CHAPTER 39 THE FIRST FLIGHT
Brightbill had spent his entire life by the pond, and he was becoming very curious about what lay beyond his neighborhood. So one day his mother said to him, “Let us go for a walk, and I will show you more water than you can possibly imagine.”
Roz placed the gosling on her flat shoulder, and the two of them set off across the island. They marched out of the forest, crossed the Great Meadow, and climbed uphill until they were at the top of the island’s western ridge. Before them was a grassy slope that descended all the way to the dark, choppy waves that surrounded the island.
“That is a lot of water,” said the wide-eyed gosling. “I’m a good swimmer, but I’m not good enough to swim across that pond.”
“That is not a pond,” said the robot. “That is an ocean. I doubt any bird could swim across an ocean.”
Waves rolled in from the horizon.
Seagulls circled above the shore.
A steady breeze blew up the slope.
Brightbill’s yellow fluff had recently changed over to a coat of silky brown feathers, and he spread his feathery wings into the breeze. And then—
“Mama, look!” For the briefest of moments, the wind lifted Brightbill off the ground. But he quickly tipped backward and thumped into the soft grass. “I was flying!” he squeaked.
“That was not flying,” said Roz, looking back at her upside-down son.
“Well, I was almost flying. I’m gonna try again!”
“I have observed many birds in flight,” said Roz. “Sometimes they flap their wings quickly, and other times they fly without flapping at all. They spread their wings and soar on the wind.”
“So I was soaring?” said Brightbill.
“Almost. There, look at that soaring seagull. It seems like she is not doing anything, but if you look closer, you will notice that she is making small adjustments with her wings and tail. I think you should try adjusting your wings in the wind, like her.”
Brightbill hopped onto a rock and opened his wings wide. “The wind is pushing me backward!”
“Change the angle of your wings,” said his mother. “Let us see what happens when they slice through the air.”
Brightbill slowly angled his wings downward. The more he turned them, the less the wind pushed him backward. And just as his wings leveled off—
“Mama, look!” he squeaked as his feet left the ground. “I’m soaring! I’m soaring!” He hovered there for a second, rising a little higher than before, and then he sailed backward into the soft grass again.
The gosling kept hopping onto the rock and kept riding the wind and kept tumbling into the grass, until he started to find his wings. With each attempt he floated a little higher and a little longer, and finally Brightbill really did soar. He lifted high into the air and hung there, floating. He turned his wings down and felt himself drop. He wiggled his tail feathers and felt himself veering back and forth.
“I’m a natural!” he squeaked.
“You are doing very well,” said Roz. “But you need to keep practicing.”
And so they spent the afternoon practicing up on the ridge. Once Brightbill was comfortable soaring, he tried flapping his wings. He flapped high into the air. He flapped in straight lines. He flapped around and around in circles. A big smile appeared on the gosling’s face. Clearly, Brightbill was designed to fly.
“I’m flying, Mama! I’m really flying!”
“You are flying!” said the robot. “Very good!”
Brightbill was now a real flier. But all that flying had worn him out. He lowered himself toward the ground and tumbled into the grass one last time. His landings still needed some work.
Roz placed Brightbill on her shoulder and headed back to the Nest.
“I can’t believe I can fly now, Mama,” said Brightbill in his sleepy voice. “I just wish… I just wish you could fly with me.”
And then the gosling’s words were replaced by his quiet, steady breathing.
CHAPTER 40 THE SHIP
Brightbill was a flying fanatic, and his favorite place to fly was up on the grassy ridge. The robot and the gosling liked to spend afternoons up there, working on the finer points of flying. And it was on one such afternoon that they noticed something mysterious far out at sea.
Brightbill spiraled down to his mother, flopped onto the grass, and pointed to the horizon. “Mama, what is that thing?”
Roz’s computer brain found the right word. “That is a ship.”
“What’s a ship?”
“A ship is a large vessel used for ocean transport.”
Brightbill’s face scrunched up with confusion. “Used by who?”
“I do not know.”
It was the first ship either of them had ever laid eyes on. From that distance, it looked as though it were moving slowly, but it was actually racing through the waves. From that distance, it looked as though it were small, but it was actually one of the largest ships ever built. The robot and the gosling watched it crawl across the ocean until it finally disappeared to the south.
Where had the ship come from? Where was it going? Who was on board? Roz and Brightbill had many questions but no answers.
CHAPTER 41 THE SUMMER
On clear summer days, Roz and Brightbill and Chitchat liked to go exploring. They investigated the island’s sandy southern point. They marveled at the rainbows that curved up from the waterfall. They surveyed the forest from the branches of tall trees. They met new friendly creatures, and sometimes they met new unfriendly creatures. But the only creatures they had to worry about were the bears.
One time, they came upon a bear fishing in the river, and Roz whispered, “You know what to do.” Brightbill flew up and away, Chitchat scurried home through the treetops, and Roz melted into the landscape as only she could. Later, they met back at the Nest and told the neighbors all about their brush with danger.
On dreary summer days, they would stay inside. Roz asked Brightbill and Chitchat about dreaming and about flying and about eating and about all the things they could do that she could not. But the youngsters had too much energy to sit still for very long. They spent one drizzly afternoon kicking acorns around the Nest. Chitchat piled them up, and then Brightbill swung his big foot and the acorns went flying. The little friends chased the acorns as they bounced and rolled and spun across the floor. Then they made a new pile and kicked them again. Sometimes an acorn would bounce off Roz’s body—clang!—and everyone would laugh and giggle together. Even Roz laughed. “Ha ha haaa!” said the robot, trying to act natural.
On clear summer evenings, they would sit outside and watch fireflies twinkling around the pond. Then they’d lie back and gaze up at the darkening sky.
“That big circle is the moon,” said Chitchat. “And those little lights are called stars and one time I tried to count them all but I can only count to ten so I just kept counting to ten over and over and I have no idea how many stars there are but I know it’s more than ten.”
“They are not all stars,” said Roz. “Some of them are planets.”
“What’s a planet?” said Chitchat.
“A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star.”
“What does ‘celestial’ mean?”
“Celestial means something that is in outer space.”
“What’s outer space?”
“Outer space is the universe outside the atmosphere of our planet.”
“What’s the universe?”
“The universe is everything and everywhere.”
“Oh, so the universe is our island?”
None of them would ever really understand the universe, including Roz. Her computer brain knew only so much. She could talk about the earth and the sun and the moon and the planets, and a few stars, and not much else. The night sky was full of streaking, shimmering, and blinking lights that she simply couldn’t identify. Clearly, Roz was not designed to be an astronomer.