WHTRJ? Halloween Shttacular! Chapter 4, a whatever happened to robot jones? fanfic

The sun had almost completely set to a dark navy by the time the four awkward boys and the ill-tempered girl stood outside of a house with a black, wire railing on a white porch, holding their bags out. While they waited for someone to answer the door, Socks nudged Mitch's shoulder. "You think looking more pathetic will get us more money?"

"Not unless they think the charity's for you," Mitch snickered.

"Maybe we'll have enough left over by the end of the night to buy you another roll of costume," Shannon commented, still glowering at him.

Robot started: "Well, subconsciously speaking, people tend to give more when-"

"Shush, I hear footsteps!" Cubey whispered.

A shadow appeared in front of the light behind the fogged glass decoration of the door.

"Trick-or-treat," they said in unison, unenthusiastically, as it opened.

A girl with a dishwater-brown ponytail and a striped dress peeked out. She stood just at four-and-a-half feet, and looked and sounded to be about nine. "Aren't you guys a little old to be trick or treating."

"We're more or less doing this for the charity thing," Cubey said, holding out his UNICEF box.

"Oh, I see," the girl said, trying and failing to sound impressed. She looked from Cubey to Socks. "What are you supposed to be?"

"I be Lord—oh, what's the point?" he asked himself. "Look, I'm sultan of the mummies, all right?"

Cubey whispered to Mitch. "I thought he was a King."

"I though he was a Lord!" Shannon shouted, indignantly.

"I thought he was a zombie," Robot said, sounding the most legitimately confused.

The girl sighed and rolled her eyes. "Hang on, I'll get my mom," she told them.

As she headed for the living room, another little girl appeared—much smaller than the first, and with a mouth covered in chocolate, and her hand in a black bowl of colorful, wrapped treats. She glanced out the door and screamed. "MOMMY!"

She kicked Socks in the shin—he let out a wail.

"There are grown-ups outside, asking for candy!" she said, running back into the house.

With his best friend clutching his kneecap in the surprisingly tough blow, the Franken-robot sighed, resting his eyes at half-closed as the door slammed in front of them.

"Are we really that old looking?" Shannon asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious in her homemade costume in a way that she hadn't before.

"To little kids, maybe," Cubey said confidently. Then in a sudden display of doubt, started trying to stand on his tippy toes with his skates.

"Well, that house was a bust," Mitch announced, starting to leave the steps. "If we scared their kid, they ain't forking over anything. The others quietly followed, except for Robot, who was the last to step off the veranda.

"Don't worry, guys. We have a whole night ahead of us."

"Don't remind us," Shannon replied under her breath.

Shannon had a right to be pessimistic. The kids began to see a pattern with every house they visited. The parents or kids who answered the door were either skeptical about why a couple of middle schoolers were doing trick or treating without any younger kids with them, and refused to give them anything, or they would receive a meager piece of candy in exchange for an apology that they had 'left their wallet in their other pants' or 'didn't carry any singles.' At one really expensive looking house, the latter claim was made by the dad who answered, and Socks found the gall to ask if the dad would then consider dropping a twenty dollar bill into their still nearly empty box, at which point the dad slammed the door in their face, muttering something about them being scammers. Of course, what reason did they have to believe that the money would go to an actual charity? What stopped them from ripping open the box and taking the approximate two dollars and eighty three cents-Robot had visually calculated the donations before it went into the slot on top of the box-for themselves? But none of the door greeters would hear of what reason they had to be out there that evening, in those ridiculous costumes, asking for money for kids less fortunate than them.

And almost every stranger's house they visited had to comment on why the kid on the far left had decided to dress as a horrid mash of a robot and Frankenstein's Monster.

Shannon even found herself towards the kids this money was supposed to help. This was an intense amount of humiliation to go through so that some kid in another country could eat some more. But like the boys, the most of her anger was directed at Madman, who had set them up with this terrible ultimatum in the first place. As the humans grew vocally more annoyed as the night carried on, however, Robot grew quieter. While there were one or two compliments paid towards his "clever mashing" of costumes, the ones that were more insulting were starting to stick with him. It was only Socks who noticed that Robot's optimistic comments were growing fewer and father between, and he frowned, not in spite of himself, but for his friend.

They had crossed many neighborhoods in the time it took for the sky to turn from navy to pitch black, to arrive at one where the tall boards of the white picket fences were so neatly placed by each other that the kids couldn't see between them. The kids could only see the lawns of the ten-room houses from a distance. Up close, they could only see the second floors and the roofs.

"These people gotta have money," Cubey said.

"But how are we supposed to get to the door?" Socks asked, squinting and getting on tiptoe as he stood by the fence. But even his and Shannon's heights didn't let them see over the fence. It had to be ten feet tall, at least. "Figures that rich people are so paranoid about people breaking in that they'd board up their own fancy houses."

The kids walked along the fence of the house at the end of that cul-de-sac, their feet flat on the immaculate lawn surrounding the home, like walking across the football field back at Polyneux. There was a thicket of trees in the back and front, too thick to pass through. It was beginning to really feel like there wasn't an entrance to this house at all.

Robot hyper-extended his neck so that he himself could see over the top. "There must be a door to the fence," Robot reminded them-the first thing he'd said in over a half hour.

"You don't know that," Mitch joked, "For all we know, these guys helicopter onto the roof."

Robot's eyes zoomed outward as he identified an imperfection in the fence which marked a door, and upon looking closer, the door was latched. "I see a door, but it's the one leading out of the backyard."

"So what? Doesn't matter as long as the people inside don't know we used the back to get in."

"Do these kinds of people even do Halloween?" said Cubey. "I mean, if you lived from around here, your parents could just buy you all the candy you wanted."

Shannon squinted her eyes up at one of the windows on the second floor. "Their lights are on. And I think I hear some sort of music too. If they're throwing a party, they can't refuse to open the door to us."

"Then we've gotta get to the door." Socks said, stopping abruptly. "Robot, do you think you can fly up over the fence and open the latch?"

"Certainly I can," Robot said, beginning to rub his claws together nervously. "But don't you believe that is unwise? I mean, it appears to be a private party, and hopping the fence is listed as breaking and entering, even if our intentions are innocent."

"So you can't do it?" Socks asked, looking shocked. All the humans present seemed a little surprised.

"I can," he started, tentatively, "but I won't," Robot emphasized, folding his arms. He was trying so very hard to remain optimistic in the face of all that was working against them, but breaking rules was crossing the line.

"Fine then," Socks sighed. He would have been angry, but because he'd known Robot for a while and was taught that units were obligated to follow rules to a T, he had to understand Robot putting his foot down. And after his sudden quietness from all those rude comments, he still felt bad for his robotic companion. "Cubey, would you get up on my shoulders and try to hop the fence?"

"Whatever," Cubey replied, muttering. "Beats standing out here in the cold arguing." Socks got down on his knees and let Cubey stand on his shoulders, grunting as he stood, trying to hold the shorter boy without losing his balance. Shannon, in the meantime, had felt a knot-hole in the fence about eye level to her, in which she could punch a small hole and peer inside.

"You see the door?" Socks asked through gritted teeth, the skates digging hard into his shoulders.

"Got it. Be back in a sec," Cubey announced, grabbing the ends of the fence and throwing himself over, instantly relieving Socks of the pressure. There was a thud and a scream. "OW!"

Socks leaned his ear by the fence, while the other kids rushed over, fearing a broken bone. "Cubey, you OK?"

"I got a huge splinter in my hand!" Cubey wailed.

"Hurry and open the door and we'll get Robot to pluck it out for you," Mitch shouted.

Robot's eyes darted back and forth from the white fence, where he only then remembered he could see Cubey with his X-ray vision, and to Shannon, who was still peering through the fence with her knot-hole. At once, both of them saw what Cubey had not. "Guys," Shannon said, nervously. "I don't think Cubey's alone in there."

Her words drove an icy spear through Cubey's heart, as he turned away from the other side of the fence, and saw a Doberman staring down at him, barely hidden in the shadow of the house. And the dog looked angry.

Cubey scrambled to his feet and began beating on the fence with his fists. "Guys, guys, get me out of here!"

"Cubey, don't bang on the fence, it'll only make him madder! Go for the door!" Mitch shouted.

"No!" Shannon shouted back. "He'll let the dog out! And besides, he won't make it across the lawn!"

"Help me!" Cubey said, shrieking as he began to zoom back and forth, the dog running for him all over the lawn, but never quite catching up to the boy on the skates. The lawn was so short and even that Cubey's skates zoomed across like concrete, which was the only reason he seemed to evade the dog's reach.

Robot extended his arms over the fence and used his X-ray vision to point them at Cubey's direction. "Cubey, take my hands!"

Cubey made a dive for Robot's long arms but missed, and the dog latched on to the left one, instead. Robot gasped and shook off the canine to the point that it had become furious. Cubey again ran for the side of the fence where his friends stood on the opposite side. "It's a guard dog!" Cubey panted." He's gonna eat me alive!"

"I'm coming for you, man!" Mitch called, unceremoniously using a very miffed Shannon as a springboard so that he could reach the top of the fence himself. Looking down at the lawn from the top, the green-painted lad watched his vampire friend trip over his cape, which had finally become caught in the wheels of his skates. Mitch reached out a hand to him, and this time, Cubey made it, but so did the dog-which bit down on Cubey's cape at the same time that Cubey's hand hit Mitch's. Cubey wailed out in pain as the combined weight of him and the dog pulled Mitch up and over the fence, so that both boys were trapped on the wrong side.

Shouts from the inside of the house alerted the kids to the approach of the party-goers. The dog's barks and shouting kids must have penetrated the barrier of the music. "Adults are coming!" Socks said with worry. Now he wished he'd just taken Robot's 'no' and left this house alone.

By this time, Robot had forgot the rules of respecting private property in the face of a new set of rules: the ones that ordered him to protect human health at all cost to himself and all other rules. He used his super strength to break down the wood boards of the fence until he could see his friends without X-ray vision, as they scrambled towards the house, away from the dog, and made a circle back to the new hole in the fence. Two boards was enough to get Cubey through easily, but Mitch was still too big. Robot began breaking the third board, but Mitch had to take off running again as the dog neared for another attack. This time Socks decided to be brave and assist Robot in breaking down the third board, instead of pacing back and forth. He breathed heavily, feeling an asthma attack coming on, as he and Robot pushed the board with all of their strength, but it wouldn't budge. The kids heard a door open in the distance and all at once, knew they were in big trouble. Mitch pushed the board as the kids on the other side pulled. But for some reason this board was impossible to move, even with Robot's strength.

Shannon shoved the boys back and shouted at Mitch to move out of the way. And with all her might, she kicked the board in half, cracking it down the middle so that Robot and and Socks could pull the two broken pieces away from the top and bottom. Mitch scrambled through as soon as they were cleared, and the adult began to shout about burglars and frightening the daylights out of his dog.

The five of them ran as fast as they could, putting many distance between themselves and the peeved man, who had crawled through the broken fence and ran for them for quite a while. But even though the kids had been walking around all night, they had found the energy to keep going long after the man had quit and gone home to call the police. They were at least five blocks away when they hid behind a tree and stopped to breathe.

"Do you... think asking them for donations is still out of the question?" Socks asked, shuffling for his inhaler. But because he had no pockets, it wasn't on him tonight. Good thing he wasn't having a true asthma attack.

"That is the most unfunny thing you've said all night!" Shannon shouted at him.

"Hey, I'm only trying to lighten the mood!" Socks said back.

"Look at my cape," Cubey said, spinning around. "And my pants," he said, moving the cape as to show the kids the hole in his pants where the dog had not only ate through the cape, but straight through to his checkered boxers.

Shannon averted her eyes. "Ew. Did we really need to see that?"

"What time is it now?" Mitch asked, switching the topic.

"Eight thirty seven," Robot said.

"After all that," Cubey said, smacking his glasses-less face. "And we're more short-handed than we started!"

The kids had all had bags to hold their consolation candy, from the houses that claimed to not be able to donate cash, but they had forgotten them back by the white-picket fence. Robot, who didn't see a point in taking candy for himself, had held onto the only donation box that had collected any cash. He produced it from a compartment in his chest. "Well, we still have the money."

"But what now?" asked Socks. "If our own neighbors didn't give us much, and we can't even get to the rich houses, how are we supposed to be able to do this?"

"I... well..." Robot stammered, staring at his box of pitiful quarters and few dollars nervously.

Cubey was the first to admit it. "Face it, guys. Nobody is handing out squat. We're done! We're through!"

"Heh, maybe the people back at the party will have pity on us?" Socks asked with a nervous chuckle. Like Shannon, he was tired, but he was really hoping to go to the party.

"You want to trick or treat an eighth grader's party for charity?" asked Mitch. "What's your preferred method of torture? Titty-Twister or Wedgie?"

"He's right, Socks," Cubey said. "We're only asking for a pounding if we admit we've been trick or treating. Especially for Madman."

"We are not caving in yet," Robot said with determination. Though truthfully, he wanted to. The negativity of the evening that he'd been trying to ignore was building up inside of him, to the point where he didn't care about the party or Madman's threats. He wanted to go home. But he kept remembering the humiliation back at Madman's office, the frustration at the inability to prove they had been framed for stealing the school's most prized Award Banner and setting it on fire, and the practically impossible ask of either collecting this money himself, or being remembered as the one who cased the requirement every eighth grade class to collect a certain amount of donation money or not graduate. And something inside him was so set on overcoming the odds and proving to everyone that he wasn't a loser. Even though Socks had been the one to first suggest that they actually go through with Madman's ridiculous idea, it was Robot who was determined to see through that they completed it, if only to see the look on Madman's face when they told him that they'd done it.

"Then what do you suppose we do?" asked Shannon. Her makeup was smudge from all the running and sweating, and the plastic snake-head hung loose against her wig.

Robot tapped his chin. "There is, of course, Groove Street, and Funk Drive, and Grunge Bolvevard. And there's that new business district. Those neighborhoods don't have as much money, but they've got some."

"Earth to Frankenbolts," interrupted Shannon. "Those neighborhoods are miles apart from each other."

"Then we have no choice but to split up," he told her. "Socks, you got to Groove, Mitch to Funk, Cubey to Grunge," he said, pulling a hallographic projection of the map up for them to see. "I'll go to the business district. Shannon, you stay here and knock on the remaining houses."

"Why does she get to stay?" asked Cubey, dreading the walk ahead of him.

"Because she was dragged onto this unwillingly," Robot reminded them. "It's our last shot. Otherwise we'll be walking into Madman's office on Monday virtually empty handed. I can't guarantee that he'll let us off the hook if we collect under five hundred," Robot said as he shut the donation box into his chest again, "But he just might be content if we get enough."

"Let's go then. It's starting to give me the creeps out here," said Socks, looking worried as more trick or treaters and their parents called it an evening and left the streets empty.

The other four made vaguely agreeing noises, then sulkingly headed off in twos towards their own individual destinations. While Socks and Shannon headed west, and Cubey and Mitch headed East, Robot headed north, all by himself. Not long into their walk, Mitch whispered into Cubey's ear: "I'm just glad nobody we know at school has run into us dressed like this."

While this comment should have been silent to anybody but Cubey, it was overheard by a pair of pale yellow eyeballs, peering out of the bushes, following by a glassy blue pair that appeared beside it. Denny and Lenny overhead the conversation. And Lenny was snickering. "This has been easier than I thought. I don't even have to lift a finger."

"But Robot seems pretty determined," Denny commented. "What if they actually do get a lot of the money Madman was asking for?"

"Don't worry—I made a plan B in just such an event. We just need to make sure they hit the party soon."