The Forgetting Machine Read Online Free Page B

ten thousand digits.”
    â€œCool!” Billy said.
    â€œWouldn’t that take up a lot of room in your brain?” I asked.
    They both looked at me.
    Mr. Rausch said, “And you are . . . ?”
    â€œGinger? Girl? Rather thin ? Who you just met, like, sixty seconds ago?”
    â€œCorrect!” said the tutor, as if I’d just responded to a test question. “As for memories taking up physical space, that is not a problem. Even Gertrude, for example, has the capacity to remember tens of thousands of smells, sounds, and images, and her brain is less than half the size of yours.”
    Gertrude looked up at the sound of her name and snorfled.
    â€œShe just radiates intelligence,” I said.
    â€œShe knows more than you can imagine,” Mr. Rausch said.
    â€œI can imagine a lot,” I said.
    He sniffed and returned his attention to Billy. “I thought we could start with history. Have you memorized the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution and its amendments?”
    â€œEr . . . not exactly,” Billy said. “Isn’t that like a hundred pages?”
    â€œNot precisely.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s something we have to do for school,” I said.
    â€œMy method requires a solid foundation in the basics,” he said. “Furthermore, it works best when my tutee and I are able to work without constant interruptions. In other words . . . ”
    â€œI was just leaving,” I said.
    Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â 
    So much for Billy being my secret weapon. The mystery of Flinkwater would have to wait until he was done getting tutored, or REMEMBERed, or whatever. I was a bit peeved at him, to tell the truth.
    After what happened to him later, I felt pretty bad about that.
    Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â 
    On the way home I was trying to figure out how to write my paper for Mr. Westerburg’s class without subjecting myself to further mortification or library sneeze-fests, when I noticed I was being followed.
    I’d been followed before, like a couple months ago when the Department of Homeland Security thought I was a terrorist. I Their black SUVs are easy to spot, but they hadn’t been bothering me lately.
    But this was no black SUV following me. This was a familiar-looking gray cat.
    â€œMr. Peebles, is there something I can do for you?” I asked politely.
    Mr. Peebles stopped walking, sat down on the sidewalk, and looked off at something utterly fascinating to him but completely invisible to me. The way one does, if one is a cat.
    I continued toward home. Mr. Peebles let me get about twenty feet away, then continued to follow me. He followed me all the way to my front door, where I stopped to explain the situation to him.
    â€œMr. Peebles, inside this house there is a Siamese cat. His name is Barney, and he is a jealous cat who believes that all other cats are evil demons. You should go home.”
    â€œMerp?” said Mr. Peebles, tilting his head.
    â€œYes, merp,” I said. “Now go home.”
    If that cat understood what I was saying, he chose to ignore it.
    â€œScat!” I yelled, waving my arms vigorously.
    Mr. Peebles backed up to the spirea bush and left his stinky calling card. He then trotted over by the maple tree, tucked his feet beneath his body, and closed his eyes to slits.
----
    I . Oops. I said I wasn’t gonna do this.

6

DustBots
    My mother had made significant progress with the DustBots, if causing them all to clump up in the corner of the living room could be called progress. When I walked in, she was stabbing commands into the handheld control module while yelling at the bots to disperse. My mother is not a woman who is accustomed to being ignored. But the DustBots didn’t seem to know that.
    Just in case you have been marooned on a tropical island for the past two decades, I should explain about DustBots.
    Imagine a gerbil.