Sprockets by Alexander Key

sassafras tea with honey in it to calm you down.”
    She made him a cup of sassafras tea, double strength, and put a large gob of sourwood honey in it. The doctor gulped it, and it did calm him a lot, though his nose still twitched.
    â€œAccidents happen in the very best of families,” Mrs. Bailey said. “It’s only fair that Sprockets and Rivets be allowed to speak for themselves. If you’ll turn them on—”
    â€œYou turn them on,” snapped the doctor. “I absolutely refuse to touch them!”
    CLICK! CLICK !
    Sprockets and Rivets got up and stood stiffly at attention, their eye lights blinking worriedly. Their circuits were cool now, but their heads ached from the awful knowledge of what they had done.
    â€œYou poor little dears,” Mrs. Bailey said kindly. “You’ve had a terrible experience. How do you feel?”
    â€œHorrid, ma’am,” said Sprockets, speaking for them both, as he usually did. “Perfectly ghastly. Words cannot begin to express our shame. But we are everlastingly grateful to you for saving our wits. And we earnestly hope we may be allowed to repair the damage we caused.”
    â€œR-repair the damage!” the doctor sputtered. “Ha! What madness is this?”
    â€œI betcha they could, Daddy,” said Jim. “How long would it take you, Sprockets?”
    â€œSeven days,” Sprockets answered. “If we may be allowed—”
    â€œSeven days to rebuild a machine that took me seven years to create?” the doctor waved a trembling hand at the tangled wreckage of the Space Probe. “Any robot who would make such a statement has lost his wits! Now I’m convinced you are mad, addled, aberrated, and entirely deranged!”
    â€œB-b-but, thir,” little Rivets burst out, not realizing his screw was loose again. “My brudder’s not abbled! He’th tho thmart he can fix eny fing!”
    Sprockets gave a tock of dismay. “Oh, sir, please!” he begged quickly. “Our circuits have had a most jellifying jolt, and we’ve hardly had time to recover. If I may be permitted to explain—”
    â€œYou may not!” the doctor snapped. “I’ve had enough of you both. One of you is so abbled—I mean addled—he can’t even talk. And the other is downright deranged. I never want to see you in this laboratory again. Go to your room—and stay there till the robot factory sends for you!”
    With heads down, Sprockets and Rivets trudged dejectedly upstairs to their room next to Jim’s.
    â€œI’m tho thorry,” Rivets said, when they were alone.
    â€œIt’s too late to be thorry—I mean sorry,” Sprockets told him. “You shouldn’t have spoken when your screw was looth—I mean loose—and I warned you about the marbles.”
    â€œI gueth I’m not quite wight bwight.”
    â€œNeither of us is quite right bright right now. Oh, my poor aching circuits! I’ve got to think as I’ve never thought before—and I can’t think when my circuits ache. Let me fix your looth—loose—screw.”
    He had just tightened the screw, and oiled Rivets’ tongue and his own, when Mrs. Bailey and Jim came into the room. Jim had some fresh ice packs in his hand, and Mrs. Bailey carried a large box of learning tapes.
    She wiped a tear from her eye, and said, “The robot factory can’t send for you until tomorrow, and that may give us time if we work fast.”
    â€œTime for what, ma’am?” Sprockets blinked at the learning tapes. The very sight of them made his circuits squirm.
    â€œTime to be superly-superly educated,” said Mrs. Bailey. “When the doctor sees you again—and I’ll make sure that he does—I want you both to be wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, and simply popping with knowledge. Then he’ll have to change his mind and decide to keep you—that is, if you