On clear summer days, Roz and Brightbill and Chitchat liked to go exploring. They investigated the island’s sandy southern point. They marveled at the rainbows that curved up from the waterfall. They surveyed the forest from the branches of tall trees. They met new friendly creatures, and sometimes they met new unfriendly creatures. But the only creatures they had to worry about were the bears.
One time, they came upon a bear fishing in the river, and Roz whispered, “You know what to do.” Brightbill flew up and away, Chitchat scurried home through the treetops, and Roz melted into the landscape as only she could. Later, they met back at the Nest and told the neighbors all about their brush with danger.
On dreary summer days, they would stay inside. Roz asked Brightbill and Chitchat about dreaming and about flying and about eating and about all the things they could do that she could not. But the youngsters had too much energy to sit still for very long. They spent one drizzly afternoon kicking acorns around the Nest. Chitchat piled them up, and then Brightbill swung his big foot and the acorns went flying. The little friends chased the acorns as they bounced and rolled and spun across the floor. Then they made a new pile and kicked them again. Sometimes an acorn would bounce off Roz’s body—clang!—and everyone would laugh and giggle together. Even Roz laughed. “Ha ha haaa!” said the robot, trying to act natural.
On clear summer evenings, they would sit outside and watch fireflies twinkling around the pond. Then they’d lie back and gaze up at the darkening sky.
“That big circle is the moon,” said Chitchat. “And those little lights are called stars and one time I tried to count them all but I can only count to ten so I just kept counting to ten over and over and I have no idea how many stars there are but I know it’s more than ten.”
“They are not all stars,” said Roz. “Some of them are planets.”
“What’s a planet?” said Chitchat.
“A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star.”
“What does ‘celestial’ mean?”
“Celestial means something that is in outer space.”
“What’s outer space?”
“Outer space is the universe outside the atmosphere of our planet.”
“What’s the universe?”
“The universe is everything and everywhere.”
“Oh, so the universe is our island?”
None of them would ever really understand the universe, including Roz. Her computer brain knew only so much. She could talk about the earth and the sun and the moon and the planets, and a few stars, and not much else. The night sky was full of streaking, shimmering, and blinking lights that she simply couldn’t identify. Clearly, Roz was not designed to be an astronomer.
On dreary summer evenings, Roz and Brightbill would curl up together, just the two of them, and listen to the rain pattering on the roof of the Nest. The robot would tell stories of annoying pinecones and terrible storms and camouflaged insects. But the sound of rain always made Brightbill sleepy, and he’d be out before his mother could ever finish a story.