Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine by Jay Williams, Abrashkin Abrashkin

had been a pig, but it was too late to do anything about it.
    â€œGood night, Dan,” he said, softly.
    â€œI’ll walk you to the front door,” Danny said.
    He snapped out the lights in the lab. But he was much too worried about the disagreement between his friends to remember to lock the back door. When he had seen Joe out, he went to the kitchen for a glass of milk.
    His mother was sitting at the table with a card file before her, and two or three cookbooks.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Mom?” he asked.
    â€œI’m programming tomorrow’s meals, dear,” Mrs. Dunn said, with a twinkle in her eye.
    â€œOh. Mom—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œWhat do you do when your best friend has a fight with your other best friend?”
    Mrs. Dunn thoughtfully chewed the eraser of her pencil. “It seems to me, darling,” she said, at last, “that if the middle of a rope is strong, it won’t break no matter how much you pull on both ends.”
    Danny looked at her. “Oh,” he said. “I—I think I understand. Well, good night, Mom.”
    He started up the stairs. Then he remembered that he had forgotten to lock up the laboratory. As he entered, it seemed to him that he heard an odd, scrambling noise out in the lilacs. But when he looked, there was nothing there. He turned the key in the back door, snapped off the lights, and went up to bed.
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    A Scrambled Report
    Danny overslept the next morning. His mother had to call him three times, and in the end she had to come upstairs and roll him out of bed before he would get up. He came down yawning, and Mrs. Dunn, lifting one eyebrow, said, “You’ll have to be more serious on school nights, Dan. No more late game playing with your friends.”
    â€œGame playing!” Danny exclaimed. “Oh. Yes, Mom.”
    He gobbled his breakfast and went out. Irene emerged from her front door at the same time, rubbing her eyes.
    â€œYou had trouble getting up, too, I see,” she said.
    â€œUh-huh. I’ll bet Joe did, too.”
    Irene shook her head. “I wish Joe wasn’t so stubborn.”
    â€œAw, he was just tired last night. All that new homework got him.”
    Irene clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my goodness!” she said. “Danny! I forgot.”
    â€œForgot what?”
    â€œWhen you said ‘new homework,’ I remembered some old homework. Last week Miss Arnold asked me to do a social studies report. I’m supposed to give it in class this morning. And I never prepared it.”
    â€œOh, gosh. I remember it—it was on the products of Peru.”
    â€œThat’s right. We were so busy last night, I forgot all about it.”
    Danny looked at his wrist watch. “Listen,” he said, “you go on to school. All that stuff is in Minny’s memory. If I program it right now, I can get it for you in three minutes.”
    â€œBut will it be in the form of a report?”
    â€œWhy not? It’s just information we want, and the machine can dig it out of the tapes and type it.
    â€œBut Dan, you’ll be late for school.”
    â€œSo what? We’ll both be late if you don’t hurry. Anyway, maybe I can just make it in time.”
    Without another word, he turned and dashed back. He rushed into the house, shouted to his mother, “Forgot something!” and ran to the laboratory. He snapped the POWER ON switch and, while he was waiting for the machine to warm up, quickly jotted down exactly what he wanted and found the code number for its place in the memory banks. Turning to the microphone, he said, “Address 21690. A report on the products and industry of Peru. Prepare and type information, pages 93, 94, and 95.”
    He tapped the proper key, and within a moment or two the typewriter was rattling off the report. Danny snatched it out of the machine, switched off the power, and ran.
    He knew a few short cuts which he usually