EngiNerds Page 2

  “That you let out.”

  Dan starts to say something else. Something that has to do with “property” and “responsibility” and a whole bunch of other stuff that I’m not really listening to.

  But then—miracle of miracles—Dan shuts up. Just all of a sudden, in the middle of his sentence.

  I’m so surprised that I turn around to look at him.

  “Did you hear that?” he says.

  “Hear what?” I ask him.

  But before he can answer, the sound he heard comes again.

  It’s a deep, braying bark.

  10.

  DAN AND I TAKE OFF down the street, calling out for my dog on the way.

  “Don’t, Kitty!” I shout. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t !”

  There’s a lady standing on the sidewalk up ahead. She’s holding—not walking, mind you, but just holding, just carrying around—a tiny gray dog. She flaps her arm as we approach, apparently trying to get us to stop.

  We do.

  “Are you looking for a cat?” she asks.

  “A dog,” I tell her. “About this high”—I hold my hand up near my waist—“with curly, light brown hair. Answers to the name Kitty.”

  The woman frowns at me.

  “Have you seen him?” I say.

  “Your cat?”

  “My dog,” I tell her—again.

  “Named Kitty?”

  “Named Kitty.”

  “Why?” she asks.

  I glance down at the tiny gray puff of a dog in the crook of her arm.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Christoph,” the lady answers.

  I blink at her.

  I feel like my point has been made.

  And so I set off again, Dan pounding the pavement behind me. A little ways up the street I spot Kitty: leaping into the air, snapping his jaws, howling, and just generally going crazy beneath the low branch of a large oak tree.

  11.

  I HURRY OVER AND CLIP Kitty’s leash to his collar. Then I try to calm him down.

  But trying to calm Kitty down once he’s gotten himself good and worked up is kind of like trying to stop a speeding train with nothing but a strand of cooked spaghetti. All you can do is give him what he’s going crazy for or contain him until he tires himself out.

  I’m trying to decide what our best option is when Dan says:

  “It’s a piece of pizza.”

  “What?”

  Dan points up at the tree.

  I follow his finger. And then I see it too. A cold, slightly old-looking piece of pizza. It’s lying there atop the branch, perfectly balanced.

  I look at Kitty. Watch him bark and lunge and leap a few times. And all of a sudden I feel terrible. I reassess everything I’ve ever thought about the dog. Because all those times I’ve doubted his intelligence, maybe there was always a piece of pizza sitting there—metaphorically, I mean—just out of sight.

  To make it up to Kitty, I decide to give him the pizza. I decide to let him eat the entire slice.

  So I go over to the tree and give the branch a good shake.

  The piece of pizza topples off and bounces onto the grass.

  And then Kitty breaks my heart. Because he proves—for the fifty millionth time in his life—that he’s got the brainpower of a wad of tissues.

  He doesn’t eat the pizza.

  He rolls himself over and rubs his back against the slice until the cold sauce and congealed cheese is matted into his long, curly, previously clean hair.

  12.

  WE KEEP A HOSE IN the backyard all year round. Even in the wintertime you can find the long green rubber thing looped up, neatly stacked, and screwed into the spigot next to the grill.

  This is not because my parents have a garden or because our lawn requires more than normal amounts of watering.

  It’s because of Kitty.

  Because if Kitty isn’t snoozing under the couch or licking the linoleum floor in the kitchen, you can be sure he’s somewhere making a mess, and most of the dog’s messes end up with him needing a thorough hosing off.

  So Dan and I take the dog around back. Crank the knob above the spigot. Spray Kitty down.

  “Hey,” Dan says after spending a minute or two watching Kitty wag his tail and attempt to pin the jet of water under his paws.

  I say:

  “Hay is for stacking.”

  Dan smiles.

  “You gotta bale it first.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “And it’s also for building primitive dwellings.”

  “Well, duh,” I say, smiling now myself.

  Then Dan says:

  “So you wanna call it a day, or what?”

  “Why? League of Ladybugs on again?”

  “No,” Dan says.

  Then, a second later:

  “Well, yeah. Actually, it is. Encore showing at five o’clock. But that’s not the reason.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Dan says again. “It’s just that the thing inside, whatever it is, seems like it’s gonna take another few hours—at least.”

  I nod. Because he’s right. We’ve already spent about an hour working on it—and an intense hour, working hard—and we’ve barely made any progress.

  “I’ve got this project thingy for tomorrow,” says Dan, “and I’ve still got a ton to do on it.”

  I release the hose’s trigger and then put the thing away.

  “Just help me cart all those loose pieces up to my room, all right?”

  Dan agrees and follows me back around to the front of the house. Then up the steps. Across the porch.

  “After school tomorrow,” he says, “we’ll finish that bad boy up.”

  “Cool,” I tell him. “But I can’t promise I won’t work on it some tonight.”

  “That’s fair,” Dan says. “It’s your—”

  He shuts up and stops about two steps into the house.

  I do the same.

  And the dog, too. Even Kitty hesitates in the doorway.

  Briefly.

  Then he’s growling, barking, and hopping in a circle around the thing on the couch.

  No, no—not the thing.

  I know what it is.

  It’s . . .

  Well, it appears to be a robot.

  And those loose pieces that I needed help carting up to my room?

  There isn’t a single one in sight.

  13.

  “OH MY GOD. OH MY God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  This is Dan.

  He’s circling the couch along with Kitty now, studying the large, robotlike object from a distance.

  I leave him there and quickly search the house for my dad or mom.

  Who I know aren’t here.

  They’re never home this early.

  Neither of their cars is in the driveway.

  And even if they were home, there’s no way either one of them would’ve seen that heap of metal parts on the carpet and thought, Hey, this looks cool. Why don’t I finish putting it together?

  No, they probably would’ve called the dump and had someone come to cart the stuff away.

  But what other explanation is there?

  Who else could’ve finished building the robot that is currently sitting on my living room couch?

  I check the bedrooms and the bathrooms, the basement and the attic and even the towel closet that I already know is way too small for a parent to fit into.

  Except for me, Dan, Kitty, and the robot, the house is empty.

  I stop halfway down the stairs on my way back to the living room. I shut my eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Spend a second trying to wrap my head around what’s just happened here.

  Then I go back down to Dan.

  He’s stopped oh-my-God-ing. He’s also stopped circling the couch. Now he’s just standing there, staring, blinking, marveling at the robot.

  He turns to me and says what I’m thinking. What I’ve already realized:

  “Dude. It built itself.
”

  14.

  LOOKING AT THE FINAL PRODUCT, I see that Dan and I had built the robot’s torso—that tall, three-dimensional trapezoid with the square panel missing from its middle. And the bendy rod that we’d stuck into the socket on one side? That was an arm.

  Or the beginning of an arm.

  Now the rod—along with its counterpart on the torso’s other side—has several cylinders on it, spaced out evenly from the robot’s “shoulder” to its “wrist.”

  At the end of each wrist there’s a clawlike thing. It’s a simple design. Just a few long, hinged “fingers” branching off a rotating sphere at the rod’s end.

  Simple, yes—but I can tell just from looking at the hands that they’d be as capable as a human’s.

  Maybe even more so.

  The legs are like the arms. Though longer. And instead of claws at the bottom, the legs have feet—long, surprisingly thin flippers that are just a touch shinier than the rest of the robot’s metal skin.

  And then there’s the head.

  You probably want to know about the head.

  It’s square and sits atop a small cylindrical “neck.” For eyes, the robot has two round pieces of plastic. These are tinted red, and I’m guessing they can light up. The mouth is also a round piece of plastic, but it’s black and punched full of tiny holes, like a speaker. And last of all, poking up out of the robot’s smooth, flat “scalp”—a small, clear light bulb. It looks like it was plucked from a strand of Christmas lights.

  For several minutes Dan and I stand there and stare at the robot. We just take it in. Its presence. The fact that it finished putting itself together.

  Kitty has already lost interest—I can hear him in the kitchen, licking the floor.

  Finally, Dan leans toward me and whispers, “What now?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper back.

  Then Dan whispers, “Why are we whispering?”

  “You started it,” I remind him.

  “I know. It seemed appropriate.”

  “Well, can we stop?”

  “Sure.”

  I clear my throat.

  Dan does the same.

  “Should we . . . ?” I wonder aloud. “Should we talk to it?”

  “I guess.”

  I take a step closer to the robot on the couch.

  “Hello?”

  The piece of tinted round plastic closest to me—the robot’s right eye—flickers with a red light. Then the square head swivels to face me, and from out of the hole-punched plastic mouth comes a voice.

  “Good MOR-ning,” it says. “Good MOR-ning sun . . .”

  “Son?” says Dan beside me.

  “Sun . . . ,” the robot says again. “Sun . . . sun . . . sun-SHINE.”

  Dan says:

  “Oh.”

  15.

  THE ROBOT’S VOICE IS A lot like you’d expect it to be.

  Every syllable is sounded out separately.

  The emphasis is all off.

  It’s empty of any kind of emotion.

  And before and after and between words, there’s nothing. Not the sound of breath moving in and out of nostrils or past lips—just a cold, creepy silence.

  Yet Dan’s absolutely right when he says:

  “Cool.”

  Because this is most definitely cool.

  This is beyond cool.

  It’s probably the coolest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire, twelve-year, not-exactly-amazing-but-also-not-so-bad life.

  I take a step closer to the robot.

  Then I say:

  “My name’s Kennedy.”

  “I AM Greeeg.”

  “Greg?” says Dan.

  “Greeeg,” says the robot.

  “Greeeg?” I try.

  The robot says:

  “Yes that IS my . . .”

  “Your . . .” Dan says.

  “My NAME,” the robot finishes.

  “Well, um . . . ,” I begin.

  But what do you say to the robot who just built itself in your living room while you were out rescuing your not-so-bright dog before he could do anything too dumb?

  Here’s what I come up with:

  “So that’s pretty cool, huh? How you, you know—how you just built yourself on your own while we were gone?”

  “Com-EST-ib-ulls.”

  I look at Dan.

  He seems to be as confused as I am.

  “What was that?” he asks the robot.

  “Please FEED com-EST-ib-ulls.”

  “I think he’s saying ‘comestibles,’ ” I tell Dan.

  “Com-EST-ib-ulls,” confirms the robot.

  “Okay,” Dan says. Then: “What’s a comestible again?”

  “It’s like food,” I tell him.

  Dan nods. Then, to the robot:

  “What kind of comestibles do you want?”

  “ALL com-EST-ib-ulls of lo-CAY-shun two-NINE-three-NINE-two-two-two-two-two . . .”

  “Umm.”

  “Two . . .”

  “Errr.”

  “Two-two-NINE.”

  Dan and I exchange a look.

  “Maybe that means he’s, like, really hungry,” I suggest.

  “Well,” says Dan, “let’s get the guy some food.”

  16.

  DAN TACKLES THE SNACK CABINET while I go through the fridge. I push stuff aside and pop open Tupperware containers, searching for and gathering “comestibles” that might appeal to a robot.

  Once we’re done, Dan lays his things out on the counter:

  A jar of super chunky peanut butter.

  Two carrot cake–flavored granola bars.

  And a package of cheddar cheese–filled cracker sandwiches.

  I set out a jar of pickles, what’s left of a pound of sliced roast beef, and a squeeze bottle of spicy mustard.

  “Pickles and mustard?” Dan says. “Really?”

  “Spicy mustard,” I say.

  He makes a face. “That’s even worse.”

  “What are you talking about? How do you know what a robot wants to eat?”

  “I don’t,” says Dan. “But I know it’s not going to be pickles and mustard.”

  “So you’re saying you do know, then.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. You’re saying—”

  I shut up because I suddenly sense a presence behind us, like another person has just stepped into the room.

  Dan must sense it too, because he turns around along with me.

  Then we’re both scrambling backward, crashing our elbows and hips into the countertop.

  Also—I feel like this is an important detail to include—Dan shrieks.

  He shrieks like a terrified ferret.

  It’s because the robot, Greeeg, is standing there no more than three feet behind us. Though how and when he got there, I don’t know. It wasn’t like Dan and I were making a ton of noise, and neither one of us heard a thing. Apparently, Greeeg can get about on his thin, flipperlike feet as silently as if he were stepping on pillows.

  “You have ob-TAINED com-EST-ib-ulls,” says Greeeg.

  “Uh, yeah,” I say, and hold a hand out to the spread on the counter. “Do you—I mean, is any of this good?”

  “ALL com-EST-ib-ulls of lo-CAY-shun two-NINE-three-NINE-two-two-two-two-two-two-NINE.”

  “Right,” I say. “Okay. Well, ah . . . help yourself.”

  The square panel in the middle of the robot’s torso flips open like a little door. Then Greeeg glides toward the counter, so smoothly it’s like he’s hovering over the linoleum. In one hand-claw he grabs the pickle jar. In the other he takes the bottle of spicy mustard.

  I’m fascinated and can’t take my eyes off Greeeg. But I can lean over toward Dan and say, “See?”

  He doesn’t comment.

  Probably because Greeeg has just placed the pickle jar and bottle of spicy mustard into the lower portion of his torso—his stomach, I guess—and is now reaching for the cracker sandwiches and the roast beef. He bends
his arms to fit these past the little door too, plastic wrapping and all.

  Dan says:

  “Should we tell him the glass and plastic aren’t part of the . . . the comestibles?”

  I’m thinking we should, but before we get a chance, Greeeg has also gotten the peanut butter and the granola bars into his gut. And as soon as he has, he shuts the little door in his torso and pushes a tiny button beside it.

  There’s a sudden loud sound.

  A churning and a crunching.

  Like a trash compactor, sort of.

  It ends as abruptly as it began and just a couple seconds after it started.

  At which point Greeeg opens the little door to his stomach back up. It’s totally empty in there.

  “Please FEED com-EST-ib-ulls.”

  17.

  WE FEED GREEEG EVERY LAST comestible in the snack cabinet.

  There are potato chips.

  Another jar of peanut butter.

  Rice cakes.

  Bags and bags of popcorn.

  A jar of roasted, salted cashews.

  Juice boxes.

  Pretzels.

  Hard candy.

  Soft candy.

  Neither-too-hard-nor-too-soft candy.

  Cookies.

  Animal crackers.

  Graham crackers.

  Regular old, plain, boring crackers.

  Marshmallows.

  Packs and packs of gum.

  Greeeg eats everything. And eats everything’s packaging, too. Whether it’s the nuts’ glass jar, the juice’s cardboard boxes, or the popcorn’s plastic bagging, all of it goes through the little door and into the stomachlike compartment of the robot’s torso.

  And then every last bit of it disappears.

  Greeeg shuts the little door. Pushes that tiny button. The trash compactor that he’s got to have inside of him starts up, crunching and churning. And then . . .

  And then his stomach’s empty again.

  It’s like the greatest magic trick ever.

  Dan and I watch it happen six, seven, eight times, and still we can’t get enough.

  And neither can Greeeg.

  Every time he opens that little door and shows us an empty stomach, he says:

  “Please FEED com-EST-ib-ulls.”

  One time, when Dan and I don’t move fast enough to start packing the robot’s stomach again, he even says: