“Very good, Brightbill!” said Loudwing as she floated past. “You’re a natural!”
“Yes, Brightbill, you are a natural!” said Roz, trying to sound like a good mother.
Loudwing rounded up all the goslings and gave them a quick swimming lesson. “Remember, everyone, paddle your feet evenly to swim in a straight line. Paddle with your right foot to go left, and paddle with your left foot to go right. Try it out and join the rest of us when you’re ready. Happy Swimming Day!”
Loudwing and the other adult geese calmly glided toward the center of the pond. A jumble of goslings tried to keep up with them. The youngsters jostled and splashed and peeped with excitement, and gradually they paddled in the direction of their parents.
Only Brightbill lagged behind. “Mama swim?”
Roz pointed to the flock. “I cannot swim. Go have fun with the other geese. You will be safe with them.”
The gosling took a deep breath. Then he shook his tail feathers and paddled his feet and set out on his very first swim. He drifted too far to the left. Then he drifted too far to the right. But his feet just kept paddling until he caught up to the other goslings.
Roz spent the morning watching her son swim around and around the pond. And as she watched him, she felt something like gratitude. Thanks to Brightbill, the robot now had friends and shelter and help. Thanks to Brightbill, the robot had become better at surviving. In a way, Roz needed Brightbill as much as Brightbill needed Roz. Which was precisely why she felt such concern when the mood on the pond suddenly changed.
One moment everything was tranquil, and the next moment the geese were in a panic. Something was violently sloshing through the group. It was Rockmouth, the giant, toothy pike. The fish had been a problem in the pond for as long as anyone could remember, but he’d never attacked goslings before. All the parents immediately went to protect their young—all the parents except Roz. The robot could only stand in the shallows and watch as her son left the other geese behind and desperately swam toward his mother.
“Swim to me, Brightbill! Quickly!”
The gosling kicked as fast as he could. But alone on the water, he made an easy target. The pond rippled as Rockmouth slashed below the surface.
“Mama! Help!” squeaked Brightbill.
The robot was terribly conflicted. Part of her knew she had to help her son, but another part knew she had to stay out of deep water. Her body lurched forward and then backward, again and again, as she struggled to make a decision.
And then Loudwing came to the rescue.
“Rockmouth, don’t you dare harm that little darling!” The old goose fluttered over and splashed down right on top of the fish. “Leave… him… alone!” She pecked and kicked and beat her wings against the fish until he surrendered to the murky depths of the pond.
Loudwing escorted Brightbill back to the beach, and a minute later the gosling was in his mother’s arms, safe and sound.
“Rockmouth isn’t as dangerous as he seems,” said the goose, out of breath. “But I think that’s enough swimming for one day.”
CHAPTER 36 THE GOSLING GROWS
Brightbill soon forgot about the incident with Rockmouth, and he spent his mornings cruising around the pond with the other goslings. He was becoming a great little swimmer. He was also becoming a great little speaker.
“Hello, my name is Brightbill!” he said to anyone who would listen.
The gosling was small for his age, and he always would be, but he was growing bigger and stronger by the day. His increasing size was matched by his increasing appetite. He gobbled down grass and berries and nuts and leaves. Sometimes he’d snack on little insects. If it was edible, Brightbill would eat it. And even if it wasn’t edible, he might eat it anyway. Roz felt something like fright the time she saw Brightbill swallowing pebbles on the beach. She was holding him upside down, hoping the pebbles would fall out of his mouth, when Loudwing stepped in.
“Put the gosling down,” said the goose with a laugh. “It’s perfectly natural for Brightbill to eat a few pebbles. They’ll help him digest his food. But not too many, okay, little one?”
Like most youngsters, Brightbill was incredibly curious. He explored the garden and the pond and the forest floor. And he would occasionally explore neighboring homes. He’d wander down some hole in the ground and say to whoever was there, “Hello, my name is Brightbill!” Then a long robot arm would reach in and pull the gosling back outside. “Sorry to bother you,” Roz would say, in her friendliest voice.
The mother and son slipped into a good nighttime routine. While the gosling slept, the robot might tend the fire if it was cool out, or gently fan him if it was warm. If he woke up hungry or thirsty, Roz brought him food or water. And whenever he had nightmares, she was always there to rock him back to sleep.
CHAPTER 37 THE SQUIRREL
A small squirrel was scurrying through the garden. Brightbill had never seen her before. He peered out from the Nest and watched her bounce across the lawn. After a minute of spying, the gosling shook his tail feathers and waddled outside. “Hello, my name is Brightbill!”
The squirrel froze. Then she slowly turned around. And then she started to talk.
“Hi Brightbill my name is Chitchat and I’m a twelve-and-a-half-week-old squirrel and I’m new around here and your home is really big and round and I don’t understand why smoke sometimes comes out of it…”
Reader, I’m not quite sure how Chitchat got enough air into her lungs to go on like that. And I’m not quite sure how Brightbill had the patience to listen. But he stood there and politely nodded as Chitchat rambled on and on and on.
“… and sometimes I see you waddling behind your funny-looking mother and you seem so nice that I thought I’d come down and introduce myself but now I’m nervous and I’m talking too much and my name is Chitchat I think I said that already.”
There was a pleasant silence.
Brightbill stood on one foot for a moment.
Then the gosling took a deep breath and said, “It’s very nice to meet you Chitchat I don’t think you talk too much I think you talk just enough and I like you so let’s be friends.”
A big smile appeared on the squirrel’s tiny face. For once, Chitchat was speechless.
CHAPTER 38 THE NEW FRIENDSHIP
Chitchat wasn’t speechless for long. She’d already been alive for a whole twelve and a half weeks, and she wanted to tell Brightbill about every exciting thing, and every boring thing, that had ever happened to her. And so, as the new friends played and explored and ate together, the squirrel shared her stories.
“I was born on the other side of the hill and then last week I decided I was ready to build my first drey which is what you call a squirrel nest and now I live in that tree with the weird bump in its trunk,” she said while the two of them kicked pebbles into the pond.
“One time a weasel chased me through the treetops until he missed a branch and fell all the way down and crashed into a bush and walked away all wobbly and he never bothered me again,” she said while the two of them crawled through a hollow log.
“Eww gross I saw you eat that ant one time I ate a gnat by accident and I didn’t like it at all I mostly eat acorns and bark and tree buds and sometimes the yummy berries that grow in your garden,” she said while the two of them took a snack break.
But Chitchat was as good a listener as she was a talker. And whenever it was Brightbill’s turn to speak, she’d keep quiet and hang on his every word.
Do you know who enjoyed their conversations most of all? Our robot Roz. The protective mother was never far away, and she felt something like amusement at the silly conversations she overheard, and she felt something like happiness that her son had made such a good friend.