Free The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman

of every possible move I could make to get out of the situation, but it’s hopeless. Brenton says I’m in Zugzwang, which means that any move you make only makes your position worse. I had to resign.
    Afterward, my dad sends me an e-mail telling he how proud he is of me. He says I put up a good fight. When I was little, I remember, he used to let me win at games and sports. I would beat him all the time. But he said I was getting too old for that, and I have to learn how to handle losing becausein the real world sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
    It made me feel good. We started a new game.
    MISS RASMUSSEN, FIFTH-GRADE TEACHER
    One day I noticed that the homework turned in by Brenton, Kelsey, Judy, and Sam was remarkably similar, except for the handwriting. This was
after
I had switched their seats around. I also noticed that the four of them still left school together at the end of the day.
    I don’t know why it took me so long to notice the similarities in their work. With so many papers to correct every night, I just didn’t make the connection. And their work was so well done. I tend to notice the kids who make a lot of mistakes, not the kids who get everything right.
    I hope that after I’ve been teaching for a few years, I won’t be so overwhelmed with work and will be able to pay more attention to things like this.
    SAM DAWKINS, GRADE 5
    Miss Rasmussen pulls me aside after school one day and says what an awesome job I’m doing on my homework. I say thanks and try to get outof there as fast as possible. But then she asks me if I ever copy off anybody.
    Now that I’m looking back on it all, I guess I should have been insulted. I mean, she was basically saying I’m too dumb to do such good work on my own. But I was cheating, so I wasn’t too insulted.
    I say no, I do not copy off anybody. And that was the truth, technically. I never copied my homework off Brenton or Judy or anybody. I didn’t have to. Belch did the homework
for
me. But I didn’t tell Miss Rasmussen that.
    KELSEY DONNELLY, GRADE 5
    The three of them got all bent out of shape after Miss Rasmussen had that talk with Snik. They decided that me and Snik had to start getting some of the answers wrong so it wouldn’t look like a machine was doing our homework for us. So now we had to cheat so it wouldn’t look like we were cheating! What a hassle. I can make mistakes just fine on my own.
    BRENTON DAMAGATCHI, GRADE 5
    It became necessary to rewrite the Belch software to program in intentional mistakes at randomintervals for Snik and Kelsey’s homework. This was an interesting challenge, and I enjoyed it immensely. It’s easy to design a machine that will work perfectly all the time. It’s harder to design one that will work perfectly just
most
of the time. It goes against the nature of machines.
    It reminded me of what they did with Post-it notes. They created an adhesive that was sticky, but not too sticky. If Post-it notes were stickier, they would not serve their purpose. You wouldn’t be able to pull them off and stick them somewhere else. They’re perfect because they don’t work very well. In other words, they’re perfect because they fail. That was what I had to accomplish with Belch.
    POLICE CHIEF REBECCA FISH
    Received a call on Saturday afternoon, March 16. There was a break-in at the house of the Damagatchi boy. Nobody was home at the time. There was a broken basement window. Some minor damage. Nothing was stolen. Didn’t look like a professional job. They ran when the alarm went off. It was a prank by a kid, I guess. Happens all the time.
    RONNIE TEOTWAWKI, GRADE 5
    I didn’t try to break into Brenton’s house. I don’t care how many times you ask me. I didn’t do it, and you can’t prove that I did.
    JUDY DOUGLAS, GRADE 5
    We have this school paper called the
Grand Canyon Times
. It’s not a real paper. Just some stories and poems