I was reading an old newspaper I found on the floor when Elliot came back shortly after, dumping a plastic grocery bag in front of me on the bed. I blinked and set down the paper and began to rifle through it like a racoon.
"I uh, didn't know what you liked to eat so I got a bunch of stuff..." Elliot said, sounding very awkward and unsure. He lingered by the bed, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie as he watched me. I looked up from the bag and smiled at him.
"Don't worry, I am not a picky eater. Especially since I am your houseguest, and as a houseguest, you are obligated to eat what you are being served or else you're very rude. And me? Im not known to be rude." I said triumphantly.
A pregnant pause followed, and if I didn't know any better I'd swear that Lord Emo was making fun of me. I frowned, blowing some blonde bangs out of my face.
"You are supposed to agree with me on that." I muttered. Elliot just shrugged, eyes glinting with smug humor. Just when I thought he was all shy and modest, he showed a masterlevel of sass.
After breakfast, Elliot opened his closet and started looking for something. After a bit, he came over with a large cardboard box. Because Elliot was Elliot, I was half-expecting it to contain a dead animal or something.
"What's this?"
"Something to keep you occupied with."
Then without further ado, he dropped the dusty box on the bedspread. I recognized the LEGO logo at the top corner immediately. But it wasn't just regular lego – it was one of those science project things. I picked it up and squinted.
"Build your own functioning robot?" I read aloud, with thinly veiled disappointment. Elliot shrugged and started loading stuff into his backpack.
"It's what got me into computers and programming in the first place." he said, shrugging. I looked at him, to the box and back again.
"You gotta be kidding me. I am not clever with bolts and wires!" I said, which was true. I never had the patience for anything involving a manual, which maybe explains why every electrical appliance in my apartment ends up dead at my sloppy hands. Elliot gave me one of his neutral stares, but you know he is secretly judging you.
"It's for kids aged 12 and up." he said, making me put a pillow over my head and hug my face into it.
"I still fail to see your point." I garbled through the pillow. It was quiet for a moment.
"See it as a test." he finally said. I removed the pillow and stared at him curiously.
"A test for what?" I asked. He shifted from foot to foot nervously, looking down at his feet.
"We'll see. I have a few things to do in town, but I'll be back later tonight."
Great. I get to spend a whole day fumbling around with a box of legos, not able to go anywhere. How great can this possibly get?
"Okay Mr. Robot. I don't like tests, and I don't like wires. But somehow, somewhere, this is going to become...something." I said, talking to the pile of plastic pieces in the box as I decoded the instructions in the tiny pamphlet.
I admit, it was a slow-start for the both of us. Lego instructions are written in tiny letters, and the lego pieces are small, slippery and easily lost. Or ehm, eaten by small dogs.
And there were more than one mistakes being made. I blame 90's toy engineering. And I didn't just have to connect all the pieces together, oh no – I also had to PROGRAM THE THING? It didn't say that on the box! True, the instructions were trying to make it seem easy, but no matter how many times I connected the tiny black wires to the "brain" box, the tiny lego robot remained motionless and dead.
Finally, I let out a bloodcurdling scream – scaring Flipper who fled from the bed like a banshee was after him.
"Ugh, this is impossible!" I screamed, then put my hands to my face and did that breathing technique to calm down but backwards. It works better that way, trust me. After doing that, and opening my eyes again, something just...clicked.
I looked down at the (much abused by my violent hands) robot, and the instructions – and then the box where it came from. I must have missed something vital. A thought ocurred to me, and I checked the brain box, a black little USB lookalike. I looked at it from every direction until I finally found it – a slot.
"Sarah I'm back! Sarah…?"
Shit, he was back.
There was no time to silence the abomination I'd made, so I quickly put the cardboard box over it and ran to meet Elliot by the door. I skidded a little on the floor, because it was suprisingly clean. I clasped my hands together and smiled like nothing was out of the ordinary.
"Elliot! Welcome back! Was it ah, a nice day?" I asked politely as he removed his shoes. But I must have seemed a little TOO happy to see him.
"...Is something wrong?" he asked, just as I glanced over at the bed with the cardboard box. I quickly looked back at him, blinking my eyes innocently.
"What? Oh no, nothing. "
Elliot squinted at me. He did a good squint (though not as good as mine).
"You sound weird."
"Haha no I don't." I said, laughing. Then I could not prevent the noise that came from underneath the cardboard box. A metallic, garbled singing.
It's a small world after all, its a small small small world! Its a world of laughter, a world of fears-
I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily before hissing at the offending object I had named about an hour ago after the guy that gave me lice in 6th grade.
"Shut up Gavin!"
To my horror, Elliot eyed the box on the bed like a curious cat. He made to move closer, but I stepped in his way.
"Gavin?" He asked.
"Ehm, hehe. See, something funny happened while you were gone. Really funny in fact..."
-a world that we share and we're aware its a small, small wooooooooorld!
I groaned out loud, hiding my face in my hands.
"...I managed to create a monster."
I went over to the bed and revealed what was under the box.
The robot itself didn't look too bad – almost like the picture on the box. I had even managed to understand why I couldn't get it to work earlier – it needed a circuit board. But I couldn't find one in the box, so I looked around on Elliots desk for one, thinking maybe he had a spare.
Yes, I know it was a stupid idea. I thought it didn't matter what circuit board you used, heck, I hadn't even heard the term CIRCUIT BOARD until this very day. I just knew what it looked like from pictures I found on google.
As luck would have it, I did find one – not on his desk, but stuck behind the radiator. It was a little dusty so I decided to wash it off under the sink.
Yes, bad idea number deux.
And then when I was about to stick it in the brain slot, I realized that it was slightly too big. So I took a pair of scissors and…
Yeah, bad idea number three.
So then it finally fit perfectly. Then when I switched the robot on, it even worked as it should. For a couple of seconds, at least. Then it started to make a low, buzzing sound – the sound of something going very wrong. Then there was a more positive click noise, followed by the robots eyes lighting up red.
"Hello Friend." It said in a garbled voice. I stared at it with my mouth open.
"Wow, oh my god it works. It actually works."
"Hello Friend."
On the box it said that you could teach it your name, have basic conversations with it and stuff. So filled with optimism, I tried doing just that.
"Hi there, my name is Sarah. S-A-R-A-H. Can you repeat that?" I said very slowly. The robot made a buzzing noise before responding.
"Sarah. S-A-R-S."
"No. That is wrong."
"Wrong? Sarah..."
"Yes, thats right."
"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah..."
"Okay, stop!"
"You want to sing the song Stop by Spice Girls? Ok."
"No, no, no , no ,no!"
Elliot watched calmy as the robot continued singing disney tunes on the bed to itself. After a moment he turned to me.
"What did you put in it?"
"A circuit board I found...behind the radiator. I might have uh, cut it down a little." I said, expecting him to get angry with me. But instead he seemed thoughtful. He turned back to the robot.
"Jaws." he said in a clear voice. To my suprise, the robot sharply turned its head in his direction, almost as if it recognized him. Then it started to play a poorly made midi-version of the theme song from the movie. Then it abruptly cut off, before the robot started talking again.
"Would you like to play a game? Do you want me to dictate a message? Suck ass..."
Elliot made an embarrassed sound in his throat.
"I think you found something I made when I was a kid." he said, and stared at him with wide eyes.
"Oh my god, I put scissors to it..."
He put a hand up, calming me down.
"Nah, don't worry about it. I used to mess around with circuit boards all the time. I don't remember the disney music though..."
Gavin was quick to latch onto that word.
"Disney. Would you like to listen to the best of Disney hits?" he asked, and I shook my head.
"Not right now Gavin. Maybe later ok?"
"Schedule time : Later. "