Resumo de Manfred - Zack Bridger

'Manfred' is a light hearted sci-fi story about an overweight teenage American boy who is bullied at school. The story depicts the sort of issues many kids face while passing through school and the way they would like to deal with their tormentors if fiction could become reality. Despite his weight problem and apparent lack of sporting prowess, Joe Doe is very clever. The only child of an electronics whiz who works for the American Defence Industry, Joe is also very gifted at making electrical gizmos under the tutorage of his father. Joe's torment by the bullies is made all the worse by his interest in a very pretty girl in his class, Michelle Connor. Feeling he was losing face and powerless to do anything about it, he decides he is going to build a robot to deal with the bullies, an idea inspired by the film 'Terminator'. Life is made unpleasant for Joe at school but the robot project gives him hope. All the parts he needs are supplied by his father who regularly passes on bits and pieces from defunct projects from work. Eventually Joe finishes his robot only to find it is weaker than him! Absolutely distraught, he takes everything out on his parents, the natural teenage solution. His father breaks work protocol and rescues a defunct project from being destroyed (as per Defence Industry guidelines) and brings home a real 'cyborg' albeit one he thought didn't work. Joe soon found that it does, infact, work! He didn't tell his father so that he could have exclusive use of it. Joe started to have a lot of fun with the cyborg who, in a moment of careless conversation he accidentally named 'Manfred'. Owing to the remote control of the cyborg, Joe has to feign sickness to get time off school in order to send Manfred instead. The cyborg is unbelievably high tech and has some amazing features. He has some fun days at school and Joe becomes well known for having this friend Manfred staying with him. Joe begins to realise his newfound popularity is nothing to do with him but his connection with Manfred. The girl Joe likes, Michelle Connor, takes a real interest in Manfred, and Joe, through the cyborg arranges to go to the school prom with her. The school bully, Jonny Pescarro, also likes Michelle and takes a real disliking to Manfred. However, Jonny realised pretty quickly he was no match for the cyborg physically and waits for the opportunity to cause some trouble. As it turned out, the opportunity is not far away as on the day of the school prom the big news in the City is the escape of a convict. The news stations cover the police activity all day on the television and radio, but the convict remains at large. Whilst at the prom, Jonny gets the idea to report a sighting of the convict and to supply Manfred's description. The police swoop immediately on the school and try to detain Manfred. Not realising what is going on and thinking of the trouble he could get in to with his parents, Joe 'remoted' Manfred away as quickly as he could. To Joe's amazement, the police opened fire on Manfred. Shocked, Joe tries to get Manfred back home as quickly as possible but finds he is being pursued by just about every policeman in the State. He is driven in the direction of the City's convention centre where Governor Schwarzenegger is addressing a rally. Hiding in amongst the crowd, Manfred managed to avoid police and security. Manfred tries to leave with the crowds but all the exits are guarded and security are everywhere looking for him. Manfred went deep into the complex and hides in a men's bathroom. It is here he has a chance meet with Governor Schwarzenegger! After initial surprise, Governor Schwarzenegger offers to help Manfred escape the police in his private limo. Joe is awe-struck that he has met Arnold Schwarzenegger! The Governor gives him a lift to the outskirts of town where he drops Manfred off. Joe now has the task to get Manfred back home. While on the way, a police car drives past and stops to turn round some way dfred runs on to a bridge which is his route home and climbs over the guard rail to hide from the returning police car. Not being able to find him the police car drives away - the convict had actually been apprehended moments earlier in another part of town. As Manfred climbs back over the guard rail to continue his journey home, he slips and falls into the river below. Suddenly Joe loses all contact with Manfred. Minutes turn to hours, hours to days, days to weeks. Manfred is lost! Joe eventually explains to his father what has happened. His father is absolutely stunned that the cyborg did actually work. They try together in vain to get Manfred back. Despite this loss, Joe's sense of self confidence has increased and despite a drop in popularity at school, some of Manfred's standing does rub off on him. He checks the central computer that controls Manfred regularly, but no contact with the cyborg is made...... end.

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