Thanks so much to doodlegirl for replying. I know the 1st two chapters are a bit boring, but I think we get into the interesting stuff in this chapter.

Chapter 3

Inventions

Guess what?

It was really hard.

Mike used the desk in his old room and spent hours on end writing down ideas, and then chucking them away into an old wastebasket. For some reason, the ideas weren't coming to him as often as they were when he was happier.

"I don't understand!" he said to himself on night. He has bags underneath his eyes, similar to those that he had as a kid. He rubbed his neck with his hand to ease the pain.

"How does Robinson do it?"

He kept scribbling down stuff, but even now, he couldn't understand what he was writing. Frustrated, he stopped writing for a minute. He sat back in his chair and took a breather.

Maybe its' time for a break, he thought.

He headed towards the radio and turned it on. Then with the little knob, turned it until he found a clear station. He found one instantly.

"Wow! What a great game!" said the announcer on the radio. "The Dinos beat the Pigeons 17 to nothing! That was some great sports play wasn't it?"

"Sure was Bob," said a second announcer. 'I mean did you see that pitch thrown by Wachoski there? Woo! I never have seen a ball thrown so fast."

"I'm still pretty amazed by that game play. Weren't you Fred?"

"Oh yeah!"

"I mean, how lucky can you get? A double play in three innings in a row? Wow! Lady luck really is on their side."

"And to think, last year they were considered one of the worst teams of Major League Baseball history, but now, I think they have what it takes to get up to the top 3!"

"I agree with you there Fred. The Dinos are living proof that anything can be possible if you just…"

"Keep moving forward," said the two announcers in unison.

"Ahhh…I love it. That never gets old…"

"Right you are Bob. Right you are!"

Mike lowered the volume on the radio. He really liked to hear about baseball because it was his favorite sport. Unfortunately, his hate and negative attitude towards everything ruined his chances of becoming a pro baseball player. As these thoughts went through his head, he began to draw very silly little sketches. He drew a small sketch of someone batting at a batting cage. Another one was of him, playing ball by himself.

"Baseball was so much fun when I was a kid,' he said to himself. "I remember the time Mildred took me to the batting cages. Oh, that was so much fun…but, I was so short back then, so I really wasn't able to hit the balls when they came out of Pitching Machines. I remember thinking I wished that I could tell them how I wanted them aligned, so that I could actually hit them all."

He started to add more detail to the picture of him playing ball.

"Everyone in the orphanage wasn't a big of a fan as I was. I always ended up playing by myself. Mildred would occasionally play with me, but let's face it: She wasn't very good. I remember wishing that someone could play with me, and was at my own level of skill in baseball."

He picked up the paper and looked at the doodles. Something about them stood out from his notes. His eyes lighted up all of a sudden; and eccentric smile spread across his face.

"That's IT! I GOT IT!" he yelled. He grabbed a new sheet of paper and began to work on some designs…

-

The next day, Mike rummaged through garbage's all over the place trying to find all sorts of scraps. He found rusty pipes, chewed up tennis balls, a toaster, a saw, a broken leaf blower, scrap metal, a broken robot, a lamp, a torn-up baseball mitten and a radio. He took all his finding and brought them to his house…

Using the basement as his lab, he began to start his inventing. Before doing so, he tacked up two sheets of paper with blueprints on them. One had blue prints for a new kind of 'Pitching Machine', while the other was of a robot holding a mitten and a bat.

The first thing he did was used the saw on the old wooden planks that barricaded the doors. With them, he made a baseball bat. Once he finished with that, he continued on with his two main ideas.

The Pitching Machine was sorta easy. He took a pipe that he found and attached it to the leaf blower, which had no pipe to blow leaves with. He then took apart the radio that he found and began to use the microchips to put into the Pitching Machine, to have it sense where iot should throw the ball.

He had to test it out millions of times, but when he put the balls into it, it just shoots at his head, and not where his bat was. He had to take the machine apart and rebuild it again, God knows how many times. It wasn't until the 20th try that he finally got it.

He took the bat in his hands and got ready to swing.

"Goob Pitch Machine on," he said, wincing a little in fear of the balls hitting him again. The Goob Pitch Machine buzzed on, and began to move the pipe part of the machine left and right. It wasn't until it finally found a likable position that it shot out a tennis ball. Mike swung his bat at it and the ball went flying up in the air and out a window, breaking it. He looked on amazingly.

"It works? It works!!! Huzzah!" he screeched in happiness.

-

Now it was on to his second invention: A buddy to play catch with. Using the broken robot, he inserted the chip inside the toaster that makes the toast pop out so it could help the robot pitch. He even added some of the scrap metal on his hands to make them human sized so that he could fit into a baseball mitten. He use the part of the toaster with the knob and how hot you want it for the level of skill one wants to put it at. He even fixed the robot chip in his head so that he could talk ad respond and somewhat have a mind of it's own.

Yet again, more failures. The robot would either spazz out or keep constantly throwing things at Mike. He had to rebuild it over and over again. This time, it took longer than the 1st invention he did. Finally, for maybe the 57th time, he tried again.

He set the robot to the level 8 out of 12. He then turned the robot on, then backing away to get ready. The robot turned to face Mike and threw him a hardball. Mike caught and was surprised. He threw the ball back and the robot caught it. The robot threw it back and the process repeated over and over again.

"I did it! It worked! Yes!"

"Yeah, nice job their big head."

Mike turned around and saw that the robot was talking to him. He had an unsatisfied look on his face with hi arms on his hips.

"I don't believe it!" yelled Mike. "You can talk too? Oh, this is wonderful!"

"Yeah…nice job there big nose," said the robot.

"You need a name," said Mike looking at the robot thoughtfully. "Ooh! I know! How about if I call you…Ted! Yes! That's your name!"

"Ted?" asked the robot, obviously displeased. "Real creative genius..."

Mike smile turned to that of a frown. "Gee…I didn't think you'd be so…so…"

"So what?" asked Ted angrily. "Huh? Whatcha gonna say wise guy?" The robot grabbed Mike's clothes and brought him to his level."

'Well…uh…grouchy," responded Mike. With that, Ted threw Mike aside.

'Of course I'm grouchy! My original creators shut me down! You try and live with that!" Reluctantly, he helped Mike up. 'But I guess I…well…do sorta owe ya one for putting me back together...even if I'm a baseball playing robot n—"

"Oh fantastic!" said Mike giving Ted a hug. Ted looked repulsed.

"Hey, watch it there bub!" he said pushing him away.

"Sorry," said Mike, chuckling nervously. "Now…I need to present these inventions to the world! But where?"

"Uh genius?"

Mike turned to face Ted.

'Why not take it to Robinson Industries?"

"What! Oh no!" said Mike. 'I can't ask Robinson for a favor. Not after what I did to him!"

"You know old Robinson?" asked Ted.

"An old roommate. I tried to ruin his future by going back in time…etc, etc. The point is, I can't take it to him."

"How about Invent Co.?" asked Ted. "They're the next best thing."

Mike froze. He remembered the day he took Lewis' invention to present to Invent Co. He was so nervous, that his assistant, Doris the Bowler Hat had to make him feel more comfortable. She even went so much as to go outside and have 'cue cards' so that he would know what to say. He remembered what he said to her before he entered the meeting.

'I'm so glad that I have you…"

'Hey! Hey genius?" snapped Ted trying to bring Mike back. Mike broke out of his trance and smiled at Ted.

"Invent Co…. Prepared to be amazed!"

Hope you've enjoyed it so far!

-Kim (MidnightMoon14)