The Computer That Said Steal Me

Plot summary

The protagonist, a sixth grader named Adam, has recently moved with his family to Buffalo, New York from San Francisco, California. Adam attends St. Luke's, an expensive private school which he can only afford by virtue of the scholarship he receives as a consequence of his parents both working for the school. Thus, Adam finds himself the only lower-middle class student at an academy full of children of the wealthy. This disparity is often on his mind as he socializes with his friends, and it serves as the catalyst for the book's central plot and title. Adding insult to injury (at least in Adam's mind) is the fact that he cannot earn any extra money because he must babysit his two-year-old sister, Allison, a task which his parents feel is a family duty and not an opportunity for income.

Adam spends his free time with Jesse and Tracey, with whom he plays chess as well as Dungeons & Dragons. Adam, usually the winner of chess matches with his friends, realizes that he losing more often than he once did. He attributes this new development to the handheld chess computers that his friends now use for practice. Adam knows that his family cannot afford a chess computer, but he begins to covet the device. Without funds, though, all he can do is wish.

Lying in bed one night, he begins to toy with the idea of stealing a $400 talking chess computer from an electronics store in the local mall at which he occasionally shops. He approaches the scheme at first in the same fashion as he would create a Dungeons & Dragons game. As the plot becomes more complicated, and in his mind, daring, he dwells upon whether he should actually execute it.

He does. Adam takes his sister to the mall on the day he puts his plan into action. Pushing her in her stroller through the aisles of the electronics store, he quickly pilfers a clock radio while no one is watching. He leaves the store without incident. It is no ordinary clock radio, however, at least by 1983 standards. Rather than waking a sleeper with the radio or an alarm pulse, this particular model will play an audio cassette at the designated time of alarm. This is central to his plan, which includes returning the clock radio to the store after setting it to play a prerecorded message the next day. He spends his remaining time at the mall asking passers-by to read one word each into a portable tape recorder he has borrowed from his father. In total, the message reads: "Beware, you will be hurt if you do not do as I say. Go to the bathroom and lock the door." After recording this message, he places the tape into the clock radio and then returns to the electronics store. He explains to Vanessa, the sales clerk, that his sister inadvertently placed the clock radio in the stroller and he did not notice it at the time. Vanessa is overjoyed, as she had feared that the missing clock radio would be deducted from her paycheck. Adam now believes that he is the last person that anyone would suspect of being a thief, as he returned an item when he could have simply kept it.

The next day, he returns to the mall moments before the message is set to be played on the clock radio. At the designated time, he enters the store and takes the chess machine. He makes his escape and is not caught.

He plays with the talking chess machine but he is quickly overcome with guilt. He confesses to the theft after his friend Tracey finds the chess machine (which Adam had hid in a Monopoly board game box. He later reveals his transgression to Jesse, and ultimately, to his parents (who punish him, but not heavily, as they recognize that their son is racked with guilt). He returns the machine to the electronic store and earns the wrath of Vanessa, who bans him from the store and accuses him of creepy behavior. She does not call the police.

Setting

The book is somewhat dated in its popular culture references. Jesse has created a shrine of sorts to John Lennon and is apparently an expert on his then-recent assassination. Tracey admits to a crush on Andy Gibb. Allison, Adam's sister, mentions the Blue Meanies, the villains in the film Yellow Submarine.

Nuclear conflict

The threat of imminent nuclear annihilation plays a role in the development of the plot. One reason why Adam must babysit his sister so often is that his parents are always off to attend meetings sponsored by the nuclear freeze movement. Jesse, Tracey, and Adam use their familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons to create a role-playing game set in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear war. By the end of the book, they host an event at which attendees roll the dice to determine whether they are immediately incinerated or condemned to die slowly of radiation sickness. The children equate those in power with Dungeons & Dragons players, as each are entrusting lives to the roll of the dice. Throughout the book, the characters wonder if they are doomed to perish in a nuclear conflict and whether they will become adults at all.