My Best Friend's Brother

The Bots and the Bees

Aria had walked home with Malcolm, Stevie and some of his other friends from his class. She didn’t really understand why it was such a big deal that nobody could be home for them to watch the tape.

“Okay, give me the tape.” Malcolm demanded, Dabney reached into his backpack.

“What if we get caught?” Eraserhead spoke up.

“Don’t worry about it. No one’s home.” assured Malcolm.

“I cued it up to the best part.” Dabney grinned. Aria sat on the couch and Malcolm took a seat next to her with Dabney on the other side of her, she leaned forward as the screen lit up.

“It’s BattleBots, and it’s a free for all at the battle arena. All of these heavy weight –” Malcolm spoke over the announcer.

“I thought this was a porno.” 

“Ew, Malcolm.” Aria scrunched her nose. “I thought we were gonna watch a r rated movie like Scream 3 or something.”

“Ew. No. This is better.” Dabney said.

“And no one’s. . . excluded.” smiled Stevie.

“Come on, this is the lamest thing I’ve. . .” Malcolm trailed off as he watched the screen. “Oh, my God, is that real?”

“Holy cow!” Aria exclaimed as they watched a robot tear apart another robot.

“It’s an open competition. People build killer robots, put them in a ring, and see which one comes out alive.” Dabney informed the pair.

“I wish we could do that.” Malcolm said, causing the Krelboynes to all turn and smile at him.

“We were hoping you would say that.” Lloyd admitted, “Look here’s the deal: we want to enter the competition. We’ve got the designs, we’ve got the desire, and we’re not distracted by any kind of social life.”

“The only problem is our parents would never allow us to build something that dangerous. That means we need a place with total lack of caring adult supervision.” Eraserhead told them.

“That’s my house.” Malcolm realized and Aria wanted to laugh at how slow he was to catch that earlier. She realized it as soon as Lloyd began speaking. “But those look expensive.”

“No problem. My father tries to buy my love.” Dabney assured him. They all cheered as they watched one of the robots crash into the other sending sparks into the air.

“Who’s your. . . daddy?” Stevie shouted. Aria gave him a strange look before turning back to the TV.

~~~

The next day Aria was back over at the Wilkerson house and Lois was going to be gone for a few days, they had to strategize their time.

“Okay, Mom’s only gonna be gone for about 4 or 5 days, so we have to prioritize. What are you asking Dad for?” Malcolm took charge as they were all huddled up.

“I want to wear my pajamas to school.” Dewey answered. 

“I’m getting a new scope for my BB gun.” Reese smirked.

“You don’t have a BB gun.” Malcolm said confused.

“Not yet.”

“No way he’s gonna get you a BB gun.” Aria shook her head.

“Okay, but since I’m asking to build a killer robot, I should go first.” Malcolm spoke before Reese could reply.

“Why?” Reese questioned.