Wood Sprites

“Merde!” Louise hissed her own curse and kept to French. “Yes, it has an eavesdropping application and GPS. Not only can they keep track of it via a phone app, they can ask it questions. It can answer in thirty-two languages!” She dialed Tesla’s number on her cell phone and he answered with a deep male voice. “Konnichiwa.”

She cycled through the various breed voices. German Shepard said “Guten Tag” in a slightly more tenor male and Shih Tzu said “Nǐ hǎo” in a bright and chipper female voice. She groaned and cycled quickly through the voices, looking for one that didn’t set her teeth on edge. The Welsh corgi had a British boy’s voice that reminded her of Christopher Robin.

She changed the default and sent a command to the robot.

Tesla shook his head and murmured, “Silly old bear.”

Jillian grabbed a pillow and screamed into it.

Louise groaned as she read on. “They can download video from his eyes.”

Jillian screamed into the pillow again.

Louise read further and laughed.

“There is nothing funny about this!” Jillian’s shout was muffled by the pillow still over her face.

“Tesla has a nano nonstick-coating on its feet. It micro-vibrates each foot before entering a home.”

“That’s not funny.”

“What Tesla doesn’t have is the optional gecko feet that lets the robot dog scale walls and ceilings.”

“What?” Jillian sat up.

“Look.” Louise played the video of a robotic corgi walking up a wall.

“Why would you want your dog to do that?” Jillian cried.

“Spider dog, spider dog, does whatever a spider dog does,” Louise sang.

They giggled, playing the video over and over. Tesla continued to work his way around the room, ignoring their laughter. They had slipped out of French with “spider dog,” but Jillian carefully returned to it to carry on a serious discussion. Luckily the auto-translate option wasn’t the default and their parents hadn’t turned it on.

“Seriously, what we are going to do?” Jillian asked, curled beside Louise on her bed. “How are we going to go see April Geiselman with a spy dog in tow? The whole point of doing the Girl Scout thing was so everyone would think that after a short subway ride, we’d be with adults.”

Their parents would insist that they take Tesla. The protests against the proposed expansion of the Earth Interdimensional Agency-controlled strip of land around Pittsburgh were spreading across the city to include the United Nations building and the Chinese embassy, as well as the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

If they took Tesla with them, though, their parents would know about their detour to the Upper East Side to see April Geiselman.

“Merde.” Jillian sighed out the curse and continued in French. “So the problem is three part. First is that it reports our position via GPS. Second is that our parents can ask it questions about what we’re doing. Third is that they can download video of what it has seen during the course of the day.”

“Oui,” Louise agreed. “It records video, so the entire day is accessible.”

“It’s a camera,” Jillian said slowly. “We can control what it sees and edit the video like any other camera. So really, it’s not a problem.”

Louise considered a moment and nodded. “Oui.” She flipped to the specs on Tesla’s GPS system. “At least we have four days to come up with a plan and test it.”

“It’s going to be so embarrassing to take it to school.” Jillian sighed deeply. “You know how it’s going to go down. Everyone is going to say we’re too poor for a real nanny. Just like the Darlings.”

“C’est la vie,” Louise murmured. “They already know we’re poor. I don’t care. Ah ha!”

“That sounds good.”

“Magnifique!” Louise said. She’d discovered the weakness of the spy application. It lay not with the robot but with their parents’ phones. She reached over and lifted up what was left of their camera that she’d been attempting to fix. Jillian had clung to it until the EMT pried it out of her hand, so it had escaped the fire. The lens, however, had been smashed. It had all the same GPS and communication software that Tesla had. They could simply rig it so that their parents picked up the camera’s output when attempting to check on Tesla. “Meet mini-Tesla.”

“Ooohhhh!” Jillian grasped the concept instantly. “C’est magnifique!”

4: Girl Scout Camouflage Green

Saturday morning, after taking their hour turn at the cookie-selling event in Queens, they planted mini-Tesla on Elle and took the 7 train into Midtown Manhattan. The Grand Central–42nd Street Station was a kicked beehive of police. Jillian led, smiling innocently at the policemen. Louise followed, leading Tesla by his leash, trying not to look like they were deceiving every adult who crossed their path. They caught the 6 local to the Upper East Side.