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Elementary... School

A Short Story

By Sarah BeckPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
1

Whizzzzz! The orange hover-bus pulls up to the Karpenter household. A small, smiling android girl runs out of the house to meet her older sister who has just stepped off the school bus.

“Hey Georgie,” the older sister runs up to her ecstatic little sister, “Happy Friday! How was preschool?”

“It was ay-ok, Sophie!” she says giddily as she grabs her sister’s pale hand, and drags her into their large android-estate.

The two are greeted by their tall, metallic, robot butler, Quincy, then the sisters run up the hallway.

“Make sure to take off your boots you two!” The butler calls in delight.

Sophie and Georgie stop, turn around, calmly walk back to their well-programmed butler waiting patiently at the door, obediently take their boots off… then race back down the hallway.

“Mommy, Daddy! We’re home!” The girls yell in unison. Two figures come out of the shadows; two semi-elderly figures.

“Grandma, Grandpa!” The girls jump up and down and run into the arms of their companions.

“How are my grandroid-daughters?” The grandmother bends down and places an aged hand on Sophie’s shoulder.

“We’re ay-ok!” Georgie bounces up and down.

“Good,” Grandpa relieves, “so would you be up for some Grillenium Falcon tonight?”

“Yes please!” The girls squeal in delight. Grillenium Falcon was made by the legendary friends, Han Solo and Chewbacca. It had the highest ratings out of every restaurant in the entire galaxy! Sophie had always wanted to go there, but their parents have a strict non-saturated-foods diet for the family to follow.

Georgie, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. she was excited because she just loves food simply because it is food.

The family walks outside. Quincy follows behind them and stops right inside the doorway. The two girls stick their tongues out at Quincy as he glares back as he locks the door behind the family. The sisters don’t like him, even so, he feels the same; due to a past feud, they had had with Quincy, about who should groom the android cat.

The sky is clear. The beautiful purple sky clashes with the radiant orange sun. The grandparents and the two small children eat so much food, their stomachs are so full, they hurt. On the way home, however, the traffic is heavy, due to a hovercraft pileup in route 13, because of a tall robot with two pairs of children’s boots, a sledge hammer, and a steel woven net who was walking in the middle of the road; following two small children and their temporary guardians. The next morning, Sophie gets out of her charging bed, which is her favorite color; brown, and slips on her favorite pair of diamond leggings and her turquoise carbon tee-shirt. The house is dark, and Quincy is nowhere to be seen. She cannot find her boots, so she ties up her speedy sneakers and walks two blocks to her kindergarten class. Once she steps inside the bright pink building, she realizes her class-bots aren’t there. She walks carefully to the teacher’s desk and slides under the desk. Empty.

Sophie begins to panic. “Oh golly geebers,” She says, her hands start to sweat and her face turns bright red as she frantically runs around the abandoned classroom. My classmates aren’t here. They’re all dead somewhere. I need to find them. “I can’t do this on my own,” Sophie thought, “I need to summon the three-year-old sister.” She bolts out of the classroom to go get Georgie.

Though Georgie wasn’t the brightest, Sophie enjoyed bringing her along on her adventures. Sophie strides down Alien Street and makes a sharp left onto Space Voyage Lane, where her house is number 567. She pants up the driveway and knocks on the titanium door. Georgie answers the door and begins to speak, but without explanation, Sophie grabs her hand and together, they run down to the school once more.

Sophie and Georgie stop once they get to the classroom. “All my classmates are gone and so is my teacher and everybody’s gone!” Sophie starts to cry.

“But Sophie, this is silly, its-”

“No Georgie, it’s not silly! I love coming to school and learning all this useless information that nobody even uses in daily life!”

Georgie rolls her light blue manufactured eyes.

“Attitude is not supposed to be a part of our programming,” Sophie warns.

“Sorry, I’m only three… thousand years old; remember?” Georgie argues.

They become silent as they regain composure and continue the investigation.

“I found a shoe!” Sophie holds the tiny, blue kindergartener shoe in the air with pride. Her face suddenly drops. “That’s worth nothing. Thomas always forgets his shoes when he goes home, so it won’t prove anything.” She throws the shoe across the room, hitting the class calendar and knocking it over.

Georgie walks over to the calendar and jumps in shock. “I knew it,” she whispers.

“Aha!” Sophie cries, still looking for clues, “android blood!” A line of scarlet blood trails out into the hallway.

“The calendar, Sophie, look!” Georgie notices.

“No, not right now, Georgie. We need to follow the blood.”

“But-”

“No, Georgie. You need to stop.”

Georgie’s shoulders slump, yet she iteratively follows her sister, though inside, she’s already cracked the case. They wind around the crooked hallways, up and down stairs, in and out of the older android’s classrooms, until the blood trail reaches its end.

“Dead end?” Sophie exhales. “I can’t believe it. I came all this way, and it only led me to the fish tank? This is crazy! I thought I solved the mystery.”

Georgie, ears burning like a tea kettle, stands up. “Why won’t you listen to me?” Georgie yells. “I knew from the very start what happened to your friends, but you won’t listen, so I’m going home.” Georgie whimpers and runs off.

Sophie runs after her. “Stop Georgie, stop!” She cries. How was she going to do this without her most trusted partner? Sophie walks through the dark, empty hallway, back to her classroom. She stops at the Extra-Smart-Board2.1 and stares thoughtlessly at the colorful calendar, which she feels, is the opposite color of her mood.

“Extra-Smart-Board2.1,” Sophie sniffles, trying to wipe away her perfectly distilled, artificial android tears. “What is today’s date?”

“It is Saturday, February the twenty-second, seven thousand and ninety. It is currently 12:05 in the afternoon.” The voice drones on.

Sophie’s face lights up. It’s only Saturday! Oh, golly geebers it’s Saturday! She thinks to herself, as she bounds out the door. Sophie runs down the stairs, and callers her hover-uber driver to take her home. It is a requirement to have cellular devices installed in every breathing android. Sophie thanks the driver and runs to her house, and uses her digital key to unlock the door. It was the butler’s weekly day off.

“Georgie,” she yells, “Georgie?” Sophie runs up the metallic winding staircase to find Georgie sniffling, sitting halfway up the stairs, hugging her stuffed space monkey.

“You were right,” Georgie wipes her runny nose, “you shouldn’t have to listen to me. I’m younger.”

“No.” Sophie counters. “I should’ve listened to you, to begin with instead of shutting you down; metaphorically, of course, I would never shut down your system.”

Georgie giggles a little bit. “I get it.”

“You were right the whole time, Georgie. I wasn’t even supposed to have school today; it’s the weekend.” Sophie laughs. She helps her younger sister up, and the front door creaks open.

“Mommy, Daddy!” they cry in relief as they fly down the stairs to greet their parents.

“Where have you been?” Georgie says, twirling her silver pigtails.

“We went to a place called Earth,” their father explains, “about five thousand years ago, there were creatures named humans who lived there, and we got to see some of them!”

The girls listened admirably as their mother and father spoke about their incredible trip.

“Wait a minute,” The girl’s mother looks around, confused. “Where’s Grandma and Grandpa?”

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