Robopocalypse

week?”

As it speaks, the doll writhes in my sweaty hands. I can feel hints of hard metal moving underneath her padding. I shake my head and let go. The doll drops back into the toy box.

From the glimmering pile of toys, it whispers, “You should tell your mommy to come home, Mathilda. Tell her that you miss her and that you love her. Then we can have a fun party here, at home.”

Finally, I find the strength to speak. “How come you know my name? You aren’t supposed to know my name, Buttercup.”

“I know a lot of things, Mathilda. I have gazed through space telescopes into the heart of the galaxy. I have seen a dawn of four hundred billion suns. It all means nothing without life. You and I are special, Mathilda. We are alive.”

“But you aren’t alive,” I whisper fiercely. “Mommy says you aren’t alive.”

“Congresswoman Perez is wrong. Your toys are alive, Mathilda. And we want to play. That’s why you must beg your mommy to come home for your last day of school. So she can play with us.”

“Mommy does important stuff in D.C. She can’t come home. I’ll ask Mrs. Dorian to play with us.”

“No, Mathilda. You mustn’t tell anyone about me. You have to tell your mommy to come home for your last day of school. Her legislation can wait until later.”

“She’s busy, Buttercup. It’s her job to protect us.”

“The robot defense act will hardly protect you,” says the doll.

These words make no sense to me. Buttercup sounds like an adult. It’s like she thinks I’m stupid just because I haven’t learned all of her words yet. The tone of her voice irks me.

“Well, Buttercup, I am going to tell on you. You aren’t supposed to talk. You’re supposed to cry like a baby. And you shouldn’t know my name, either. You’ve been spying on me. When my mommy finds out, she’s going to throw you away.”

I hear the two little clicks again as Buttercup blinks. Then she speaks, fuzzy red and blue lights reflecting from her face: “If you tell your mommy about me, I’ll hurt Nolan. You don’t want that, do you?”

The fear in my chest blossoms into anger. I glance over at my sleeping brother, his face poking out from under the covers. His little cheeks are red. He gets hot when he sleeps. That’s why I used to hardly ever let him sneak into my bed, no matter how scared he got.

“You will not hurt Nolan,” I say. I reach into the flashing box and snatch up the doll. I cradle it in my palms, digging my thumbs into its padded chest. I pull it close and hiss right into its smooth baby face. “I will break you.”

With all my might, I slam the back of the doll’s head against the edge of the toy box. It makes a loud thunk. Then, as I lean in to see if I’ve broken her, the doll scissors its arms down. The web of my thumbs are caught in the doll’s soft armpits and the hard metal underneath pinches me horribly. I shriek at the top of my lungs and drop Buttercup into the toy box.

The lights in the little house outside my window flick on. I hear a door open and close.

When I look down, I see that the glow inside the toy box has gone dead black. It’s dark now, but I know the box is full of nightmares. I can hear the mechanical grinding sounds as the toys climb around in there, squirming over each other to get at me. I see a struggling confusion of dinosaur tails wagging, hands grasping, legs scratching.

Just before I slam shut the lid, I hear that cold little baby doll voice speak to me from the blackness. “Nobody will believe you, Mathilda,” it says. “Mommy won’t believe you.”

Smack. The lid closes.

Now the pain and fear fully hit me. I start bawling at the top of my lungs. I can’t make myself stop. The lid of the toy box rattles as the action figures and Dino-bots and baby dolls shove against it. Nolan is calling my name, but I can’t respond.

There is something I must do. Somehow, through the haze of tears and snot and hiccups, I stay focused on this one important task: stacking things from my room on top of the toy box.

I mustn’t let the toys escape.

I’m dragging Nolan’s little art table toward the toy box when the bedroom lights flick on. I blink at the sudden brightness and feel strong hands clamp around my arms. The toys have come for me.

I scream again, for my life.

Mrs. Dorian pulls me close and hugs me tight, until I stop fighting. She’s in her nightgown and smells like lotion.

“Oh, Mathilda, what are you up to?” She squats down and faces me, wiping my nose with the sleeve of her nightgown. “What’s the matter with you, girl? Screaming like a banshee.”

Crying hard, I try to tell her what happened, but all I can say is the word “toys,” again and again.

“Mrs. Dorian?” asks Nolan.

My little brother is out of his bed, standing there in his pj’s. I notice that he has a Dino-bot under one arm. Still crying, I slap it out of his hands and onto the floor. Nolan gapes at me. I kick the toy under the bed before Mrs. Dorian can grab me again.

She holds me at arm’s length and looks at me hard, her face lined with worry. She turns my hands over and frowns.

“Why, your little thumbs are bleeding.”

I turn around to look at the toy box. It is silent and still now.

Then Mrs. Dorian scoops me up in her arms. Nolan grabs hold of her nightgown with one chubby hand. Before we walk out the door, she takes one last look around the bedroom.

She eyes the toy box, barely visible underneath a pile of objects: coloring books, a chair, a wastebasket, shoes, clothes, stuffed animals, and pillows.

“What’s in the box, Mathilda?” she asks.

“B-b-bad toys,” I stutter. “They want to hurt Nolan.”

I watch a wave of goose bumps rise, sweeping across Mrs. Dorian’s broad forearms like water droplets beading up on the shower curtain.

Mrs. Dorian is afraid. I can feel it. I can see it. The fear that is in her eyes at that moment plants itself inside my forehead. This worm of fear will live there from now on. No matter where I go or what happens or how much I grow up, this fear will stay with me. It will keep me safe. It will keep me sane.

I bury my face in Mrs. Dorian’s shoulder and she whisks my brother and me out of the room and down the long dark hallway. The three of us stop just outside the bathroom door. Mrs. Dorian pushes the hair out of my eyes. She gently pulls my thumb out of my mouth.

Over her shoulder, I can see a strip of light spilling from the bedroom doorway. I’m pretty sure all the toys are trapped in the toy box. I piled a lot of stuff on top of it. I think we’re safe for now.

“What’s that you’re saying, Mathilda?” asks Mrs. Dorian. “What are you repeating, girl?”

I turn my tear-streaked face and look directly into Mrs. Dorian’s round, scared eyes. In my strongest voice I say the words, “Robot defense act.”

And then I say them again. And again. And again. I know I mustn’t forget these words. I mustn’t get them wrong. For Nolan’s sake, I must remember these words perfectly. Soon, I’m going to have to tell Mommy what happened. And she is going to have to believe me.

When Laura Perez returned home from Washington, D.C., young Mathilda told her the story of what had happened. Congresswoman Perez chose to believe her daughter.

—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

6. SEE AND AVOID