Astro Boy: The Movie by Tracey West Read Free Book Online Page B

grapes,” the boy announced.
    A little girl wearing patched-up clothes walked up to Cora, holding a plunger.
    “Hey, Cora, did you bring me back something?” she asked.
    “The perfect gift for a sweet little girl,” Cora said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a chainsaw. The little girl jumped for joy.
    Cora smiled. “Enjoy.”
    The little girl revved the chainsaw and ran off. Soon there were screams from the other side of the junkyard.
    Cora ducked as a tire swung over her head. It hit Astro, knocking him to the ground.
    “Ouch,” Astro said, getting to his feet.
    “You need ten sets of eyes around here,” Cora advised.
    She headed up a ladder to the second level of the junkyard. A stout man was bent over a worktable, welding something. Astro hung back.
    “Hey, Hamegg,” Cora called out.
    The man spun around. The blue light from the welder illuminated his face, and, for a moment, Astro thought he looked frightening. But at the sight of the kids, he smiled warmly. It changed him completely. Now he looked like a chubby, friendly man.
    “Aha! Back so soon? You kids find anything good for me today?” Hamegg asked.
    Astro recognized his face from the image projected on Robotsky’s chest. Hamegg wore a grease-stained mechanic’s jumpsuit. Astro watched him carefully. According to Sparx and the others, Hamegg was a bad guy.
    Cora and the others emptied their bags on the worktable. Hamegg rifled through the items.
    “I don’t know, kids,” he said. “A lot of dead batteries. A lot of elbows here. The knee joint of a toilet cleaning robot? I told you I need heads.”
    “We could have got a lot better stuff, but—” Cora began.
    “Whoa!” Astro cried, interrupting her. He had been tinkering around with a broken robot in the corner. The pieces clattered to the floor.
    Hamegg raised a bushy, black eyebrow. “Well, well, who do we have here?”
    “His name’s Astro,” Zane said. “He saved us from the Scorpion Brothers.”
    Hamegg looked impressed. “You escaped from the Scorpion Brothers? Wow.”
    “Actually, I’m from Metro City,” Astro told him.
    “Double wow,” Hamegg said. “I used to work there once upon a time.”
    “Really?” Astro asked.
    “Why am I running a crummy body repair shop down here when I could be creating state-of-the-art robots in Metro City?” Hamegg asked.
    Astro felt bad. He hadn’t meant to hurt Hamegg’s feelings. “Well, no, not exactly—”
    “Relax, son. We’re family here,” Hamegg said, smiling again. “We’re allowed to ask questions. The answer is: I love robots, especially the discarded ones. The more banged-up they are, the more abused, the more I like getting them back on their feet.”
    He plucked a tiny robot from a shelf. It flew around him with wings, like a metal mosquito.
    “Oh wow!” Astro said. It was a pretty cool robot.
    “It’s almost a religious thing with me—kinda the way saints feel about the poor, or women feel about shoes, or fat people feel about donuts,” Hamegg said dramatically. “Well, I’ll stop with fat people and donuts.”
    Astro considered this. Hamegg seemed very sincere. And those members of the Robot Revolution Front were definitely strange. They were probably making up wild stories.
    “So you’re not into, er, enslaving robots?” Astro asked.
    “What?” Hamegg looked genuinely surprised.
    “He ran into the RRF,” Cora explained.
    Hamegg laughed. “I don’t enslave robots, I love robots! Never forget, robots make life more abundant. They’re our friends and we rely on them for our daily bread. Speaking of which, are any of you misfits hungry?”

CHAPTER 15
    All of the kids in the junkyard gathered around a long table cobbled together from scraps of metal. Hamegg sat at the head.
    “Let me guess—take-out pizza again?” Zane asked.
    Hamegg produced some battered-looking pizza boxes.
    “More like taken out of the trash again!” Sludge complained.
    “Picky, picky,” Hamegg said cheerfully.