“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.
“There was a barn that I just had to explore. It was filled with animals and machines and piles of straw, and two robots. One robot was fixing a broken door when I walked in. She was using a loud spinning tool called a saw. She pushed the saw through a long piece of wood, and dust shot into the air. Everything was going smoothly until the saw suddenly lurched forward and sliced right through three of the robot’s fingers! But she was fine. A minute later there was a thwip sound as she popped on a new hand. Then she went right back to using the saw again! The other robot worked with the animals. Chickens, sheep, pigs, and cows. They were all in cages. The chickens kept asking me how I’d gotten out of my cage. I was explaining that I’d never had a cage when I heard panicked squawks coming from the greenhouse.
“I ran back and found that a human had discovered the flock. We didn’t know what he was saying, but he looked really angry. Longneck tried to defend us. He got in front and spread his wings and honked, but the human wasn’t afraid. He pulled out a shiny stick and pointed it right at Longneck. Snooks hissed, ‘Look out, he’s got a rifle!’ Suddenly, a bright beam of light shot out from the rifle, and Longneck slumped to the floor. He was dead, Ma!
“The flock was so scared. We fluttered around and honked and knocked over plants. But the human kept moving toward us, pointing his rifle. So I pecked the button to open the door, and we ran outside, into the cold, and flew away from there as fast as we could.
“Without Longneck, the flock needed a new leader. Everyone wanted me to lead. I didn’t know what to do, so I started by repeating Longneck’s words. I squawked, ‘We are geese, and geese keep going!’ Then I took the point, and the flock spread out behind me.
“The weather had us all turned around, and nobody knew which way to go, so I just led us straight south. We saw more robots and humans and buildings, but we didn’t stop. We knew we were way off course when we saw the ocean again. But at least it was a little warmer by the water, so I decided to follow the coastline for a while.
“There were more buildings by the coast. Most of them were on land, but some were in the ocean. The ocean buildings were dirty and crumbling and leaning in different directions. There weren’t any humans or robots in those buildings, only sea creatures.
“We saw ships on the water. We saw ships on the land. We even saw ships in the air. They buzzed through the sky like giant dragonflies! And then we reached a place called a city, where thousands of buildings and robots and humans and ships were all close together. When we stopped to rest on a rooftop, we met a friendly pigeon named Graybeak. She had grown up there, so she knew everything about the city. She flew us over towers and under bridges and kept us away from all the buzzing airships. And everywhere we went, there were robots.
“Some of the city robots were just like you, Ma. But others crawled on six legs, or rolled on wheels, or slid up and down the sides of buildings. Some robots were really small, and some were really big. They moved things and cleaned things and built things and did every kind of job you can think of!
“Graybeak brought us down to a ledge on the side of a building and told us to look through the windows. Inside was a family of humans, and they had a Roz robot! When we looked into other buildings, we saw other humans with other robots. Every human seemed to have a robot.
“I told Graybeak about you, Ma, and she wanted to show us one last place. We flew out to the edge of the city, to a really big building called a factory. Graybeak brought us to the roof windows, and we looked down into the factory and saw machines building sparkling heads and torsos and limbs. The factory was building robots!
“A machine held up a robot torso and put two legs under it, and they snapped into place. It put feet under the legs, and they snapped into place. It snapped arms into the shoulders and snapped hands into the arms. A head was snapped onto the top, and the robot was finished. Ma, the robot looked just like you. I think that factory is where you were built!
“I wanted to watch more robots being built, but it started snowing again, so we said good-bye to Graybeak and continued flying south. We saw fewer robots and humans and buildings and ships. The air became warmer, and the snow disappeared. We started seeing other flocks of geese in the sky. So we followed them to the middle of a wide grassy field where there was a lake and hundreds of other geese. We had finally reached the wintering grounds.
“After all we’d been through together, our flock had become very close. We kept to ourselves, eating and resting and remembering the geese we’d lost. But after a few weeks, we began to mingle with the other flocks. We met geese from all over the world, and they told us about their homes and their migrations and their troubles with the winter weather. Every flock had lost geese on the way there. A few flocks didn’t make it at all.
“Before we knew it, the early-spring flowers were poking up, and it was time to fly home. We followed the usual migration route north. We flew over fields and forests and hills, but we didn’t see any signs of humans or robots. And that was fine with us. Eventually, we reached the ocean, and then our island, and then our pond. And then I saw you.”
CHAPTER 64 THE SPECIAL ROBOT
After Brightbill told the story of his winter, he and his mother sat in silence and thought. They thought about poor Longneck and the human who had killed him. They thought about farms and cities and factories. They thought about Roz, and where she truly belonged.
Then, after a while, Roz told Brightbill her own winter story. She spoke of her long, dark hibernation and of how she had awoken to find the Nest caved in around her. She spoke of blizzards and frozen animals. She spoke of the many lodges she had built and the one that caught fire. But she mostly spoke of all the new friendships she had forged.