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“The ‘poop thing’ is a great idea, and you’ll all feel bad for joking about it one day,” Ying deadpanned. “Also, stop calling it the ‘poop thing.’”
Nadia couldn’t wait any longer. “Let’s see it, Tai!” she urged with a clap of her hands. Admiring the squad’s work in action was her favorite thing to do in the lab, after eating funfetti. But that happened far less frequently.
“All right.” Tai grinned. “Hold on to your butts.” She hit a button on the remote in her h
and. The mechanical arms raised in unison. The wheels moved forward and backward. And the tray-like platform started to rotate on a timer. One; two; three. One; two; three.
“Tai!” Nadia cheered. “Nice work!”
“Well, you know, I—” It was Tai who was interrupted this time. The lazy Susan was becoming significantly less lazy. “Hang on—” Tai slammed what Nadia could only assume was the Stop button over and over again to no avail. The platform’s rotation started to speed up: onetwothree onetwothree onetwothreeonetwothreeonetwothreeonetwothree, until…
The Raspberry Pi caught fire. It was a small piece of equipment, but it produced some impressively large flames.
Ying sprang into action first, ripping an extinguisher from the nearest wall and leveling the nozzle at the motherboard. Carbon dioxide blasted from it, smothering the robot in a white cloud and extinguishing the fire almost instantly.
The robot’s arms drooped. Tai, in her chair, covered in a fair amount of white CO2 herself, drooped just the same.
Nadia rushed over to examine the robot. “It’s still completely salvageable, Taina. I wouldn’t worry—”
“It’s fine,” said Tai, waving her off. She gripped the wheels on her chair and shoved herself forward, right into the other girls. “Comin’ through.”
“Don’t stress, Tai, you’re gonna get it—” Shay started, before Ying cut her off with a glance.
Ying’s glances could do that. They were very scary. Ying was good with glances the way some Widows were good with tomahawks. Better, even.
“Seriously, guys, it’s fine.” Tai moved between the girls and toward the lobby. Nadia could tell by the break in her voice and the speed at which she was trying to exit the lab that it was definitely not fine. “It was a stupid idea anyway.”
“No idea is stupid,” Nadia protested. “That’s G.I.R.L. rule number one. Can we help—?”
“It’s fine!” insisted Tai. “I just want to wash this off. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Happy name day, Nadia.”
Nadia watched Tai roll out of the room’s automated double doors, one hand waving back. The big DON’T TELL ME TO SMILE sticker—the one with the girl holding the spiked bat and making a rude gesture—stared Nadia down from the back of Tai’s chair until the doors slid closed behind her.
The girls all looked at each other in silence for a minute. A bunch of Nadia’s name day balloons were now coated with a thick white layer of carbon dioxide.
Priya broke the silence. “Well. It’s not exactly confetti, but it’s a little festive?”
Nadia sighed. Tai would be in a better space tomorrow. Or maybe she wouldn’t. It was hard to tell with Tai.
An alarm went off on her phone and Nadia started. She whipped it out of her back pocket—the best thing about high-waisted jeans (among many best things, thought Nadia) was that they provided gigantic back pockets for gigantic cell phones and also sometimes snacks. Ladies’ clothes never had sufficently workable pockets.
Pocket…dimensions? An alternate-dimension pocket for women’s clothes only…Nadia tucked that idea away for later. She turned off her phone alarm and explained to her friends apologetically, “Sorry to cut the party short,” she said, “but I have to skedaddle.” She’d learned that word from Hawkeye. The superior Hawkeye, of course: Kate Bishop. “Family dinner tonight at the house.”
“Another surprise?” guessed Ying.
“Oh, absolutely,” Nadia confirmed. “I should be getting the call any second.”
The girls stared at Nadia, waiting. She looked down at the phone in her hand.
“Just…any second,” she said again.
Still nothing.
“Any…” She swallowed. Was she wrong about this surprise…? She was certain she’d overheard—
Her phone buzzed in her hand, the screen lighting up. “Ha!” Nadia lifted the device in triumph. Shay and Priya burst out in laughter. Ying shook her head, but Nadia could see the smile in the corners of her lips.
“I’ll be at the shop tonight and tomorrow if any of you need anything,” Priya said, picking up her oversize tote bag. It was a beautiful faux-leather, and Nadia was always impressed by how many things Priya could fit in it. It was like her own super-power. Other than the talking-to-plants thing. Like a second, tote bag–related super-power. “Picking up some shifts while my uncle finishes his semester.”
