Maybe Roscoe had brought Alina to help him.
Somehow.
Just because Howard couldn't think of how Alina could be any help, that didn't mean Roscoe didn't have a plan.
But they seemed to be doing a lot of giggling for a rescue attempt.
Howard swam toward them, but slowly, keeping close to the weeds, watching from a distance.
"Look!" Alina squealed. But she wasn't pointing at him; she was pointing at the ground near the pond. "There's some!"
She was concentrating on her stomach again, on something goosey to eat, on eggs. Howard knew, because Roscoe and Alina had come out of the forest very near the spot he had come out a week and a half earlier, when he had found the nest and tried to make off with some eggs of his own.
He had stolen—and broken—three of the eight eggs from that nest; and he'd caused another to be lost when he'd rolled it toward the water to distract the goose mother and she hadn't been fast enough to prevent it from sinking into the water. (He had only learned that later, from goose gossip. Naturally, he'd never identified himself as having been formerly a boy, much less the sort of boy who would do such a thing.)
So there were four eggs left, which might be enough to satisfy Roscoe and Alina, with two each. Only now, Howard had come to know that particular goose. Her name was Can't-See-As-Well-Out-of-Her-Right-Eye-As-Her-Left, and fortunately she didn't recognize the goose How-Word as the boy who had cost her half her eggs. She was rather elderly, as geese went, and had just recently lost her longtime mate to a hunter's snare. She had been bemoaning that this, most likely her last clutch of eggs, would be so small.
Without a mate to take turns guarding the nest, Can't-See-As-Well-Out-of-Her-Right-Eye-As-Her-Left had momentarily left her nest to munch on some pond grass, but she saw the two humans and guessed what they had in mind.
"No!" Howard heard her honk. "Not my babies!"
No doubt Roscoe and Alina heard her honking, too, as she came skimming across the top of the water. The other geese all looked up at her frantic cries, but everyone could see she was too far away to get there in time to have any effect on the human children.
Howard, however, was not.
"Roscoe!" he honked, charging at his best friend and the girl he was with. He knew they couldn't understand him, but he was on a roll. "You big dolt! You lack-wit! You numskull! If you aren't smart enough to rescue me, then you just get out of here!" He hissed, he flapped, he pecked.
Roscoe threw his arms up to protect his face. Alina screamed. Both backed away from the nest.
"I can't believe," Howard honked, "that you would forget me so soon! What are you doing, taking up with Alina, harassing innocent geese, laughing and having a good time, when you should be LOOKING FOR ME!"
Retreating backward, Roscoe tripped and fell. There was a stick, almost within range of his hand, and Roscoe tried to grab it, but Howard kept flapping his wings in his face.
The geese in the pond cheered.
Roscoe rolled over and used his hands to cover his head from attack.
Alina grabbed the stick and swung it at Howard, but she was afraid of getting hurt, and her movements were small and timid.
From the ground, Roscoe urged her, "Hit him! Hit him!"
How was that for a best friend?
Between Roscoe yelling and Alina still screaming, and a chorus of geese honking, "You get 'em, How-Word!" it took several moments before Howard became aware of another human voice, a voice that shouted: "Don't you dare hurt my geese!"
"Lady," Roscoe yelled back at the old witch, "who's attacking who?"
Howard stopped hissing and flapping. He was miserable enough being the only goose-shaped human on the pond; he could only imagine how miserable Alina and Roscoe would make him if the old witch transformed them, too, and they blamed him.
"Run, Roscoe! Run!" Alina cried, and she took off for the forest.
Roscoe scrambled to his feet, and he'd passed her before they reached the trees.
There goes my rescue, Howard thought.
But more than that, now that the excitement was over, he was remembering how much bigger humans are than geese. The realization washed over him that—if Roscoe had gotten to the stick or if Alina had been a better aim with it—the villagers of Dumphrey's Mill might have had goose dinner after all, compliments of Howard.
The thought would have made him break out into a cold sweat, if geese could sweat. As it was, he felt all tingly and lightheaded.
"And don't come back!" the old witch yelled after the fleeing children. She shook her cane, though they were long gone.
She hobbled to the edge of the pond and leaned heavily on her cane. Her exertions had left her out of breath as she wheezed, "So that wasn't so bad, either."
Howard considered her words and evaluated the uncomfortable sensation he'd taken to be a combination of delayed fear and relief at having escaped injury. "You mean...?" he asked.
Evidently the old witch wasn't interested in answering the obvious. Without a word, she made her way back to the cottage.
He had bravely faced danger to rescue Can't-See-As-Well-Out-of-Her-Right-Eye-As-Her-Left's unborn children—and apparently that counted as his second good deed.
The geese from the pond crowded around him. "Yeah, How-Word!" they honked.
"Thank you, How-Word," said Can't-See-As-Well-Out-of-Her-Right-Eye-As-Her-Left.
"You're welcome," he said. Then, just in case the compliment-as-a-good-deed was working again, he added, "You're looking especially nice today."
"Thank you," she said again. But then she lowered her head and cocked it back as though ready to shoot forward, a gesture Howard had come to recognize as a goose's way of saying, I don't think I like you. She warned, "Now please step away from my eggs."
Howard did, and Mighty-Beak/Bone-Crusher bumped roughly into him, saying, "Not so close to my female."
Apparently some things changed, but others didn't.
10. Town Goose
Howard wasn't very quick with numbers, but he was quick enough to know that if you needed three good deeds, and you accomplished two good deeds, that left only one good deed to go.
Another set of numbers Howard was considering was that a week and a half had passed between Good Deed Number One and Good Deed Number Two. It had been a very long week and a half, and he was determined not to wait that long for Good Deed Number Three to present itself. Surely, he thought, Roscoe would regain his courage or one of the other village children would come to Goose Pond looking for eggs, looking for excitement, looking for something to do. Howard resolved to scare that child off—rescuing a goose or two, and being returned to his true size and shape for his efforts.
Howard thought about this plan for a day.
And another.
And a week.
What finally settled his mind that it was time to do something rather than just wait was when the old witch tossed some wilting, brown-edged lettuce leaves into the pond, and the other geese practically drowned him in their frenzy to gobble it all up without leaving a scrap for him.
"Did you notice how I politely let everybody else go first?" Howard called to the old witch. "Isn't being polite a good deed?"
Without even looking at him, the old witch gave a tired backhanded wave as she walked back to her cottage.
Howard didn't feel any of the bubbling sensation from what he thought of as the goose-turning-back-into-a-boy spell, so he gathered her answer was no.
All right, he thought. Apparently he had to go to Dumphrey's Mill to remind the children that there were geese at Goose Pond.
He hesitated. What if...? he worried, letting his human boy mind flit with all the things that could go wrong while his goose body flew.
Better not to think, he thought. Then he threw himself into the air, while the other geese honked peevishly, demanding if something was wrong or if it was just that How-Word up to his taking-off-into-flight-without-warning trick again.
Irritated, Howard flapped hi
s wings to get away from their squawking. Up, up, up into the air he went, and when he looked down he was amazed at how far up his wings had brought him. I'm turning into a goose, he thought. My body is becoming used to being in this shape.
That was not a comforting thought.
More than anything else, that assured him he was doing the right thing in not waiting. He needed to entice someone to come harass the geese so that he could heroically step forward again.
From up above, he saw the squares and rectangles of the fields.
He would have to be careful of the villagers—relatives and friends he had known all his life. He would have to make sure they saw him and got the idea of a goose dinner in their heads, without getting close enough to actually provide them with the opportunity for a goose dinner.
He flew low enough that he could see the people. It was, of course, spring, and spring was always a very busy time in Dumphrey's Mill, with walls and fences to be mended, fields to be readied for crops, roofs to be rethatched, newborn lambs and goats and pigs to be welcomed into the world. Even the children helped: older children alongside the adults, middle children looking out for the youngest, youngest on their best behavior while overworked parents' tempers were short.
If he were still a boy living at home, rather than a goose none of the other geese liked, Howard would have been helping, too.
Who could have ever guessed that Howard would grow homesick for the opportunity to work?
Howard landed in the yard of the miller and gobbled up a few loose grains of barley that had spilled from someone's bag earlier in the day.
The miller and his son weren't grinding this afternoon. They were knee-deep in the stream whose current turned the big wheel that turned the stones that ground the grain. They were checking the wheel for pieces of wood that were warped or rotten and needed to be replaced. Howard figured this would slow them down when they came running out of the water to get him, so he could get away in time.
The son said to the miller, "There's that not-right-in-the-head goose again."
Not-right-in-the-head? First Alina's father called him fat, then the miller's son called him not-right-in-the-head?
"Something's wrong with that one," the miller agreed. "Any time a wild animal becomes too familiar, that's not a good sign."
Howard honked at him, but that didn't seem to change the fellow's mind.
The two men pulled loose old paddles from the wheel and hammered in new ones.
Howard kept alert for anyone sneaking up on him, but everyone around here looked too busy to pay him any attention at all.
After waiting awhile, he flew over to the house where Roscoe's family lived. There was no sign of Roscoe, but Gertrude was sitting on the stoop plucking a chicken. With the family's dinner already settled, this yard might well have been the safest place for him to be, but it was disconcerting to see all those feathers flying. Now that Howard was a goose, seeing that chicken plucked was almost like seeing a relative—a cousin or an in-law—dead and naked and destined for dinner.
Howard flew to the yard of another friend, Culbert—who was outside, seemingly in charge of his little brother and even littler sister.
The little girl saw him first and squealed, "Goose!" Unsteadily—but quickly—she ran forward, her arms held out as though she couldn't wait to get to him.
Howard would have let Culbert's sister get much closer, but Culbert yelled, "Stop!" and ran to catch up and sweep her into his arms. The girl tried to squirm loose, and Culbert scolded her saying, "The geese are mean this year."
"No," the girl insisted.
"Yes," Culbert said. "He'd bite you."
"Bite you," the little brother echoed in solemn warning.
"No," the girl said again.
"I think that's the mean one that chased Roscoe and Alina," Culbert said. Then, making a game of it, he said, "Don't let 'im get you!" and pretended to be the mean goose and chased his brother and sister around the yard.
Fat. Not-right-in-the-head. Mean.
How much worse could it get?
Howard saw his mother, carrying a basket of laundry that she was bringing back from the river.
Howard saw his mother see him.
Howard saw her tighten her hold on the laundry basket and cross the street to put more distance between them.
Howard drooped, from his head to his tail feathers.
It was time to go back to Goose Pond to try to come up with another plan.
11. Brave Goose
Howard began to look for an opportunity to show off his goodness by rescuing eggs or fledglings from someone besides a Dumphrey's Mill villager.
Did geese have anybody else to worry about? Howard wondered.
He didn't have to wonder long.
"Thief!" Howard heard the goose known as Scared-by-a-Rabbit shriek. "Thief! Thief! Get away from my nest!"
Scared-by-a-Rabbit was a highly nervous goose, and she generally honked for help at least once a day, so her frantic honking did not alarm the other geese. Her urgent cries had startled Howard several times during his first days at the pond, though he had never before been interested enough to investigate. Even Scared-by-a-Rabbit's mate, Always-First-to-Molt, could have moved faster to get to his female's side—except that he had had years of false alarms.
This time, however, Howard swam to the edge of the pond and waddled to her side as fast as his short goose legs could carry him. "What is it?" he demanded, turning his head this way and that to see where the danger was coming from. "What? What?" Then, to show how brave and thoughtful he was, he asked, "Is it more human children? Let me scare them away."
"Oh, never mind," said Scared-by-a-Rabbit. "It's just a clump of grass. For a moment there, I thought it was a badger." She pulled her head back, folding her neck on itself, the goosely first sign of wariness. "Just move away from my nest now, How-Word," she said. "My mate's on his way."
Howard got out of there before Always-First-to-Molt could hiss at him.
A badger, Howard thought. A badger was big. At least by goose standards. A badger had sharp claws and teeth. By anybody's standards. A badger could inflict a lot of damage.
Howard pictured himself as a boy trying to fend off a badger, and that seemed painful enough. He couldn't picture himself as a goose surviving such an encounter.
Howard had jumped into the middle of rescuing Can't-See-As-Well-Out-of-Her-Right-Eye-As-Her-Left's eggs from Roscoe and Alina before stopping to think. Now he was relieved that Scared-by-a-Rabbit's danger had only been a menacing grass clump.
Maybe, he decided, he'd better be on the alert to find something else to take on: something a lot less dangerous than a badger, though probably a little more dangerous than a patch of grass.
More days passed.
Howard was waddling around on the grassy bank keeping alert for anything that looked risky-but-manageable when he noticed a white shape in the grass. It didn't look like a dangerous shape. In fact, it looked like...
"Egg!" he honked. "Someone's gone and lost an egg!" The egg was fairly near to the nest of a goose known as She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South and her mate, Almost-Eaten-by-a-Fox. The egg was near enough that She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South had just honked at Howard not to come any nearer.
She sat on her nest with her neck fully extended toward Howard, which might have been so she could get a better view of what he was looking at, or to warn him that she was suspicious of his intentions. Still, she sounded fairly untroubled as she asked, "What have you got there, How-Word?"
He pointed with the tip of his wing. "Egg," he repeated.
"Yes," she agreed without getting up.
Howard couldn't understand why she was taking this so calmly. He honked, "Someone lost one." He couldn't imagine how. Usually the geese were vigilant in their protectiveness of eggs. "We need to go around and have everyone count their clutches."
"Why?"
Howard wished he had hands with which he could shake her. "To find out where this egg came fro
m."
"Oh," said She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South, "I can tell you that. It came from this nest."
I will never, Howard told himself, understand geese. He'd had a bump on his head two days ago from where Almost-Eaten-by-a-Fox had pecked him for wandering too close to the nest. He didn't say this. Instead he said, "Shall I roll it back to you?"
Did rolling count as saving?
Howard was fairly certain it should.
But She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South said, "No. I rolled it out myself. It's no good."
"No good?" Howard repeated.
"It will never hatch."
Howard rolled the egg over with his webbed foot. It looked like a perfectly fine egg to him. "How do you know it won't hatch?"
She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South had to stop and think. "It's not warm enough," she finally declared. "It doesn't move right."
Maybe there's a cold little goose in there, Howard thought, who doesn't like to move much. With none of her eggs hatched yet, it seemed too soon to assume that this one wasn't any good.
"You mean," he asked, "you don't want it?"
"No," She - Who -Joined -Us-in- the -South told him.
She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South was obviously more of an expert in eggs than Howard.
But still..., Howard thought. It MIGHT hatch.
Mightn't it?
Wouldn't it be a good deed if he rescued this egg from She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South's indifference?
"May I have it?" he asked.
She had begun to relax her neck, but now she once again pointed her beak straight at him, suspiciously. "Why?"
"To see if I can make it hatch."
She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South laughed. "You're a gander," she pointed out. "Ganders guard the females; females guard the eggs."
Other geese heard her honking and some started paddling this way, including Almost-Eaten-by-a-Fox.
"Does that mean you don't care?" Howard asked, eager to speed things up before he got pecked again.
Obviously anxious lest this be a trick, She-Who-Joined-Us-in-the-South said, "You may have just that one."