Kid-Droids: Tilly 2

Protocol dictated that all updates to Sterling had to be produced through either a handwritten or typed document.  Preferably hand written in black ink.  But for convenience Weslie liked to use a typewriter.

It was that time of the month again. Weslie shuffled through papers on her desk trying to find the response letter she received from her previous submission.  It proved to be challenging, like trying to find a needle in a haystack, only the needle was the same color as the hay.  So many documents and files from her work she had to keep at home to do late night tasks that needed to be finished before she entered work the next day.  She had to buy a file cabinet a while back in order to help keep her things somewhat organized...or well, she tried.

 Quickly that cabinet filled up with tedious letters and information that was incredibly situational to her job, but still important. And thus stacks of documents piled ontop of eachother and just made leaning eiffel towers both on top and the sides of her desk.

 She gave up trying to keep her nice brown desk clean, and submitted to the madness of paper.  Nature’s revenge for chopping up so many of its people

“God! Ugh...where the hell did I put you?!” Weslie complained.

She brushed aside her hair and continued her pursuit.

“Ah! There you are.” She whipped the paper, hearing it’s satisfying weird crack that paper gives off sometimes.

Her report said
>”To The Sterling Office of Research and Development
>”This month you have asked for an analysis of, “SX-011'' academic performance. I must once again ask whatever employee receives and writes back to me, that “SX-011” has chosen a name for herself quite some time ago, and that ‘Tilly’s’ future mental development would benefit greatly if word of this just passed through the grapevine, but for some reason, it hasn’t.
>Disregarding my tangent, Tilly has been performing well in school. But when I have to teach or help her with a subject she struggles with, I find it hard to make improvements in her grades or to convince her to apply more effort. Subjects like Math and Science and Music she will apply more than 110% in, but for other subjects she will rush them to get it over with. Her writings are full of grammatical errors and her reading skills aren’t quite up to par with her human classmates.
>”She has the heart of a child and the attention span of going along with it. She expresses no interest in improving either her reading or writing, but wishes to go into advanced classes for the subjects she succeeds in. Her teachers have notified me of this and we have agreed to a joint effort to try and encourage her to try harder in these subjects.”
>”I’m also happy to inform to the head of the project, Mr. Poppowell, that Tilly has gotten a very strong sense of adventure, his hopes that the “Little One’s” would have strong interests and personality traits has come through...at least for Tilly. Once again, another month has passed and I have-”

That’s all she wrote.

Speed reading it, she looked back and forth between what she had already written down on her typewriter and what was outlined in last month's response.  In her proofreading Weslie saw that Sterling asked for something that she had missed,

>”In order to achieve a full analysis of their current academic abilities, we request a copy of homework from the following subjects: Mathematics (1), Science (1), and Creative Arts (1). Note: The Creative Arts submission can be short stories,an analysis of any story they have read, a colorful picture, or an analysis of an art piece drawn by someone else”

”Alright…Let’s see here…” the women opened up the front of her desk

Her desk’s front drawer was wider than the other compartments on it’s side, and couldn’t hold that much due to its thin depth, so it was meant to hold things that were important and required quick access.  Inside was a private stash of drawings on colorful pieces of paper. All made by Tilly

Weslie had gone out of her way to date the drawings she had made, each crude, but as time went on they all improved, a sign of Tilly slowly growing artistic abilities.

The first drawing was just of Tilly in the clothes she first came home in. (1 Week)
The second was of Tilly and her Caretaker together, holding hands in the front house. Now with her usual attire. (2 Weeks)
The third was of a Dinosaur stomping down on the house (3 Months)
The fourth was of Tilly on the moon punching an Alien in the face. (7 Months)
The Fifth one was of Tilly smiling triumphantly with a missing tooth (14 Months).

She needed to properly date them eventually.

Holding all of them close, the woman's heart dropped. ‘Their just pieces of paper’ she thought to herself. All of them were made by little Nandroid’s hands, with red and blue crayons...nothing special to them...Not like the Little One had developed a new art technique.

But they were her drawings.

Weslie, frowned and quickly stacked all of the drawings back together and slammed shut the drawer from once they came.

“Lets...not do that.”

She sat up from her desk and left her home office space.
Walking into the hallway, her awareness of the world started coming back to her.  Rain pattered on the glass and thunder bounced off the walls of her house.  Must’ve been a really bad storm out there


Her house was brightly lit, with some show on TV. And then another show, and then another show, and then an-

Tilly was channel surfing again wasn’t she?

“Tilly?!”

“Yeth!”  the Robot Child shouted.  Her tooth gap made it hard to pronounce some words.

“Did you finish your homework!”

“....”

“TILLY!?” Weslie marched forward, entering the big living room.  The sliding door closed, rain pouring down, toys on the floor, and there was the girl of the hour. Tilly flipped through channels trying to find something interesting to watch.

“Join the Force! Wear a Big A-”
KSCCCCC
“I think the killer is...inside the Ho-”
KSCCCCC
“The Market closed today with Sterling actually DOWN points from when they-”
KSCCCC
“Do you remember where you placed the Pepper Shaker Mrs. C?”

She plopped herself on her butt.  The show on the TV was some popular children’s programming that encouraged kids to use their brains to solve mysteries and problems that require some deeper thinking. It was really popular with children that were Tilly’s age.


Whatever that was.

The red head smiled at the man in the checkered suit as he took out a magnifying glass, inspecting the lamp shade, and seeing pepper flakes.

Tilly’s view of the screen changed as the pepper looked darker than usual. Then the whole screen started to get dark as it creeped upwards.  Tilly turned around and saw her caretaker's face.  An annoyed expression, with two eyes piercing through her glasses and looking right into her soul. Her hair brushed to the side and well maintained, unlike Tilly’s short shaggy haircut.

“...”
“Did you finish your homework or not?” The interrogator said to her small prisoner.

“I finith...the math.”

“So you didn’t finish it.” Her gaze grew more intense
“I-”
Before Tilly could finish her sentence the TV Snapped off, Weslie turning it off with the push of a button.
“Go to the table” She pointed to the kitchen, where Tilly’s bag was on top of the table, its guts spilling out in a circle.
Sighing, Weslie rubbed her forehead
“I’ve told you before that you can watch TV after your done with your homework, why don’t you listen?”

“But I’m Bathically Done!”  She answered turning around, hoping her plea would convince her caretaker that it was. The women just turned the child back around with one hand and with a soft nudge made them continue forward to the table, or as the child saw it, her prison cell.

Sitting down, and leaning deeply into the chair, her Caretaker tidied up the mess somewhat and asked what she still had left to do

“Readthing.”

“What do you have to read?”
Tilly reached over to a blue folder and pulled out a book

“Mth. F. told me I had to reath thome throy from this book…juth the firth chapter” Grumpily trying to sink into her chair even more, as if such a thing were even possible

“What’s stopping you from reading it then Tilly?”

“I keep gething sthuck on the big worths” she said very emberessed.

“I’ve told you to come to me if you have trouble with big words sweetie.” Weslie spoke in a motherly tone. “There’s nothing wrong with needing help.”

“I donth’ like it.” The robot child said defeated.  Knowing that she couldn’t beat her Caretaker.  Suddenly she was picked up by her arms and tucked into her shoulder, gently.  The other hand, picking up the book.

“As long as I’m here, there’s nothing to be ashamed about asking me for help.”  Weslie sat down on the couch and lifted the Lil’ Nandroid onto her lap. Putting the Book in front of them, she inspected the book closer.

She wondered what book Tilly’s teacher would assign her to read.  Maybe it was something like “Blue Eggs and Jam” that was one of Weslie’s favorites growing up. Ah the pictures were so neatly done and creative. Hmm...But perhaps that wasn’t “challenging” enough for someone of Tilly’s age...

OH! What about one of those Bessie B. Bridge’s books? Those seemed more her speed, come to think of it, maybe she should look into buying some of those for her to read at home…

“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick.

“...Uh...Um...Tilly, did your teacher say anything before she handed this to you.” The Caretaker was at a lost for words, her expression was like that of a bad poker face.

“Mth. F. thaid I would like this book because it would be fun and thallenging...But I remember it being alot thmaller at school.”

In her mind Weslie already knew it was that snot nosed kid, Timmy..er...Toby...um...Or maybe it was Tobias? She didn’t know, but Tilly had told her about that kid being an annoying little troublemaker.

“Well...Let me help you read this while we have it, I’ll write a note to your teacher about...this....I need you to read this chapter and then draw me a picture afterwards okay?”

“Do I hafth to?”
“Yes Tilly, this will help you only down the line. I promise you.”
“But Wath-” Cut off before she could finish
“But what? Do you think NASA is gonna be able to colonize Mars without someone who can read transmissions?”
“N-no…”
“Then let me help you read these words, so you don’t have to worry about then when you become the first Earthling on Red Planet”
“Okay.”

The duo spent the next 30 minutes reading the 1st chapter of the book. Tilly following her Mom’s finger as it trailed across the page, the two alternating in flipping the page when one was done. As expected it was harder than it should’ve been.  Tilly having to read a book clearly written for grown adults or teenagers was more than what she should’ve been tasked with. But her Caretaker thought that if she could get through the first chapter of this book, it would be a great motivator for her to continue on reading books that were less challenging than the one they were currently wrapped up in.

After it was done, Tilly took crayon and pencil and started to draw out the events that she had read in the first chapter, meanwhile, Weslie looked into her child’s bookbag and fished out some homework that Tilly got back.

As expected, Tilly was doing great in Math and Science, her teacher penning positive remarks on both of them. But asked for her to stop doodling on the bottom of the page when she was done.

As far as Weslie cared, she could express herself creatively as long as her homework grades were good. She took both assignments and placed them back in her office. All she needed now was Tilly’s picture and her report would be good to go.

Although...Part of her wished that she could keep her the drawing that Tilly was about to produce….If only she didn’t have as much work as she did...if only the deadline for these things weren’t so strick she could take it to a Copy Machine at work and keep one…

“Next time” she said.

“Mom! Im done!”

“Ah great honey..Lemme se-”

Detailed was a picture of a sheep with lightning bolts coming out from his head while a Tilly drawn completely with blue and orange crayon pushed back the best with a stick.

“Do you like it?”


“...Y-yes Tilly. I do.” She smiled. A bit embarrassed, but nonetheless proud.

Tilly’s cheeks glowed red as her mom tussled her hair, and as she leaned down to kiss her forehead.

“You can go watch TV now.”  Tilly took off before she could finish her sentence, flipping the channels to try and re-find her favorite show.