Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine (8 page)

“Oh!” Irene giggled. “Mud! Of course.”

“He must have forgotten the knife when he came here to wreck the machine. I knew he'd try to get even, and that's what he did. The machine is cold”

“Cold? I don't understand,” said the Professor. “The power is on.”

“Sure it is. It's your switches that are cold.”

“But the thermostat is set for the proper temperature. Look at it—98.6°.”

“That's right. But I'll bet if we take the cover of the thermostat off, we'll find that the dial is disconnected from the refrigerator control.”

Danny opened the screw driver blade of the scout knife and unscrewed the cover of the thermostat. Inside, the indicator dial had been connected to the temperature control lever by means of a small bolt. Danny pointed. The bolt had been removed. No matter where the dial was set, the control still remained at its coldest point.

“The temperature inside the case must be about ten below zero,” Danny said. “You see, Eddie was watching us when I explained about your new switches to Irene and Joe. He heard what I said about never touching the thermostat. He knows something about machinery—he's really not stupid. So he must have slipped into the lab after we left, and using the screw driver blade of his knife, as I just did, he opened the thermostat and took out the bolt. He set the control as far down as it would go and put the cover back. Then, when I came in to lock up, he ducked out the window but forgot his knife.”

“How did you ever suspect it?” Irene said.

“Why, when you asked me if I was cold and said that I sounded just like your report, I began to wonder if that could be it,” Danny replied. He grinned at the Professor. “And when you said that because the thermostat was set at the right temperature it was impossible for anything to be wrong—well, I remembered that time when I started to turn off the power because I thought there was something wrong with the machine. You told me then that a scientist should never take anything for granted. Remember?”

The Professor bit his lips. Then, rubbing the top of his head, he chuckled ruefully. “Yes, I do remember it,” he said. “My dear boy, you've taught me my own lesson. I'll try to keep it in mind, in the future.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked Dr. Grimes, “that that's the only thing wrong with the computer?”

Danny nodded. Briskly, he replaced the bolt so that the indicator dial was connected once more with the temperature control lever. He set the dial at the proper temperature.

“You should have a thermometer on the outside of the case, Bullfinch, to show the inside temperature,” said Dr. Grimes. “You see, I told you you were impractical.”

“Well, it's difficult to think of everything,” said the Professor. “I believe enough time has passed, gentlemen. Let's try once more.”

Dr. Quibberly had returned to the console, and the three men bent over the machine once again. The Professor fed in the data and instructions and then pressed the operating key.

“Ninety-one seconds, this time,” he said. “There you are.”

He pulled the paper from the typewriter.

“Exactly right,” said Dr. Grimes, examining the answer.

They ran three more complicated tests. And each time Miniac was correct to the last decimal point.

Dr. Quibberly blew out his lips. “It appears,” he said, “that I must apologize to you—and to this young man as well. I must say, I was wrong when I called him a little child. I would venture to predict that he will some day be a credit to the world of science.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Grimes, “if he can keep out of trouble long enough to get through school.”

“Nonsense, Grimes,” said the Professor.

“How can anyone be a scientist without stirring things up, asking questions, jumping into things headlong with both feet?”

Irene snickered. “It's kind of hard, Professor, to jump headlong with both feet.”

The Professor turned red, as they all laughed.

“Well,” he said, “you know what I mean. Anyway, remember that for a scientist, nothing is impossible.”

Danny whispered something to Irene. She nodded. He said, “Professor—speaking of school, can I ask for one favor?”

“Certainly, my boy. What is it?”

“Can we keep on using Minny for our homework?”

“Hmm.” The Professor turned to Dr. Quibberly. “Do you think, now, that the government will be interested in Miniac?”

“I certainly do.”

“Well, I should imagine that we'll have a few weeks before we have to send it to Washington,” said the Professor. “Suppose we say three weeks more, Danny.”

“Fine!” said Danny. “That'll just take us to the end of the term, without having to do any more homework.”

The Professor rubbed his chin and smiled. “That's right,” he said. “But at the same time, my boy, remember what you just taught me—don't take anything for granted!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Snitcher Gets a Present

It was the last day of school. The pupils were gathered in groups about the classroom, comparing their marks and report cards. The room was full of excited chatter and laughter; fortunately, no one had failed to pass.

Eddie Philips was standing in a corner with George Bessel and one or two of his other friends, boasting about how well he had done in the final exams.

“It was a snap,” he said. “I knew I was going to get an A.”

“What do you think that A stands for?” giggled Ellen Tresselt, who was standing nearby. “All wet?”

“Oh, dear, no,” said Robin Glenn. “It stands for A big bag of wind.”

Eddie scowled. Before he could retort, however, Danny pushed his way past the girls and confronted him.

“Oh, Eddie,” Danny said, innocently, “I've been trying to see you all day.”

“Yeah? What for?” Eddie asked, suspiciously.

“I found this knife, and somebody said it looked like yours.”

Eddie examined the scout knife Dan held out on the palm of his hand.

“It's mine,” he said.

“Are you sure? Can you prove it?”

“Sure I'm sure. I can tell by that place where the stag handle is nicked. And the ring is bent, too.”

Danny slowly opened the big blade of the knife. “Gee, I'm glad of that,” he said. “I wouldn't want there to be any mistake about whose knife this is. You see, there's something on the blade.”

He held out the knife. The others crowded round, and began laughing. On the blade, using a power tool, Danny had engraved the word SNITCHER.

Eddie turned crimson. Danny snapped the blade shut and tossed the knife to him.

“Next time, Snitcher, don't leave your things around the Professor's laboratory,” Danny said. “It's so messy.”

For once, Eddie had nothing to say.

Danny left him and walked back to the blackboard where Irene had been standing, watching the whole scene.

“That ought to take care of him for a while,” Danny chuckled.

“Yes, Danny, and I told you it would be more effective than just punching him in the nose,” Irene replied.

“You were right.” Danny looked at her, and sighed deeply. “Gee, Irene,” he said, “you're a swell girl.”

“That's true,” said a voice behind him, “but you don't have to get all mushy about it.”

It was Joe. He was trying not to smile, and blushing at the same time. He said, “I think it's about time we made up, Irene. I'm sorry for the things I said a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, Joe, I forgot all about that day,” Irene said. “Why, we've been working together for the last three weeks and you haven't said a single thing about girls being nothing but trouble.”

“Yeah. Well, I'm glad we had the homework machine. And I guess I was wrong all around. Look at my report card. This is the first time I ever got an A in arithmetic.”

“I'm glad, Joe.”

“So'm I. And—and I—well, I have something for you.”

Irene and Danny looked at him in surprise.

“It's not much,” Joe mumbled. “Just a poem. Here—”

He thrust a piece of paper into Irene's hand. She opened it, and read:

Who is the one who made me change my mind about girls being not so keen?

Irene.

What do I think of when I am looking out of a train window and get tired of the scene?

Irene.

If I were Jack Sprat and could eat no fat, who would I want to eat no lean?

Irene.

Who will I pin up if I have to go into the army when I am eighteen?

Irene.

Whose eyes are as blue as a new pair of jeans?

Irene's.

If I were a jar of yellow paint, and she were a jar of blue, with who would I want to mix, to make green?

Irene.

“Why, Joe,” Irene exclaimed. “It's beautiful!”

Danny stuck out his lower lip. He had been reading over Irene's shoulder. “Pooh!” he said. “He keeps saying ‘who' instead of ‘whom.' He sure didn't pay any attention when we fed the grammar books into the computer.”

“Oh, Danny,” said Irene. “I believe you're jealous.”

“Me?” Danny said indignantly. Then he grinned. “Yep,” he said. “I am.”

Miss Arnold came towards them, just then, and put a hand on Danny's shoulder. “Well, my three star pupils,” she said. “Congratulations. I know your marks are the highest in the class.”

“Thanks, Miss Arnold,” they all said.

Miss Arnold's eyes twinkled. “Now that the term is over,” she went on, “I have something important to tell you. It's about your homework.”

“Our—our homework?” Danny said uneasily.

Joe groaned. “It seems to me we went through this before.”

Miss Arnold nodded. “Yes, your homework. I'd like you three to wait until the other pupils have gone. I'll only keep you a few minutes. Please come to my desk when the room is empty…”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Homework Champions

Professor Bullfinch and Dr. Grimes were playing a duet in the living room, when Danny came home from school. He came in slowly, scuffling his feet, his head hanging, and a gloomy expression on his face.

He tossed his books on the bench in the hall. His mother came downstairs with her shopping basket over her arm. She kissed him, and then held him off and looked him up and down.

“Why, Danny dear,” she said, “whatever is the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Didn't you do well in the exams? You passed, didn't you?”

Silently, he handed her his report card.

The Professor leaned his bullfiddle against a chair and came to see the card. “Top marks,” he said. “Then why so growlsome looking? Are you unhappy because school is over?”

“What?” said Danny. “Do you think I'm crazy?”

Mrs. Dunn folded her arms. “Daniel Dunn,” she said, in her no-nonsense voice. “Out with it! Something's wrong.”

Danny kicked at the rug with one toe. “Oh…well you know how hard we worked on the computer so we wouldn't have to do any homework?”

“Yes?”

“Well, Miss Arnold just broke the news to us that we've been doing homework all along. In fact—we got special honors for doing more and harder homework than any of the other kids in class!”

Mrs. Dunn began to bubble with mirth. Dr. Grimes came out, raising his eyebrows.

Professor Bullfinch coughed, and said, “I wondered how long it would be before you found that out. Naturally, in order to feed information into the computer you had to know it yourselves. And in order to give the machine the proper instructions for solving problems, you had to know how to solve them yourselves. So, of course, you had to do homework—and plenty of it.”

“Why, simply programming a problem is homework,” Dr. Grimes put in.

“Yes. It just never occurred to me before,” Danny confessed. “Gosh, it—it somehow doesn't seem fair.”

“It wasn't really fair for you to expect a machine to do all your work for you, was it?” Mrs. Dunn said, gently. “That's why I suggested to Miss Arnold that she give you high school homework to do.”

“You suggested it? My own mother! But why?”

“Surely that must be obvious to you, Danny. I knew you'd have to study quite hard to keep up with it. And after all, darling, that's what homework is for—to teach you how to study by yourself.”

Danny sighed. “I guess so. Well, nobody can complain that we haven't studied this year.”

“And you've done more than that,” said the Professor, enthusiastically. “Come into the living room and listen to what Grimes and I have been doing.”

He and Dr. Grimes returned to their instruments. They sat down before some sheets of music and, after a little tuning up, began to play. Danny and his mother listened thoughtfully. It was a rather dull piece of music.

When it was over, Danny said, “Well, it wasn't too bad. Who wrote it?”

“Minny did,” answered the Professor.

“Minny?”

“Certainly. We got the idea for the experiment from something Joe said, a long time ago—he asked what would happen if we sang into the microphone. And you youngsters apparently got Miniac to write your school reports for you—”

“So you got the machine to write music?”

“Yes. We fed into it full instructions for the composition of a sonata, plus information on note relationships and a lot of other technical material. Then we programmed a sonata for piccolo and bullfiddle, and Miniac turned it out. We had to add an attachment for writing music notes, of course…”

Mrs. Dunn laughed. “It isn't bad,” she said, “but it isn't exactly Beethoven, either.”

Professor Bullfinch shook his head. “No. It never can be Beethoven, Mrs. Dunn. No matter how intelligent the computer is, it is only a machine. It can solve problems in minutes that would take a man months to work out. But behind it there must be a human brain. It can never be a creator of music or of stories, or paintings, or ideas. It cannot even do our homework for us—we must do the homework. The machine can only help, as a textbook helps. It can only be a tool, as a typewriter is a tool.”