YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

CHAPTER FOUR

"What do you want to make the robot do?" I asked my star student, Alyssa. At just nine years old, Alyssa was already showing an aptitude for robotics that made me wildly proud of her.

The gig at Kids' Science Lab was originally supposed to end after the summer, but when school started in the fall, I couldn't bring myself to leave it. Mr. Chu, the owner, said I could teach just two classes a week if I wanted, and I immediately laid claim to the Wednesday night "Little Tinkerers" class. I loved watching the looks on the kids' faces the first time they realized they could make their Lego robot do whatever they wanted simply by programming the actions into a tablet.

I also worked with some junior-high kids on Saturdays, but they honestly weren't as much fun. By that age, the kids didn't have the same sense of wonder watching a robot walk three steps and take a bow. They mostly just wanted me to help them with algebra and show them how to make stink bombs by exposing ammonium sulfide to oxygen. It got old pretty fast.

My Wednesday night class usually had six kids in it, but on this stormy evening, only Alyssa and young Diego had made it. And Alyssa was the only one paying attention. With just five minutes left in the class, Diego had already checked out, his gaze trained on the door, waiting for his father to retrieve him.

But little Alyssa had a fire in her eyes as she worked on a Rube Goldberg sequence. In just a few minutes, she'd managed to program her robot to walk forward fifteen steps, land on a lever, and open the compartment where we had stashed their coats. She completed her experiment just as the clock struck five, and the bells above the door in the lobby announced the arrival of someone's parent.

I busied myself putting away extra Lego pieces while the kids headed to the lobby to get ready to go.

"Marina," Mr. Chu said, popping his head into the room after seeing the kids off, "you're not biking, are you?"

I listened for a moment to the hard drops of rain tickling the roof and realized that my plan to bike home after the weather cleared wasn't working out. "I'll text my dad."

"Okay," Mr. Chu said, checking his watch.

"If you have to go, it's fine," I assured him.

"It's just with this weather, it'll take half an hour to get to my son's day care."

"It's fine." I smiled. "I've got homework to do. I'll wait in the lobby."

"You'll lock up when you leave?"

I smiled and nodded, appreciating that Mr. Chu always seemed to genuinely care what happened to me. His wife, Holly, and my stepmother, Laura, had become friends over the summer, often chatting over coffee during my Saturday class.

Mr. Chu turned to leave, but then the bells jangled over the front door again. "Shoot." He eyed his watch. "Someone must've forgotten something."

I grabbed my backpack and headed to the lobby with him but froze when the man who had entered moved a dripping umbrella out of the way, exposing his face.

It was Mr. Martel, a fact that took me a moment to process. It would have been weird to see any teacher from school out of context, but especially this one. He hovered in the doorway a moment as he shook the rain off his feet.

"I'm afraid we're closing up for the day," Mr. Chu informed him.

"Oh," said Mr. Martel, smiling as effortlessly as he had when I'd first seen him at the whiteboard. "I was hoping to sign up for a class."

"Adult classes are on Saturdays," Mr. Chu said as he grabbed his briefcase from behind the front desk and threw on his coat. "Ten a.m."

Mr. Martel turned to me. "Hello, Marina. I heard you worked here. Looks like the rumors were true."