"It's here! It's here!" Wensy cried, rushing into her Neohome with a large box in hand.

Her older brother looked up from his book, eyeing the pink Acara as she set the box on the floor and began to rip it open. "What in the world did you order this time?"

The Acara briefly stuck her tongue out at her brother, then continued digging through the packaging. "You'll see, it's really cool!"

Sighing, the starry Lupe set his book down and walked over towards his sister. Wensy pulled a large shiny object out of the packaging and squealed. "Isn't it awesome?"

Ricker raised an eyebrow. "Why would you waste your Neopoints on a metal statue of a Blumaroo, of all things?"

"It's not a statue... watch!" Wensy insisted, flipping a small switch on the back of the metal object. The robot whirred to life as gears clicked and turned within its metal body.

Startled, Ricker backed up. "Where'd did you get that?" he demanded. It was a highly unnatural thing, which made him feel uneasy.

Wensy picked up a magazine from a nearby coffee table. "Discount Space Supplies!" she said, waving the magazine in front of her Lupe brother.

Ricker snatched the magazine and flipped it open. Sure enough, among all the other strange gizmos, he saw an ad for a robot Blumaroo butler. "The new and improved Robo Blumaroo is a must for Neopet," Ricker read, "It will clean your Neohome, serve you meals, clean up after your Petpets, and much, much more!"

"See?" the Acara said, "It's just what we need!"

"I'm still not sure about this, Wensy. What if—"

The Acara, however, wasn't listening. "Robot! I order you to clean my room!"...

"Okay, so it needs a little training," Wensy admitted.

Her brother raised a starry blue eyebrow. "Yeah. This discount heap of metal and bolts is just a complete waste of Neopoints, like I said."

Wensy cast an annoyed look at Ricker and rolled her blue eyes. "Do you have to be like that?"

Ricker snickered at the robot, which was still trying desperately to dust the air. "It'll take lots of training to get that thing spiffed up," he remarked.

"Whatever! I bet that I can train him to do whatever I want by Friday," the Acara said confidently. She had never wanted to prove her brother wrong so badly.

Ricker looked skeptical. "I doubt you got your money's worth. This robot can't learn a thing! And you're not exactly a certified robot trainer either," the Lupe added jokingly.

Wensy stood her ground stubbornly. "I'll show you by Friday, Ricker," she promised in response.

The Lupe only shook his head and smiled. "Yeah, sure, little sis," he said, disappearing to his room.

Meanwhile, the robot was still energetically brushing the air. "You can stop now," Wensy said kindly. The robot almost seemed to sigh in relief as it obeyed the command.

"Let's start our training..."

"You try," repeated the robot in a monotone, and whirred across the floor to the table. Its arm moved jerkily across the tabletop, bringing up even more dust into the air.

Wensy felt an itching in her nose, and scrunched it up, but the sneeze came anyway. "Achoo!" she cried, and wiped her nose with a paw.

"Achoo," repeated the robot in his metallic monotone. "Achoo, achoo."

Laughing, the Acara shook her head. "No, if I sneeze, you say 'Bless you.' Okay? 'Bless you.'"

"Bless you," repeated the Blumaroo obediently. His tiny robotic arm was a blur as he rid the table of its dusty layer.

"Very good." Wensy pointed to the open doorway in the hall. "Now, to carry out my original task. I am going to show you how to clean my room..."

Well, at least it's not as bad as Ricker's room... Wensy thought with a smirk.

"Ok, Robo-Blumaroo, let's get started." Wensy picked her way across the room to the toy chest and told the robot, "This is where the toys go." She picked up a few scattered plushies and a bouncy ball, and tossed them in. "Now you try."

The Blumaroo's arms were a whirlwind of motion as he picked up objects off Wensey's floor and threw them into the toy chest. He had added three keychains, a bottled fire faerie, and several of Wensy's dresses to the box before she managed to stop him.

"No!" she cried, snatching her Noil from the robot's hands just in time to save the Petpet from inevitable doom in the toy chest. "Only toys go in there," she told the robot. Receiving only a blank stare from the robot, she sighed and set to work.

Wensy spent the next hour meticulously picking up each toy in her room, showing it to her robot, and putting it carefully into the toy box. "Ok," she said at last, "now it's your turn."

With that, she upended the toy chest, dumped out its contents, and flung them randomly around the room.

Hearing someone laughing from the doorway, she whirled around to see...

"I'll show you," Wensy muttered under her breath.

Her brother shook his head. He was sure that she would never be able to train the robot by Friday. There were so many chores around the house that the robot could be ordered to do, and it seemed as if it took an entire day just to learn one of those tasks.

Deep inside, the Lupe was happy to see his little sister so determined, but he thought that in this matter, she was wasting her time. Sometimes, he wished that she would spend her Neopoints on more useful things.

"I'll show you," the robot said steadily, repeating what it had heard Wensy muttering earlier. With that, the robot set immediately to work, picking up everything off of the floor and putting all of the toys into the toy chest. When it was done, it went on to pick up its feather duster and dusted off everything in the entire room, not stopping until it reached the doorway and had even dusted off Ricker himself.

Ricker's face changed from its shocked expression to a laugh when he felt the feathers lightly scratching his nose. Suddenly, he felt a sneeze building up. He attempted to stop it, but it wouldn't desist. "Ah-ah-achoo!" And he sneezed in the robot's face.

"Bless you," the robot said, handing the Lupe a tissue.

Wensy couldn't help but laugh at the situation. "Come on, Robo," she said with a slight smirk as she sauntered out of her room, leaving her surprised brother in the doorway, "let me show you the rest of the house..."

"Clean those," affirmed the robot, rolling itself towards the kitchen table. Positioning itself behind a chair, it strained forward, pushing the chair to the sink as a young child might. Its tiny metal hands lifted and clung together behind the armrest, then the arms shortened to their original length, bringing the robot up with them. Wensy watched in delight as he disentangled his hands and reached for the first dish.

She held up the container of dishsoap. "Like this," she explained, and gave it a squeeze. A coin-sized blob of goo plopped onto the dish, and she flicked on the hot water. Plunging the dish into a mist of steam and bubbles, she scrubbed it with a towel. "Go ahead, Robo, while I look for the broom to sweep off this floor."

"Broom," the Robo-Blumaroo repeated from behind her, furiously scrubbing.

"Uh-huh," Wensy affirmed absentmindedly, and began opening and shutting cabinet doors as she searched. "That's funny, I thought it was up here somewhere. Must have left it in the basement."

"Basement," said the robotic voice, but Wensy wasn't listening. As she opened the pantry door and went to the closet, she didn't hear a soft metallic click of the robot lowering himself from the chair.

Only a horrible series of jarring crashes and bumps was loud enough to be heard over the hissing of the water from the sink. "Oh no!" Wensy cried, running toward the basement stairs. "He tried to get my broom..."

The Robo Blumaroo had indeed fallen down the stairs, but rather than crashing into the hard cement floor, he'd instead landed in a pile of Wensy's dirty play clothes. In the robot's hands was a large, squirming object. "Broom," he said, holding up Ricker's Swabby.

Wensy giggled. "Haha! No, Robo -- that's a Petpet," she said, then paused for a moment to think. "Or, perhaps, a mop. Anyhow, it's definitely not a broom!" She scampered down the steps, pulling the nearby broom off a hook in the wall. After helping the robot to his feet and removing the distressed Swabby from his hands, Wensy started back up the stairs, waiting patiently at the top for her friend to join her.

In no time at all, the two had finished the dishes and swept the kitchen floor clean, with a now-happy Swabby playfully skidding around behind them, unknowingly mopping up as well.

"Well, that's all done now!" Wensy announced happily to her robot. She gazed proudly at him, for he had learned so much in just this short amount of time. He'd easily be able to do all sorts of chores by Friday!

Starting towards the living room, Wensy motioned for Robo to follow her. "We'd best clean up our mess in there, too. Your box and packaging are still all over the floor."

Upon reaching the doorway, though, Wensy gasped at what she saw...

"Ricker, what are you doing?" Wensy cried as Ricker flipped the switch on the Aisha's back and watched it come to life.

"Well, I figured that if you can train a robot to do your chores, then it can't be very hard. So, I decided to get one myself and train it to do MY chores..." Ricker said, smirking. "And it will do much better than your Blumaroo."

"It will not!" Wensy shouted furiously. Why did her brother have to take the fun out of everything?

"Well, you sound confident." Ricker laughed. He knew he was annoying her. "Want to change our little bet?"

"Yes!" Wensy yelled, glaring at him. "Whoever's robot is better trained by Friday wins!"

"Wins what?" Ricker asked curiously.

"Um, they win..." Wensy stammered, thinking quickly. Her eyes fell on her Robo-Blumaroo, who was watching the new Robo-Aisha walk around. "They win the other person's robot!"

Ricker grinned. "Deal," he said, then picked up his Robo-Aisha and left the room.

Once he was gone, Wensy turned to her robot. "Don't worry, Robo. We won't let him win, right?"

"Right." The Robo-Blumaroo replied, then proceeded to clean up the packaging that was still all over the living room floor...

Finally, Friday arrived. Wensy was awakened by the shrill bell of her alarm clock, and she practically leaped out of bed.

"Haha, today's the day, Robo! We're gonna show Ricker and his Robo-Aisha who's the better robot!" she cried while Robo-Blumaroo imitated the sound of the alarm clock to perfection. He turned his head towards his owner and leaped into the air as well, though, since robots are not meant for leaping, he ended up landing unceremoniously in Wensy's toy box.

Laughing, Wensy hoisted the robot out of the box, then swiftly hurried away to ready herself for the big day. She and Robo were soon in the living room, joined by Ricker and Robo-Aisha within minutes.

"Ready to lose your robot, Wensy?" Ricker asked with a toothy grin.

"I should have said the same to you," replied Wensy, flouncing off to sit on the sofa. Her brother sat as well, and they turned to each other, then to their robots, who were eyeing each other curiously.

"Now, what shall the first challenge be, dear brother?" Wensy asked sweetly. They had agreed that there would be two challenges; the first would be decided by Ricker, and the second by Wensy. They would both rate the robots fairly according to speed and neatness.

Her brother readily answered...

"Okay!" chirped Wensy. "I'll go next door and borrow their lawn mower, and we'll have ourselves a mow-off!"

Minutes later, the two combatants appeared, robots in hand, and plopped them down behind the handlebars of their respective lawn mowers. Ricker and Wensy wore watches that were synchronized to the exact same time and had alarms that went off at the same time to signify when to signal their robots to start. At precisely 10 o'clock, both of their watches went off, and the two robots set out with loudly buzzing lawn mowers in their metallic hands.

Both Ricker and Wensy spent the time cheering their respective robots, while occasionally shouting a vicious jab at the other. They tried to keep a close eye on what their robots were doing.

When the dust and the grass clippings settled... both robots had met exactly at the middle, implying that both took exactly the same time doing their respective sections of the lawn.

After a moment of surprised silence from both Neopets, Ricker took a look at his Robo-Aisha, then looked back at Wensy.

"Why don't we just proceed to the next test?" said Ricker, and Wensy nodded her head.

"I say our next test should be dishwashing!" she replied excitedly.

"You're on!" Ricker answered, and they both headed back to the kitchen, robots in tow. They proceeded to set up the kitchen so that both sides of the two connected sinks would have an equal number of dirty dishes in them, and on either side would be a dish drainer, a towel, some soap, and a dish scrubber. They placed their robots on either side of the connected sink and decreed the criteria of the contest -- whichever robot cleaned, dried, and placed their dishes properly first would be the winner. Again, their watches would be the starting signal, and at 11 o'clock, their watches beeped, and the robots were off.

However, when the contest started, something even more astonishing happened -- the Robo-Aisha took the dishes from her side and handed them to the Robo-Blumaroo, who promptly and gently placed them on his side, and the Robo-Blumaroo took his side's dish drainer and towel and handed them both to the Robo-Aisha, who placed them orderly on her side. The Robo-Blumaroo then proceeded to soap and scrub all the dishes on his side, then handed each clean one to the Robo-Aisha, who then rinsed, dried, and placed them gently away.

It was as if the two robots were working together.

"What did you do, Wensy?" said Ricker angrily, glaring at Wensy.

"What do you mean, what did I do? I should be asking you! I didn't have my robot anywhere near your stupid Robo-Aisha!" Wensy retorted loudly.

"Some liar you are! You obviously rigged this contest so I would leave you alone!" shouted Ricker back at Wensy.

"No, I didn't! You rigged it so you could shut me up and prove me wrong, you mean Lupe, you--!"

As this went on, the two robots worked in tandem to clean all the dishes, and when they finished, they turned to see the siblings bickering. The robots glanced at each other, then walked up hand in hand, and used their free arm hug a lug of their respective owners.

When both the siblings felt the metallic arms caress, they stopped their shouting immediately and glanced at their robots, whose electronic lighted eyes looked pleading.

Ricker finally broke the silence. "I think we should take a hint from these robots," he said quietly, wrapping his arms around Wensy.

Sighing, Wensy nodded slowly, returning the hug. "Yeah... this whole argument on who has the better robot is kind of stupid..."

"I'm sorry I ever doubted you, sis," said Wicker solemnly.

"And I'm sorry for thinking you'd never have an open mind," replied Wensy. "I'll forgive you if you forgive me... and one other condition, the Acara added.

"What's that?" questioned Ricker.

The Acara, lifting one of her arms from the hug, pointed at the Robo-Aisha. "Change her batteries -- the lights in her eyes are out, meaning her battery is dead. She'll be stuck like that forever if you don't change it!"

"Oh!" said Ricker in a rather embarrassed voice. "I'll get on it right away..."

The End