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It scuttled. It tried to, anyway. The poor thing’s motors whirred as its legs scrambled for any kind of hold.
Efi didn’t know how her creation was going to get itself out of the tree. She had not built it to end up in the tree in the first place, let alone to extricate itself.
Efi did not know how she was going to get it out of the schoolyard tree either.
It made another whirring noise. Its legs made one last desperate scrabble for purchase. The whirring stopped. The scrabbling stopped.
The three vervet monkeys who’d dragged it up into the tree in the first place hooted. An especially brave one scampered down its branch to prod at the little machine. When the machine did not whir to life again, it tore into the paper bag that had been clutched in the machine’s front claws, sending her juice box, and her little tin of sweet potato porridge, crashing to the ground.
This was why Efi had not had lunch that day. Her new creation, tasked only with bringing it to school after she had forgotten it on the counter, hadn’t made it that far. Had made it to the school grounds, but not past the gate. She had spent her whole lunch hour looking for it, and now, with the teacher calling her back to class, there was little she could do.
The vervets paid less attention to the juice box than she did. The three of them whizzed down the tree trunk before her eyes and, with much hooting and chattering, teamed up to twist and smash the little thermostatic tin until it cracked, orange sweet potato stew staining the sidewalk. They ate.
Efi knew the little things were hungry. She didn’t begrudge them that. She knew that once class let out for the day she would be able to buy kokoro from the vendor on the corner, and that would quiet her growling stomach. She knew that when she returned home, her parents’ pantry would be stocked full with snacks and sweets, and their maid would be well into dinner preparations by the time she has even started on her homework.
Knowing that she would be able to eat later did not put food in her best friend’s stomach though. And it did not get the little robot she had toiled all weekend over out of the tree.
There it was, Abebi’s favorite dish, sweet potato porridge splashed like paint on the street corner. She had begged her mother for coins all month, and gone to the market herself to buy ingredients for, and promised her friend they would share come Monday.
The first of her creations with battery enough that it ought to have been able to leave the house, carry on into the next neighborhood, and scuttle its way back home again.
The teachers voice was louder now, more insistent. Efi had to return to class. It wasn’t right for one student to keep everyone else from their lessons.
So, Efi left.
Settling into her desk, and powering up her tablet, she avoided eye contact with Abebi. She knew her friend was probably even more hungry than she was. She didn’t want to admit that her failure to account for raiding creatures was the reason for both of their growling tummies.
She kept her eyes on the tablet as her classmates read paragraphs in turns, and she kept them there. She kept them there through Abebi’s turn and her own, and on until they had reached the back of the class and restarted at the front, scrolling down the page in time with the rhythm of the other students’ words.
She did not know how to fix whatever it was that made Abebi’s parents poor, and hers rich. But she knew she wanted to.
She did not know how to fix the cracks in the schoolhouses foundations left by the latest attacks; Attacks her teacher had told her would never happen again.
Then again, her teacher had told her that there would be no attacks in the first place.
The bell rang, and her classmates began switching off their tablets and picking up their bags.
Abebi did not say anything as they walked home. She just smiled at Efi’s jokes, and nodded at her worries.
Efi did not say anything about their spilled lunch.
She did not know what to say, anymore than she knew what to say about the cracked concrete and the news-casts.
Efi did not like being hungry.
She did not like Abebi being hungry, even more than that.
She thought there must be something she could build. There had to be something she could build to fix it. Her mother had told her that she could fix anything, if she really wanted.
Efi did not do her homework.
Efi called in sick to school.
Efi drafted blueprints, and ran tests, and soldered and hammered and wired the next three days away.
Efi would not let her best friend down again.
The sun rose and set and rose and set again. The weekend slipped past. Efi barely noticed, because Efi was building.
Come about 01:00 Monday morning, Efi allowed herself to sleep. She had made something new; She had made something that would not give up its payload of a nutritious lunch so easily.
She could not wait to see the look on Abebi’s face when they’d finally able to share her favorite meal.
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She hadn’t anticipated the screaming.
There she had been trying her best to focus on English translations of books, though she preferred math, and not the laughter of first shift recess. Here she had been trying her best to be a student who did well behind a desk, and not just in competitions.
But as the first shift of lunch breaks started, the other kids outside, they were screaming.
Another attack?
Another robotic creature come to shoot them? To burn them?
To turn their schoolhouse into so much rubble?
She knew that, when the screaming started, or when the alarms went off, she was meant to hide beneath her desk. But Efi could not stand to know something was there, and not see it.
Abebi started screaming.
Efi didn’t.
It was hers. Her next creation that had frightened first recess so. She had not wanted the monkeys to get at it. She had wanted her lunch to get there safely, so that she could share it with Abebi. So that the two of them, news aside, safety drills aside, could feel safe. Could just have lunch.
She had not anticipated that when she programmed the thing to defend itself, it would do much more than hide.
Her breath caught, even though she didn’t want it to. Tears clawed at her eyes, even though she knew she had done only her best, wanted only the best. Her creation had defended itself. But it hadn’t hidden. It hadn't run. If it had used its shield, it had decided that that was not enough.
One vervet lay on the sidewalk, a front leg clearly broken. A second crouched in front of it, shrieking and hooting and dancing in the face of the robot that was trying to pass through the gate. Trying to bring her lunch, as she had built it too.
The whole class spilled out of the schoolhouse door, their teacher’s voice ringing behind them, high with worry, urging them back inside, where it was supposed to be safe.
It skittered like a spider, her creation. The hunting kind. Halfway up the tree and forelimbs raised and sharp, waiting to strike.
Efi hadn’t meant for this.
She stubbed her toe darting forward, rushing towards the tree.
She scraped her knees clambering up it.
She burned her hands, prying the cover off the robots top and tearing out the batteries.
The injured monkey made it to safety once more, in the care of its peers.
Efi did not have lunch that day.
Efi did not cry until she made it home.
She would make something safe.
She would make her home safe.
She would make her friends safe.