“Hang on.” I had barely gotten both claws over the keyboard. “What were the first two again?”
“Better let her drive, Swift,” Sam suggested.
I nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“What?” Amy asked as I handed her the controllers. “Oh, okay.”
I gave her a crash course before placing the glasses on her head.
“This is interesting,” she said as she moved her hands in front of her face. On Noah’s tablet, the robot’s arms mirrored her motions. She giggled. “But so cool.”
“Now you focus, Amy,” Sam said, sounding slightly annoyed.
“Right,” Amy said as she moved the robot closer to the keyboard.
After a couple of misses, Amy picked up the controls like a pro. Sam and I crowded around Noah’s tablet and watched the claws nimbly tapping all the right keys. Above them, one of the screens showed the familiar file folders opening. It didn’t take long before the large television monitor played the clip from the day before. Amy backed the robot away to better frame the screen while the video’s sound played from Noah’s tablet. That was thanks to a microphone I had added just for the occasion.
Sam shook her head as she watched the clip again. She seemed equally disgusted the second time around.
“Wait until Davenport sees this,” Noah said with a grin.
“It may not be enough, though,” I said. “You think we can find another clip that’s equally as bad?”
“From the way this guy was stirring things up,” Noah said, “I guarantee it.”
Once the clip had finished, Amy moved the robot back to the keyboard. She tapped some more keys (even faster now) and another clip played on the big screen.
As she backed the robot up to get a better shot, all of us jumped with a start. It wasn’t what was on the screen that had scared us. It was the giant face looming in front of it: Joey’s face.
“What have we here?” Joey’s voice asked through the tablet’s tiny speaker.
13
The Reality Revelation
“IS THAT YOU, TOM?” JOEY asked, his face moving even closer to the camera. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Noah tearing up your robot… because I’m going to do it first.” He gave a devious grin. “What do you think about that?”
I sprinted for the cafeteria door, then bolted into the hallway and raced toward the computer lab. In that moment, I didn’t care if we had recorded enough footage to show Mr. Davenport. I just didn’t want anything to happen to my invention. I didn’t know Joey well, but from what I had seen so far, he might just be the kind of person to make good on his promise to destroy my robot.
I ran through the computer lab and burst into the editing suite. To my surprise, Joey was sitting casually in the chair in front of the workstation.
“I thought that would get you here in a hurry,” he said with a huge grin.
I glanced at my robot; it was still thankfully in one piece.
Joey hit a key on the keyboard and the large television screen went dark. “So, you thought you’d get a sneak peek at the show, huh?” He clapped his hands together. “Spoiler alert! It’s great, isn’t it?”
“It’s awful,” I said. “You make it look like everyone’s fighting all the time.”
Joey gave a dismissive wave. “Come on, that’s no big deal. You have to have some drama,” he explained. “A show just about a bunch of young inventors?” He pretended to nod off. “Snoozefest.”
“What about all that stuff about me?” I asked. “It looks like the whole school is against me.”
Joey shrugged. “Hey, every great story needs a villain, right?”
I gasped. “A villain?”
“Okay, maybe ‘villain’ is a strong word.” He snapped his fingers. “How about… ‘antagonist’?”
“But why—”
“Look,” Joey said, cutting me off. “In this story, Noah is the protagonist and you’re the antagonist. It’s simple. It’s elegant. It’s… Storytelling 101.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This guy was making me into the bad guy at my own school.
“But… it’s not real,” I muttered.
Joey chuckled. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret.” He glanced around as if he was worried someone would hear. “Reality television… isn’t real. None of it is.” He pointed to the workstation. “I can have Danny cut that footage together in a hundred different ways to tell a hundred different stories. Reality television is all in the editing, my friend.”
My lips pressed together. “And your manipulations.”
Joey shrugged. “Well… a little push here, a little nudge there, maybe. But that’s why I’m the best.” He gave me a sly wink. “But come on. I didn’t put words into anyone’s mouth.”
He was right about that. It was troubling how easily my fellow students and I were pitted against one another. But that still didn’t make it right.
“What do you expect Mr. Davenport will think about your show when he sees this?” I asked.
“Oh, please,” Joey said with a smirk. “We have so much footage of him, he thinks it’s going to be the Ronald Davenport Show. You know? ‘Captain at the helm’ sort of thing.”
“Let’s go get him,” I suggested, crossing my arms. “Show him what you’ve been working on.”
Joey motioned toward the door. “Be my guest. Danny and I put together a special cut just for him.” He rolled his eyes. “It won’t make it into the final show, but…”
“He’ll have to see the final show sometime,” I said. “What about then?”
Joey laughed. “Are you kidding me? By the time this thing airs, I’ll be on a boat in Scotland searching for the Loch Ness Monster.” He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll even find it. I haven’t decided yet.”
This guy might actually win. Sure, we could show our recorded clip to Mr. Davenport, but one, Joey would probably find some way to explain it away, and two, we would probably get into trouble for using my robot to spy in
