The next morning, I waited in the lobby for Ben-o to come down for school.
"Want me to buzz him-your boyfriend?" asked Sal.
"No, thank you," I said curtly. "And he's not my boyfriend." I rolled my eyes as Sal snickered. Was everyone in my business now?
Luckily I heard the sound of Ben-o's door slamming and then his feet shuffling down the stairs. His family lives on the first floor, which for some reason is on the second floor. Ben-o's dad is the building manager. The last manager didn't have any kids, or a wife, so their apartment is really small for four people-Ben-o, his mom and dad, and now the baby, Nina. The board had been trying for years to upgrade them to a bigger apartment, like old Mrs. Donovan's, next door to me. Our rooms would be literally next to each other. When we were like six, we used to fantasize about his family living there and getting our parents to combine our two apartments into one big one. At the time, we couldn't understand why they were against it. Mrs. D really belonged in an old people's home by now, but she'll never move, because her apartment is rent-controlled.
Ben-o skipped the last four steps, sliding down the railing instead. He had his skateboard tucked under his arm.
"I asked you not to do that, young man," Sal scolded him, even though his eyes were still smiling.
"You asked me not to do it skating," Ben-o reminded him. "This time I used my butt."
Sal shook his head. He held the door wide and escorted us through with a flourish. "Mademoiselle, Monsieur, après vous."
"Merci, Monsieur Sal!" Ben-o said with an exaggerated bow. I rolled my eyes again. One year of middle school French and he thought he was the king of France.
"De rien," said Sal. "à tout à l'heure, Mademoiselle Tara."
"I take Spanish," I said.
When we got outside, I asked Ben-o, "Why do you have your board today? Don't tell me you forgot." Meaning: It was Wednesday. And Wednesday, after school, was Robotics Club.
"I didn't forget," Ben-o said, taking off with a running start. After a minute he came back, gliding to a stop next to me. "Listen, do you mind catching up later? I want to try a couple of moves before school."
Since the weekend, he'd been acting so weird and-unfriendly. Except for giving me the datebook on Monday, which was weird in itself. I felt the way I sometimes feel after a fight with Rebecca. Only that had never happened with Ben-o before. And I had no idea what I had done or when.
"Whatever," I said.
"Cool," said Ben-o, missing the sarcasm. "See you in science."
"See you in science," I told his backside.
***
"Show of hands, who's coming to Robotics Club this afternoon?" Mr. H asked in science class, the period before lunch. Ben-o and I raised our hands, and so did Ryan Berger and Adam Greenspan. What? I tried to catch Ben-o's eye, but he was busy glowering at Ryan Berger.
It turned out Ryan and Adam each had to pick an academic club to avoid suspension for what had happened on the first day of school, and they both picked Robotics. How was that allowed? It seemed like Ryan was suddenly everywhere I turned.
"I can't believe it," I kept saying to Ben-o at lunchtime.
"I can," he replied.
"What do you mean?"
"You. Berger. Do the math."
"Eww!" I said, faking an arm punch. "Gross."
Rebecca had her nose in her math notebook, looking up once in a while to compare notes with Sheila Rosenberg. She happened to look up when I was fake-punching Ben-o, and she looked ready to spring into action again.
"Take it easy, Rebecca!" I said. "I'm not hitting anyone."
She pursed her lips and reburied her head in her notebook while simultaneously shoveling down a big pile of tofu scramble. She's terrified of failing math.
"Berger definitely has a thing for you," Ben-o continued.
"Shut up," I said. "He does not."
"According to Adam he does." He shrugged and took an enormous bite of his sandwich.
If Ryan Berger had a "thing" for me, he had a funny way of showing it. Not that the thought had ever crossed my mind.
"At least we're partners," I said aloud.
"Hmm?" said Ben-o.
"Oh-for Robotics, I mean. You and me."
Ben-o nodded and gave a thumbs-up. His mouth was still full of sandwich-ham and provolone. Same as every Wednesday.
"We have a pretty good chance of getting to the finals this year. Not that we have too much competition," I said, glaring at the back of Ryan Berger's head.
Ben-o swallowed and scowled. "Stop obsessing over Berger."
"I'm not obsessing. And you're wrong. He's not into me. Not like it would even matter if he was. I'm not into him."
"Mmm-hmm," said Ben-o.
If anyone was obsessing, it was Ben-o.
***
After school, at the club meeting, Mr. H was bouncing on his heels. He couldn't wait to tell us about this year's project. Ben-o and I grabbed our worktable from last year, the one by the window, before anyone else could get it. There were twelve members this year-three more than last year. There were six old-timers, including me and Ben-o. Then there was Ryan and Adam, of course, and a crop of new sixth-graders.
"Ladies and gents," said Mr. H, snapping up the projector screen to reveal the secret written on the board, "start your engines!"
We old-timers let out a cheer. On the board were the two words we'd all been hoping for: RACE CARS!
"And where there are race cars, there's an…?"
"OBSTACLE COURSE," we all yelled.
Ben-o and I did a high-five. Instantly, we put our heads together and started whispering excitedly.
Mr. H cleared his throat. "Before we begin," he said, "Feinstein, O'Connell, may I have a word with you outside?" He called all his favorites by our last names. I assumed he wanted to give us a pep talk, some words of wisdom about the district finals. We followed him into the hallway.
"I'm afraid I have some news for the two of you," he said once the door closed. I smiled, not imagining what he was going to say next. "I'd like you two to split up this year."
"What?" I cried.
"You two are my best. It would be unfair to team you up against the other kids. I thought you could each mentor a new club member."
"Like who?" said Ben-o warily.
"Feinstein, I thought you could work with Ryan," Mr. H said, turning to me.
"Seriously?"
"I'm afraid so, Feinstein."
"He doesn't know the first thing about robots," I complained.
"Precisely where you come in. O'Connell, likewise, I want you to work with Adam."
Talk about unfair advantages. Adam's actually got half a brain, whereas Ryan Berger is a total zero.
I could tell Ben-o didn't like it any better than I did, but he didn't say anything to Mr. H. He just shrugged. When we went back into the lab, he started gathering up his stuff from our worktable.
"Where are you going?" I asked. "This table's big enough for four." I really didn't want to be stranded with Ryan Berger.
"You and your new partner can have this table," he said. "Adam and I will be over there." He caught Adam's eye and chin-pointed to the table in the opposite corner. Adam nodded and walked over.
"Don't be mad," I said. "This isn't my fault."
Ben-o shrugged and slouched away.
"Berger, over here, please," said Mr. H, thumping his hand on my table.
Mr. H distributed a couple of handouts and gave a quick overview of the robotic parts available for our use. I tuned out when he started going over the sign-out process for borrowing electronic equipment, which I knew already.
I'd had a basic concept in mind, since watching the eighth-grade regionals last year, of what I would build if we ever got this project. But it was going to be hard without Ben-o. His design skills were the best, while I was better at actually building things. We needed each other.
Like the robot arm we made for our sixth-grade science fair-it was his idea, mainly. But it was my idea to modify his mom's Roomba vacuum cleaner instead of starting from scratch like he wanted to. That was the only reason we got it done in time. We're a great team like that.
We'd really wanted to get the RoboChat app-which lets you control the Roomba with text messages-and hack in some homegrown voice activation using open-source speech recognition. Only we didn't have enough money for the wireless device it needed, so we scrapped that idea and made our own remote control, which was just okay. We rigged the arm using Ben-o's Erector Set, a bike chain, a sponge gripper, and a couple of micro servomotors we lifted from Mr. H's supply cabinet. It was kind of like the carnival game where you try to win a prize by lowering a motorized claw into a pile of cheap stuffed animals-only, those claws are designed to fail, while ours actually sort of worked. It could pick up objects of different sizes and weights without dropping or crushing them… most of the time. It worked great with an empty soda can, a tennis ball, and assorted stuffed animals. Really small things like pencils didn't work. Or heavy things, like a two-liter bottle of soda. We had to adjust the tension like six times before it could pick up a balloon without popping it. There was also a mishap with a full jar of spaghetti sauce, but we didn't mention that in our data.
We won second place in the whole science fair, ahead of the seventh- and eighth-graders. The perfect team. Which was why I had been counting on us being partners again.
***
Totally ignoring Ryan, I walked to the supply cabinet and grabbed two large sheets of graph paper and a mechanical pencil. When I got back to our table, I stared at the blank paper for a long moment, then closed my eyes and breathed in, summoning what little drawing talent I had. That was another thing Ben-o was really great at. Me? Not so much.
While I worked on my sketch, using more eraser than pencil, Ryan entertained himself by doing this stiff-jointed walk and saying "Take me to your leader," as if he thought robots were some kind of zombie alien predators. I imagined how disappointed he was going to be when he figured out this was a science club, and not even one where he got to blow things up.
He was being totally annoying, but he knew better than to do anything that might actually get him kicked out of the club or he would be suspended for real, maybe even expelled. Now, there's an idea, I thought.
After a while, he dropped the zombie routine and wandered over. "Whatcha doing?"
I crumpled up the paper and threw it away in frustration.
"Come on," he said. He retrieved the paper from the floor and smoothed it out on our worktable. "Show me."
"Okay." I sighed. "I saw this cool thing at regionals last year, but I don't know how to draw it."
Ryan took up the pencil. "I'm listening."
"Well," I said, "it should be low to the ground, like a Lamborghini, but narrower, and with really big wheels in the back. Also kind of pointy in the front, like an airplane."
Ryan drew a pretty decent race car, except he added a sort of tail-fin-looking thing. I almost felt bad telling him that wasn't going to work.
"Like this?" he said.
"Even bigger wheels. But here's the thing-there are definitely going to be some deep curves on the obstacle course, so I want to put in a split torso-approximately here."
"A what?"
"That way, even if the back end flips over a hundred eighty degrees, it'll still land on its wheels and keep driving. But that means no tail fin, okay? No offense."
It didn't matter, though, because Ryan had already reached the limits of his technical comprehension, as well as his attention span. He tossed the pencil in the air a few times and didn't even bother to pick it up off the floor when it fell. He pushed the paper away to rest his head on the table.
I picked up the pencil and got back to work on the drawing, erasing the tail fin and enlarging the wheels. Then Ryan seemed to think of something. He sat up and pulled the drawing back toward him, making me draw a jagged line across the page.
"Hey, look what you did!"
He knit his eyebrows together and scratched his head. "Umm… I have a question."
"What?"
"Where's the robot?"
"You're kidding, right?" He wasn't kidding. "The car is the robot." I wanted to add, Duh, but instead I said, "Obviously."
Ryan bit his lip in concentration. "Wait, then-who's driving?"
"Never mind," I said. "Go back to robot-walking." That would at least get him out of my hair.
I really wanted to brainstorm with Ben-o. When I looked over at their table, he and Adam were already building something out of cardboard. I grabbed the smudged and wrinkled drawing and wandered over.
"What are you guys doing?" I asked, standing on tiptoe to see over the top.
"Securing the perimeter-" said Adam.
"Building a wall," said Ben-o, sounding almost apologetic.
Was he really saying…?
"-so no one can spy on us," Adam finished.
I stared at Ben-o as the insult began to sink in.
"You think I'd copy you guys?" I sputtered. "Please!" I mean, I'd never had to compete against Ben-o before, and I really didn't want to go up against him in the finals, but this was insane. Assuming both our teams made it that far-a big if, with Ryan dragging me down.
For a brief moment, I thought about quitting. But I'd been looking forward to Robotics all summer, and I wasn't going to let anyone mess it up for me. Not Ryan, not Adam, not even Ben-o.
"I already have my design figured out," I lied, waving the crumpled paper. "Bet you don't."
"Want me to look at it?" asked Ben-o hopefully. Adam winked and nudged him, as if they were putting one over on me. Ben-o looked uncomfortable.
"No," I said. "Forget it. Wouldn't want to give away any trade secrets."
I clomped back to my table, where Ryan was swinging a rotary belt at a row of nine-volt batteries. I glanced around the room. Ben-o and Adam were busy with duct tape and cardboard. Joe was showing a sixth-grader the supply closet. At the table next to mine, Deshaun and Marina were absorbed in a heated discussion about torque conversion. Trying to imagine me and Ryan having that same conversation made me snort-laugh.
"What?" said Ryan.
"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. "Look, no offense, Ryan, but-why didn't you just join the drama club or something?"
"I dunno," he said, scratching his head. "This sounded more interesting."
"Time," Mr. H called out. "Everyone please start packing up. If you're going to sign something out, do it now. Or put it back where you found it, please."
Ryan whooped and headed for the door.
"Hey! Aren't you forgetting something?" I yelled after him. Ryan stopped and turned around, clearly bewildered. "Um, the batteries? The rotary belt? Could you put them back?"
He just laughed and kept going. What a jerk! I gathered up his mess and put everything back in the closet.
"How'd it go today?" Mr. H asked.
"It was fine," I lied. I didn't have the energy to complain about Ryan Berger. I could see him out in the hallway with Ben-o and Adam. I brushed past all of them without stopping. I was going to walk home by myself, to teach Ben-o a lesson. I was halfway down the block when I heard him calling my name.
"Tara, wait up!"
I stopped, but I didn't turn around. Ben-o pulled up next to me on his skateboard.
"The wall was Adam's idea," he said breathlessly. "I just thought it was funny. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"You didn't."
"How was working with Berger?" He snickered.
"Now who's obsessing?" I demanded crossly.
Ben-o stiffened. "Just asking."
"Turns out, Ryan's really great at drawing-almost as good as you," I said. "I think we're gonna make it to the finals, no problem."
Ben-o's face clouded, but then he tried to make light of it. "That's lucky," he joked. "You can't draw to save your life." Which was a little too true to be funny.
"I have to go," I said. "Study date at Rebecca's."
Ben-o perked up. "For Social Studies? Mind if I join you? I didn't understand that Middle East geography thing at all."
"No, er-Honors English. I heard there's going to be a pop quiz tomorrow."
It was stupid to lie, but I just wanted to get away from him for a while, to punish him for whatever it was he was mad at me for. Which meant I had to walk the long way home; otherwise, he would know I was lying. I cursed myself silently as I left him at Eighty-Seventh Street and pretended to walk to Rebecca's. I just wanted to go home.