The art teacher told us to draw inside the lines. I drew inside the printed lines, inside the lines of the sides of the paper, and inside the lines carved on my desk. The girl who bites her nails when she looks at me said, “It’s colorful.” I said, “It looks like your socks.” Her friend said, “We are going to be late for the bus!”
I was pushed from the middle of the swinging bridge in the northwest corner of the playground five days ago. The recess monitor ran over, stopped, and said, “You aren’t bleeding.” I said, “That is correct. But my knees are dented.” He held my hand while he called the auto mechanics two blocks down the road.
On Mother’s Day when the art teacher asked me to whom I was addressing my card, I said, “The man who built me,” and she said, “He can’t be your mother, he’s a scientist you’ve never met.” I know two other children who have never met their mothers, and I exist because I grew out of his efforts to create a living being, but I did not say that to the art teacher. She tells me that I am ‘talking back’ every time I try to continue a conversation with her, and then she says, “Little robot boys shouldn’t be so sassy; I should have a word with this scientist.” I would like to have many words with him, preferably starting with, “Hello,” and possibly, “I am Karl.”
