“I remember one of the commands,” Garry said. Then loudly he called out:
“Atten-tion! Atten-tion!”
“She’s not paying any mind!” Patch said.
“She must be short-circuited again,” Garry said. “Let’s go for Captain
Eaton!”
“I hate to wake him up after the hard day he had yesterday,” Patch said,
as he returned along the corridor with Garry, “but this is an
emergency.”
It turned out that they did not have to wake the captain. He met them,
clad in his robe, at the door of the dorm, having already been aroused
by the commotion going on down the corridor.
Captain Eaton yawned. “It’s Katrinka, isn’t it? Ben set her for laundry
duty this morning, but I guess her wires got crossed again.”
The boys cautioned Captain Eaton to be careful about going into the
slippery room. The captain promised he would be careful and promptly
fell down as soon as he walked through the door. Garry and Patch tried
to help the captain to his feet, but only succeeded in falling again
themselves. They scrambled around, slipping and sliding. Then slowly
learning how to become expert at moving about in soapsuds, they finally
managed to stand up and stay up.
Carefully, the three made their way toward the washing machine where
Katrinka was still merrily flipping clothes through the air. But by now
she was out of ammunition and was merely flailing her metal arms. The
captain used the command, “Atten-tion!” several times, trying to stop
Katrinka’s wild actions, but he had no better luck with this than Garry
had had.
Captain Eaton moved forward over the slippery floor and groped for the
control knob on the robot’s back. But then, losing his footing, he hung
on to the robot to keep from falling again. This brought Katrinka
crashing down onto the floor along with the captain himself.
Garry and Patch each offered the captain a hand and presently managed to
get him upright again. Garry had a hard time keeping a straight face.
Captain Eaton’s face was red, and his beard was straggly and sudsy. His
soggy bathrobe stuck to his thin legs, giving him the appearance of a
saddened, snow-covered elf.
In the meanwhile, Katrinka was still having her fun, swinging her arms
gaily against the floor as she lay on her back.
“We’ve got to turn her over,” Captain Eaton said, crawling nearer the
robot. “Be careful of her arms. She can knock you over with them.”
Garry thought he saw how the job could be done.
“Let’s both grab her right leg, Patch,” he said. “Then we’ll give a good
heave-ho and flip her over on her stomach. Careful you don’t slip.”
They did as Garry had suggested, yanking fiercely on the robot’s leg and
flipping the metal creature over, face down. But the motion also brought
Garry and Patch down in the soap again, this time getting the suds all
over their faces, causing them to make wry grimaces and blow away the
froth from their lips even as they laughed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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