Ungifted (22 page)

I returned to the seats, heart pounding in my ears.

“Is it over yet?” Sanderson mumbled, half asleep.

“How are the dorks?” Katie asked fondly. “Do they look nervous?”

“They're fine,” I assured her.

I wish I could have said the same thing about myself.

T
he state robotics meet.

It was my favorite day of the year. There was nothing quite like it for our kids at the Academy. Schools have so many outlets for athletes to shine. But for the gifted program, robotics was ideal. It combined creativity, design, engineering, mechanics, electronics, pneumatics, and computer science, all in an atmosphere of healthy competition. It was sent from heaven.

This year? Not so much.

The team I brought to St. Leo was distracted and dispirited. And I hated to admit it, but I was too.

He
should have been here. Donovan. And not just because he drove Tin Man better than anybody else. My group was unmatched in ability level, but it took Donovan to make them a team. On the surface, he contributed very little. But without him, nothing worked.

I should have been furious with that kid. He had committed an atrocious act of property damage. He had got into the gifted program under false pretenses, and had used it as an opportunity to hide from the consequences of his actions. He had cheated on the retest. Or, at minimum, he had let somebody cheat for him, which was even worse. He was barely from the same planet as my students.

If I had been a better teacher, I would have shouted down the class's complaints about Donovan's sudden departure from the Academy. When the bellyaching continued, I would have set a strict rule for our class: the name of Donovan Curtis was no longer to be mentioned within those walls. And if that hadn't worked, I would have told them a few home truths about misplaced loyalty, and people who lie and cheat to get their way. I had considered doing all those things. But I didn't. Because, deep down, I missed Donovan just as much as they did.

Maybe even more. I kept seeing him around the auditorium, as if wishful thinking might produce him in front of me. One time the illusion was so real that I actually began to wave before I looked again, and he wasn't there. That's the kind of impression the kid made.

Dr. Schultz shook my hand and nodded affably to the students. “Good luck, everybody. Make me proud.”

If looks could have killed, he'd have been pinned to the wall by a volley of arrows. The last time they'd heard from their superintendent, he'd been pulling Donovan out of the gym, and out of their lives.

The first phase of the competition was the autodirected portion, where the robots navigate by electric eye, following a course of varicolored lines painted on the floor. By the time Tin Man's heat came up, Cold Spring Harbor was already in first place with a comfortable lead over Orchard Park in second. I watched, the team crouched around me, following the stopwatch in my hand, as Tin Man ran that course to perfection. My number was unofficial, of course, but I was certain our time was right up there with Cold Spring Harbor's mechanical monster. And when the final scores went up, Tin Man Metallica Squarepants was ahead of the pack with a two-second lead over last year's champions. The performance held up, and we headed into phase two with a ten-point advantage.

We had a long break before our next event, and experience had taught me that that wasn't always a good thing, especially for front-runners. I tried to keep the kids busy, checking things that didn't need checking. But soon Noah came back from the bathroom with huge black thumbprints on the lenses of his glasses.

“What happened to you?” I asked anxiously. “Is that paint?”

“It was a stamp pad,” he replied, annoyed and embarrassed. “Those Cold Spring Harbor guys did it to me. They were waiting in the bathroom.”

I frowned. This was something you could expect from Cold Spring Harbor that you didn't get from any other team. They traveled with a large group, and two or three of them were big sullen boys who didn't seem to have much to do with their robot. I think they were there as intimidators. They had certainly done a pretty good job of intimidating Noah.

Abigail was angry. “We have to complain to the judges! They shouldn't get away with this!”

“Take it easy,” I soothed, handing her a cup of YoukilAde. “They're just trying to get into our heads. And see? It's already worked. Forget about Cold Spring Harbor. We'll let Tin Man do our talking.”

But as the competition progressed, the human element became a bigger factor. Abigail was at the controller, and she was darn good. But it was impossible to avoid comparisons with the way Donovan had handled the joystick. He couldn't make Tin Man go any faster, of course. But there was a nimbleness to his driving, an economy to the robot's maneuvers. Every cut and turn seemed to be an inch or two wider than it needed to be without Donovan at the helm. And all that extra motion added up to lost time. Before you knew it, Cold Spring Harbor had retaken the lead. Soon after that, we dropped to third position, and then fourth. That was a cause for worry, because if Tin Man fell one more place, we'd fail to qualify for the final round.

In the pit, we slaved over our robot. Noah ran a software diagnostic, and Latrell and Kevin agonized over each physical connection and bearing. We had to coax every microgram of performance out of Tin Man to keep our hopes alive.

I could see Abigail's fingers trembling as she worked the joystick. I can't say for sure if she was rattled before, but right now she was scared to death. I looked down at the stopwatch in my hand, and realized that I'd forgotten to start it. The atmosphere was that tense.

Tin Man had a big lead on the other three robots, but we knew that meant very little. None of the competition in this heat was battling us for that last spot in the finals. At this point, our opponent was the clock.

Tin Man reached the pole, and Abigail pressed the control to deploy the mini-bot. We held our breath as the magnet locked onto the metal of the pole. With a high-pitched whirring sound, the wheels engaged, and the small unit climbed the pole.

Ding!
The bell sounded as the mini-bot reached the top.

The round was over, but the uncertainty had just begun. Had our time garnered enough points to keep us in the all-important fourth spot? Or had we dropped to fifth, out of the finals? We stood in a circle, holding hands and watching the scoreboard.

One by one, the names of the finalists began to appear.

1. Cold Spring Harbor

2. Orchard Park

3. Abercrombie Prep

4. Academy for Scholastic Distinction

We were in.

I
leaped up out of my seat, fists punching at the air.

“
Yeah! Go, Tin Man!
”

At that, I was several seconds behind the Daniels, who were whooping and high-fiving like madmen, drawing annoyed looks from the spectators around them. Even Katie, who was not much of an athlete these days, was on her feet, cheering.

I couldn't help wondering what it must have been like to be in the pit just then—all those guys going nuts as they got ready for the final contest. I could see Oz talking to Abigail, plotting strategy for the battle that lay ahead. She was the driver. Everything depended on her. I knew how it felt when the controller was in your hand.

The Daniels were analyzing the upcoming showdown like it was the pitching matchup for game seven of the World Series.

“Obviously, Tin Man is the best robot,” Nussbaum expounded. “If he wasn't, we couldn't have won the autodirected competition.”

“Yeah, but Cold Spring Harbor has been pulling further ahead of us every round,” Sanderson worried. “If we can't pick up our driving, we're toast!”

Considering those guys had come to make fun of the parts of the meet they didn't sleep through, they seemed pretty involved in it now.

It took about twenty minutes to set up the grand finale, which involved having the robots place inflated rings of different sizes onto strategically placed pegs. It was the bread and butter of any meet, and we had practiced it endlessly. Each ring carried a different point value. Also, the round would be timed, with bonuses for early completion. It would be tough driving, but there was reason to be hopeful. You had to be constantly aware of what balance of speed and accuracy would get you the most points. A guy like Noah could spit out calculations like that faster than a computer.

A tense silence fell in the auditorium as the four robots were moved into their positions on the floor. Standing beside Cold Spring Harbor's gleaming Pot-zilla, poor Tin Man looked like a soapbox racer next to an Indy car. Albert Einstein's banana barely reached the lowest position of the front-runner's lifting arm. Tin Man
vs
. Pot-zilla; David
vs
. Goliath.

The whistle blew, and they were off. Chloe slipped a green ring around one of Tin Man's lifting forks, and our robot started across the course. The four competitors placed their first rings successfully, but Abercrombie Prep was beginning to fall behind as they came back for more.

“Let's go, Tin Man!” barked Sanderson.

“You can do it, dude!” Nussbaum added.

I held my breath when I saw the next ring. It was one of the black ones—small ring, small hole. Harder to handle, but with the highest point value. Orchard Park wasted precious seconds tightening a loose wheel. Tin Man lumbered back toward the pegs. The lift mechanism rose almost to its apex. It was going to be tricky—one false move, and that ring would hit the floor, taking the Academy's hopes with it.

The tiny ring found its place. The auditorium burst into applause, and Tin Man swung around for the next pass. Pot-zilla was hot on his heels, but with our hardest ring already in place, it was: advantage, Tin Man.

Our next ring was pink, the largest. That was when it happened. As Tin Man crossed the floor, Pot-zilla put on a sudden burst of speed. The swerve seemed completely natural, but it was just enough for one of the arms to sweep into Tin Man's path. It bumped lightly into the pink ring, knocking it off Tin Man's fork. It made no sound when it hit the floor, but it might as well have been a bomb blast.

A gasp went up in the auditorium.

“
No-o-o-o!
” chorused the Daniels.

Oz was on his feet, shouting at the judges, who were waving him off.

Abigail was panicking, fumbling to pick up the dropped ring. Pot-zilla motored past. Soon after, Orchard Park and Abercrombie followed.

I jumped up. “That was on purpose!”

Katie shot me a sharp look. “Donnie, don't you dare!”

But I was already running. I don't know what I thought I could accomplish. At minimum, I had to calm Abigail down, talk her through the operation of picking up the fallen ring, get everything back on track.

I pounded down the stairs, and leaped to the floor.

Chloe was the first to notice me. “Donovan?”

One by one, the team members recognized me. Faces lit up. Cries of greeting rang out. But this was no time for a reunion. Our chance of winning the robotics meet was slipping away with every tick of the clock.