2.6 SCIENCE CLASS
They got to the door and it slid open, interrupting Ms. French, who had already started the UpGrade test review.
"I see you got to meet the new robot," Ms. French said.
"Yes, this is Fuzzy. Fuzzy, this is Ms. French."
"Hello, Ms. French," said Fuzzy.
Max was pleased to see that he didn't try to shake her hand or call her an object. He must have turned the face recognition back on. He was already learning how to be social.
"Well, um, hello, Fuzzy." Max could see that Ms. French, who was only about fifteen years older than her students, appeared to be stressed. Friendly but stressed. That was her usual look, actually.
"I wish there was time for the whole class to find out more about you, but I'm about to launch the review program for tomorrow's test. Do you need to sit down?"
"Do you wish me to sit down?"
"Yes, at that desk, please."
Ms. French waited until Fuzzy sat himself in a vacant aisle combo-desk and then gave a single hand clap, her signal for silence. "All right, class," she said. "If you'll turn back to your qScreens. Ralph, please read the question."
"List all planets, including the largest dwarf planets, in order of distance from the sun," Ralph said smugly, probably sure he could get this answer right.
"And can you name the planets, Ralph?" Ms. French asked.
"Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, dwarf planet Pluto—"
"That is not correct, Ralph," said Fuzzy.
Uh-oh, thought Max, Fuzzy still has a lot to learn.
"Fuzzy!" she hissed. "You're not the teacher! Just sit there!"
"It's OK, Max," said Ms. French. "Fuzzy, I'm pretty sure I heard Ralph list the planets in the right order."
"At the moment, Pluto's orbit has brought it closer to the sun than Neptune," said Fuzzy.
"Do we need to know this for the test?" asked Krysti, whose mission in life was to never learn anything that wasn't going to be on a test.
"Well. That's very interesting, Fuzzy," broke in Ms. French. "I'm sure we will all be very interested to learn about this when we aren't preparing for the test."
"So we don't have to know it for the test?" asked Krysti.
"No, you don't," said Ms. French. "In fact, it'll be best if you forget it. The only answer that's going to count on tomorrow's UpGrade is the one Ralph gave. I'm sorry, Fuzzy."
"But shouldn't we learn the right answer?" asked Max.
"Maybe later," said Ms. French, and she turned toward a boy on the other side of the room. "Noa, perhaps you could read the next question for us."
"But it's silly to learn the wrong answer," insisted Max.
"Please, Max, can we discuss this later? We need to get through the rest of the review. Go ahead, Noa."
Max and Fuzzy sat silently for the rest of the class. Max scowled, but Fuzzy was expressionless. Max wondered what he was thinking. Then she realized she hadn't been paying attention to the review and groaned. She'd have to study extra-hard tonight.
2.6.5
Meanwhile, Barbara—who had camera eyes in every classroom—had just given both Max and Fuzzy another discipline tag for distracting from the learning environment and had lowered Max's school citizen score several points for questioning the importance of UpGrading.
