Brand New Boy by David Almond

Author:David Almond [Almond, David; Altés, Marta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781536226942
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

“So what do you think?” says Marsh. “Did he seem real? Was he convincing? Did he seem just like you?”

There’s a lot of whispering and chattering. Joyce Dunn from the year below us puts her hand up.

“Yes?” says Marsh.

“He did seem a bit like us, but as well he seemed like . . . dead weird or something.”

“Dead weird?”

“Aye. Like he wasn’t all there.”

There’s lots of sniggering.

“Aye,” says somebody else. “Like you couldn’t work out if he was really clever or really thick.”

“I knew!” shouts Jack Frith.

“Knew what?” says Marsh.

“Knew he was a robot. I said to me sister when I went home. There’s a new kid in school and he’s a robot.”

“I said he was an alien!” says somebody else. “He’s come from Planet Zog, I said.”

“Aye. I said the same and all. Stands to reason, I said.”

“And,” says Marsh, “did you like having him here? Did you enjoy your time with him?”

“Aye!”

“Yes!”

“It was a good laugh!”

“It’s been dead interesting.”

“That’s excellent. So you felt that he fitted in, in his own . . . dead weird way.”

“Aye, well, there’s plenty weirdos here anyway!”

Marsh laughs. He leans toward us and lowers his voice as if he’s sharing a great secret.

“One day, children,” he says, “there will be a perfect George. A George will walk among you who is so perfectly made, so . . . human, that nobody will realize that it is a George at all. There will be a George — or a Georgina! — who seems to be just like you.”

He watches us ponder that.

“So that could mean,” says Sandra Miles, “that one of us here, right now, could be a . . . George, a robot, and we wouldn’t know.”

“Clever girl,” says Marsh. “You are indeed correct.” He looks at Mrs. Hoolihan.

“What clever children you have in your school, Mrs. Hoolihan!”

Mrs. Hoolihan quivers with delight, of course.

“Oh, yes, we have, Mr. Marsh!” she squeaks.

“Indeed, any single one of us,” says Marsh, “might be a George, a robot.”

“I’m not,” mutters Billy.

“Maybe I am one myself!” says Marsh. “Maybe your principal is! Maybe the room is filled with creatures who seem to be human but are not.”

I look at Maxie.

“I’m not a robot, mate,” he grunts.

“Me neither,” I say.

“But I doubt it,” says Marsh. “We at New Life Corporation are at the true cutting edge. No one else has come up with a way of creating the perfect-seeming human.”

He steps back to George. He puts his arm around George’s shoulder again.

“Our George is the star. Our George is a multimillion-pound project.”

“Multimillion-pound project, children!” gasps Mrs. Hoolihan.

“Yes,” says Marsh. “And he is the first of a brand-new line.”

“A brand-new line!”

Marsh cups George’s chin in his hand. George, of course, makes no response. He gazes out at us all with empty eyes.

Mrs. Imani speaks.

“Did George like it?” she says.

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