Chapter 34

Terri's turn:

There's a classic (Dad says) Warner Brothers cartoon. It's got Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian. I love it. The visuals are all hand-drawn, Dad explains, as is the animation. It's got some very smart humor, too. I think it functions well for kids, who are attracted by the first level humor and the colors and the action, and for adults, because they can see more subtle jokes that younger kids might miss.

Dad almost literally rolls on the floor watching them. The one I'm talking about, though, is Hare-Way to the Stars. In the final scene, Bugs Bunny has just dumped a jug of instant Martians into the sewer and they're activated by water. He takes off running, telling us "Run for the hills folks, or you'll be up to your armpits in Martians!"

That's us. Except we're up to our armpits in BABIES!

First and foremost, WE have one. Dad and Tina's baby, my half-sister, and I'm told that her nickname is NOT KathyGen. Susan 'n' Jason have little JW. And Stoney and Jo have Stonewall. I suppose he'll be 'Junior'. And in a week Mister Bill and Mizz Donna are going to have little Elise.

This is a major realignment of The Force. I am determined not to succumb to the obvious self-pity because of the change from ME being the kid in my household to being a somewhat more mature helper who can not only take care of herself but also take a more active role in the housekeeping since Kathy is a big sink of resources.

I told her that, you know. It is incumbent upon me as the Big Sister to sit on the sofa with Kathy on my lap while dozens of pictures are taken.

She's a little bitty pink thing, floppy, if you must know, so I have to make sure to support her head for her, as well as hold her close. She's warm, and she recognizes the tenor of spoken word, so I talk to her.

"I'm your big sister, Kathy. I have quite a lead on you, but I'll make things good for you, even though right now you're a big sink of resources."

Tina knows I love her and Dad and the new Kathy. "What did you just say?"

"I said that I understood that right now she's a resource sink, but that I'm her big sister and I'll always be here for her."

"Soft words for her, baby," Tina said. "You don't know what her mind will remember as it develops."

"That's an interesting thought," I said. "I'm putting it in my journal." Yes, of course I have a journal – hypertext – linked, so I can backtrack on interesting thoughts and experiences. And of course Tina's all over the place, as is everybody else in my life. I can even tell Bot-bot to put something in the journal for me so I can go back later and fill in the gaps.

Okay, part of it is a learning curve. I'm used to bouncing through the door and talking to Dad or Tina in a normal tone. Well, if I'm excited, it might be just a bit louder than a normal tone. Now, I enter quietly, respecting that little Kathy is not going to react well to exuberant sounds, no matter how well-intended and justified.

Tina breast-feeds. Susan breast-feeds. Jo breast-feeds. I have NOT come into the room making mooing sounds. I love my Tina-mom and my aunts and that's just disrespectful. I admit that there was a bit of culture shock at first. I'd seen breast-feeding moms before, but never up close. Now I sit right next to a nursing mommy and pat the baby on the head and provide the mommy with absorbent pads and such.

Naturally Bot-bot carries a diaper bag. Tina's one of his chosen masters. She says 'diaper bag' and he picks it up and then follows her. He may astound other people but everybody around here's used to him. Some of the moms from the home-school group, though, it's a surprise to them.

You'd think they'd be used to surprises. I mean, our Christmas laser show was well received. We had red and green lasers with modulated outputs and a pair of mirrors with X-Y controls and we did the whole range of holiday images from traditional Christmas through Hanukkah.

That wasn't all mine. Cindy and Nikki and Stoney collaborated on the hardware. Johanna and I chose the music. You could sit in the parking lot and listen to the music synched to the lightshow on an FM radio channel. We did a formal showing for friends and family, including the homeschool bunch, and before the next day was over, we were getting requests for more showings and 'oh, can we bring people?'

You get a reputation from that. I had to explain which part was mine and how the whole thing worked.

Next year we're looking at full color, raster image, maybe, instead of vector.

But back to babies. Rachel and Vicki are only unofficial big sisters. I'm official because I'm a blood relative. If I can hold Kathy, I can certainly change diapers. I was warned. Kind of gross, yes, but I can wash my hands afterward and Tina seemed sooo appreciative the first time I actually took Kathy from her to change her.

Then I changed JW. Different plumbing, as Tina told me. And that thing's a fountain, too. I haven't changed Stonewall yet. Jo's mom is there and little Stonewall just about doesn't get any waking time outside somebody's arms.

The whole baby experience is going to be interesting. It's a new dimension to my domestic experience.

Nobody seems to have solidified an idea of where I am in school. They're pretty much settled to place Rachel's position in an equivalent of high school and Vicki's coming along fast, but she's still learning a lot of stuff we already know. Me? College. Yes, I'm too young to have a high school equivalency diploma, but everybody knows I'm past that.

I have Nikki and Cindy for math tutors. That takes care of math, really. I can depend on everybody to help me with electives and with English, but there's a new resource here.

You see, we brought Dana and Ed in for a weekend. Dana's pretty, almost kind of tomboyish, but pretty. She has these grey eyes that when she looks at you, it's like she's reading your mind. She's very smart, too. Cindy and Nikki discovered her. Her Ed's an engineer, but he's been slacking, Dad says, doing IT work.

The second trip Cindy went by herself to get them and they came back with Dana's great-grandmother, Mizz Lee. Mizz Lee's a retired teacher. Master's degree. English.

She's interested in us. We showed her what we've written, both non-fiction – reports on our classwork, and technical, the write-ups of Bot-bot and the squirrel-attack unit, among other things.

"You girls are very good," she said. "Sharp."

"You can't help us, then, Mizz Lee?" Rachel asked.

"Oh, I think I can, Rachel, dear. "A sharp blade can benefit from honing. You seem to know the structures and syntax. Your writing looks good. We will learn why it looks good, the names and the structures and the rules that enable you to make language work for you."

"We're interested," I said.

"It may be tedious and unpleasant. Some people do find language studies to be unpleasant."

"Oh, no, Mizz Lee. If you take the time to help us, we will make an effort to learn," Rachel said.

"Grandma Desai said that teachers are worthy of respect and veneration," I added.

"Who is Grandma Desai?" Mizz Lee asked.

"She owns the Indian restaurant. She's one of Cindy's adopted grandparents."

"Cindy seems to collect smart friends and grandparents," Mizz Lee returned.

"Yes, she does. We all make some kind of family. Maybe we're not all blood relatives, but we do fit together."

"I do think that I want to be part of this, little one," Mizz Lee said. "I have some plotting to do."

"What would you be teaching us, Mizz Lee?" Rachel asked.

Mizz Lee smiled. "Love of the English language. I know that you know your Bot-bot. An end user knows Bot-bot as a unit, a whole. You know Bot-bot as many assemblies. Each assembly, you know down to components. That is where we will start – the components. We will play with assemblies and explore how the components fit together to make them, and then we will optimize them for our specific end users."

"That makes sense," I said.

Mizz Lee touched my cheek. "Terri, dear, I've been a teacher for fifty years. You girls will be my last, greatest class."

I put my hands together, palms touching, bowed my head, "Namaste, revered teacher." Vicki and Rachel joined me in the gesture.

"You girls, you know so much of so many things..." Mizz Lee said.

I think she had a tear in her eye.

It was almost lunchtime when I borrowed the little conference room at Dad's office. It's set up for teleconferencing and I have a scheduled teleconference with my friends at Google. I'm beginning to wonder how serious they are about my inputs. It's all fun right now, but up to this point I've been talking with them about autonomy. Now it borders on artificial intelligence and I'm trying to do it without the billion-dollar research lab that they have over in California.

After the teleconference, I called my friend Kim.

"Hi, Terri," she said.

"Hi, Kim. I got a question."

"Go ahead. I liked your idea about the personality modules you guys did for your 'mommy mode'."

"It was fun. I really need another one. That way I can turn one loose with my Tina-mom and little Kathy and we'll have one to work on."

"Wouldn't you need three or four? Your Tina has a baby, but you told me there were others..."

"I think that one would be good start. We could turn him loose..."

Kim giggled. "You said 'him'."

"Yeah, I know. EVERYBODY thinks Bot-bot is a 'he'. But two of 'em would shorten our development loop. He'd evolve faster."

"How much would a duplicate cost?"

"We're in R&D, you know," I said. "Like Dad says, ballpark number, a hundred K for another Bot-bot up to this phase-line. And, uh, Kim, since I'm giving you as much as Google is giving me, I think a bigger stipend..."

I saw Kim's face smile on my iPad. "pTerri-dactyl, we really have been talking about that. We can call it a research grant, and I think your figure's low. How about another hundred K. And we double your stipend, but you know we're gonna send some people over there to look at your work. You might need to transport him here. The videos are good, but they need to see him in real life."

My turn to giggle. "Our Bot-bot in real life. He's a robot. He's not real."