We all froze. There wasn’t an Ellie in our class. Well, not yet, anyway.

Everyone stared at the robot. The top of its head glowed blue and the white eyes wiggled up and down. And then a tiny voice came from inside the robot.

“Yes, Miss,” it said.

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

After the register, Miss Burnell began our first lesson. Everyone in the class kept looking over at the robot to see what it was doing.

Miss Burnell was busy writing some fractions onto the whiteboard and Erin leaned towards me. “What do you think is wrong with her?” Erin whispered.

“Who?” I said.

“Ellie!” said Erin. “It must be serious if she’s too sick to be at school for so long.”

I just shrugged.

“I might ask my mum if I can have a robot,” said Seb, slumping back in his chair. “I can play on the Xbox and be at school at the same time.”

Erin and Anthony laughed.

“OK, Badgers,” said Miss Burnell. She turned to face us. “Who would like to solve the first equation on the board?”

Suddenly we heard a whirl and the robot’s head turned to the left. Everyone gasped.

“Miss! It moved!” yelled Billy.

“Yes,” said Miss Burnell. “Ellie can control the robot from her home so that she can see everything that’s going on in the classroom.”

The head of the robot slowly turned to the right and then back to the centre again.

“Ellie?” Miss Burnell said. “Would you like to show the class what else the robot can do?”

“Um, OK,” said Ellie, through the robot.

Miss Burnell turned the robot around so everyone could see. A light at the top of the head began to flash blue.

“This means I want to ask a question,” said Ellie.

“Oh, wow!” said Erin.

“And this is when I don’t understand something,” said Ellie. The eyes of the robot moved left and right, looking confused.

“This is when I’m happy,” said Ellie. The robot’s eyes looked like large letter As and wiggled.

“And this is when I’m sad,” said Ellie. The eyes on the robot drooped as if they were half closed.

“That robot is well cool,” said Seb.

“I was thinking we should come up with a better name than ‘robot’,” Miss Burnell said. “Don’t you, Badgers? Is that OK, Ellie?”

The eyes on the robot went back to normal.

“Sure!” said Ellie.

Anthony’s hand shot up. “How about Ellie-bot?” he said.

Miss Burnell laughed and the eyes on the robot began to wiggle, showing that Ellie was happy.

“It looks as if Ellie likes that,” said Miss Burnell. “Ellie-bot it is! Right. Back to Maths.”

She turned back to the whiteboard and we carried on with our lesson.

*