The Great Moto-Matic House

Chapter 1

"Shower time, Ziptux," Mr Kapoor called out.

"Already?" Ziptux sighed. He was putting the finishing touches on a Lego moon rover. Apparently, in the year 2018, most children of Ziptux's age on Earth spent practically all their time staring into small screens playing something you call video games. But not Ziptux. He was fascinated with science – things like machines, electronics and anything to do with space. For example, this moon rover he was building was his own design, which he had made using these things you call Lego bricks. (I think they are one of the few useful things you have on earth.) The only other thing that surpassed Ziptux's love for science was cricket. And, like I said before, in one of the future tales you will get to know more about his cricketing passion and how that led to him meeting Grandbot.

"What's a shower?" asked Grandbot, handing him a wheel, which Ziptux snapped into place.

"It's one of the most boring things we humans have to do," Ziptux said, smoothening the green T-shirt he was wearing – his favourite, incidentally – and getting up. "And more so on a Friday evening."

"Should I go tell him you don't want to do it?" Grandbot said, gliding away.

"Areyno, Dibbly," Ziptux held his arm. "My family still doesn't know about you. And shower time is definitely not the time to tell them that from now on a robot from another planet will be living with us." (The word arey, by the way, is a Hindi word that can be used to express surprise, annoyance, interest or sometimes just to start a conversation. And you know that Ziptux came from India, whose national language is Hindi.)

I don't think I have told you much about my Grandbot so far, except that he was from Gaia, right? He was 3.7 trombotic units tall, which translates to around ninety-five Earth centimetres, and shaped like what you would call an egg. That is such a silly name for a shape that is reserved for the very best robots in the universe! He was made of cerviza, an indestructible material in a shade of proqual, a colour that cannot exist on Earth because of the strange shape of your galaxy.

Unlike humans, he didn't have a face, eyes or ears, though he could speak, hear and sense things around him. He did that through his thirty-six sensorial receptors, which looked like small circular LED lights approximately one centimetre wide. These were embedded into his exterior plating in a neat circular band around the widest part of his body. He could choose when and by whom he wanted to be seen or heard and had feelings, just like you humans. And you could see how he was feeling by the way the receptors would softly light up. When he was happy or excited they would be a combination of bright yellow and red. When sad they were light grey – you get the idea, don't you? There were two little fibrotic arms embedded into his body which he popped out when needed. Unlike the kind of robots you see in your so-called science fiction movies, he was not the kind who could destroy planets with lasers, or lift spaceships using magnetic levitation or any of those crazy sounding things. What made him really special was the knowledge in his data banks. He knew practically everything about nearly everything in the universe, which, as you will get to read, came in quite handy during their escapades. And there was another thing he did better than anyone in the universe – it was his ability to land himself into sticky situations! He could even create them when there were none to begin with. Ziptux, on the other hand, was very, very good at getting out of them. So, as you can imagine, their combination worked out rather well.

"That was a quick shower," said Mrs Kapoor, as Ziptux reached the dinner table. Grandbot was already there, hovering invisibly over the food laid out on the table. Of course, only Ziptux could see him.

"Ma, who was the greatest inventor ever? Quick, you only have two seconds," Ziptux tried to change the topic.

"There were many..." Mrs Kapoor started.