How To Hypnotise A Droid Page 2

I’m not going to lie to you, I jumped when I saw the giant stinger dripping with KILLER-BEE VENOM.

  ‘Would that kill me?’ I asked, springing back.

  ‘No. I am programmed to not endanger humanzzz. It only createzzz a deep coma.’

  ‘Um, okay.’ I wondered if I should have chosen GREEN TREE FROG instead.

  ‘Climb onto my back from the base of my wingzzz, please,’ he buzzed.

  Steering clear of his stinger, I clambered onto his hairy bee back. The wings were made out of super-light titanium.

  ‘BUZZZZZZ! Hold on to my eyelidzzz with your handzzz,’ the robotic bee said. ‘Commencing take-off.’

  ‘If you say so,’ I said, feeling funny about putting my hands into his eyes.

  Gross. It was like dipping my hands into bowls of custard. Oh, and double gross! His eyelids flicked back so I could see the insides of them. Talk about wanting to puke.

  Then suddenly . . .

  ‘Strike Me Down!’ I yelled. The next thing I knew we were rising into the air. It was the best feeling ever!

  Anyone normal would have thought I was crazy flying on a giant robotic killer bee. But what do normal people know, anyway?

  My hair was suddenly brushing past the ceiling lights. Before I knew it, we were buzzing through the open balcony door as Frenchy barked a very confused goodbye.

  We were off! I could smell the salty sea air as we flew high towards the Esplanade.

  With a high-powered WHOOOSHHHH we were flying over the streets towards school.

  I looked down and saw Ginger and Nut’s dad driving them to school.

  Normally, the twins waved and giggled at me as I walked to school and their dad drove them. In his convertible Porsche.

  It just wasn’t fair. They still had their dad but mine was gone, gone, gone. Sure, I still had Mum, but . . . well, she always left early for work. And came home late.

  But now? Here I was, zooming over the Porsche at MEGASPEEDS only a giant robotic killer bee could go!

  ‘Yeeehaaaaaaa!!! Giddy-up, Killer!’ I shouted as we rose above the palm trees lining the Esplanade.

  ‘Please increase your hand grip by 37 per cent to retain full balance in the ocean wind,’ the bee buzzed through his bum speaker.

  It was all going great. That is, until we flew over the beach where Dad used to teach me to surf. The exact same beach where Dad and I had been struck by lightning almost two years ago.

  I touched my silver lightning-streak of hair, feeling weird all of a sudden. Even the doctors couldn’t explain why Dad was killed by the lightning, when all I got was a new hairdo.

  My throat felt kind of tight, and my eyes had started watering. It must have been because we were travelling at MEGASPEEDS. Or maybe the goggles weren’t working.

  It wasn’t because I was crying about Dad. Not. One. Bit. I started to feel sick in the stomach.

  ‘WE NEED TO LAND!’ I yelled at the droid. ‘I’m not feeling well.’

  But the robotic bee kept flying. ‘Estimating 1 minute and 35 secondzzz to arrival,’ he announced.

  Maybe he couldn’t hear me. By now, my goggles were full of salty water. My eyes were stinging. I ripped off the goggles and squeezed my eyes closed.

  ‘Descending towardzzz the back gate of the school now,’ said the robotic bee. ‘Once we land, my electro-mirror camouflage will drop away. I will become visible again.’

  I opened my eyes. Beneath us I could just make out the school.

  My heart skipped. A Porsche was pulling into the back gate.

  Oh, no. It was the twins! They must have gone to the back gate so they could carry in their paintings.

  ‘Don’t land!’ I shouted to the bee.

  But my words were swallowed by the wind.

  This was a disaster. If the twins saw me landing at school on a gigantic robotic killer bee, they’d tell everyone.

  I leant over, trying to spot somewhere else to land, when suddenly I lost my grip.

  I was hanging on by a single gooey eyelid, but the custardy eyeball was just too slippery.

  The funny thing (if there’s anything funny about dying at ten years old) was that even though I was falling at top speed from the back of a giant robotic bee, everything was going in slow-motion.

  I could see Ginger and Nut getting out of the car with their paintings. They were heading through the back gate. I could see kids lining up on the other side of the building. I could see Mr Trunkface unlocking our classroom.

  So not only was I about to die, but I was probably going to be late as well.

  ‘Yahhahahhgagahhahhahahhh!’ I cried, as I plummeted towards breaking every bone in my body.

  ‘Honey-pot safety mechanism activated,’ came the robotic bee’s voice from above me. Suddenly there was a sticky waterfall rushing past me towards the ground.

  ‘Ahhhhhhhh,’ I screamed, as I finally hit the ground.

  I waited for the pain. But it never came. Was I paralysed already?

  It took me a moment to realise I had landed in a giant pool of honey.

  Phewww! Everything was all right.

  Well, not everything. I didn’t seem to be able to move. Not because I was hurt from the fall. Because I was stuck like a fly in a spider’s web.

  But other than that, everything was all right.

  Well, actually, still not everything. Because just then I heard two identical bloodcurdling screams. Next I saw two pairs of identical girls’ shoes.

  ‘What have you done?’ the twins screamed.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, because the back of my head was stuck to the stickiest honey ever and I couldn’t see anything.

  I wriggled my head backwards and forwards until it came loose and I could see what all the fuss was about.

  ‘You’ve ruined our hair!’ Ginger screamed.

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ I said, pleased they weren’t screaming about a gigantic robotic killer bee hovering in the sky.

  ‘And our family portraits!’ Nut screeched, just as loudly as her twin.

  Their hair was drenched in honey.

  I had to admit they looked pretty terrible. And so did their paintings, which were crumpled beside them in a pool of sticky mess.

  At that moment, the robotic killer bee landed silently next to us. ‘Please allow me to clean your hair,’ the bee said.

  For the second time in a minute, Ginger and Nut screamed.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ the droid said. ‘I’m not alwayzzz shaped like a giant killer bee.’

  He was obviously trying to comfort the twins, but he only caused more screaming as he transformed back into his normal droid shape. The girls slowly backed away from us. Then they spun on their heels and ran.

  Before I could even react, the droid’s arm extended like a supersonic fishing rod, snapping up the twins.

  ‘Please allow me to clean your hair,’ the droid said again.

  You’ll never believe what happened next. A pipe extended from the droid’s bum towards the girls. It looked like a giant metal snake!

  Before the girls could scream yet again, the bee began suck-drying the twins’ hair until the honey was all gone.

  You probably haven’t seen an orangutan that’s used fifty cans of hairspray and twenty-four tubes of superglue. Actually, neither have I. But I’m pretty sure that’s what the Ginger Nut twins now looked like!

  The good news was that the girls had finally stopped screaming. They pulled their paintings out of the honey.

  ‘You better hope this wipes off,’ Nut said, rubbing at the sticky front of her canvas.

  Over her shoulder, Ginger said, ‘We’re going to tell Mr Trunkface you were jealous of our paintings so you attacked us with some sort of crazy robotic bee . . .’

  ‘. . . who turned into a crazy sucking robotic man,’ Nut finished spitefully.

  ‘Oh no,’ I groaned.

  There were three MEGA- PROBLEMS here.

  1. I hated to think what Mr Trunkface would do if he thought I’d tried to destroy the twins’ pa
intings.

  2. Now that the loudmouth Ginger Nut twins knew about the droid, everyone in the world would find out.

  3. Which meant Mum was going to DOUBLE-KILL ME . . . DEADER THAN A ZOMBIE.

  ‘Wait! Please!’ I yelled after the twins. ‘Please don’t tell,’ I called. ‘It’s a really, um, sticky situation!’

  ‘Too bad, ,’ one of them yelled back. I think it was Nut.

  ‘Ha,’ laughed the other. I think it was Ginger. ‘Yeah, just because you’ve got a stupid silver streak in your hair doesn’t mean you should mess with our hair. You and your robot are going to get –’

  But that sentence was never finished.

  The droid had transformed back into KILLER BEE mode. He swooped in from above.

  With two quick jabs, he stung the Ginger Nut twins. They flopped to the ground like they had just died.

  ‘They will not wake for 21 minutezzz and 45 secondzzz,’ said the bee.

  ‘Phew!’ I sighed with relief. ‘That’s great.’

  I really didn’t like the twins, but killing them would’ve been taking it too far.

  ‘But it won’t be so great,’ I said, thinking about it some more, ‘when they wake up and tell everyone.’

  ‘The venom blankzzz memoriezzz,’ the bee explained. ‘In this case, they won’t remember ever having seen me.’

  This was back to being great again!

  ‘That will be enough time to update your mother that secrecy has been COMPROMISED,’ the bee said.

  ‘Compromised’ was a big word, but I knew what he meant. I’d failed to keep him a secret.

  ‘But if the twins’ memories of today have been wiped,’ I said, ‘we don’t have to worry!’

  ‘I must still inform your mother,’ the robotic bee buzzed.

  ‘Couldn’t you just break the rules?’ I pleaded. Telling Mum would just get us both into trouble.

  ‘It izzz not possible to break the rulezzz. I am a droid. I must follow my programming.’

  The funny thing was, Mum had always told me that I was programmed to break the rules.

  It was Rule Breaker vs Rule Keeper:

  the ultimate

  showdown!

  There was only one thing for it. I would have to wipe the droid’s memory and return him to his box before Mum got home. And if I was going to do that, I was going to need BIG FAT HELP.

  The only person in the world who could BIG FAT HELP ME now was my best friend Pops. He was SUPER-DUPER smart! The only problem was that he was going to take some convincing, because Pops ALWAYS got grumpy about breaking the rules.

  ‘But I don’t know how to hypnotise a droid,’ Pops said again, when I told him everything that had happened. We were at the back of art class, trying to talk without Mr Trunkface hearing us. The droid had gone home, but he’d be back to pick me up after school.

  I glanced over at Pops’ painting. It was of him and his dad fishing in a cute little tin boat, and he was putting the finishing touches on it.

  I sighed and looked at my white canvas. I had until the final bell to finish my painting. Or rather, start it.

  Worse than that, I only had until Mum got home to clear the droid’s memory.

  I looked over at Pops’ painting again, and thought about what Mum had said earlier.

  ‘Just paint whatever is in your heart.’

  That was the third time in a day that I had felt The Itch. This time it didn’t itch in my stomach. I know it sounds pretty but I swear, it itched at my heart.

  ‘Strike Me Down!’ I said suddenly. ‘Pops, pass me the blue. I know what to paint!’

  ‘Well, you’ve only got fifteen minutes,’ Pops said, sounding worried, like he always did.

  I think that’s why Pops was my best friend. He always worried about me getting into BIG FAT TROUBLE and he always tried to help me get out of it (or at least make it FAT-FREE TROUBLE).

  Basically, there was enough trouble swirling around me that he was never going to be out of a job as my best friend.

  ‘I won’t even need fifteen minutes!’ I cried. ‘It’s the clearest vision I’ve ever had!’

  ‘Here comes Pops said with a gleam in his eyes.

  And that’s when I painted a picture of my dad riding on a cloud surfboard in the sky. Underneath Dad, I drew me and Frenchy on my surfboard in the ocean. On the beach was Mum (still in her lab coat, because that’s how Dad loved her most).

  ‘A masterpiece, Joshie,’ Mr Trunkface said as he walked by my canvas. He looked at one corner. ‘And what’s this? A few brushstrokes for one more person on the beach?’

  I’d thought about including the droid doing something cool on the beach, like building a three-storey sandcastle. But unless Pops could hypnotise him, I’d never see him again anyway.

  ‘Nah, I’m finished,’ I said, smoothing over that section.

  ‘Well done. I think it looks like an eleven out of ten,’ Mr Trunkface said happily.

  ‘Yes!’ I cheered, with a fist pump.

  Turning to the Ginger Nut twins, Mr Trunkface said, ‘See what Joshie’s done? This is what happens when you take care with your art.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Trunkface,’ they said in unison. They both looked really dazed.

  ‘You’re lucky the honey came off your paintings without ruining them,’ he added sternly. ‘But I still don’t understand what happened.’

  ‘We don’t know, Mr Trunkface,’ Ginger said.

  ‘We can’t remember,’ Nut added.

  ‘Phew,’ I whispered to Pops. ‘The robotic bee’s venom really did wipe their memories!’

  ‘You shouldn’t have touched the red button in the first place,’ Pops said, rolling his eyes like he always did when I was up to no good.

  ‘I didn’t,’ I reminded him. ‘Frenchy did. Now, stop grumbling like a grandpa and start thinking about how you can help me wipe the droid’s memory. We’ll have to get home fast after the bell rings.’

  ‘Well, if I’m a grandpa, you must be the brainless grandkid,’ Pops said, but I knew he was just joking. Then his face brightened. ‘I did once hypnotise a chicken,’ he said suddenly. ‘A sick one.’

  That got me excited. ‘Isn’t hypnotising and memory-wiping pretty much the same thing?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Pops said slowly. ‘It’s not quite the same thing. And it might not work.’

  ‘Meet you at the back gate after school? I really need your help. This has to work, Pops,’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, if it works then you’ll be safe. If it doesn’t, you’ll be so it won’t matter.’ Pops grinned like it was the funniest thing ever.

  ‘If I die, I’m going to kill you,’ I told him, and then turned back to my painting.

  ‘You two will be staying after school and writing lines,’ Mr Trunkface was telling Ginger and Nut. ‘Perhaps then you’ll remember to never to come to school looking like trolls again.’

  I felt a little bad because it really wasn’t the twins’ fault that I’d flown to school on a giant robotic killer bee and squirted them with honey and memory-wiping venom

  But just then, the twins looked over. They glared at me like they were the meanest twins in the world. It was like a small part of their brains somehow knew that I was responsible for their wild hair and memory loss. And then I remembered that they always tried to scare Frenchy. And they pulled faces at me when their dad wasn’t looking. And were basically the most annoying twins in the world. So I didn’t feel that bad.

  Yikes, it had been a crazy day so far, and we still had a droid to hypnotise!

  ‘Urgh,’ Pops said, as he clambered off the robotic bee and onto my balcony. ‘I never want to do that again.’

  His hair was all messed up, like the feathers of a pigeon caught in a storm.

  We’d flown home on the back of the robotic bee as soon as the school bell rang, and amazingly, nothing else had happened . . . yet.

  Frenchy was jumping up and down on my leg, but at least he wasn’t stirring up Mr Moustache Man by barking.

&nbs
p; ‘Thanks, er, Droid,’ I said, sliding the balcony door shut. I shot Pops my ‘you’d better be ready to work your genuis’ look.

  Pops and I had a plan to erase the droid’s memory by hypnotising him. Then we could put him back into the box before Mum got home. The hard part would be doing it without the droid knowing what we were up to.

  ‘So, uh, Droid. Is it true that you can become any animal in the world?’ Pops asked.

  ‘I am programmed to shape-shift into approximately 4 billion different shapes.’

  ‘Could you become a chicken?’ Pops asked innocently. ‘Like, now?’

  ‘Initiating Kentucky Unfried Chicken mode,’ said the droid, and began to shape-shift.

  His arms bent at the elbows and transformed into the wings of a chicken. As the wings flapped down and then up, I could see a factory of gears and cogs spinning in his blue joints. Each new click of the cogs made another feather sprout.

  ‘Yes!’ I hissed. ‘Pops, you’re the

  ‘Your mother will be home soon,’ the robotic chicken clucked. ‘I will prepare my update for her now. Please give me 1 minute and 33 seconds to do this. My programs are running slower while in chicken mode.’

  ‘Ummmm, okay,’ I said.

  His eyes glazed over as he went offline. Man, it looked like he was preparing a big update for Mum.

  I was beginning to feel nervous. Time was running out. If Mum found out that I’d disobeyed her by opening the box, AND that her project had been seen by the Ginger Nut twins, it would be the end of my entire world!

  ‘Now what?’ I whispered to Pops.

  ‘Last time, I stroked the chicken’s head,’ Pops whispered back.

  ‘Well, do it now while he’s distracted,’ I said.

  Pops started stroking the robotic chicken, but nothing happened. ‘Then I moved my finger from side to side in front of the chicken’s face, like this,’ he added, moving his finger from left to right (in case that wasn’t obvious).

  After he had been stroking the chicken and waving his hand in front of it for a few minutes, Pops whispered, ‘I don’t think it’s working.’