Hello, Bob the Pleo Forum members! I'm back again. Sorry to leave you at such a dark place in our story but that's what I'm good at- writing cliff-hangers. Let's keep going shall we?
The line went dead then. Silence fell around us.
“Oh Rena!” I whispered. “This is like a nightmare. Did my wish get you into this mess?” I thought about it for a while and realized that yes, I did get us both into this mess. “If I hadn’t been so selfish and wanted another keeper, Keeper Talon would’ve never sold me. And if Keeper Talon had never sold me, you wouldn’t have had this huge fight with your parents and they could’ve bought you a bigger Christmas instead of me and… and… Oh I feel horrible! You’d better not die on me. I have to think of something I have to.” My mind was in such a whirl, I didn’t notice the crunch of wheels on the snow and the slamming of two doors. The next thing I knew I was slowly turned vertical as someone gently opened Rena’s jacket. I found myself staring up at Rena’s mother.
“Jim!” She said after feeling her daughter’s neck for something. “She’s alive.” They let me fall as they lifted their daughter into the back of the car. To everyone’s surprise, Rena woke up.
“Mom? Dad?”
“It’s okay, Seri.” Her dad was saying. “We’re here and we’re going to take you to the hospital. You fell into a drift. Are you in any pain?”
“No.” Rena said groggily. “Just cold.” Suddenly she seemed to remember me. “Dad, get Purple. She was in my jacket.”
Outside the car, Rena’s mother turned back and picked me up. My neck flopped uselessly to one side and unpleasant bits rattled around inside my body. “Oh no.” The woman mumbled. She took my chin in her hand and felt along my neck. Some of the plastic vertebrae were broken too and stuck out at odd angles inside my skin.
Her husband gave her a look. “We can buy her another.” He mouthed. “Just bury it in the snow and pretend you didn’t find it.”
I felt the woman’s grip tighten on my chin. “I can’t do that, Jim. What if something’s really wrong with Rena and we don’t see it yet?”
“What does that have to do with throwing away the broken toy?”
“Jim, this toy has sort of become Rena’s pet. It might help her recover faster.”
“And get back on the trails, right? What happened to her being a bully?”
“Jim.” The woman said forcefully. “Not here, not now. I’m bringing the toy with us. Let’s put our grievances aside and help our daughter.”
Soon we were in a very strange building with lots of people running around. I watched everything from the inside of Rena’s mother’s huge purse. I learned my tail was broken too so it made me a lot smaller.
“Your daughter is very lucky.” Said a youngish man in a white coat. “She only has a mild concussion. We’ll keep her for a night of observation and then send her home tomorrow. For now, she’ll be on pain-killers and kept very quiet.”
For a while, both parents were quiet when the man left them to return to Rena’s bedside. Several minutes went by before Rena’s father let out a tense sigh. “Gloria,” He said softly turning to her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for a lot of things- my behavior over the last month, my snappishness, my coldness. I didn’t want to tell you but… but I lost my job to a machine. Rena could’ve had a cat or a dog- a real one and she would learn what really caring for something is like. I didn’t want my daughter’s heart belonging to a machine either. You have to understand that. But then…” He folded and unfolded his hands. “I wasn’t thinking about her heart. I guess if she really likes the toy, then I can overlook it. And more than all that, I miss being… being a family. I miss just being able to hang out and have fun together. Maybe we shouldn’t go through with our separation yet.”
“Wow! Mr. I’m-always-right is conceding defeat.”
“I’m accepting my part of the problem. Both of us have work to do.”
Rena’s mother sighed. “I’ll give you a month, then we’ll see how things are. In the meantime what are we going to do about Purple?”
Rena’s dad shrugged. “We’re going to have to find her a reconstructive surgeon.” He said, a small amount of laughter in his voice. “Boy, Gloria, this is… this is crazy! All this fuss over a toy!” He whispered.
At that moment, Rena’s doctor appeared at Rena’s father’s side. “Mr. Grey, Rena has been babbling to me about some sort of dinosaur-thing. She wants to know if you found…” He stopped short as Mrs. Grey lifted me out and passed me to him. With practiced fingers he ran his hands over me. “Well, it appears she took the brunt of the fall. My son is looking for a robot project to present to his professor. Maybe he can make her some spare parts. I don’t think showing her to Rena like this would be a good idea. I’ll take Ms. Purple home with me and see what Brad can do for her.”
I wasn’t afraid for anyone now as I rode in Doctor Velasquez’s car on the way toward his house early the next morning. Rena’s parents weren’t going to separate and my keeper would be alright. I also had a good feeling about Brad if he was just as gentle and attentive as his father. The man was giggling in a very self-conscious manner as he bundled me protectively into his jacket and hurried past his colleagues before they could ask him about the floppy green tail trailing after him in the breeze.
Before I knew what was happening, I found myself on a Formica table next to a huge serial bowl. “Ummmm… a toy? What’s that?” Asked a young man in his early twenties.
“This isn’t a toy, it’s a robot- at least according to its owner." Rena's Doctor explained. "Listen, Brad it’s supposed to be intelligent and react to its environment. I mean the girl went on and on for hours and fought her meds to tell me about her. It’s like her pet or something. I wondered if you could fix it. It’s not like one of those normal flip-a-switch-and-watch-me-walk kind of toys. I looked them up last night and they’re… well creepy and almost real. It’s almost Christmas and your project isn’t turned in yet, Young Man.”
Brad cleared his throat. “I know I know. I just haven't found anything interesting enough yet.” He finally let his spoon drop with a clatter and examined me closely. He removed my battery and looked into the hole. He felt my body and looked at my camera. “Okay, maybe a highly advanced toy. Still, it might save my grade. I’ll take her to the basement and see what I can do. She’ll lose the normal skin seams though. I’m not that good with a blade.”
His father smiled. “Well, I am.”
Bradley laughed. “But Dad, you need to sleep.”
“We don’t have much time.” Doctor Velasquez pointed out. “Let’s go downstairs and see what we can do.”
Brad sighed. “Okay but don’t get your hopes up. Most of these parts are probably proprietary.”
“But what if you can make her Christmas wish come true and all that?”
“Oh, Dad!” Bradley groaned. “You’re getting way too involved. Come on then. Let’s plan for an epic fail.”
In the basement, I was amazed to see lots of half-completed robots in their own special cubicles- parts scattered around them. A shiver sparked down my broken back. Would I end up like them? I was taken to a metal table under a vast array of bright lights. A huge jumble of tools spilled out of a silver box at the other end. “Okay, Doctor Velasquez. Do your stuff. I’m going online for a tear-down guide.”
To be continued.
