The Bully Detector

“Hurry up Aviral!” My best friend, Aarav yelled from the front door of my compact apartment. 

“What?” I asked, groggily waking up from my uncomfortable square bed. 

We were on the spaceship Vestigo and we were in space. The reason we were up here was that my parents were pretty smart people. My dad is a really good astronaut as well as an expert on aerospace engineering. My mom is an aerospace scientist. 

Life up here is not as cool as it seems. You see, the food sucks, the bathrooms stink, and half the time you're up here, you feel like you're going to vomit. Also, you still have to go to school. 

“You're late for school, dude!” Aarav said in an irritated voice. I couldn’t blame him. This was about the hundredth time I overslept on a school day, dreaming about being back at home and on Earth. 

I got up and got dressed as quickly as I could, wondering what my next excuse would be. 

I could say I started to vomit again, I thought. Wait, never mind. I used that last time.  

I got my backpack and ran to the door. That is when I realized, I forgot to do my science project! 

All 4th graders had to create a machine that would make life on the spaceship better. That was so that the adults didn’t have to do all the work themselves and they didn’t have to come up with a new assignment for the students. 

I started to panic but then I stopped. I had science right after lunch, and in the morning I had math. Math was super easy because of my parents' forcefulness of me doing extra work. That meant that I could skip lunch, and go to the library to build my machine, and I could do other things during math. Then, I could ask Aarav to tell me what the math homework was! I was so proud of myself.  

I ran out the door to math class. That was when I bumped right into Luke Albright, a.k.a the biggest-stupid-moron-bully in Vestigo. 

“Going somewhere A- viral?” The disgusting creature sneered. 

“Yup,” I said casually and tried to walk past him but he stopped me. 

“I don’t think so,” He had an evil little grin on his face. 

Dang it, I thought. I scanned the room for anything I could use to defend myself. Then, I found it.
I made a mad dash for the bathroom running as fast as I could, He-who-must-not-be-named chasing after me. I wished Vestigo didn’t have that artificial gravity. 

Finally, I reached the men’s bathroom. I waited by one of the toilets. I had a plan. 

Eventually, the Emperor of Evil came charging straight at me. I simply stepped aside and he smacked into the toilet. I pushed his head down, flushed the toilet, and ran for my life. 

Ha! I thought. Gave him a taste of his own medicine!  

After what felt like years of running, I reached my math class door. 

Time to turn on those persuasive skills, I thought as I walked in. 

It was completely dark. There was a video on the board talking about dividing decimals. I quickly ran to my seat next to Aarav hoping no one would see me. 

Luckily, I made it to my seat without anyone seeing me. Aarav was flicking his eraser absentmindedly when he saw me. 

“How come you were so late?” Aarav asked curiously. I mouthed the words, the creature, in response. Aarav nodded with a look of understanding.
Time to get to work , I thought. I started doodling on a piece of paper trying to find possible ideas for the machine. 

What is the biggest mistake in Vestigo? I thought. The toilets, the food, Luke Albright… OF COURSE! Luke Albright was by far the biggest problem in Vestigo! 

Now what would my machine do? I thought. Then I came up with an idea. It could warn people if the creature was nearby. Then it would tell them the quickest escape routes! I could use the old security cameras to warn the user. I just had to lower the sound of the beep and reprogram it to beep when it saw the evil one. That wouldn’t be too hard considering the high tech computers on Vestigo. Then I could use one of the GPS’s on Vestigo to tell the quickest escape route! 

Finally, it was lunch time. I ran to the storage area and took out the old security camera. Then, I raced to the computer lab and started taking apart the camera.
After 10 minutes I was done reprogramming it. I asked one of the scientists for a GPS of Vestigo. I attached the GPS to the camera and then I was done! Suddenly, my camera started beeping. 

Oh shoot!  I thought. He-who-must-not-be-named is close by!  I looked at my GPS and ran in one of the directions. I waited for 5 minutes and Luke didn’t come by! My machine worked! 

Later that day, we presented our machines. My teacher congratulated me on my creativity. Aarav created a pill instead of a machine, that helped you stop vomiting. That is when my machine started beeping and Luke Albright came into the room. 

“You're going down,” He said in an eerie voice.