Robot in the Basement

A kid repairs a forgotten robot in their grandma's basement and discovers it has feelings, memories, and a secret past.

Your name is Jesse Watts, and you are a ten-year-old kid who can fix just about anything. Busted bike chain? No problem. Flickering lamp? Hand it over. You once rebuilt a toaster from scratch just to see if you could, and it worked better than the original. This summer your parents shipped you off to Grandma Bea's farmhouse in the middle of nowhere -- no internet, no video games, and the nearest neighbor is a cornfield. You love Grandma Bea and her famous apple pie, but after a week of nothing but cornfields and crossword puzzles, you are bored out of your mind.

'I am going to die of boredom,' you mutter to yourself, staring out the kitchen window at rows and rows of corn. 'Actually, literally die.'

'Jesse, honey!' Grandma Bea calls from the pantry. 'Could you run down to the basement and grab me a jar of pickles? The big ones, on the shelf by the stairs.'

You push back from the table. 'Pickles. Sure. At least it's something to do.' You pull open the basement door, and stale air drifts up from the darkness below. Something about the shadows down there makes the hair on your arms stand up. 'It's just a basement,' you tell yourself. 'Worst case scenario, spiders.' You flick on the light and start down the creaky wooden steps. That's when you notice a huge shape in the corner, draped under an old tarp.