Whirr, whirr, WHIRR, whirr! I whirled around and ran to the door entrance. As usual, we were exploring the MTO’s massive storage room. But this time it was just me and Thalia checking out the room. The boys were back in the tent doing some guy stuff. (There was an incident with Thalia’s club, so she pretty much whacked the boys if they ever tried to touch something valuable or belonged to her. Long story.) Demi was outside the storage room, checking her foot but I didn’t know why, and Beth was sitting on a chair staring into space.

“Well, the noise isn’t coming from me…” Demi muttered. I couldn’t tell if she was joking.

The whirring became louder. “Quick! In here!” Thalia pulled Beth, Demi and I into the storage room and closed the doors but left enough space between them for a peephole.

“What do you see?” Beth asked in a loud whisper.

Thalia let out an exasperated sigh. “Just another robot, lemme get my club,” she muttered.

“Another you say what now?” I grabbed the kid’s arm and pulled her back. “Oh right, there are random robots roaming the place, you can control a few but otherwise they just go around and do pretty much nothing but blast little girls WHO JUST NEED TO USE THE FREAKING TOILET!” she replied, grumpily.

I guessed she had an experience that had to do with clubbing a robot. I stared at her.

“Control them? Oh, like Beth did with that other robot?” Demi said, warming up to the topic apparently. Beth winced.

“Pretty much,” Thalia said. She scrambled away to go get her club.

Thalia must’ve left her club somewhere way in the back.

“BRB,” Demi said, and limped a little further into the storage room.

Beth and I sat in silence. The whirring was still there. I guessed the thing must have been just saying to its friends, “STAIRS, CLEAN BEEP BOOP BLAST PEOPLE OFF TOILETS BEEP BOOP” or something.

Demi came back. She wasn’t limping at all. She was tossing a screwdriver and some random hunk of junk. I was too flustered to ask. Thalia was running around like a hurricane when she came back. She burst open the doors and clubbed the robot. Demi watched like it was a massacre. I was too busy avoiding stray hunks of robot metal that flew all over the place.

The metal was probably thinking, “GIRL, STAWP DODGING, LET ME BANG YOUUU!!”

Beth was just staring. “Okay, clubbing: check,” Thalia remarked, grinning. “Let’s get back to the guys and have some lunch, assuming Tom hasn’t destroyed the tent already.”

Tom hadn’t destroyed the tent. But amazingly, Zac had. We found the tent in a lopsided mess. Tom was staring in a corner, trying not to laugh. Zac was apparently destroying the entire tent because he saw a pigeon on one of the sleeping bags. The pigeon started flailing around, knocking over one of the lamps. Show-off. Thalia glared at Zac which immediately stopped the pillow-throwing and most of his chaos. Beth rolled her eyes, picked up the pigeon and let it go free out of the tent.

“You boys. Can’t even try not to make a mess of something,” I teased, shaking my head in disapproval at them.

“Hey! I didn’t do anything!” Tom protested, flailing his arms which sent down another lamp. “Okay, except that.”

“I can fix it,” Beth volunteered, shoving us out of the tent. After five minutes, she told us to come in again.

“Wow.” I remarked, staring at everything. “Good as new!”

“Heh, you should make a mess more often. Least Beth will get something new to do on this island,” Demi joking, playfully digging Zac in the arm.

He blushed. “Yeah…” He muttered something almost inaudibly, but I could make it out: ‘I’d do it if it meant getting your attention.’ I grinned at him. He gave me a glare that said, If you say anything, I’ll grind you to mush. The guy was too weedy to make threats but as his friend, I grinned and left him alone. CHUG, CHUG, CHUG, WHIRR, CHUG! We ran outside. I hoped it wasn’t a mega-robot or something. It was much better. It was a helicopter. Somebody was here to help. We were going home…