Wesley and the Robot

            by Jacob Rubin!!

 

            In the small city of Dinkburg, there was a kid named Wesley Milgrom. Wesley was a pretty normal kid. He played video games, had a basketball hoop in his driveway, and loved spaghetti. However, what Wesley really wanted were some friends. For some reason, Wesley could never talk to people and had trouble making conversation. Everyone thought he was weird and he spent a lot of time at home. After a very boring spring day playing “Mushroom Mayhem 3”, he decided he was going to take action. He was going to build a robot.

            Wesley gathered together all the metal he could find, because, as you know, robots are always made of metal. He dug cans out of the trash basket. He took apart his remote controlled car and his desk lamp. He took all the batteries from all the clocks in the house. When he thought he had enough stuff, he dragged it all down to his basement and started to put it together with glue and thumbtacks.

 

 

 

            After about three weeks, Wesley had something that looked like it could work. He opened up the robot’s mouth and poured all the batteries in. They tumbled down the robot’s neck, banging loudly against the copper pipe the throat was made of. Suddenly, the eyes lit up with a flash. The neck started to swivel. The arms went down and lifted the robot off the ground, and it stood up. Wesley was shocked. The robot looked at him.

            “My… my name’s Wesley. Do you want to play basketball?”

            The robot made a lot of clicking noises, followed by, “Yes.”

 

            Wesley had never played basketball with another person before, and certainly not with a robot. He got out his ball and bounced it a few times. “See? You do this.” He threw the ball and made a basket easily. “Now you try.” He bounced the ball to the robot.

            The robot picked up the ball, made a lot of clicking noises, and bounced it hard. It flew up high and hit Wesley’s roof. Fortunately, it rolled right off and landed in front of the robot. This time, the robot bounced it softer and dribbled it for a bit. Then, mimicking Wesley, it threw the ball at the hoop. The ball smacked against the hoop so hard it popped, and the hoop was bent. Wesley was shocked.

 

 

 

            “Okay… let’s try some video games.” Wesley grabbed the robot by the hand and pulled it inside.

            Wesley plugged in his game console and started playing. The robot sat down cross-legged and watched Wesley send the little caterpillar around the mushrooms for about ten minutes before it was offered a controller. It took the controller, running metal fingers over the buttons, and held it as Wesley did, all while making a lot of clicking noises. Once Wesley pressed “Start”, the caterpillars on screen were sent off through the mushroom fields at breakneck speeds. Wesley had been playing this game for about three months, and felt confident in his skill, but the robot’s caterpillar kept beating him to all the targets. After six games and six losses, Wesley was fed up and took the robot into the kitchen. “Okay, how about you try making some spaghetti?” He brought out the pasta and the sauce, put the pot on the stove, and was about to show the robot how to make it when the phone rang.

            “I’ll be right back.” Wesley said to the robot, and he went into the living room to answer it.

            The robot, now left alone, looked at the ingredients Wesley had left on the counter. It started making a lot of clicking noises. It reached for the hard pasta, pulled out one noodle, and broke it in half. Then again. Then again, and over and over until there were a thousand little pasta crumbs in the robot’s metal hands. It dropped all the crumbs in the pot and did the same thing to another uncooked noodle, again and again, over and over until the entire package of pasta had been pulverized into crumbs and were in the pot.

            The robot then looked at the sauce. It picked up the jar while making clicking noises, and pulled off the lid with a pop. The jar was upside down at the time, and the sauce fell out on the floor, making a big splat. The robot ran its fingers through the red goop, making more clicking noises, and it scooped up all the sauce, pouring it in the pot. Then, almost instinctively, it cranked up the stove to the highest possible power and watched the material inside bubble. A few minutes later, Wesley came back in.

            “Sorry, my aunt wanted to know about school and stuff. Did you… oh, no.” Wesley was presented with a solid cake of tomato sauce, completely burnt, with little crumbs of spaghetti poking out and dropping off. The robot held the cake out proudly, tilted its head, made some clicking noises, and said, “Good?”

            Wesley decided he was going to take action. He decided to sell the robot.

 

 

 

            With a little help from the robot, Wesley managed to create a small booth and banner that read “Robot for Sale: Slightly Used” and set it all up outside his house. Every now and then, someone would walk by and ask about the robot, and Wesley told them, in a very salesman-style voice, what it was made out of and what it could do. Usually, the person would prod the robot a little, watch it bounce a basketball, and walk away, uninterested. But Wesley remained persistent, and after every unsuccessful sale of the robot, he got right back to thinking up new things he could show other customers, like teaching the robot to breakdance.

Wesley continued to try to sell the robot until it was about six o’clock, and the sun was going to town. He started to pack up his booth when some older kids from his school walked by. They saw the banner and stopped.

            “Hey, don’t you go to our school?” one of the older kids asked.

            “Uh… yeah. I’m, uh, I’m Wesley.”

            “Yeah, I thought I recognized you. Did you make this robot?” The older kids gathered around the robot, feelings its arms and poking its chest. The robot responded accordingly, clicking and shifting its limbs. The older kids “ooohed” and “aaahed” at the robot’s motor skills. Wesley suddenly felt proud of his accomplishment, something he had previously dismissed as a failure.

            “Ah, yes, yes, I did. I made it myself in my basement. It can do loads of things.”

            One of the older kids looked a little skeptical. “Oh, really? Like what?”

            “Well…” Wesley tried to think of something it hadn’t screwed up. “… it can shoot free throws.”

            The kids started to look more interested. Wesley ran into his garage and got out another basketball. He walked the robot over to the hoop and showed him again how to shoot a basket. Then, crossing his fingers, he bounced the ball to the robot, which caught it easily. The robot dribbled, made a brief series of clicking noises and shot a perfect basket, nothing but net. The older kids were shocked. 

            “That’s so awesome!”

            “You think he can make it from full court?”

            “Oh, man, I wonder how he is at kickball. I totally want him for my team.”

            The older kids kept buzzing about him. Wesley piped up.

            “And, um, he’s really good at video games. He always beats me at ‘Mushroom Mayhem 3’, and I play that game every day.”

            The first older kid turned to Wesley. “You play ‘MM3’? What’s your blue gem total?”

            Wesley felt a little ashamed. “Uh… forty-nine.”

            “What? I thought it only went up to forty-four! I only have thirty-eight! Where are these other blue gems?”

            Wesley started to tell the older kid about the cache of gems under the Toadstool Tower when another kid asked if the robot could cook.

            “Um… yes.” Wesley replied.

            “Cool. My mom hates making spaghetti for some reason.”

            “Hey, let’s throw this ball around a bit more!” the tallest kid exclaimed. So Wesley, the robot, and the three older kids played basketball for the next few hours, until Wesley’s mother called him in for dinner. Wesley waved goodbye to the older kids as they walked home.

            “Hey,” the tallest one yelled back as they left. “We’ll see you at school tomorrow, right? Bring your robot. Everyone’s going to go crazy over it.” He smiled and ran off to catch up with the other kids. Wesley grinned a big grin and went back inside, happy that he had fit in with someone.