Return of the Homework Machine (4 page)

It was exciting. We hiked down until we found the spot where the homework machine landed. We spent about an hour down there, searching on our hands and knees. But we never found the stupid light, or the stupid chip.

December

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

Of course they couldn't find the chip. I had it. As soon as I heard on the news that they catapulted their homework machine into the canyon, I hiked down there to see if I could find it. The police had cleaned up most of the mess, but there were still some pieces scattered around the rocks. When I saw that little red light blinking, I had a hunch that I hit the jackpot.

I knew there had to be something special about that computer. You can't take just any old PC and program it to do homework. Even Brenton isn't
that
smart. The computer had to have some kind of special chip inside it, a superchip.

Everybody thinks I'm dumb because I don't do good in school. But I know how to build a
computer. I built one from a kit when I was nine, and I built one from scratch last year. When I found their chip, I knew I could use it to build my
own
homework machine. And I wasn't gonna share it with anybody.

BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6

Ronnie and I were in a computer class together back when we were in third grade. It was one of those after-school programs. He had a knack for rewiring circuit boards. I thought that we might become friends because we had this common interest. But we didn't get along, so I stayed away from him.

JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6

Brenton was really miserable when we couldn't find the little red light. We didn't know what to do to cheer him up.

BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6

Milner's e-mails were getting weirder. He started ranting about how technology can be used for both good and bad purposes. Like the invention of the airplane, for instance. It can be used to
airlift medical supplies to victims of an earthquake. But it can also be used to drop an atomic bomb. He was right, of course, but I was starting to think Milner was crazy. He always ended his e-mails with the words, “Did you find the chip yet?”

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

I knew what would get Brenton's mind off that stupid blinking red light—shooting up a cool rocket! So I went online and ordered the Estes CC Express. It's a Level 2 rocket, and we had to spend a long time putting it together. But this thing could
fly
—1,790 feet. That's because it's a two-stage rocket, with two D engines. It is a beautiful thing. Two feet high. Red with a black tip. We shot that baby up after school one day, and it looked like it was never coming down. I thought it might leave the Earth's atmosphere. Mr. Murphy even came out to see the launch.

MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER

I was impressed. The boys had done an excellent job putting together the rocket. It wasn't one of these quickie cut-and-paste jobs, like I have seen some kids build. They were very careful to
cut, sand, and attach the fins so the rocket would fly straight. They really got the maximum height out of it. I told them I was proud of them.

BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6

I did some research and discovered that by adding a few chemicals, I could double the power of the engines and double the maximum height of the rocket. Mr. Murphy helped me.

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

Mr. Murphy told us we better watch out, because rocket people are a lot like boat people. He said that people who are into boats usually start out with a little dinghy not much bigger than a rowboat. And then, right away, they want a bigger one with a stronger engine so they can go faster and farther. Soon, they outgrow that and they start looking around for something bigger. Once they buy
that
boat, it starts looking small and they want a
bigger
one. And the next thing they know, they're sinking their whole life savings into a yacht or whatever. I told Mr. Murphy he was nuts. We were just having some fun with rockets.

JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6

We started doing heavy math stuff with decimals and fractions this year. Up until now, math came really easy to me. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division gave me no problems at all. But when you have to divide something like 54.369 by 1.731 or convert decimals into fractions, that's hard! I really wished I had the homework machine sometimes to help me.

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

So I took Brenton's superchip and cleaned it off really good. It still had the wire attached to that little red light, so I had to be careful with it. The chip had a standard input. I opened my computer up and installed the chip into one of the open slots.

Building my own homework machine wasn't as hard as I thought it was gonna be. I had to buy a scanner because my printer can't do that. But once I had them both hooked up, it was easy to train the computer to recognize my handwriting and voice. I programmed the computer to search the Internet for just about anything. With all that in place, it was simple to slip a worksheet into the
scanner, tell the computer to read the questions, go online to find the answers, and print them out in my handwriting. Brenton isn't the only smart kid in the world.

MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER

I had been warned about Ronnie. The reports on him said he was a troublemaker. I remember when I walked into the class on the first day of school, all the other kids were sitting very politely, with their hands folded. But Ronnie was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk. It wasn't a big deal, but it showed disrespect. He was sending me a signal that he wouldn't meekly submit to a teacher's authority.

I must admit that I was a little surprised in December when his homework grades shot up to As. I didn't think much of it at the time. It never occurred to me that he might be cheating. I just thought he had turned over a new leaf. I believe all kids are good deep down inside.

JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6

Mr. Murphy handed back our homework one day. I only got a 96 because I wrote that John
Glenn was the first American in space, but actually it was Alan Shepard. A careless mistake, but it was still an A.

Anyway, Ronnie was sitting next to me. Usually I didn't pay attention to him because I thought he was just a mean boy who was surely going to end up in jail someday. But I happened to glance to my right just as Mr. Murphy handed Ronnie his paper and I saw that he got 100. My eyes must have bugged out or something, because Ronnie smirked at me and made some remark about getting a higher grade than I did.

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

Ha! Once I had a homework machine of my own, I didn't have to waste my nights doing that crap anymore. I could kick back, watch TV, and play
Grand Theft Auto
all night. It was great.

But the best part about finding that chip was being able to stick it to the smart kids. Judy and Brenton and some of the others thought they were so great because they like school and the teachers all think they're so perfect. I wish I had a picture of Judy's face when she saw that I got a better mark on my homework than she did.

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

I was suspicious of Ronnie right away. There's no way a pre–juvenile delinquent like him is gonna go from Ds to As just like that. Brenton and I talked it over. It was Brenton who said that maybe the reason we couldn't find the chip was because Ronnie got to it first, and he used it to build his own homework machine. I didn't believe it at the time.

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

The more I worked with the superchip, the more I could see how powerful it was. I mean, the thing wasn't just
fast
, it could
think
like a person. It had artificial intelligence. If somebody wanted to, they could use it to hack into government databases. They could steal Social Security numbers or credit card numbers. Transfer money without people knowing it. It could bring down the Internet. Not that I would ever do any of that stuff, of course. But I could if I wanted to.

Homework? Who cared about homework? That was the least of it. I could use the chip to do just about anything I wanted and nobody would ever know. I figured it was gonna be a great new year.

KELSEY DONNELLY. GRADE 6

We had a little Christmas party in our class. Mr. Murphy was telling stories about his years in the space program. At some point, Brenton and Snik went off in the corner, whispering to each other. It wasn't like Snik. He's usually the life of the party, cracking jokes and everything. Judy and I went over to see what was up. Snik just looked at us and said, “We think Ronnie found the little red light.” And Brenton said, “We've got to get it back.”

January

BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6

Over the holidays, I almost stopped checking my e-mail. I dreaded hearing from Milner again. The only good thing, I remember telling myself, was that if Milner kept bothering me, he didn't know where the chip was. If Ronnie had the chip and he teamed up with Milner, there was no telling what they might do with it.

JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6

When we returned from vacation, Mr. Murphy asked us to write about our favorite gift we got or gave. Mine was a piano! We got it for the whole family. It was used, but it sounds great. I'm going to take piano lessons soon.

KELSEY DONNELLY. GRADE 6

I got a worm composting bin. It is real cool. They give you a pound of red earthworms with it. Then you just throw your food scraps in and the worms eat it and turn it into rich organic compost that you can use in your garden or with your plants. So there's less garbage going into landfills and you become a part of the circle of life.

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

I got this rocket called “Eggscaliber.” This is the coolest rocket ever. You can actually mount an egg on the nose cone and shoot it 610 feet up in the air! I really don't know why anybody would want to shoot an egg 610 feet in the air. But it is cool. They call the egg an “eggstronaut.”

BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6

We don't exchange gifts in our family. It should not be necessary to give someone a material object to show that you care for them.

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

I got a handheld GPS. You know, one of those global positioning systems? It's sort of like the nav
igation systems you see in cars, but this one is for hikers. Mine is about the size of a walkie-talkie, and it is amazing. It can pinpoint your exact location anywhere on earth, give or take twenty feet. You can't get lost. You see yourself as a little blip like on a radar screen and you can zoom in on any part of the country. It also works as a barometric altimeter, an electronic compass, and you can download topo maps. It's waterproof, too. The thing is amazing.

MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER

Over the holidays, I finally had some time to sit down and read over that old
Phoenix Gazette
article Judy showed me back in November. Apparently, the Smithsonian Institute sent a man named G. E. Kinkaid to explore the Grand Canyon in 1908. He reported that he discovered a mile-long cavern far below the rim. It had tunnels radiating out like the spokes of a wheel, with hundreds of rooms inside.

The article went on to say that Kinkaid found all kinds of artifacts in those tunnels. Swords. Copper tools. Tiny carved heads. Water vessels made from gold. Cave paintings of animals drawn with charcoal. He found a large statue, an idol,
sitting cross-legged, with a flower in each hand. The face was Asian. Like a Buddha. These people obviously reached a high stage of civilization.

And here's the most interesting part. Along with all that other stuff, G. E. Kinkaid found a crypt with mummies, and it was surrounded by stone tablets with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics written on them.

So my natural question was, what the heck were ancient Egyptians doing in the Grand Canyon long before Columbus? How did they get there? And what happened to all that stuff that was found? Where is it today? Who's got it? Where can I go to see it?

I'll tell you, this article really got my juices flowing. It was hard to sleep that night knowing I was just a few miles away from what could be the most important archeological discovery in American history. I got up and looked through all my American history books. There wasn't a single word about any treasures hidden inside the Grand Canyon. Where were they?

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

Brenton and I decided that Ronnie couldn't be
trusted with that computer chip. We had to get it back. Who knew what he might be capable of doing with it? One of us was going to have to break into his house and take it. There was no other way.

JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6

I want it on the record that I was completely against the idea of breaking into Ronnie's house to steal the chip. There were so many reasons….

1. We would probably get caught.
   
2. We would get into serious trouble.
   
3. We could get killed. What if Ronnie's mom had a gun or a vicious guard dog or something?
   
4. It would be on our permanent records. The other kids don't think about this stuff, but if you break the law, it ends up in some database somewhere. It will follow you for the rest of your life. It might prevent you from getting into law school, or getting a job twenty years from now. Why risk it?
   
5. It was simply wrong! You don't go breaking into other people's houses.
   

KELSEY DONNELLY. GRADE 6

We can't get in trouble if we're honest here, right? Well, then, I must admit, I thought the idea of breaking into Ronnie's house and stealing the chip sounded exciting. Nothing exciting ever happens around here.

BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6

Judy has a very black-and-white view of the world, and I don't mean race. To her, everything is either right or wrong, good or bad. But sometimes there's a gray area. In certain situations, breaking the law is the morally correct thing to do. Like, if the American colonists had not rebelled against the British and overthrown their government, there would be no United States today.

With that chip, Ronnie was capable of doing just about anything. So breaking into his house to take the chip and prevent him from using it for criminal activities was the morally correct thing to do. I thought so, anyway.

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

We were having a tough time convincing Judy that breaking into Ronnie Teotwawki's house was
the right thing to do. Brenton was doodling on a pad of paper, and suddenly he says, “You know, I always thought Teotwawki was a Japanese name. But it's not. I think I just figured out what it means.”

KELSEY DONNELLY. GRADE 6

We all gathered around to look at Brenton's pad. He held it up, and this is what it said:

T
he

E
nd

O
f

T
he

W
orld

A
s

W
e

K
now

I
t

JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6

I said, “We must get that chip.”

MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER

After reading that article, I started becoming obsessed with the treasures of the Grand Canyon. The
Phoenix Gazette
never ran a follow-up article
about that explorer Kinkaid. I couldn't find a word about him anywhere else. What happened to him? How could a story that big end there?

At first I thought that maybe it was just a newspaper hoax. But they ran it on the front page! Kinkaid was hired by the Smithsonian Institute! And the story was so long and detailed. It didn't seem likely that somebody would have just made it up.

It occurred to me that maybe somebody didn't want the general public to know about this discovery. I mean, when I was a kid they taught us that North America was settled by ice age explorers who came across the Bering Strait from Asia. They became the native Americans. Nobody crossed the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans to get here in ancient times. That's what all the scientists believed. That's what they told us in school.

But what if that was all wrong? What if the ancient Egyptians found a way to get here and they settled in the Grand Canyon? Maybe the scientific community would rather not admit they had it all wrong. Maybe it was a big cover-up.

I started thinking that I should go see if I could find the location of the caverns myself.

KELSEY DONNELLY. GRADE 6

We played “Rock Paper Scissors” to decide which one of us would break into Ronnie's house to steal the chip. Judy lost. So naturally, she started in whining and saying she couldn't do it. Hey, I didn't blame her. I wouldn't have been able to do it either. In the end, we all agreed that Snik was the only one who had the nerve to break into somebody's house. But the three of us agreed beforehand that if he got caught, we would all say we were in on it. It wouldn't be fair for Snik to take the blame.

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

Ronnie's parents work during the day, and I knew that Ronnie belongs to some geeky computer club that meets after school on Wednesdays. So that seemed like a good time.

We all rode over to Ronnie's and parked our bikes a block away. I snuck over to the house and rang the bell. Nobody answered. I tested the doors. They were all locked, but there was a window in the back that opened.

The only problem was, the instant I lifted it up, all these bells started ringing and a dog
started barking. I slammed the window down and ran out of there. I didn't stop running until I was on my bike and heading home. I don't think anybody saw us.

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

As soon as I put the chip inside my computer, it was obvious that it was super powerful. You know how cell phones have a clock in them, and they're always right, even if you change time zones? Well, for the heck of it, I used my computer to change the time to one minute later. Then I changed it right back. If I wanted to, I could change the time on every cell phone in America. That was how powerful this thing was. I mean, it wasn't just super fast at crunching numbers. It could
think
. If you told it to do something and it couldn't do it, the chip would try something
else
. It was like a human brain doing problem-solving. It could learn. The possibilities were unlimited.

SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6

I had no choice. We had to get that computer chip back from Ronnie. I walked up to him after
school one day and just demanded that he give it to me. I told him I would beat him up unless he gave it to me. It was all bluff, you know? I wasn't about to fight Ronnie. But I didn't know what else to do.

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

I figured it was probably Snik who set off the alarm at my house. When he told me he wanted the chip back, I pretended like I didn't know what he was talking about. To tell you the truth, I thought those guys had a lot of nerve, chucking their homework machine into the Grand Canyon and expecting me to just hand the chip over to them. If they wanted it so badly, they shouldn't have thrown it away in the first place. That's what I should have told him. When Snik threatened to beat me up, I told him to lay off or I'd call the cops and tell them that he was trying to break into my house. That shut him up.

BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6

After New Year's, I never heard from Milner again. I figured he lost interest, or he decided to bother somebody else. Anyway, I was relieved.

JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6

After New Year's, Mr. Murphy changed. Everybody noticed it. It seemed like he wasn't that interested in teaching anymore. He would show us videos half the time instead of doing a lesson. He seemed distracted.

MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER

The Hopi Indians, I learned, tell their children that their ancestors once lived in an underground world inside the Grand Canyon. At some point they decided to leave, but there was no way out. Their chief caused a tree to grow, and the people climbed out. They sent a message of thanks to the Temple of the Sun, but that messenger never returned. And today, in Hopi villages at sundown, the old men of the tribe gaze toward the sun, looking for the messenger. They believe that when he returns, their ancient dwelling place will be returned to them.

RONNIE TEOTWAWKI. GRADE 6

A couple of days after our burglar alarm went off, my cell phone rings and a guy says his name is Richard Milner and he wanted to talk to me. Never
heard of him. I figured he was some perv, or maybe
he
was really the one who tried to break into our house. How he got my number, I'll never know.

Anyway, this Milner guy says he wants to meet me, and that it had something to do with a computer chip. I asked him how he knew I had the chip, and he told me he intercepted an e-mail from Brenton to Snik. He knew all about the homework machine, and that they threw it into the Grand Canyon.

So I arranged to meet him at the Canyon View Information Plaza. I figured I could call the cops on my cell phone if there was a problem.

Well, I think we spent an hour talking. We hit it off right away. He told me that he started out as a marketing guy who made his living by figuring out what junk teenagers want to buy—DVDs, video games, fashions, software, and other stuff. But gradually, he learned that with the power of the computer, he can control people's minds and make them do just about
anything
for fun and profit.

He said he needed a smart kid who knew his way around computers. Brenton turned him down, so he thought I could help him with the tech stuff. He would be the idea man.

I liked the guy. I liked the way he operated.
We decided to team up and split whatever we earned fifty-fifty. Shook hands on it.

The first thing we agreed on was that it would be great to have another chip just like the first one. That would double the power and let us link up two computers in a network. Man, we could control the world if we wanted to!

RICHARD MILNER. PERSONAL DIARY

1/22: Met with Ronnie Teotwawki. Need him to get at chip and kids. Agreed to work as a team. Booked flight to Tokyo to buy another chip.

MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER

I rented a kayak one weekend and did a little poking around the Grand Canyon, looking for the site of the ancient caverns.

The canyon is enormous, of course. Two hundred seventy-seven miles along the Colorado River. All I had was the information in the
Phoenix Gazette
article, and a hiker's map. I didn't even bring binoculars. I only had a general idea of where to look. I didn't find anything.