‘Enough of that,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘I’ve got a million things to do. He’s coming tomorrow and I haven’t even cleaned the house or changed the sheets on the spare bed or baked cookies or anything.’
‘But he’s a robot, Mary. He doesn’t sleep in a bed or eat—’
‘Oh I know. To you little Roderick is just a chess-player.’
‘In a way. I mean, robots are terrific at chess, they say. Wonder if I shouldn’t go down in the basement and dig out a few old magazines with problems—’
‘Fine. While you’re down there, dig out our carpet-beater and use it. Understand?’
‘Maybe I could invent you a carpet-beating ma—’
‘
‘Okay, okay.’
‘And if it just so happens that he’s not hungry and doesn’t want a cookie, fine. Or if he’s excited about his new home and doesn’t feel like sleeping right away, fine…’
Jake McIlvaney lay back in Dr Smith’s chair, exposing his large Adam’s apple. When he talked, which he did incessantly, it bobbed up and down disgustingly. Dr Smith could hardly turn his eyes to the man’s filthy mouth.
‘How did this happen, Jake?’
‘Well, this morning I did a favour for Matt Gomper and fetched these here packages from the bus station — two big packages on the same day, Matt says he never seen nothing like it, and one of ’em has to go clear over to Clyde Honks, you know the old Ezra place, that’s what we always called it even though Hal Ezra never actually bought it, let’s see the bank owned it and then Don Jeepers, you know, married that gal from Belmontane and now Clyde owns it well what it was was a milk analyser, I knew he was talking about gettin’ one but I never knew he’d really buy one because you know he was thinking of gettin’ rid of them cows last year — and anyways Matt’s missus is sick again, so I said sure I’d handle these here deliveries, so I got rid of that one and started back because the other package was for Ma and Pa Wood, am I talking too much here, doc?’
‘Ahmmmm.’
‘So I started back, the missus says I talk too much says I should of been a barber, anyway I must of been doing about fifty on that gravel shortcut past Theron Walker’s place, hear he’s gonna sell out and move to California, makes you wonder if it’s true, all them stories about his missus and Gordy Balsh — anyways all of a sudden I hear funny noises coming out of this here package. Like voices, like a voice, maybe a talking doll or one a them talkback computers, you never know what them crazy Woodses might get up to next, coupla real characters — so I stopped and listened real close only I couldn’t make out nothing. So then I recollected that Doc Savage was in that neck of the woods, artificial inseminationing Gary Doody’s herd, so I went over to Gary’s place and we took Doc’s stethescope and you know it sounded just like they had some kid boxed up there. I mean it kept talking to somebody called Dan, if you knocked on top it said, “Dan, somebody’s knocking, is that you?” And if you turned it over it said, “Dan, I think I’m upside down.” Damnedest thing I ever seen—’
‘The teeth are okay, Jake, nothing busted but the bridge.’
‘So anyways I fetched it over to the Woodses, thought I’d sorta hang around to see ’em open it. Real characters, ain’t they? Remember back in fifty-six was it, must of been before you come to Newer, maybe fifty- seven, remember Ma Wood one day she takes her vacuum out and starts vacuuming the street! No foolin’, vacuuming the street. That ain’t all, she, then she gets Pa up a ladder washing the trees too, never did figure them two.’
‘Oughta be locked up,’ said Dr Smith, washing his hands. ‘Adopting a robot—’
‘Well to cut a long story, that’s what it was. A little gadget like a robot only looks more like a bitty tank. Kind of a let-down, thought maybe somebody was shipping a kid to them or, anyway, while I was waiting, that’s when it happened. Ma had this plate of chocolate-chip cookies setting there. I just sort of helped myself and that’s when my bridge—’
‘What, nutshells or—?’
‘Hee hee, no that’s the funny thing. Nuts and bolts! Them cookies was just chock full of nuts and bolts! I swear!’
‘You oughta sue ’em. They oughta be locked—’
‘My own fault, hee hee, I mean Ma never told me to dig in — nuts and bolts! Thought I’d seen everything, but nuts and—’
The first day was one problem after another. The boy (or girl, Ma insisted) had been chirping away to itself inside the box, but once they brought it out it shut up for the rest of the day. Oh, it might make a sort of frightened whimper, say when they showed it the chess-board, or say when Pa took it in the workshop and tried to get it interested in hammering.
Finally they put it to bed, Ma told it a story and they plugged it in for its evening recharge and tiptoed downstairs.
‘There’s some instructions in the box,’ Ma said. ‘Maybe we need to read up on him (or her). Maybe we’ve been going at this all wrong.’
‘He’s in bad shape, I know that.’
‘Or she is.’
‘Dents in his head, scotch tape around his neck — and his treads are all full of dirt. Think I’ll fix him up tomorrow.’
They spread the instructions on the dining table and tried to read them. After some time Pa started working his jaw, settling his teeth the way he always did when he was perplexed.
‘You’re tired,’ she suggested.
‘All this stuff about buses and data highways, contented addresses is it? Makes it sound like a traffic report.’ He looked up. ‘Awful quiet in here.’
‘Listen, what counts is that little Roderick or Roderica is ours, our own child.’
‘Fine, only what do we know about children? Here everybody in town’s been calling us Ma and Pa for years, bet most of ’em don’t even remember it’s short for Paul and Mary, that we never had a child. Do you think—?’
‘No more thinking tonight, okay?’
‘No but do you think we’re doing the right thing here? Maybe we’re too old for adopting a—’
‘Too old! Why the Queen of Spain was adopted by fairies fifty thousand years older than the world!’
‘That a fact.’
Upstairs, Roderick began to scream.
Suffering Cats, the numbers were after him, barbed 1 and hooked 2 and 3 clattering its pincers before 4’s fork and 5’s terrible sickle with 6 the noose swinging around for 9 beyond the deadly hammer and the handcuff… ‘That’s right, Rod, will you keep all the money you’ve won so far or move up to the Hundred-Dollar Questions? Fine, pick a number from 1 to 10, you picked 3 so here goes: Alamagordo is in New Mexico, right? And the Alhambra is in Spain, right? Now, for one hundred dollars, tell me: Just how did you kill Hank?’
‘That’s easy. Alcatraz is a former island prison, Al Capone is a former gangster, why is everybody looking at me like that? It was self-defence, you all saw him go for his gun first, I mean when he missed me with his 7 (I guess I was just lucky that one didn’t have my number on it) and his head was right there in reach I guess I just automatically pasted him with this wrench youda done the same, everybody’s got a right to protect his own property — I was just protecting Hank’s property, judge.’
Without even waiting to hear how he’d made his getaway (climbing into a crate and nailing down the lid from inside) the judge ordered him hanged by the neck until dead, dead, dead, 3 times 6 maybe but still ends up as nothing, the dot o in the middle of the screen o when they turn you off by remote control in the middle of the most important message of your life: ‘Where is that Roderick? Where is that dad-blamed Roderick?’
