It's Alive! It's Alive! Read online

  “Urk! Urrrrk! Urrk! Urk! Urk!”

  Gates clapped his hands over his ears. “Make it stop!” he screamed. “Smash it! Smash it!”

  “Urk! Urk! Urk!”

  “Are you crazy?” I cried. “If I smash it, we’ll never find out what’s making her do this.”

  Dad burst into the garage. “Hey—turn that laughing off,” he shouted.

  “I—I can’t!” I stammered.

  He grabbed the robot head from my hands. He gazed at the torn circuits under the chin. Then he shook the head as hard as he could.

  “Urk! Urk! Urrrrrk.”

  The ugly sound finally faded.

  “Weird,” Dad said, staring at the robot head in his hands.

  “She’s alive! I know she is!” Gates cried.

  Dad snickered. “I’m sure there’s a better explanation, Gates.”

  “I know it’s crazy,” Gates said. “But I’m right. She’s alive—even with her head off.”

  Dad shook his head. “I think we have to stick to science,” he said. “We’re not living in a sci-fi movie, you know?”

  “I hope not.” Mom’s voice broke into the conversation. I turned and saw her in the kitchen doorway to the house. “Robots can be given a lot of intelligence these days. In some ways, they can even think for themselves. But they’re not alive, Gates.”

  “Only in movies,” Dad agreed.

  “No one programmed her to laugh that ugly laugh,” Gates insisted.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Mom said. “Robots don’t laugh on their own.”

  I didn’t join in the conversation. Mainly because I didn’t know what to think. Of course my parents would stick to science. They were scientists.

  But I’d seen enough scary movies to know that sometimes creepy things can happen. Creepy things that can’t be explained by science.

  Dad handed the robot head to Mom. He grabbed the body around the middle. “It’s been a long day for all of us,” he said. “Why don’t you kids find something to do? Something to take your minds off the robot mystery.”

  “And what are you going to do?” I asked.

  Mom held the door open for Dad as he carried the robot body to the house. “We are going to take this thing apart and study every module and circuit until we know what happened with her,” she said.

  “Can we watch?” I asked.

  “No. Sorry,” she replied. “Too many secret, delicate things in our lab. We can’t have the lab contaminated, dear.”

  “Huh? Contaminated?” I cried. “Is that what you think of Gates and me? We’re like germs? We’d contaminate your lab?”

  Dad laughed. “Yes. We think of you as germs. Of course we do.”

  “Haha.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Just be patient,” Mom said. “It’s only going to take us an hour. An hour at the most. Then we’ll come up and tell you what we found.”

  “You can be patient for an hour, can’t you?” Dad said. He didn’t wait for an answer. He disappeared into the house with Mom. The door closed behind them.

  Gates and I looked at one another for a long moment. I sighed. “What should we do now?”

  He shrugged. “I’m kind of hungry.”

  We went into the kitchen and got bags of chips and more juice boxes. Mrs. Bernard stopped us on our way to the den. “Don’t make crumbs,” she said. “I just cleaned in there.”

  “No worries. We’re very neat chip-eaters,” I told her.

  She made a hmmph sound and disappeared into the kitchen.

  In the den, we sprawled on the big green leather couch, and watched some shows about sharks attacking people. There were Shark Week reruns on the Discovery Channel, one of our favorite shows to watch.

  Gates swallowed a mouthful of chips. I saw crumbs all over the couch cushion. He wasn’t a neat chip-eater, after all. “What would you do if you were a shark?” he asked.

  “Bite Rosa Romero,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it.

  We both laughed.

  “What time is it?” Gates asked.

  I glanced at the wooden clock above the den mantel. “Six thirty.”

  “When did your parents take Francine downstairs? Shouldn’t they be done by now?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “They’ve been down there a long time. They said it would only take an hour.”

  Gates climbed up from the couch, sending crumbs raining down on the carpet. “Do you think something went wrong?”

  “What could go wrong?” I said. “They were just taking the robot apart.”

  “They promised they’d come up and tell us what they found,” Gates said.

  “Maybe we should check on them,” I said. I led the way to the basement stairs. The door was closed, as always.

  I gripped the doorknob, but Gates pulled me back. “We can’t go down there,” he said. “Remember your family rule? You’re not allowed in their lab unless they invite you down.”

  “But this is an emergency,” I insisted.

  His dark eyes burned into mine. “An emergency? I don’t think so. I—”

  “Let’s go down there and see what’s keeping them,” I said. I wrapped my hand around the doorknob again. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

  “Well … you could be grounded for life,” he said.

  “No big deal,” I said. I turned the knob and pulled open the door.

  I poked my head in and peered down the steps. The wooden stairway was steep and narrow. A single light bulb on the wall provided the only light.

  The air was hot in the stairwell. I held my breath and listened for my parents’ voices. I could feel my heart start to beat a little faster. The only sound I heard was the loud hum of the air conditioner.

  “Come on,” Gates whispered, giving me a little push. “Lead the way. We’ll just take a peek.”

  I stepped into the stairwell. The first wooden stair creaked under my shoe. I stopped and held my breath again.

  Did Mom and Dad hear that?

  No sound of anyone moving down there.

  Leaning hard on the banister, I lowered myself to the next step. Then the next.

  Right behind me, I could hear Gates breathing hard. He was nervous, too.

  We were halfway down the steps. Still no voices. No sounds of anyone moving.

  Should I call out to them?

  I opened my mouth to shout, but changed my mind.

  At the bottom of the stairs, my parents’ lab is behind a glass wall. I could see that the glass door to the lab was closed.

  The ceiling lights in the lab were bright, casting a glare over the glass. My parents like a lot of light when they work.

  Gates and I were nearly down to the bottom of the stairs. I squinted into the bright light on the other side of the glass wall, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

  And then my parents came into focus.

  Dad was sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair. He had his back to us. Mom leaned over him, tugging at wires.

  Wires?

  Yes. I could see it so clearly. I didn’t want to believe it, but I could see it. I clapped a hand tightly over my mouth to keep from screaming.

  A square flap of skin was open just above the back of Dad’s shoulders. And Mom was working on a thick tangle of wires that poked out of his neck.

  Haha. Livvy’s dad is a scientist. That means he has a real head on his shoulders. The question is: Is it a human head?

  Is her dad really a robot?

  Maybe that’s why he puts AA batteries in his cornflakes!

  Maybe that’s why he shouts, “COMPUTER ERROR” every time she hugs him! Hahaha.

  Livvy has a lot of questions to answer. Like: What should she buy him for Father’s Day? A bottle of metal polish?

  Hahahaha!

  My breath caught in my throat. Behind me, I heard Gates gasp. He stumbled, bumped me hard, and we both nearly toppled down the last of the stairs.

  I grabbed the banister and caught my balance. I opened my mouth to scream,
but no sound came out.

  Gates grabbed me and spun me around. He raised a finger to his lips. “Ssssshhh.”

  “Huh? Why?” I whispered.

  “This is too weird,” he whispered back. “If they see us … If they know we know …”

  We both stared through the glass wall into the office. Mom continued to untangle the blue and yellow wires that hung out from Dad’s neck.

  This isn’t happening, I thought. This can’t be real. My dad can’t be a robot!

  Was this one of my super-realistic dreams?

  I shut my eyes tight and tried to force myself awake. But … I already was awake. I realized to my horror this was no dream.

  I stood squinting at the wires bobbing from inside Dad. His head was down. He slumped stiffly forward. His back was turned, so I couldn’t see if his eyes were open or closed.

  Gates grabbed my arm. He motioned to the top of the stairs.

  It took me a few seconds to get my legs to work. They were trembling so hard, I thought I might collapse to the floor.

  I followed him to the top of the stairs, my brain tilting from side to side like a seesaw. We stumbled into the hallway. Gates silently pushed the door shut behind us.

  We leaned against the wall, both of us struggling to catch our breath. I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “My dad …” I managed to choke out. “He … he’s a robot.”

  “It can’t be your dad,” Gates said. “That doesn’t make sense. Something weird is happening here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Something weird? Do you think so?”

  “We … have to make a plan,” he said, still breathing hard. “Figure something out.”

  “Why didn’t you let me shout to them?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you let me tell them we saw them?”

  “Because we don’t know what they would do,” Gates said. “What would they do to us? If we told them we know their secret … what would they do?”

  “But they’re my parents!” I cried. “They—”

  Gates shook his head. “No, they’re not. Your dad isn’t your dad. He’s a robot. And your mom—”

  “We don’t know about my mom,” I said. My whole body shuddered with dread. “What are you saying, Gates? Are you saying they could be dangerous? We could be in trouble if they find out we know their secret?”

  He shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t know. I don’t know anything, Livvy. I just know that I’m totally freaked out. I just keep picturing those blue and yellow wires poking out from inside the Dad robot.”

  “We have to tell someone,” I decided. “We can’t deal with this on our own. We have to tell someone we can trust.”

  Gates narrowed his eyes at me. “But … who?”

  A crash from the kitchen made us both jump. I heard Mrs. Bernard mutter, “Oh, mercy.”

  “Mrs. Bernard!” I whispered. “We can tell her what we saw, Gates. She’s known me since I was five. I know we can trust her.”

  Gates thought about it for a long moment. “Maybe she already knows what’s up,” he said. “Maybe she knows the truth about your dad.”

  “She’ll tell us,” I said. “She’s the most honest person I know. She once found a five-dollar bill on the sidewalk. And she went from house to house till she found the person who dropped it.”

  We started to the kitchen. “Think she’ll believe us?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “We have no choice. We have to try.”

  I stepped into the kitchen—and cried out.

  Mrs. Bernard was down on the floor, a wide puddle of blood in front of her.

  “Oh no!” I cried. My legs went weak and my knees started to fold up.

  Mrs. Bernard raised her head. “No worries,” she said. “I dropped the ketchup bottle. Bit of a mess.”

  I saw broken bits of glass at her side. She was on her hands and knees, mopping up the ketchup puddle with a roll of paper towels.

  “Are you two okay?” she asked, pausing for a moment. “Why did you scream like that, Livvy?”

  “I—I thought—” I stammered.

  “We thought it was blood,” Gates said.

  Mrs. B swiped up the last of the ketchup and climbed to her feet. “Blood? Heavenly days. What would make you think that? Why do you two look so pale and shaken?”

  My breathing started to return to normal. “Can we talk to you?” I asked.

  She dumped the ketchup-soaked paper towels in the trash can under the sink. “Talk? Okay. First I have to vacuum up the glass.”

  Gates and I waited, watching her vacuum the same area about a hundred times. What a clean freak!

  Finally, we led her to the kitchen counter and the three of us climbed onto tall stools. “Now what can I help you with?” she asked. “What is the problem?”

  “The problem is my dad,” I said. “He isn’t my dad. He’s a robot.”

  Mrs. B curled a hand behind one ear. “What is that? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

  “A robot,” Gates chimed in. “Livvy and I went down to the basement lab. And we saw her parents. And …”

  “And my dad is a robot,” I said. “The back of his neck was open, and we saw all these wires sticking out from inside him.”

  “He was slumped in a chair,” Gates continued. “And Livvy’s mom was trying to untangle the wires that came out of him.”

  Mrs. B blinked once, and her face appeared to tighten up. Her features closed in on themselves. I couldn’t read her expression at all.

  “Please don’t laugh at us,” I said. “We’re not making up a joke or anything. We saw it. So please don’t laugh.”

  She patted the back of my hand. “I’m not going to laugh,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. “I promise. I won’t laugh.”

  “But do you believe us?” I demanded.

  She twisted on the kitchen stool to face me. “I’ve been working in this house for about seven years,” she said. “And I’ve always suspected something funny was going on here.”

  Her answer surprised me. She’d always seemed perfectly happy here, washing the dishes, cleaning up, and taking care of us.

  “I had my worries,” she said. “Have mercy, I’ve had my worries. That secret lab in the basement. Your parents disappearing down there for hours. And no one allowed to see what they’re doing …”

  “A lot of scientists have labs at home,” I said. “I never dreamed something weird was going on. How could I?”

  “Well, what about all those machines?” Mrs. B demanded. “All of those robot machines or whatever they call them. In and out of the house, day and night. Good heavens. Those things moving and talking … as if they were alive.”

  I knew Mrs. B was superstitious about the robots. But now she seemed seriously terrified of them.

  “Do you know anything about my dad?” I asked. “Do you know anything about what Gates and I saw? Is he … is he really a robot?”

  She rubbed her nose for a long moment. “I can’t say,” she replied finally.

  “You can’t say?” I cried. “What does that mean? Is there something you’re not telling us?”

  “I can’t say,” she repeated. “What I mean is, I don’t know. I suspected things. But he always seemed like a nice enough man. He’s treated me very well. That time my sister got sick and I had to go to San Francisco for two weeks … He was very understanding and generous.”

  Didn’t she understand me? Didn’t she understand what Gates and I were telling her? Or was she deliberately not answering?

  Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. I jumped down from the stool. “Is my dad a robot or not?” I screamed. “Yes or no? Is he a robot?”

  Mrs. B’s mouth dropped open.

  I heard a cough.

  I turned and saw my mom and dad standing in the kitchen doorway.

  Mom’s face was twisted into a scowl. She had her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Dad had a strange smile on his face, kind of dreamy, like he wasn’t really tuned in to what was happening.
/>   Mrs. B had a look of fear on her face. She took a step away from the kitchen counter. Her eyes moved from Mom to Dad, studying them.

  “Uh … Did you hear me?” I stammered in a tiny voice.

  Mom nodded. Dad’s smile slowly faded.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. I knew he wasn’t my dad. I knew he was a robot. I’d seen the wires. How could I ever erase that picture from my mind?

  “I … Gates and I saw …” I choked out.

  “Saw what?” Dad asked, his face still blank. His eyes went wide, like he didn’t understand.

  “We saw the wires,” Gates said. He stood gripping the back of a kitchen stool.

  “Wires?” Dad repeated.

  “Why are you so confused?” Mom asked. “You both look terrified. What did you see that was so frightening?”

  “You …” I said. My heart was pounding so hard, I couldn’t get any words out. “You were fixing Dad.”

  Mom’s mouth dropped open. “Fixing him? You’re not making any sense, Livvy.”

  “Yes, I am,” I insisted. “Gates and I … We wondered what was taking you so long. So we went downstairs.”

  “Against our rules,” Dad chimed in.

  “Yes. Against your rules,” I said.

  I glimpsed Mrs. B at the sink. She was squeezing a dish towel in her hands. I heard her mutter, “Trouble, trouble.”

  “Gates and I just wanted to see what was taking you so long,” I continued. “That’s why we went downstairs. And then we saw you. We saw Dad. His neck was open, and he had all these wires poking out.”

  Dad laughed. It was a strange laugh. Like it was forced. He laughed a little too hard.

  Mom squinted at me. “Why are you making up these stories? Do you still have robots on the brain?”

  “Gates saw it, too,” I shouted. “It’s not a joke! We saw it!”

  Gates nodded. “I saw it,” he muttered.

  “Is Dad a robot?” I cried, my voice breaking with emotion.

  They both laughed.

  Mrs. Bernard shook her head, still rolling the dish towel in her hands. I thought she believed Gates and me. But now I couldn’t tell.

  “You’ve had a big disappointment with Francine,” Mom said when she finally finished laughing. “I guess that’s why you have robots on your brain.”