Robot Warriors Read Free Page A

went over to Emmie. “Don’t look at the bits and try to make something out of them,” he suggested to her. “Come up with a design first, then pick out the bits you need to make it.”
    Emmie looked like a light bulb had suddenly switched on over her head. “Thanks, Kaal!”
    “Of course,” John said, grinning. When you looked at it that way around, it seemed much easier. He scratched his head and focused his mind on a possible design.
    Maybe a huge hand that could crawl about on its fingers and curl into a fist to bash things? But then he realized it would need an arm to do that, and an arm needed a shoulder, and so on. Well, he could always just do a human-shaped robot – but that was too obvious, and Mordant would laugh his tentacles off at John’s lack of imagination.
    He needed to think outside the box , as his dad sometimes said. What about a huge spinning-top-like robot? No – that was too babyish. He might as well put flowers and bunny rabbits on it.
    John doodled on his desk-com screen, wishing an idea would just jump into his head. All around him, students were busily working away. The student on his right was designing a robot like a rugby ball, which could hover on an air cushion and ricochet off the walls. The one on his left was designing a smooth, white android with a dark visor and blades at the end of its arms.
    Now that was a cool robot. John wished he’d thought of it. The designs all seemed quite obvious once he’d seen others come up with them.
    “How on Earth am I supposed to compete with this lot?” John muttered to himself. The other students had all grown up with working robots, reprogrammed robots, built robots of their own. They were as common as household pets everywhere except on primitive Earth, it seemed. The only robot he’d ever built had been made out of yoghurt pots and pipe cleaners, when he was six.
    Master Tronic had said they were allowed to help each other. Now that Kaal had finished his design, maybe he should try to ask him again for help – or Emmie, perhaps. But the more he thought about it, the worse he felt. It wasn’t fair to distract his friends from their own robots, just because he didn’t have a clue.
    Then a thought struck him. Had Master Tronic been looking at him when he said that? Did he expect the primitive Earthling to need help? No. I am going to do this myself , John decided. If the other students could design a robot, then so could he. He just needed an idea. He sat chewing his stylus and thinking hard.
    Ms Skrinel came slithering down between the rows of desks. Her beady eyes were fixed on John. “May I ask why you are just ssssitting there, sssstaring into sssspace?” she demanded. Every “s” sent a spray of goo over his desk-com. “Everyone else is working hard! Sssshow me your design, please.”
    “I haven’t actually come up with one yet,” he admitted, trying to keep his voice down.
    “Then I ssssuggest you get on with it,” she told him frostily. “Although the contesssst is meant to be –” she made a disapproving face at the word – “ fun , it sssstill countssss as part of your technology lessssons! Every student needs to make a robot, John Riley. The Examiners have punishments in sssstore for those who don’t!”
    She slithered away. John took a tissue and carefully wiped the slime off his desk-com. “No pressure, then,” he grumbled to himself.
    John refreshed the screen on his desk-com, determined to make a start. But first, he had another quick look round to see what the other students were doing. Maybe their ideas would spark something in his mind.
    Lishtig ar Steero came out of the Junkyard, wheeling a huge bundle of purple nano-fibres, like fine phosphorescent hair, on a hover-trolley. Matching the colour of his own hair, the purple mass looked like he had sprouted a twin. He sat back down at his desk and began flinging clumps of fibre everywhere. It soon looked like a Lishtig bomb had gone off.
    Kaal’s robotic