Wood Sprites

“What kind is it?” She pushed the words out, glad that she managed to sound happy. “I don’t recognize the breed.”

It stood waiting, more impassive than a real dog would ever be. That was the problem with robots. They were either too hyper or too still. Apparently the programmers had decided that with such a big facsimile, they would err toward still.

“It’s an American Akita,” their father said.

Because her mother was watching her closely, Louise went and petted the dog. The fur was a little too soft. Its tail wagged in perfect imitation but it didn’t sniff at her hands or lean against her touch or look about the new room with curiosity.

“It’s so big,” Louise said.

“But why a dog?” Jillian joined her in petting the robot.

“We’ve never been comfortable with how much time you spend alone,” their mother said. “The explosion really made us rethink your safety.”

“It’s a nanny-bot?” Jillian looked pained. “We’re nine.”

“Going on twenty,” their mother said. “And Seda Demirjian let us know that she and her husband are getting divorced and they’re putting their house up for sale.”

“Oh,” Louise said as understanding dawned on her. “Vosgi won’t be going with us on the subway anymore?”

“No.”

Vosgi was sixteen and had acted as their transportation babysitter for the last year. Before that it had been Carl Steinmetz, but he’d graduated. None of their other neighbors attended school in Manhattan.

“We’re going to be commuting alone?” Jillian said.

Their parents shared unhappy looks. “Until we can think of a better solution than a nanny-bot, yes,” their mother said.

“So, what do we call her?” their dad asked.

Louise didn’t want to call the nanny-bot anything.

“What was the name of the cat?” he asked.

They looked at him with confusion. Because of his allergies, they’d never had a cat.

He made a motion of something drifting up and away. “The toy cat?”

“Popoki?” Jillian cried. “No, we’re not calling it Popoki.”

Once upon a time that was now growing to be a dim memory, they had a small robotic cat, Popoki. It had met an untimely end involving a pair of large helium balloons and their lack of understanding how much lift said balloons could generate versus the weight of the small toy. Louise’s last memory of Popoki was it floating up over the Steinmetz’s house. It went higher and higher, its electronic meows growing fainter, until the balloons were a tiny dot drifting toward the ocean. Jillian had been inconsolable for days.

“George.” Their mother scolded their father with his name. “What was the dog in Peter Pan? This one looks like it.”

From the perked-up ears to its curled tail, the robot looked nothing like the nanny dog of Peter Pan. The only similarity was its size and the pattern of its markings — but then everyone always thought the twins were identical.

“Nana,” Louise said. “She was a Newfoundland in the original story, but Disney made her a Saint Bernard. They’re the same size dog, only Newfoundlands are usually all black.”

“Saint Bernards are easier to illustrate facial emotions, because of their markings,” Jillian said.

“It doesn’t feel like a girl to me,” Louise said. “It feels like a boy dog.”

“A boy dog?” their father said.

“Something like. .” Louise thought for a moment, but the only male names that were coming to her were Orville and Wilbur. What was another famous inventor? “Tesla.”

Jillian giggled, recognizing the path that Louise took to get to the name. “Okay, Tesla!”

“Very cool name.” Their father crouched down beside Louise. “Do you like it, honey?”

She wanted to say no. It probably cost a lot of money that could have been spent on things she and Jillian would have liked more. It was, however, a practical gift considering the situation. If they couldn’t safely commute to school, their parents would probably take them out of Perelman School for the Gifted and enroll them someplace else. It wasn’t that she loved Perelman, but “someplace else” could be anything from a local high school with kids four years older than them to a boarding school. “It’s a wonderful present. Thank you, Daddy.”

With the magical words, he melted, hugging her tightly. “Oh, I love you two so much. I want to give you the world.”

* * *

Jillian waited until they were safe in their room.

“Merde!” Jillian cursed in French. “C’est des conneries. Fait chier! Fait chier! Fait chier!”

Louise shook her head as she pulled up the website of the robot’s manufacturer. “If they hear you, they’ll ground you,” Louise warned, keeping to French until she knew if Tesla had an eavesdropping application or not. They had initiated the robot’s setup program in the kitchen by registering his name and that the twins were his primary owners. The big dog robot was slowly working its way around the room, mapping it.

“They wouldn’t understand what we’re saying even if they heard us.” Jillian growled in French and flung herself onto the bed. “It’s the whole point of using another language.”