A Crazy Case of Robots by Kenneth Oppel Read Free Book Online Page A

time, and whenever a puff of smoke drifted up into the air, or an electric snap sounded, there were oohs and ahhhs from the audience, as if it were all some marvellous fireworks show.
    Kevin tapped respectfully on the cardboard.
    “Tina?” he said.
    “Who’s there?” came a muffled voice.
    “It’s Kevin.”
    “Kevin who?”
    “Kevin Quark, your brother!”
    After a moment, Tina squeezed out between two panels of cardboard. She was very tiny, with precise blond braids hanging on either side of her head. There was a smudge of grease across her cheek.
    “Good day, Barnes,” she said with a perfunctory nod.
    “Hello, O Great One,” said Giles with a grin.
    “How’s it going in there?” Kevin asked.
    “I’m finished,” Tina replied. A small smile shifted across her lips as she looked around. “I see we havequite an audience. Well, I hardly think anyone will be disappointed.”
    People were jockeying for position around the stall, standing on tiptoe, rocking their heads from side to side, hoping for a good glimpse of what was behind the barricade.
    “What’s going on in there?” someone asked.
    “Is it alive?” another wanted to know.
    “Is it dangerous?”
    “Is it fit for children to see?”
    “Stand back everyone, please!” said Tina.
    With a flourish, she pulled a long piece of twine, and with an airy sigh the walls of the cardboard barricade fell gracefully outwards to the floor.
    Everyone gasped.
    A robot.

Chapter 2
Tinatron
    “Ladies and Gentleman,” Tina proclaimed, “this is the Tinatron 1000!”
    Giles took a few steps closer for a better look.
    The robot was roughly the same size as Tina. Gauges and switches covered its boxy metal chest. Two spindly metal arms jutted from its sides, each with a rubber-glove hand at the end. Tinatron’s head was long and rectangular, with what looked like a flashlight and a camera lens for eyes, and for a mouth, a portable iPod speaker.
    Two thick silver cables connected the robot’s head to the top of its chest. Giles didn’t know what its legs looked like, because they were hidden beneath a kind of metal skirt which extended almost to the floor. Poking out fromthe bottom were a pair of mismatched running shoes.
    “Hey!” said Kevin, pointing at the robot’s head. “That’s my camera!”
    “As a matter of fact, it is,” said Tina. “It was perfect for my purposes.”
    “And that’s my speaker, too!” Kevin exclaimed.
    “Kevin, please,” said Tina, “you’re making a scene.”
    “You might have asked! I’ve been looking for that stuff!”
    “You should be delighted that I’ve been able to make use of it in such a remarkable invention.”
    “But why does it always have to be my stuff?” Kevin wanted to know.
    Tina pretended not to hear.
    “Where did you get all the other parts?” asked Giles.
    “The metal salvage yard down by the river. There’s a wealth of raw material there.”
    Giles imagined Tina, skulking around with a flashlight at night like a grave robber, pocketing automobile parts and bits of gutted TVs.
    “Does it talk?” someone in the audience wanted to know.
    Tina smiled indulgently, and turned to the robot.
    “Introduce yourself,” Tina said to it.
    “Good morning,” said the robot in a strange, metallic voice. “I am Tinatron 1000, created by Tina Quark. I am a high-performance, low-maintenance, super-efficient, multi-purpose, hyper-intelligent robot. I am programmed to perform any task without error.”
    The audience hummed in amazement.
    “Its voice!” Kevin hissed to Giles. “It sounds—”
    “I know,” said Giles. “It sounds a little like Tina’s.”
    “Spooky, isn’t it?”
    “Very.”
    Giles couldn’t help thinking that the robot even looked a little bit like Tina. The two silver cables that dangled from its metal head weren’t so unlike Tina’s blond braids. And there was even something similar about the way the robot stood, very straight and serious, its hands folded calmly together in