Whatever Happened... to Robot Jones? Continued

Chapter 20: The Arcade

Robot had forgot that he had set his alarm to wake up extra early on Saturday morning. The result was a very groggy, very annoyed automaton almost forgetting how to shut off one of his own internal devices in the shock of having being pulled from sleep mode at 20 minutes to 6. When he had finally remembered how to shut off the noise, he laid stretched out on the couch, fighting the incredible urge to roll over on his side and call everything off. But when a robot has a job to do, he cannot refuse it, even due to a low battery. So Jones thrust his body upward, this time gently folding the orange throw blanket and laying it down on the arm of the couch. After a moment of dread, he pushed himself to his feet to grab a quart of oil from the kitchen and mentally prepare himself for the day ahead of him.

Between everything else going on, Robot had greatly underestimated just how much work he had taken on by agreeing to organize an event to save Nob's Arkaid. It wasn't as simple as passing out fliers and bothering shop owners to hang them. Not having a part time job anymore, and with the other boys having little savings, they couldn't just go out and by the food that was promised on the flier. Over the previous two nights, Robot had acquired the numbers of student's parents who had agreed to contribute to Polyneux's annual bake sale and asked if they would be willing to whip up something that could be given out at the arcade. The result was two dozen cupcakes, a cake, and someone's dad who had agreed to run a popcorn machine. And just last night, Mitch's mother, who had once been a vendor at a local ballpark, agreed to spin cotton candy with a portable machine, as well as generously donated a couple liters of pop and cups.

It boggled Robot just how many different kinds of foods humans consumed, and just how powerful a persuasive tool it supposedly was. But as people around school began asking him about the event, the food was one of the biggest questions.

With that covered, there was the matter of actually managing the event to take care of. James was a stubborn guy who typically refused help, having run the arcade so long by himself, but the boys knew how busy the arcade used to get. And if they somehow managed to draw even half of the crowds Robot was hoping to make, James was going to be swamped.

Being the tallest of the group, it was decided that Socks looked the nearest to authoritative, and he would be the one helping James sell tokens. He wasn't completely inexperienced in sales: The Basketball team had been forced sell bite sized candies last year after Madman had been too cheap to buy new uniforms, and while nowhere near the best salesman, he did bank some money. If he could only get over his anxiety, Robot thought he would be perfect to help operate the transactions. And the bonus of having Socks be the face of the sales was his popularity connected to Clara seemed to have spread more interest to the event, even though Clara herself would not be there. (Not like anybody would be surprised, even if she didn't run Saturday cheer practice that day.)

Socks himself had reported asking a few of the girls on the cheer team on Thursday if they would be wiling to donate some snacks, but it became clear soon that they were not interested. One of them even whispered to another on the way out of the doors about Robot's desperation for being Valedictorian and doing anything he could akin to charity to add to his record.

This comment made Robot's face burn as hot as a clothes iron. He was tired of having his intentions misunderstood. Though with all the manipulation going on at this school, it didn't really come as a surprise to him that the popular girls would be suspicious of Robot.

Then there were the repairs: Before closing, Nob's suffered from a dozen technical problems. The light bulbs in the bathroom were still missing, several of the games had jammed buttons, and some of the sockets were showing worrying sparks when a game was plugged back in. Robot did some of the repairs on Thursday, while Cubey and his father did the rest on Friday. Mr. Cubinacle even gave paint touch ups to several parts of the main room with his own extra paint.