80 THE FUTURE

CHAPTER 80 THE FUTURE Our story ends at dawn. The eastern sky was growing brighter, and the last few stars were fading fast. Around the island, animals were heading for the Great Meadow. After months without a Dawn Truce, they had resumed their old tradition. Bears and frogs and owls and beavers and turtles and hares and moose and groundhogs and squirrels and woodpeckers and otters and foxes and mice and badgers and snakes and deer and weasels and vultures and many other creatures were going to meet up with their friends. But on this particular day, they were mostly going to say good-bye. You see, the geese were about to leave on their winter migration. The meadow buzzed with excitement as families of geese crowded together. While the adults discussed the travel plan, the youngsters discussed how to properly fly as a group. By sunrise, the flock was ready, but their leader had one last thing to do. Brightbill gathered Glimmer and the goslings, and they all waddled over to Roz. The family members

hugged each other tight and wished each other well. Then the geese waddled back to the flock. It was time to fly. Brightbill took a deep breath and honked loudly, and suddenly all the geese were flapping. A cloud of feathers floated down as the flock rose into the sky. At first, they flew in a disorganized jumble, but each goose slowly drifted into place until the flock was flying in perfect V formation, with Brightbill at the point. On the ground, everyone watched and waved as the flock turned to the south. And then Roz started walking, and then trotting, and then running. Following the flock, she raced across the meadow and into the forest. She ducked under branches and hopped over shrubs, catching glimpses of the flock through the treetops. She burst out from the forest and ran as far as she could go, to the very edge of the island, where a small cliff dropped down to the rocky coast. Our robot stood there as the flock grew smaller and smaller and vanished into the distance. In the weeks to come, the geese would fly above oceans and mountains and farms and cities. There was a big, beautiful, complicated world beyond the horizon. When the time was right, when the island had recovered, the wild robot would venture out again.

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A NOTE ABOUT THE STORY Honestly, I wasn't sure I'd ever make another Wild Robot book. The second book has a very satisfying ending, and for a while I thought it might be best to leave things there and focus on creating other stories. But my imagination kept coming back to Roz. She's such an intriguing character, and through her I can explore so many fascinating subjects, that I couldn't stop myself from writing more about her. There are a number of important themes running through the Wild Robot books, and one of the most important is the idea of home. In the first book, Roz makes a home for herself on the wild island. In the second book, Roz escapes from her new life and finds a way back to her island home. When I started working on this third book, I knew only that it would involve Roz protecting her home. But protect it from what? Humans? Other robots? Something else entirely? After considering many possibilities, I set out to write a thrilling adventure in which the wild robot goes to extraordinary lengths to protect her home from a mysterious form of pollution, known to the animals as

the poison tide. From the beginning, I had big plans for this story. I wanted to show the interconnectedness of life in the water and on land and in the air. I wanted to introduce a new cast of animal characters and show how they struggled in different ways with their changing environments. I wanted to show Roz methodically solving what seems like an unsolvable problem. Above all, I wanted to make readers care deeply about everything that was happening, and to do that the story had to be believable. There could be no easy solutions and no clear villains. Real life is complicated, and this story needed to reflect that truth. The toughest challenge was finding balance. There would have to be lessons woven into this story, and yet I didn't want it to feel moralistic. It would deal with heavy subjects, so I had to make sure there were also moments of lightness. It would include a variety of unfamiliar technology and settings and situations, but everything had to make sense to readers of all ages. I have to admit, this book was surprisingly difficult to make. But after several years of researching, thinking, planning, writing, sketching, illustrating, and a whole lot of revising, the story finally took shape. I sincerely hope you enjoyed The Wild Robot Protects.