Disaster

'BANG!' A very loud noise had come from the basement of Katie's house. Her dad was-a scientist and was great at making robots. His new project was on humans and trying to make a robot that thought for himself and led a life of his own. Katie's dad was very devoted to his job, he spent hours every day in the basement, he loved experimenting with bits and pieces. When he finally comes up for dinner he's exhausted, after dinner he would go to bed. Because of this Katie didn't know her father very well, she only saw him for about two hours a day and six hours on Fridays.

At the dinner table Katie and her mum sat eating their dinner. Katie was nearly finished her dinner when she heard her dad thump up the basement stairs and then to the dinner table. He was very excited, he was holding something, it was a doll, no a robot, it looked kind of like Katie. He was too excited to talk, he just stood the robot on the table and put some water in its back. The robot started to walk forward then started to run. Katie's dad said, "My name is Robot 1." The robot repeated, "My name is Robot 1." Katie's dad said," This is only the start, I will go into a bigger business. I will get people to work for me and make bigger robots, they will be great. They will help us make cars, housework, teaching and lots, lots more." Katie thought her dad was going mad. Her mum was looking at him strangely then she said, "Are you feeling O.K.?" " Fine, no, more than fine, brilliant." " I think I ought to take him to the doctors, you can stay here." said mum. Katie nodded.

As soon has the front door had slammed Katie ran down to the basement. The door made a horrible squeaking noise. Katie looked down the stairs, it was dark. She knew there wasn't a light at the top of the staircase, it was at the bottom. She went down the stairs holding onto the banister tightly as she didn't really like the dark. When she got to the bottom she flicked the light switch and saw what her dad had been slaving away at. There was a mechanical arm on a table half covered with skin and two mechanical legs totally covered with fake skin beside it. It was a disgusting sight so she looked away and she saw something even more disgusting, a head in a box on a shelf at the back. At first she thought it was real but then she saw some wires hanging down from under it. Katie thought it was staring at her and got very uncomfortable and went back upstairs. She sat and watched T.V. until they got back.

When they got back her dad was a lot calmer and kept saying that he didn't know what came over him. They all sat and watched T.V. then Katie decided to go to bed. She had a horrible feeling that it would take her some time to get to sleep. It did, she had a horrible dream or should I say nightmare. It was about the robot, it had come to life and it was chasing her and destroyed everything in its path. It had her cornered and it was about to kill her, then she woke up.

She lay in her bed for a while listening to the birds. She turned her head slowly to look at her calendar when she had a vision of the basement. It was the robot, her dad had finished it and all of its limbs were joined. It was just like, like a real person, then the robot opened its eyes and looked at Katie. Katie screamed and hid under her covers, soon after this she was shaking with fear and her mum was in the room trying to calm her down. Katie didn't go to school that day because her mum didn't think she was fit enough after all the shaking and screaming. Her mum had to go to a meeting at work and had to leave Katie for an hour or two. Her mum didn't really want to leave Katie in the state she was in right now, but she had to go to the meeting, it was very important, it might even get her a promotion. As she sat up in her bed trying to think of how to waste time, she had another vision. It was the robot, it was still staring at her. At that moment she threw her covers off and ran as fast as she could to the basement. As she reached the basement door she felt a very weird feeling tingle down her spine.

She opened the door, the same blood curling squeak as before. Katie walked down the stairs slowly, but faster than before, found the light switch and the room filled with light. As in her vision, her dad had finished the robot but it hadn't opened its eyes and it wasn't looking at her. Katie was shaking again, she didn't know why, but she knew she couldn't stop. She somehow managed to get back up to her bedroom and into her bed. She just about fell asleep immediately.

She woke in the middle of the night with another bad dream. She was nearly asleep again when she heard a horrible squeak, the squeak of the basement door. It made her feel horribly sick, but she knew her curiosity would kill her if she didn't go and find out if it was her dad or something else. When Katie got to the middle of the landing stairs she saw her dad. She followed her dad into the living-room and started talking to him. When he turned round it wasn't her dad, it was the robot. Its eyes were strange, very strange. The robot lunged towards Katie and Katie jerked back and started to run, the robot didn't follow. When Katie reached the top of the stairs, she turned and caught a glimpse of the robot going out the front door. Katie dreaded to think of what it would do. She ran into her mum and dads room to find her dad wasn't there and her mum sitting up in her bed looking worried. She said, "Your dad thought he heard something and went down to see if we had been burgled." Then her dad came in looking annoyed. "The front doors open so someone must have been in, but they must have been scared off when they heard me coming." he said. Katie said she had heard something and got up and saw someone go out the front door. Katie went back to bed feeling quite relieved that it wasn't her robot, it was just her imagination running away with her. That night Katie slept well, no bad dreams at all.

When she woke up she remembered that she had school and got ready. This was about the first time in her entire lifetime that she had got ready early and had time to watch TV. When she switched the TV on there wasn't really anything on, she just watched it anyway. When a news flash came up it was about a chain of robberies that was committed last night. A security camera in a bank had got a few snaps of the robber. As Katie looked at the pictures more closely she suddenly had a horrible feeling that she had seen this person before. Her house had been robbed; it wasn't the robot after all. Katie went to the basement anyway just to check that her theory was right - but it wasn't. The robot was gone.

She ran upstairs to tell her mum but she had already left for work. Katie passed the telephone and thought she could call the police. She knew they wouldn't believe her but, she may as well try. She dialled 999 and a man with a very deep voice answered and asked what service she wanted. Katie quickly told him the Police'. Seconds later a woman was on the phone. Katie told her that she had seen the man and the police woman had believed everything Katie had said until she started to talk about the robot. Katie knew she didn't believe her but she had to tell someone. After she had hung up she looked at her watch, she had about two minutes to get to school. She grabbed her bags and ran as fast as she could, but she was still late.

After school Katie ran home to tell her dad about the robot. When she got home her dad wasn't in, or, or was he in the basement. He was, he was frozen in front of where the robot had been standing. Her dad turned round and said, "My name is Robot 1 and I must destroy." Katie thought he was just playing and walked over and held his hand. It was cold, inhumanely cold. He turned round and grabbed her around the waist very, very tightly. Katie could barely breath, she scratched his arm, it revealed not blood but metal. Katie screamed and ran. She ran out of the house and just kept running. She ended up in a park on a bench trying to calm down.

Thousands of thoughts raced through her head, all about the robot. Then a thought occurred to her. The robot often came into her house, if she could convince the police about the robot they could hide in her house and stop it somehow or her dad might know how to stop it. Katie walked home slowly, still thinking about the robot. She was glad it was Friday, she would have the whole day to think about it tomorrow.

When she got home she found her dad sitting glued to the TV. looking absolutely exhausted. She told her dad what had happened. When she had finished she noticed that he hadn't been paying a blind bit of attention to what she was saying and after the adverts came on he said, "What were you talking about." Katie told him all over again. He looked shocked and then rushed out the room and down to the basement. He was standing a few feet away from where the robot had stood then turned round and Katie noticed that he had a plaster on his arm, the same place that Katie had scratched on the robot. Katie had a horrible thought that her dad was a robot. She asked her dad what had happened and he told her a perfectly believable story about what he had done at work. Katie went up to her bedroom, still with the thought of her dad being a robot niggling away at her. She kept telling herself that there was no way her dad could be a robot and that she'd been living with him for twelve years and surely she would have noticed that her dad was a bit strange. When she remembered she had a biology test on Monday she thought she better study for it. Katie ended up studying all night and falling asleep with her head in a book.

When she woke up she went down to watch the T. V. She was watching Live and Kicking when a news flash came up about the same robber and that he had committed another chain of robberies and if anyone had seen him they were to report it to the police. Katie didn't think that there was any point in her trying again. There was suddenly loud screaming coming from the basement. Katie opened the door slowly and saw her mum and dad at the bottom of the stairs. Her dad was showing her mum something, her mum was looking extremely pale. Her dad was showing her mum his arm and then the light hit his arm and it was gleaming. Suddenly the door slammed behind Katie, her dad looked up and saw her, he started walking, then running up the stairs after Katie. Katie ran as fast as her legs could carry her, she couldn't believe she was running from her own dad. Then a thought struck her, he wasn't her dad, he was a robot. She ran into her back garden, her dad close behind her then she realized she was trapped. She ran up to the fence and tried to climb over it but by this time her dad or should I say robot had caught up with her and had grabbed her by the wrist very tightly. Katie knew he would probably kill her so she had to stall for time, so she asked how he had kept it secret for so long.

He ended up telling her everything. A scientist called Professor Joshua had made him and programmed him to do everything. Be a father, build new robots just like himself and that it was him that had committed all the robberies. He said he loved leading mum and me on. He said that he pretended to love us but he really hated us. Then he stopped and realized what Katie had been doing and said, "Now I'll kill you and your mother before you tell anyone." At that moment Katie saw her mum creep up behind the robot with a baseball bat, then she whacked him over the head with it and he fell to the ground. Katie and her mum ran in and her mum called the police and told them to come to their house with a robotic scientist to take the robot apart.

When they did arrive the scientist took her dad apart. After that they all went inside, all but Katie, she stood and looked at what she thought was a loving, caring father, then walked away, her mind filling with memories that she would never forget.

                                                     by Fiona Sym              Fiona wrote this when aged 12 

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