It's Alive! It's Alive! by R. L. Stine

Author:R. L. Stine [Stine, R.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2019-03-25T04:00:00+00:00

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.

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