The Wild Robot

You see, Roz had noticed that the wilder she acted, the more the animals liked her. And so she barked with foxes and sang with birds and hissed with snakes. She romped with weasels. She sunbathed with lizards. She leaped with deer. That spring was a very wild time for our robot.

CHAPTER 62 THE RETURN

It was a quiet afternoon on the pond. But the quiet was gradually being overtaken by sounds not heard around there for many months. The sounds grew louder and louder, and then a flock of geese appeared above the trees.

Honk! Honk! Honk!

Most flocks of geese move lazily through the sky and trail off in wobbly lines. But not this one. This flock was fast. It flew in a perfect V formation. And it was led by a small, graceful goose.

The flock flew once around the pond before gliding down and gently splashing into the water. The geese gathered in a tight group in the middle of the pond. They floated there for a while, softly honking to one another. And then the leader broke away from the others. He swam straight toward the Nest, waddled into the garden, and fluttered up to his mother’s shoulder.

“Welcome home, son,” said Roz.

“It’s good to be back, Ma,” said Brightbill.

CHAPTER 63 THE JOURNEY

After months of separation, Roz and Brightbill, mother and son, were together again. And they had so much catching up to do. They went into the Nest, and the robot built a fire. Then the goose gazed into the flames and told the story of his winter. This is what he said.

“We spent the whole first day of our migration flying over the ocean. It seemed like the ocean would go on forever, but just when the flock was getting tired, Longneck pointed to some tiny islands on the horizon. We flew down to one of the islands and ate dune grass and rested our wings. After a few days of hopping from island to island, we reached the mainland and continued over fields and forests. And then the snow began to fall.

“I’d never seen snow before, and at first I thought it was beautiful! But it just kept coming. The others explained that the snow was early, that we were never supposed to see it, but there it was, piling up around us as we tried to sleep at night. Longneck worried that the weakest geese wouldn’t survive, and he was right. We lost old Widefoot to that very first snowstorm.

“We tried to fly around the snowy weather, but we got completely lost and the weather became even worse. Lakes and ponds and rivers began freezing over. We couldn’t find food or water, so we ate snow, and that only made us colder. We had trouble cleaning ourselves, and our feathers became dirty and heavy. The flock was in bad shape. But Longneck kept us moving. ‘We are geese,’ he squawked, ‘and geese keep going!’

“One day, we were struggling through a snow shower when we saw something called a farm. It had perfectly square fields and enormous buildings. And stomping her way through the farm was a robot! She looked just like you, Ma!

“Longneck sent me over to speak to the robot, but I couldn’t understand anything she said, so I just followed her through the farm and around a corner, and then I saw something I never expected.

“Plants! Bright, colorful plants! I didn’t understand how plants could live in such cold weather, but then I saw that they were actually inside a building. I learned later that the building was called a greenhouse, and it had clear walls made of something called glass. The robot pressed a button on the wall, and a door slid open and warm air came rushing out. I hadn’t felt warmth in so long that I just had to follow her inside.

“Ma, it was like summer in there! The air was warm and sweet and sticky. And there were rows and rows of different plants. The robot didn’t pay any attention to me, so I wandered around the greenhouse, nibbling on leaves and drinking from puddles. Then I heard a scratchy voice behind me.

“‘If I were younger, I woulda killed you by now.’

“I spun around, and there was an old cat! She walked on stiff legs, and her fur was gray and clumpy. The cat’s name was Snooks, and she didn’t seem very nice. But then she saw the other geese out in the cold with their faces pressed against the glass, and she told me how to open the door.

“‘You can rest here,’ said Snooks as the flock hurried in. ‘But stay outta sight! The humans aren’t as friendly as me.’

“None of us knew what ‘humans’ were, but we didn’t care. We were just happy to be out of the cold. Loudwing was so happy she cried. The flock drank and ate and bathed and slept and stayed out of the way. Snooks showed us where to leave our droppings so they wouldn’t be noticed. And for a few days, the greenhouse was our home.

“Once or twice a day, the robot would go outside and return with a box or a bag, but most of the time she stayed inside and quietly worked on the plants.