Maya and the Robot by Eve L. Ewing

Author:Eve L. Ewing [Ewing, Eve L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

He held up his hand, which had only three fingers. So I guess it was a high three. Good enough. I reached out and touched it with my own hand. Okay, so he knew what a high five was. Had Christopher programmed that into his vocabulary or did he learn it from me? I needed to do some further testing. I looked around the room at the messy packaging from the battery. “Ralph, pick up the cardboard.”

WHAT IS CARDBOARD?

I picked up one of the pieces and waved it in front of his camera eyes. “Ralph, this is cardboard.”

CARDBOARD. SCANNING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR CARDBOARD.

His eyes whirred around, then he began to move around the room, picking up pieces of cardboard. “Aha!” I pounded on the wall in excitement. Ralph could learn! He could learn new things! After a minute, he stood in the middle of the room, holding a stack of cardboard in his three-fingered hand, patiently awaiting more directions.

I opened the bedroom door and walked out to the kitchen, then called back into the room. “Ralph, come in here, please.” He rolled out of my bedroom and onto the tile floor. I pointed to the recycling bin next to the back door. “Ralph, put the cardboard in here.” He dropped the cardboard into the bin.

“Oh my gosh.” This was gonna be a game-changer. “You . . . you can do my chores.”

Ralph stared back, emotionless. His camera eyes were large and round. His mouth was a thin, dark line in the middle of his funny bucket head. “Ralph, can you smile?”

I CAN SMILE, MAYA.

Suddenly, a line of green LEDs appeared across his mouth, curving upward into a friendly smile.

I stared at Ralph. He stared back at me, smiling with that goofy green-light smile. This was easily the coolest thing I had ever done or seen. I wanted to show everyone! My mom, my dad, Auntie Lou, Mr. Mac.

And most of all, Jada and MJ.

When their names popped into my head, I suddenly felt sad. When would I get a chance to tell them? Or show them? And if I did, would they even care? Maybe Ms. Montgomery had a thousand robots that she let them play with every day.

I felt a wave of loneliness wash over me, and the lump-in-the-throat feeling came back. I reached out and tapped Ralph on his metal bucket forehead.

“Oh, Ralph. Maybe you can be my friend,” I said without thinking.

Slowly, he reached out one creaky arm and gently extended a metal finger to tap me right back, in the center of my head.

MAYBE YOU CAN BE MY FRIEND.

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