Looks of concern swept over the crowd.
“What was the creature doing?” said Dart the weasel.
“It was speaking,” said Swooper. “It kept repeating the same words over and over again. But each time it sounded a little different. At first it sounded like a cricket, and then it sounded like a raccoon, and then it sounded like an owl!”
“What was it saying?” said Digdown the groundhog.
“I could be mistaken,” said Swooper, “but I think it was saying, ‘Hello, my name is Roz.’”
The crowd began to chatter.
“Just where was this creature?” said Fink the fox.
Everyone turned as the owl slowly pointed his wing to a grassy lump in the meadow. It was a rather ordinary-looking grassy lump. Until it began to move.
As you probably guessed, that grassy lump was Roz. She had been there the whole time, camouflaged, watching, listening, and with all the animals looking at her she decided to introduce herself. The crowd stared in disbelief as the grassy lump started shaking and bulging upward and crumbling apart, and there was the robot! Then, using her body and voice, the robot spoke to the animals in their own language.
“Hello, my name is Roz.”
The crowd gasped.
Swooper fluttered up from his branch and screeched, “It’s the monster!”
“I am not a monster,” said Roz. “I am a robot.”
A flock of sparrows suddenly took off.
“Leave us alone!” squeaked Dart as he crouched low in the grass. “Return to whatever horrible place you’ve come from!”
“I come from here,” said Roz. “I have spent my whole life on this island.”
“Why haven’t you spoken to us sooner?” screeched the owl, from higher up in the tree.
“I did not know the animal language until now,” said the robot.
Crownpoint the buck had heard enough, and he slipped into the forest with his family.
“So what do you want from us?” growled Fink.
“I have observed that different animals have different ways of surviving,” said the robot. “I would like each of you to teach me your survival techniques.”
“I’m not going to help you!” screeched the owl, from the very top of the tree. “You seem so… unnatural!”
“The monster is just waiting to gobble us up!” shrieked Digdown. And the groundhog disappeared into a hole.
“I will not gobble anyone up,” said Roz. “I have no need for food.”
“You don’t need food?” Fink relaxed a bit. “Well, I need food. And lots of it. Why don’t you make yourself useful and find me some food?”
“What would you like me to do?” said Roz.
“Can you hunt?” The fox smiled at a hare on the far side of the gathering. “It’s almost time for breakfast.”
“I cannot hunt. But I could gather berries.”
The fox’s smile disappeared. “Berries? I’m hungry for meat, not berries! Good luck to you, Roz. You’re gonna need it!” And the fox trotted away.
Roz looked up at the tree, but the owl had gone. And when the robot looked down again, she realized that everyone else had gone too.
CHAPTER 22 THE NEW WORD
A new word was spreading across the island. The word was Roz. Everyone was talking about the robot. And they wanted nothing to do with her.
“I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable knowing that Roz is on the prowl.”
“I hope Roz camouflages herself as a rock. Forever.”
“Shhh! There’s Roz now! Let’s get out of here!”
Roz wandered the island, covered in dirt and green growing things, and everywhere she went, she heard unfriendly words. The words would have made most creatures quite sad, but as you know, robots don’t feel emotions, and in these moments that was probably for the best.
CHAPTER 23 THE WOUNDED FOX
“My face! My beautiful face! Somebody help!” Fink the fox was lying on a log, howling in pain, with a face full of long, sharp quills, when Roz appeared. “Isn’t there anybody else who can help?”
“Would you like me to leave?” said the robot.
“No! Please don’t go! I’ll take what I can get.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t think that porcupine could see me in the bushes, but when I went for his throat, suddenly there were quills in my face!”
“Why did you go for his throat?”
“Why do you think? Because I was hungry!”
“If you had not attacked the porcupine, you would not have quills in your face.”
“Yes, Roz, I know that. But a fox has gotta eat! I just didn’t expect him to put up such a fight. Look! There are even quills in my paws! I can’t walk! My face is numb! I could die if you don’t help me!”
“What would you like me to do?” said the robot.
“I’d like you to pull out the quills!”
Roz calmly knelt beside Fink and said, “I will pull out the quills.”
The robot started to tug on a quill, but it snapped off in her fingers. Fink yelped and said, “Pinch it closer to the skin!” So Roz pinched the broken quill closer to the skin, and then, very slowly, she pulled it out. The fox winced in pain and said through his teeth, “Please, Roz, pull them out faster. This is agony!”
Roz quickly tugged out another quill. Then another, and another. The fox lay perfectly still, eyes closed tightly, wind whistling through his nose, until every single quill had been removed and placed in a neat pile beside him.
Fink struggled to his feet. “Thanks, Roz. I… I owe you one.” The fox smiled, briefly, and then he limped away.
CHAPTER 24 THE ACCIDENT
As Roz wandered through springtime, she saw all the different ways that animals entered the world. She saw birds guarding their eggs like treasures until the chicks finally hatched. She saw deer give birth to fawns who were up and running in a matter of minutes. Many newborns were greeted by loving families. Some were on their own from their very first breath. And, as you’re about to find out, a few poor goslings would never even get a chance to hatch.
Roz was climbing down one of the forest cliffs when the accident happened. The wind started blowing out of the north, and suddenly clouds were rushing over the island. With the clouds came a spring shower. A downpour, actually. And there was our robot, clamping her hands onto a wet block of stone on the side of the cliff. But the block couldn’t handle the extra weight. And as the heavy robot hung there, cracks suddenly shot through the stone and it started breaking apart. Down went the robot, plummeting into the treetops below. She crashed through branch after branch before finally hooking an arm around one. Then she dangled there, gently swinging as rocks roared past her on their way to the forest floor.
When the dust settled, Roz shimmied down the tree trunk. The ground was littered with broken rocks and splintered wood and pulverized shrubs. And within all that rubble was a goose nest that had been torn to shreds. Two dead geese and four smashed eggs lay among the carnage. The robot stared at them with her softly glowing eyes, and something clicked deep inside her computer brain. Roz realized she had caused the deaths of an entire family of geese.
CHAPTER 25 THE EGG
As Roz stood in the rain, staring down at those poor, lifeless geese, her sensitive ears detected a faint peeping sound coming from somewhere nearby. She followed the peeps over to a clump of wet leaves on the ground. And when she peeled back the leaves, she discovered a single perfect goose egg sunk in the mud.
“Mama! Mama!” peeped a tiny, muffled voice from within the egg.
The robot gently cradled the fragile thing in her hand. Without a family, the unhatched gosling inside would surely die. Roz knew that some animals had to die for others to live. That was how the wilderness worked. But would she allow her accident to cause the death of yet another gosling?