go for anyone they didn’t know, after last time.

Erin: soph? u here? everyone else is here!

I didn’t answer right away—I was still debating what to do.

Maya: heyyyy have so much homework tonite what is wrong with life

Erin: me too science quiz tomorrow. ugh

Lucy: argh alex keeps telling me how easy middle school is. and he ate all the chips. bros are sooooo annoying

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I wanted to tell them; I really did. But I couldn’t make myself type the words.

Maya: ok, let’s start brainstorming. i’m sure s will get here soon

We hadn’t gotten much further in our robot plan since last night at my house, and we needed to figure out our robot idea.

Lucy: i have an idea! what if the robot carried blocks in a scoop?

Erin: it could . . . problem is that every block counts as a thing

Maya: hmm . . . maybe the robot could sense the walls in the maze so it’ll turn by itself if we code it to. right, leila?

We’d talked about the modules at Maya’s after the Bakeshop, and that’s what Leila had told us—that some sensors could react to touch.

Leila: yup, that’d work with a button. if the button touches the wall, it’d get activated and the robot would turn right or left, depending on our code

Maya: but wouldn’t the robot need a part that a button could attach to for that to work? the rover alone couldn’t do that, right?

Leila: oh yeah, that’s true . . .

Erin: hmm . . . how about adding a gripper arm? that’s one of the modules, right? don’t know what it would grip, though . . .

Lucy: or . . . could we use one of the sensors so that the robot could figure out distances and never even have to touch a wall?

Leila: maybe, but might get complicated to code

I decided to forget about my problem and join the chat. I’d gotten myself out of problem situations before; I could handle this one, too. Like Coach often said, “I give you a problem, I want a solution.” And solutions were my specialty.

Sophia: could we use the plug-in speakers?

Maya: sophia! you’re here!

Sophia: yeah, sorry, got a little delayed . . . little sisters!

Leila: i can relate! well about a little brother . . . speakers good idea! the robot could play music!

Erin: oooh, he could play dance to the beat!!!

After going back and forth about a bunch of options, we decided that our robot could do everything we’d thought of:

Plus, using music totally worked with our Rockin’ Robot team name. Erin’s song was kind of long, so she sent me the music to edit. We had a program at home to edit sound bites, since my dad needed to edit videos he took of homes for his job. I often edited the audio in videos I took of the football team, so I’d gotten pretty good at it.

Before logging off, we agreed to meet up at lunch the next day to work on our plan for what the robot would do and how we’d make it happen. Yawning, I turned my tablet off and leaned over to plug it in. I’d gotten so caught up in our plans that I’d forgotten I might not be able to even go to the hackathon. I’d have to talk to my parents in the morning about getting a babysitter, and if it didn’t work, I’d tell my friends the bad news at lunch before 1:00 p.m.

But there was no way I could see myself doing that.

I’d make it work. I always did.