Excerpt from A CRAZY CASE OF ROBOTS
by Kenneth Oppel
Illustrated by Sam Sisco
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"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," Tina proclaimed, "this is the Tinatron 1000!"
Giles took a few steps closer for a better look.
The robot was roughly the same size as Tina. Gauges and switches covered its boxy metal chest. Two spindly metal arms jutted from its sides, each with a rubber-glove hand at the end. Tinatron's head was long and rectangular, with what looked like a flashlight and a camera lens for eyes, and for a mouth, the speaker of a portable CD player.
Two thick silver cables connected the robot's head to the top of its chest. Giles didn't know what its legs looked like, because they were hidden beneath a kind of metal skirt that extended almost to the floor. Poking out from the bottom was a pair of mismatched running shoes.
"Hey!" said Kevin, pointing at the robot's head. "That's my camera!"
"As a matter of fact, is it," said Tina. "It ws perfect for my purposes."
"And that's my CD players, too!" Kevin exclaimed.
"Kevin, please," said Tina. "You're making a scene."
"You could have asked! I've been looking for that stuff!"
"You should be delighted that I've been able to make use of it in such a remarkable invention."
"But why does it always have to be my stuff?" Kevin wanted to know.
Tina pretended not to hear.
"Where did you get all the other parts?" asked Giles.
"The metal salvage yard down by the river. There's a wealth of raw material there."
Giles imagined Tina, skulking around with a flashlight at night like a grave robber, pocketing automobile parts and bits of gutted TV's.
"Does it talk?" someone in the audience wanted to know.
Tina smiled indulgently and turned to the robot.
"Introduce yourself." Tina said to it.
"Good morning," said the robot in a strange, metallive voice. "I am Tinatron 1000, created by Tina Quark. I am a high-performance, low-maintenance, super-efficient, multi-purpose, hyper-intelligent robot. I am programmed to perform any task without error."
From A Crazy Case of Robots. Copyright © 1994, 2001 by Kenneth Oppel.
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