She shook her head and held out a USB drive, “Just look it over and come up with a plan of action to write on your paper.”
“Moooomm!”
“James, I’m not in the mood.” She left my room.
“That’s because I’m not here for you.” whispered out the USB. “If I was here that would upset you. My name is Dusty. I am a self cleaning machine.”
I tackled down my door to see a tiny little droid with a notepad note taped to it. “Uh…H…hello?"
“Dude, did you not read the note?”
“Oh, the note. Sorry, I'm a little stressed with this whole paper dealing.” I checked my computer, and the paper was still blank. “Can you help me write this paper? You sound like you would be good with computers."
“Yeah, sure dude.” , and so I wrote out the story. I fulfilled all the requirements and actually got an A+. It stretched two pages and had a contest for the best story where I won first place. I made it onto the cover of the school paper. The next day, my father was at my house, “James Roberts, you’re a little late.” A guy was in my room beating me up. “James? My son?”
“You’re son?” Calibrated the guy. “He’s not even here.” He too checked out my paper. “What have you been teaching him? The fine print doesn’t exist when they are learning to write.”
“It was just a number two pencil!”
His face twisted from anger, to sadness, and then my shoulders gave out. “Hey, I was just going to put out that wall.”
He took my notebook and threw it across my room. “Why don’t you call your parents up and tell them a story about how your room has been cleaned.” my father said in the most condescending tone I've ever heard, “If you can get one story correct, then we’ll talk about your paper.”
I was shaken and didn’t know what to do. “What?”
My father explained, “You said you wrote a great story on how your room got cleaned. Now go and write it down. That’s all it takes.”
I ran to my room and grabbed the paper, but I knew it was futile. I had to find him. I jumped off my bed, and saw him moving slowly across my room toward the door. I dashed out of my room and turned the corner into my parents room.
“Mom!”
She didn’t move. Her eyelids covered her eyes like my grandmother slept, only she didn’t. Her hand was slowly creeping toward the edge of the bed. I ran over to her to make sure he didn’t get her. I grabbed her arm just in time. “Hello,” she said and her eyes were open.
“Mom, remember the Dusty guy from the last story?” She nodded her head. “Well, he’s alive.
He’s out of his USB drive and moving around.” I paused, “I’ve made a terrible mistake and I can’t let him near my paper.”
She pushed me lightly and said, “Go get your father, I love you.”
I ran out as fast as I could, not knowing what was going on. I thought I was going to get in trouble for screaming. When I reached out my father’s room, I saw Dusty getting to his feet. “That’s it!” I violently shouted, “You took over my room! Now, you’re going to give me that cool story!”
Dusty stopped and stared at me. His voice box came on and I heard a nerdy voice tell me to stop. I advanced. “What is your problem?!” I choked, “You can’t just make up stuff like that! This is my notebook.”
“My name is Dusty,” the voice started talking, but I stayed put, “He has taken over his family’s house. He keeps his paper that doesn’t exist with his mother. He took over because I didn’t exist. Your progress has been slowed down and you keep failing.”
“I told you to leave my mother alone!”
“Do you want your story?”
“Yes, I want it.”
“Then you cannot go near your father.”
“Then, I die here.”
Dusty sat at the edge of the bed and his sad voice said that I couldn’t see my family again. I started crying and ran out of my parent’s bed room and into the living room. I saw my father sitting on the couch. “Yes, dad?”
“You know,” he started, “you have the most dear friends in the world.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Friends?”
“That’s what you had told me.”
“N-n-no, that’s n-n-not r-r-right.” I was trying to be as strong as I could. “Mom, where is mom?”
“James,” my dad said, “you always go back to that.”
“Where is my mother?!” He leaned over to me and his eyes were growing redder. “Yes, I promise you. I was going to make your life better. I was going to introduce you to some of my friends. I was going to make you a better person.”
“You aren’t my father!”
He stood up, “You have no idea what you’ve done!”
I tried to get away, but my instincts told me to hold on to him. I remember his eyes were red, and he was yelling at me. “You have destroyed my confidence in you. You will never make that mistake again.”
My father grabbed me by the head and started pulling me forward, my legs were just dangling. He put me on his lap and started telling me a story. “I have always considered myself as caring. No matter what happened, I would always make sure that my kids knew that he was perfect. “
“That’s not the story, that’s not the story.” I could only hear a brief version of his story.
“So, I got home one day, and found a little boy with his hands tied.”
“No, that’s not the story!” He shoved me off his lap, “You can’t just…” He sat on the floor, I grabbed the USB drive and ran from the room. He started jumping up and down.
I froze when I saw dusty. His pen was on his head with a note that said he locked myself in his house. He had made JRR-24 a mess, and I hadn’t even noticed. His legs were twitching, “James!”
“What am I doing?” I whispered. Dusty was working on the computer. I moved the mouse to the right and it moved the cursor to the left. I moved one pad and the cursor moved to the right. “I am a piece of garbage!”
I turned to Dusty and asked him how we could fix it. I saw a flash and was quickly back in my room. I’ve failed at school again and we are going to fail at camp.
It’s a shame. I probably would have stayed. Although, I can always try again.
