Unidentified Funny Objects 2 Read Free Page A

ruined a lantern, he would have to start over and make me a new one. I felt so bad about making him do extra work that I practiced a lot and got really good. And then I enjoyed making the lanterns with him every year.”
    Rebecca liked that story.
    “Can you help me with the golem?” She asked.
    She showed him what the letters had to look like. He held her hand and, together, they made the letters on the forehead of the golem.
    The two stepped back to admire their work. It wouldn’t win any awards. But it was functional.
    “Thank you,” Rebecca said. “Dad, can we get ice cream another time? Right now, God has more things for me to do.”
    When David was little, he had thought he could fly. In comparison, Rebecca’s belief that she was working for God seemed far more reasonable.
    “Good luck,” he said.
    AFTER DAVID LEFT, Rebecca asked God, “Why isn’t it moving?”
    “Give it a minute. It’s still getting its bearings.”
    The golem sat up, rubbed its eyes, and stood unsteadily on its feet.
    “It worked!”
    “Now the really hard part begins,” God said. “Golems are strong but extremely stupid and literal-minded. You have to give this one very precise instructions to get it to catch all the rats.”
    Rebecca brought the golem to a little-trafficked corner of the ship. She knelt down and loosened the screws securing the grille over a wall vent. Then she opened the grille and pushed the golem inside the ventilation duct.
    “I command you to go catch a rat.”
    The golem stumbled around, looked left and then right, and went down the right side. Gradually, echoes of the golem’s footsteps faded.
    Rebecca waited.
    Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed.
    “You never told it to come back,” God said. “Remember: very literal-minded.”
    Rebecca leaned into the vent and shouted, “Come back.”
    After a moment, she stuck her head back into the vent: “With the rat!”
    “Now you’re learning,” God said.
    Within a minute, pattering footsteps approached the vent, along with loud squeaks.
    The golem appeared dragging a struggling white rat by its tail. The rat tried to dig its claws into the sides of the duct but could get no purchase against the smooth metal surfaces.
    Rebecca clapped. She directed the golem to deposit the rat inside a shoebox, which she carried back to her cabin. She released the rat in the dry bathtub, a temporary holding cell.
    “One down, a hundred forty-nine to go,” God said.
    THE NEXT EXCURSION DIDN’T go so well. The golem came back to the vent dragging another squealing rat. But five more rats followed the golem. As soon as they were sure that Rebecca could see the golem, the rats attacked together.
    They jumped onto the golem, bit through its arms to free their companion, and then turned together to face Rebecca and bared their teeth, grinning. She thought one of them even licked its teeth and smacked its lips. Then they ran away, leaving the broken golem behind.
    Rebecca crawled in and dragged the writhing pieces of the golem out. Luckily, mud arms were easy to reattach to mud shoulders, and the golem was soon as good as new.
    “What’s in the mud?” God asked.
    Rebecca smelled the newly repaired golem. “Jujube, apples, grapes… and honey, I think.”
    “ Aiya . That explains the problem. When I told you to get mud, did you think I meant ‘sweet mud?’”
    “Now you sound like my mom. ‘Go get mud! Go get mud!’ You didn’t say anything about what had to be in the mud.”
    “Are you a mindless golem? Do I have to specify everything? God’s servants show initiative!”
    “I did the best I could. Seems to me that the flaw was the lack of detailed instructions.”
    “Again with the blame.”



“Wait a minute,” God said. “What’re you sprinkling on it?”
    “MSG.”
    “No. No no no no! I told you to use salt.”
    “But MSG is better. With this much MSG, even a rat would think twice about eating the golem.”
    “You think rats care about the health effects