The Wild Robot

CHAPTER 19 THE OBSERVATIONS

Clouds scudded through the sky.

Spiders spun intricate webs.

Berries beckoned to hungry mouths.

Foxes stalked hares.

Mushrooms rose up from leaf litter.

Turtles plopped into ponds.

Moss spread across tree roots.

Vultures hunched over carcasses.

Ocean waves beat against the coastline.

Tadpoles became frogs, caterpillars became butterflies.

A camouflaged robot observed it all.

CHAPTER 20 THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANIMALS

It started with the birds. They had always been skittish when the robot was near. They would stare and screech and then scatter. But now that Roz was camouflaged, she could secretly observe their normal behavior, right up close.

Roz noticed chickadees fluttering through the same flowers and singing the same song every morning. She noticed a lark who swooped down to the same rock and sang the same song every afternoon. She noticed the same two magpies singing to each other from across the same meadow every evening. After weeks of robotically studying the birds, Roz knew what each bird would sing, and when they would sing, and eventually, why they would sing. The robot was beginning to understand the birds.

But she was also beginning to understand the porcupines and the salamanders and the beetles. She discovered that all the different animals shared one common language; they just spoke the language in different ways. You might say each species spoke with its own unique accent.

When Roz first listened to the chickadees, their songs had sounded like “TWEEE-tweedle! TWEEE-tweedle!” But now when the chickadees sang, Roz heard “Oh, what a lovely day it is! Oh, what a lovely day it is!”

Deer spoke mostly with their bodies. By simply turning her head, a doe could say to her family, “Let’s look for clovers by the stream.”

Snakes often hissed to themselves, things like “I know there’s a tasty mouse around here sssssomewhere.”

Bees said very little. They used their wings to buzz a few simple words, like nectar and sun and hive.

Frogs spent much of their time searching for each other. One would croak, “Where are you? I can’t see you!” And then another would reply, “I’m over here! Follow my voice!”

When Roz first stomped across the island, the animal squawks and growls and chirps had sounded like nothing more than meaningless noises. But she no longer heard animal noises. Now she heard animal words.

CHAPTER 21 THE INTRODUCTION

There was an hour each morning, in the dim light of dawn, when all the island animals were safe. You see, long ago they had agreed not to hunt or harm one another during that hour. They called it the Dawn Truce. Most mornings, the island residents would gather in the Great Meadow and spend the hour chatting with friends. Of course, not everyone attended these gatherings. The bears had never made an appearance. And the vultures just circled high above. But on this particular morning, an unusually large group of animals had come out to discuss some important news.

“Settle down, everyone—I have something to say!” Swooper the owl hooted to the crowd from the lowest branch of a dead tree. “Last night I saw a mysterious creature right here in the Great Meadow. It seemed to be covered in grass, so I couldn’t get a good look at it, but I think it may have been the monster.”

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.