The Homework Machine

The introduction to The Homework Machine is written from the perspective of Rebecca Fish, the police chief of Grand Canyon, Arizona. Rebecca is thinking back to the closed case of the “homework machine” and the four fifth-grade students involved, musing that the mile-deep canyon seems to attract strange cases like “flies to dog doo” (1). The police recorded the private testimonies of the students, teacher and parents involved in the case. The story of the case is told by these testimonies.

Sam Dawkins (a fifth grader) introduces himself and explains his nickname, “Snik.” Snik is short for Snikwad, which is his last name backward. Snik’s father is in the air force, which is why his family moved to Arizona (he insists he was not kicked out of his last school). Snik tells the sequence of events leading up to their police interviews from his perspective, starting from the first day of school.

Snik is self-conscious as the new kid in Miss Rasmussen’s class on the first day of school. He quickly identifies the “clueless dweebs, pre-jock idiots, losers, brown-nosers and bullies” (8), but he can’t place Brenton, who says the “weirdest stuff” (9).