The Robot Accomplice [Storytime Blog Hop]

The Storytime Blog Hop is a quarterly event that provides readers with short fiction by a variety of different authors. There are links to the other participants at the end of this post. I hope to be a regular participant in this event moving forward, and I hope to begin posting here weekly once more.

Now, without further ado, please enjoy “The Robot Accomplice.”

Janie woke up and stretched. The sun was shining in below her curtains, and she could hear sounds of people talking in the back yard.

“Mommy!” she called.

No answer.

“Mommy?”

Nothing.

She stood up and braced her hands on the crib railing. Using her stuffed animals to gain height, she inched her right foot onto the railing and slipped over the top.

Once on the floor, she padded over to the door. It was closed.

She knocked three times. “Pee-vah!” she called.

The door opened and a four-foot tall black and chrome wheeled device rolled into the room. It looked kind of like a domed garbage bin like at the mall, only with long arms that looked like vacuum cleaner hoses and hands that looked like the claw clip Mommy wore in her hair. “Yes, Janie?” asked a metallic monotone.

“Hung-ee!” announced the toddler, running out the open door and down the hall to the kitchen.

Pee-vah followed, its three-fingered hands waving in the air as it went.

“Janie, may I assist?” it asked when it caught up to the child.

Janie looked down from her perch atop the cupboards next to the fridge.

“Mick!” she said, grabbing the fridge door handle and pushing.

Pee-vah took hold of the handle and opened the door once Janie had let go.

Janie scrambled down from the counter. She nearly fell a couple of times, but Pee-vah caught her.

Janie pointed at her red milk cup, set on a shelf just out of her reach. “Mick cup!” she said.

“Cup?” asked Pee-vah. “I do not know what you want.”

“Mick cup, mick cup!” said Janie, pointing at her cup. Finally she stomped her foot and said, “RED cup!”

Pee-vah retrieved the cup for its young charge. Janie turned to the fruit drawer and opened it, grabbing an apple.

“All done!” she announced as she moved away from the fridge. “Cose door!”

Pee-vah closed the drawer and then the fridge, and followed Janie into the living room. Janie set about building some elaborate block towers, so Pee-vah shut down.

After a while, an adult came into the room. “Hi there, Janie!”

“Mommy!” The toddler got up and ran to her mother, who gathered her into her arms.

“How did you get out of your room?” she asked.

Janie pointed. “Pee-vah open a door.”

Mommy looked dubiously at the remote control robot. “And I guess Pee-vah got your milk and an apple, too?”

“Yes!” Janie said gleefully.

“I see. Well, let’s go change your diaper and then we can go find Daddy at the party out back, and I can talk to him about locks and stuff.”

Mommy settled Janie on her hip and turned to walk to Janie’s room.

Janie looked back at Pee-vah. Its operating light blinked on, and it moved one arm to wave at her.

The controls were sitting, unattended, on the kitchen table.

Janie’s behaviour and speech in this story was inspired by my son’s behaviour and speech as a toddler. I just gave her a unique partner in crime.

Want to read other stories in this month’s blog hop? Here they are!