Free Eyes of the Killer Robot by John Bellairs

got bored with pinball and decided to go upstairs. Fergie turned and took one more look at the robot. He looked thoughtful and a bit disappointed.
    "Y'know, John baby," he said, "that tin pitcher isn't nearly as scary as I thought it'd be. I had kinda made up my mind that there'd be some energy source in those eyes, an' they'd make the thing start wavin' its arms or some-thin'."
    Johnny was surprised. Fergie was usually the calm, logical type, and when he had weird ideas, he tried to hide them. "Why the heck did you think that would happen?" asked Johnny with a little giggle. "I think you've been readin' too many science-fiction comic books."
    Fergie made no answer. He just shrugged and started up the stairs, and Johnny followed. They went to the living room, where the professor was just beginning to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his upright piano. This was the way he always let his guests know that the party was over. Fergie went home, and Johnny trotted back across the street with Gramma and Grampa. The two old people went upstairs to bed, but Johnny wasn't sleepy yet, so he wandered into the living room and turned on the TV set. Then he went out to the kitchen and made himself a pimiento-cheese sandwich and poured a glass of ginger ale. He had just gotten back to the living room when he was startled by a terrific loud pounding. Putting his glass and plate down on the coffee table, Johnny rushed to the door. There stood the professor in his bathrobe and pajamas. His glasses were stuck onto his face crookedly, and his hair was wild. He looked absolutely frightful.
    "John! John!" gasped the old man as he staggered into the front hall. "It's gone! The robot's gone! Oh, my lord, what are we going to do? What on earth are we going to do?"
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    CHAPTER EIGHT
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    Johnny was thunderstruck. All sorts of wild ideas came rushing into his head. "You... you mean somebody stole it?"
    The professor shook his head miserably. "No, no! That's not what I mean! No one could possibly have... but wait! If you'll come across the street with me, you'll see what I mean. Come on!"
    With a dazed look on his face, Johnny followed the professor across the street and into his house. The door to the cellar was in the kitchen, and before he opened it the professor paused and tapped the dead-bolt lock with his finger. "This door is the only way into the basement, except the windows," he said. "And there's no sign that any of the basement windows has been forced open. After you folks left, I spent about an hour here in the kitchen, doing dishes. Once or twice I went to the living room to poke the fire in the fireplace, but I would certainly have heard anyone who tried to drag the robot up the cellar stairs. But the blasted thing is gone! Have you ever heard of anything like that in your life?"
    Opening the cellar door, the professor stepped aside and waved Johnny ahead. Down the creaky steps he went, and at the bottom he paused. All the lights were on, and he could see the professor's workbench and the bare place on the cement floor where the robot had stood. Johnny began to feel faintly sick inside. This was the kind of eerie unexplainable thing that he had feared.
    "Hard to believe, isn't it?" muttered the professor as he began turning the lights out. "Something very uncanny is going on, and I'm afraid this may be just the beginning of our troubles. Where do you suppose that miserable hunk of tin has gone to?"
    Johnny didn't have any answers. He went upstairs and sat around in the kitchen talking to the professor for a while, and then he went home. When he finally went to bed, he did not get much sleep, and when he came stumbling down to breakfast the next morning, he found Grampa sitting at the kitchen table with a newspaper in his hand. He looked shocked.
    "Oh... hullo, Johnny," said Grampa in a distracted way. "I was just readin' in the paper—somethin' awful happened here in town last night! I never heard of anythin'