“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.”
“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.