By: Benjamin He
I’ve always thought it was normal that kids would look forward to summer vacation in the school year and look forward to the school year during the summer. Not anymore. I don’t know if it’s part of going into eighth grade or being 13 or just flat out being numb about everything or what, but I just haven’t been as excited lately.
I chatted about this with my friends the night before school was due to start, three of them video calling me on Discord.
Hashen, Stacy, and Kian quickly agreed with me.
“Like,” said Kian, pushing up his glasses. He gestured to the backpack full of folders and notebooks behind him. “I’m all packed up, stuff’s all ready, fourth grade me would be pumped!” His shoulders sagged. “But I’m not all fired up like I used to be.”
The rest of us quickly agreed with him, responses varying from “same here” to “part of getting old, I guess.”
Then Stacy pulled a piece of paper out of a drawer. “Speaking of school, dudes,” she said, bringing the paper up to her face. “Who’ve you got for homeroom?”
I pulled up a tab on my computer.
“Says I’ve got someone named…Mr. John Smith.” I responded. “That’s…the most American name I’ve ever heard. Who is he, anyway? Is he new?”
Hashen and Kian checked their schedules, also confirming that they had Mr. Smith as a teacher. Hashen shrugged and said that he must’ve been a new teacher.
The next morning, I was woken up at a dreadful 7:40 am, shoved milk and cereal down my throat, grabbed my bag, and before I knew it, I was in my Mom’s black Chevy Bolt EUV, hurtling down the path for middle school. I was dreading it, but my perfect, idolized princess of a sister was bouncing up and down in her seat, hugging her pink backpack adorned with flying fairies, waving star-tipped wands and dressed in miniature tutus. She was thrilled to “meet all my teachers and see my friends again!”
That was at least one bright side of going back to school. I got to see my friends again, not in digital Discord. My mom drove the Bolt up to school, ignoring my pleas to stop the cars and let me go home. Instead, she patted me on the head, threatened to put me on cat litter box duty for three weeks, and drove off.
Kian, Hashen, and Stacy soon joined me at the gate, as depressed as I.
Stacy took out her schedule again. “I hate Mondays,” she grumbled, thumping a finger on the first portion of her schedule. “Looks like we’ll be heading for…room J-9.”
We were about to take off, but then Kian looked up. “Hey, where’s all the teachers?”
We all looked up. He was right.
The concrete pathways that were spread around the school, normally filled with patrolling teachers, was barren of educators. The small grassy areas were deserted of teaching faculty. Even the lunch line, where the social studies teachers all lined up to get the free donuts, held only students.
Except for Custodian Smithington, the lunch ladies, and some other faculty, the teachers were nowhere to be found. Mr. Liadov, who was usually chatting it up with new students, didn’t appear to be on the campus. Mrs. Rose, who was normally on patrol for a single toe out of line, wasn’t in sight. Even Ms. Chowdhury, whose class I was dreading, was nowhere to be found. There were still students, but no teachers.
My party eventually found our way to room J-9, grumbling and murmuring to each other, voices filled with confusion. We eventually got to the door, where there was a crowd of students waiting to be let in. We all started throwing questions at each other, but then the door opened. Our jaws dropped. The person…no, thing who opened the door resembled something humanoid. I mean, it had the general shape of a human, but that was where the similarities ended. Its body was constructed of some sort of clear but hard material, totally transparent. Wires and circuits snaked their way through its body, and it was missing a mouth and nose, instead having two white circles that I guess were supposed to be taken for eyes.
It was wearing clothes too. It had a red 49’ers cap. Khaki cargo shorts hung loosely around its legs, and its weird body practically burst out of a tight blue t-shirt that said I AM MR.SMITH, WHOSE VITAL SIGNS ARE NORMAL.
Its movements were robotic, clunky. It waved stiffly. “Hello,” it emitted a sound. Its voice was oddly modulated, sounding like a cross between Tom Brady and Daniel Radcliffe’s, both American and British. “My name is the very human name of Mr.SMITH.” it said ‘Smith’ with a much higher pitch than the rest of its words. “There has been a change of Pllllanz…today. Instead of going to your NORMALLY SCHEDULED CLASSES (it said this part very loudly and quickly) you have been assigned to MEEEEEEEE all daaay.”
It gestured to the open door frame. “Please, come IN!!!! to the classroom. Learning is FUn!”
We looked at each other, confusion clear on our faces.
Mr. Smith stomped. “Get IN NOW plEASE!”
We obeyed, filing in and sitting down heavily in our seats.
Mr. Smith walked to the front of the classroom and stood in front of the white board. “Now, we will TAKE roll. If you have ANNNNYYYY questiOns, please RAISE your hand so you can be called onnnnn by MEEEE!” A kid near the back, one known for his strong body build but not for his brains, raised his hand.
Mr. Smith pointed at him. “Yes, Mr. Human Child? What is YOURR question?”
The kid leaned forward. “You aren’t really a human, are you?”
Mr. Smith blinked. “Of course I am human.”
“Yes?” said the kid, propping up his head with an arm, probably thinking he looked cool and suave. “But you literally have wires right-”
Quick as a flash, Mr. Smith was across the room, next to Matthew. With a long arm, Mr. Smith snatched Matthew by the shirt collar and lifted him into the year. He didn’t look so goofy and non threatening anymore. His wires and circuits sparked inside his clear body, and he suddenly had a mouth, which was filled with black and gray spinning gears and cogs. Red light spilled from his eyes. “I AM HUMAN!” he thundered, several students nearby shrinking away in fear. He sounded less like Tom Brady and now sounded more like Darth Vader. “NOT A ROBOT! AND YOU WILL BE MADE AN EXAMPLE OF, OF WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE WHO DEFY!”
Two more robots who looked similar to Mr. Smith, one wearing SWAT gear and the other wearing an orange basketball jersey and a fedora-style referee hat burst into the room and hoisted Matthew out of Mr. Smith’s hold and rushed him out of the room. The whole exchange happened in less than a minute, but it felt so much longer.
Mr. Smith’s gear and cog-mouth sealed itself back up, and his eyes turned blue again. He took a deep breath, or hum, rather. Then he walked back to the board. He turned around to face us. “Now, who IS ready to LEARRRRNNNN some AMAZING mATH!?”
We endured this treatment for the next three weeks. Occasionally, if any student disobeyed or tried to tell the teachers that they were robots, they were nabbed from their classrooms and a few hours later, be back, but bleary eyed and dull, becoming perfect model-students. It was either SWAT and Jersey robots who took them, but it was also occasionally one dressed as Harry Potter, with Gryffindor robes and everything.
Finally, the surviving members of our class, the ones that didn’t become brainwashed zombies, met at the biggest oak tree during lunch. Stacy started up the meeting. “Okay!” she said, clapping her hands. “The big problem: Robots. What-”
She stopped as a robot named Miss Jones walked past, stomping in her snakeskin boots.
“What,” she continued. “Are we going to do about it? Most of our classmates are hypnotized.”
“Well first of all,” said Eric Connors. “We need to figure out where they came from in the first place.”
“But how are we gonna do that?” asked Bob Miller. “They’re freaking robots!”
Then came a voice that sent a chill up my spine. “True,” said a voice, a mix between Brad Pitt’s and Messi’s. “Which means we also don’t like little kids conspiring against USSS!” We all turned. Behind us was a robot teacher who went by Mr. Moore. “CATCH Them!” he said to the robots that were now beginning to gather around us. “We must-”
“RUN!” That panicked voice was mine, although it wasn't a bad suggestion. We all scattered. I heard heavy footsteps behind me, the telltale CLAMP CLAMP CLAMPS giving away that at least three were after me. I ran into a science classroom, causing the teacher inside, Mrs. White, to let out a yip, rotate her head slowly, and move the rest of her body into position to face the door. Mr. Moore, Harry Potter, Miss Jones, SWAT, and another one in a California shirt all stomped in.
Harry Potter came at me first. Using the expertise of years of playing tag against people faster than me, I made a sharp left turn in front of a desk. Harry slammed into it. His speed must have been quite extreme, considering how he was sliced in half at the waist. His useless body then crumpled to the ground, while Harry’s severed head slammed into California shirt’s, clapping over it like a helmet. It managed a Robert Downey Jr./ Diego Luna voice hybrid, saying “Ouch,” before collapsing.
I grabbed a water-bottle off of a nearby table and hurled its contents at the two chasing behind me, SWAT and Mr. Moore, praying that they weren’t waterproof. The majority of it all got on Mr. Moore, who let out a distorted, warbled cry, before collapsing. SWAT charged forward, undeterred by the water, until it slipped and slammed into Mr. Moore’s twitching body. Both fell, jerking in the puddle of water.
Miss Jones stepped forward, calmly stepping around Mr. Moore’s and SWAT’s bodies before extending her hands and reaching for me.
She made a wild swipe, which hit Ms. White in the head as she tried a grab for me, too. The light in her eyes went out, and she stopped moving. Miss Jones tried to come after me, but appeared glued to the ground. She looked around, almost looking quizzical, until she saw her hand buried in Ms. White’s plastic skull. She made an agitated beeping noise but couldn't pull free.
I ran outside the classroom, shutting the door behind me, and realized that the robots were failing miserably to capture my fellow students. Some of them had climbed onto trees and pelted Mr. Luckenbaugh, who was trying and failing to climb the tree, with acorns. One of them lodged in his eyes and effectively deactivated him. Anna, who was part of the cross-country team, managed to outrun one of the robots, then darted out of the way just in time, causing Mrs. Treadway to trip and fall into a trashcan, trapping her inside. Wow, I thought. I watched in amazement as Hashen and Kian somehow worked together to bamboozle Mr. Ellingsworth with school-issued chromebooks. He turned in circles as they placed chromebooks around him, nudging a gray keyboard with his foot, and letting out a Tom Hanks/Keanu Reeves “What is this sorcery?” worthy of an Oscar award as he watched the screen turn on. I can’t believe we were terrified of these guys!
Just goes to show, you really can’t rely too much on technology.