The Wild Robot

“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.