Like most goslings, Brightbill followed his mother everywhere. He was a slow, tottering little thing, but Roz was rarely in a hurry, and together they loved meandering along the forest paths and around the banks of the pond. However, they spent most of their time right in their own garden. You see, the garden was no longer scraggly. Thanks to the robot’s careful attention, it was now bursting with colors and scents and flavors. Clearly, Roz was designed to work with plants.
“Oh, Roz, you’ve been busy!” said Tawny as her family grazed on the wonderland of growing things. “This garden is glorious! You’ll be seeing quite a lot of us around here.”
Tawny meant what she said. Each morning, around daybreak, Roz and Brightbill would hear quiet footsteps outside the Nest. And there would be Tawny and Crownpoint and their fawns, Willow, Thistle, and Brook, happily nibbling on the garden.
The deer weren’t the only regular visitors. The beavers became quite fond of gnawing on a certain hardy shrub at the edge of the garden. Digdown, the old groundhog, popped up to munch on berries. Broadfoot, the giant bull moose, came by to chew on tree shoots. And of course bees and butterflies were there every day, happily floating through the flowers. There always seemed to be friendly animals hanging around the garden.
It was amazing how differently everyone treated Roz these days. Animals who once ran from the robot in fear now stopped by the Nest just to spend time with her. The neighbors smiled and waved whenever Roz and Brightbill wandered past. And at the Dawn Truce, the other mothers were eager to share their parenting advice.
“Make sure Brightbill gets plenty of rest. A tired gosling is a cranky gosling!”
“When the wind starts blowing from the north, you must immediately get Brightbill to safety. North winds always bring bad weather.”
“You’ll never be the perfect mother, so just do the best you can. All Brightbill really needs is to know you’re doing your best.”
No gosling ever had a more attentive mother. Roz was always there, ready to answer her son’s questions, or to play with him, or to rock him to sleep, or to whisk him away from danger. With a computer brain packed full of parenting advice, and the lessons she was learning on her own, the robot was actually becoming an excellent mother.