Walking was safer, but at the rate he was traveling, it would take him forever to get through the woods around Goose Pond and back to Dumphrey's Mill.
Once more, Howard began to fly, but it was difficult to get used to seeing things off to the sides better than he could see what was directly in front of him. And he quickly found he was getting dizzy from swiveling his head left and right to avoid trees.
Maybe, he thought, it would be easier if I flew just a little higher—just above tree level.
The trouble was, once he got there, the canopy of treetops blocked his view of the path.
He was sure that—without the path to guide him—he'd get all turned around and become lost forever because of his unusual perspective, for certainly the world looked different at tree level than at human boy level. So Howard kept alternating: flying up just high enough to avoid the trees so that his belly practically skimmed the highest branches, then dipping down to make sure he was still following the path.
Then, finally, he could see where the trees thinned and Dumphrey's Mill started.
Howard flew out from among the trees near the mill itself and almost collided with his friend Alina and her father, who were just coming out of the mill.
"Look out!" Alina called to her father, who was adjusting the sack of grain he carried on his shoulder.
Her father ducked, despite the fact that Howard had already swerved to avoid him and landed in a flurry of feathers and street dust.
"Honk!" Howard said. Did it sound a little like help ? Howard was sure it did. But Alina's father only said, "Wow! Look at that fat goose!"
Fat? Howard thought. Still, he refused to let himself get distracted by personal insults.
"Honk!" he repeated—much more distinctly, he was positive.
"And stupid, too," Alina's father said.
And he'd always been so friendly to Howard before.
"Honk!" Howard said, but peevishly thinking, Who's being stupid?
"Here," Alina's father said, shifting the bag of milled grain to Alina's shoulder, "you hold this, and I'll grab him." He was speaking in a soft voice as though he thought Howard was a goose who could understand human speech but was hard of hearing. "We'll have him in your mother's cooking pot before he knows what hit him."
Cooking pot?
It took a moment for the words to sink in, and Howard leaped into the air just as Alina's father lunged.
"HOOONK!" Howard called down to him, a nasty word in goose or human.
"Maybe he'll land again," Alina told her father. "We haven't had goose in ages."
What kind of friend was she? He'd always laughed at all her jokes and had even once given her a four-leaf clover he'd found. Too bad Roscoe was confined to the house. He had to have more sense than these two.
Alina's father swiped his hat in the air, an attempt to net Howard that came no closer than to stir the air near him. Still, Howard flew a little higher. Who needs you? he thought. MY father is smart enough to recognize the difference between a goose for cooking and a goose who is—in fact—a boy.
Howard began flying toward his house.
Something thumped against his tail.
Howard squawked. Wheeling around, he saw that Alina's father had picked up a handful of stones and even now was flinging a second one at Howard.
"HOOONK!" Howard called again, though that stone missed completely.
Howard began flying a little higher, a little faster.
But other people were calling to one another, pointing him out, laughing, talking about parsley and cherry sauce and turnip stuffing, all the while flinging more stones. One hit Howard on his already-sore beak.
Howard could see his house, but he didn't dare land. These people would jump on him and have him plucked and basted before he could even try to communicate.
And what if his own parents, not recognizing him, joined in the chase?
That was just too scary a thought.
Howard angled upward and flew high into the sky, until his friends and neighbors who wanted to bake, stew, or fricassee him were far below, looking as small as he felt. He even forgot to worry about getting lost.
"It's not fair!" Howard honked, as though the old witch could hear him. "Trying to show myself to my mother so she doesn't worry—surely that qualifies as a good deed."
But he felt none of the bubbling sensation to indicate the spell was loosening it's hold on him.
"It isn't fair," he repeated.
That was the point at which he looked down and thought, I'm flying. I'm up higher in the sky than any other person has ever been.
He began to wobble.
Which made him nervous, so that he concentrated on his flying, on what he was doing.
Which, in turn, made him remember that he had no idea what he was doing.
Which made him begin to drop.
Howard saw the faraway ground begin to come closer. That didn't help the wobbles one bit. Howard tried to remember if both wings were supposed to flap together or one at a time. He tried to remember what exact position they should be in.
Howard closed his eyes and felt the onrush of air ruffle his feathers. I'm a goose, he reminded himself, then corrected that to I'm in a goose body.
The goose body took over. His wings began to flap properly; the air stopped whistling by his beak and instead supported him.
Howard peeked his eyes open.
He wobbled again, but he didn't let himself think about it. Enjoy, he tried to convince himself. Enjoy.
From this high up, even the treetops were far away. In the midst of all that green, he could see a blue-gray shape that he realized was Goose Pond. The clearing containing Dumphrey's Mill was unmistakable, too, from this height, and he realized he would not have gotten lost—just the opposite: Finding his way home would have been easier from the air than from close to the ground.
But he couldn't go home, he realized. Not in this shape.
He would have to wait for his parents to come to him. Once he didn't return, of course they would get worried. They would start searching, first closer to home, then farther. Their search would have to eventually lead to Goose Pond.
How long could it possibly take?
8. Reunion
What it took, for Howard's parents to show up looking for him, was three long days.
In that time Howard not only learned which plants to eat, but he also learned that no matter how much he ate, he was still going to be hungry.
Maybe it was because the male geese always seemed to want to run him off from wherever he was, so he was constantly moving.
"That's my female!" they would honk, even when he wasn't all that close to anybody, even when he wasn't trying to talk to anybody, even when he had his back turned on everybody and somebody had come up behind him. "That's my female!"
And they would honk and hiss and flap their wings until Howard moved far enough away to satisfy one goose, which would generally mean he'd crossed over into some other goose's territory.
Of course, the male geese thinking Howard was too close to their females was nothing compared to parent geese thinking he was too close to their goslings that were just starting to hatch. "Keep away from my family!" mother and father geese would screech at him when the tiny goslings were so far away Howard could hardly make them out. "Danger, children! Danger! Don't let the newcomer, How-Word, steal you away! Bad stranger! Bad!"
"Really," Howard tried to assure the nervous parents, "I'm not interested in stealing any of your children."
But his denials just seemed to convince them he was up to no good.
If he wasn't being chased away from other geese, he was being chased away from his food. "That's my water lily!" a goose would say as soon as Howard found something that looked good to eat.
"There's lots," Howard would point out.
But if geese weren't too good at thinking, apparently they were even worse at sharing.
Family members would look out for one another, but there was no one
to look out for Howard. So he would spend his day swimming and nibbling, swimming and nibbling, swimming and nibbling.
And swimming.
And being hungry.
Another problem Howard had was that everything he ate seemed to go right through him. At first he thought there was something wrong with his stomach. Multiple times a day, he would need to go squat behind a bush to poop green poop. As if that weren't bad enough, as soon as the other geese couldn't see Howard, they suspected he had found a tasty treat that he was trying to keep from them, and they would come looking for him, honking, "Where's How-Word?" "Where's How-Word?" "What is that How-Word up to now?"
In any case, he soon realized that his stomach worked as well as everybody else's: Geese just seemed to go a lot. They didn't need to go in a particular place: If they were in the water at the time they had to go, they'd go in the water everybody swam in; if they were on land, they certainly didn't seem to mind if anybody was watching.
Wondering about that, Howard started wondering about other things—such as his clothes. When the old witch had changed him into a goose, there had been no leftover pile of clothing on the bank of the pond, so he knew his clothing had changed with him. His clothes must, he reasoned, be his feathers.
Now he was living in his clothes all the time, swimming in them, sleeping in them, never changing them, never cleaning them. Every once in a while, when flapping his wings or when shaking the water off himself after he came out of the pond, a feather would come loose, and he would think, There goes a patch of my shirt. Unless new feathers came in, he would lose his clothing bit by bit.
And some of those missing bits would be in embarrassing places.
What if he accomplished the old witch's stupid three good deeds and she changed him back into a boy who had to walk to town with major portions of his clothing gone? What if he turned back into a naked boy?
But that couldn't be, he assured himself. The geese all lost feathers periodically, so they must grow new ones to replace the old, or after a while every goose would look plucked and ready for a cook pot.
So these were the kinds of things that had come to occupy Howard's mind, when he looked up on that third day of being a goose and saw his parents walking up the path to the old witch's cottage.
"Mother!" he honked. "Father!"
Neither of them glanced his way. Instead they knocked on the old witch's door.
Howard beat his wings and took to the air. The other geese honked and fretted at his sudden movement—perhaps thinking he might have spotted some danger, perhaps just objecting to his starting to fly without declaring his intention: Geese, Howard had quickly come to realize, didn't have the mental capacity to enjoy surprises.
Several other geese rose from the water, but they quickly settled back down again, murmuring, "It's just How-Word being How-Word again."
So Howard was alone when he landed on the little patch of grass where his parents were standing talking to the old witch. "Mother, Father!" he honked.
Still they ignored him.
The old witch was saying, "A little boy?" and shaking her head. "No, I've seen no little boy."
"Here!" Howard honked. "Here I am! She has too seen me! She changed me into a goose!"
Honking, Howard rushed at his parents, and it turned out his father did see him, for he stuck his leg out to keep Howard at a distance. Howard tried to get around him, and Father kicked him. "Ouch!" Howard honked.
Well, forget Father then. "Mother!" Howard honked, trying to get around Father's leg. "It's me! It's Howard!"
But Father put himself between Howard and Mother as though Mother needed to be protected from him.
Still, Mother was looking directly at him. Of course a mother could recognize her child, enchantment or not. She could tell the old witch was lying. The bond of motherhood's love was stronger than magic or time or any other force of nature. Howard stood tall and looked directly into her eyes. She'll tell Father it's me, Howard thought, and Father will MAKE that old witch change me back.
"What—," Mother demanded, and Howard knew she was going to challenge the witch with What have you done to my son? "What," Mother demanded, "is the matter with that goose?"
Goose? GOOSE? Mother thought he was just another goose?
"Is it dangerous?" Mother asked, her voice shivering. "Will it bite?"
Father began swinging his leg again, clearing the space near Mother, making Howard have to dodge and back away.
No, Howard saw he'd been wrong: They didn't think he was just another goose—they thought he was a deranged, dangerous goose.
"Oh," the old witch told them airily, "some of the geese are wilder than the others." She swung her cane, moving faster than he'd have thought she could, and smacked him on the beak. "Go away," she told him. "Nobody here wants you."
"Mother, Father, Mother, Father, Mother, Father!" Howard honked frantically. Surely if he repeated it enough, they'd catch the human words beneath the goosely noise.
But they didn't.
"If you see him Father said, raising his voice to be heard above the him they were searching for.
"Certainly," the witch assured them, the very picture of sympathetic concern. "If I see any sign of your poor missing little boy around here, I'll be sure to send word to you."
Howard stamped his webbed feet.
His mother looked frightened as she hurriedly told the old witch, "Thank you. You're very kind." Then she tugged on Father's sleeve, obviously anxious to get out of there. Her fear for Howard combined with her fear of Howard, and tears overflowed her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
"I ... am ... Howard,"Howard honked so slowly and distinctly that they had to understand him.
Except they didn't.
They were leaving. His words were just honks to them, and they believed her, and they were leaving.
Howard flapped his wings, just enough to raise himself up to his parents' eye level. "And she's not kind," he honked. "She's an old witch!"
His mother squealed, his father simultaneously shrank away and batted at him, and the old witch caught him in midair by grabbing hold of his neck.
He couldn't catch his breath and his webbed feet flapped helplessly out of reach of the ground. He was aware of his parents making a dash for the woods. With the little bit of air he had left, Howard used his best reasoning on the old witch: "Isn't it a good deed to try to keep a mother from worrying?"
"No," she hissed into his ear, "that's the least a child can do. Besides, you're not keeping her from worrying. You're frightening her and getting your father angry. Get it through your thick goose head: They don't know you."
She set him back down on the ground, and Howard saw that his parents had already reached the forest in their hurry to get away from the mad goose they thought he was.
"Three," the old witch told him. "Good." She thumped her cane into the dirt for emphasis. "Deeds."
She stirred up enough dust that she started coughing, which gave Howard a certain amount of satisfaction.
But not much.
9. Old Friends
Three good deeds...
If his parents were not going to pay attention and be helpful, Howard would just have to do as the old witch wanted.
It can't be that hard, he reassured himself. He had stumbled into doing the first good deed almost right away. If the old witch was going to count such things as making a red-dyed goose feel better about herself, he expected he'd stumble into doing the second good deed at any moment now.
Any moment ...
Any moment ...
Any moment ...
A week after Howard's parents had fled away from him—a week of goose conversation by day, a cold wet bottom by night, and coming to realize that the old witch's cast-off bread was indeed a treat—Roscoe came to Goose Pond.
Mighty-Beak/Bone-Crusher had just pecked Howard on the head for swimming too near to Sunset-Dances-Like-Flames-on-Her-Feathers—even though Howard hadn't even seen her.
Then Ho
ward heard a familiar laugh.
It can't be, Howard told himself, not daring to believe his best friend had found him. Life was treating Howard too harshly lately, and he had begun to forget how to hope. But he swam out from the weeds he had been sulking in, just to see who it was who sounded so like Roscoe.
And there Roscoe was, dashing through the clear area between the forest and the edge of the pond, obviously intent on getting there without the old witch seeing.
Roscoe had come to rescue him.
Howard counted to six in the time it took before Roscoe dove into the safety of the tall weeds. Six was Howard's own best time from forest to weeds, and Roscoe was usually a step or two behind. Howard saw Roscoe stick his head up to make sure the old witch hadn't noticed him. But she didn't come storming out of the house to chase him off, which most likely meant she hadn't.
Howard raised his wings and was about to honk a greeting, when Roscoe, facing the forest, gestured for someone to come.
Alina stepped out from between the trees.
Alina?
Little Miss We-Haven't-Had-Goose-in-Ages?
And she was standing there like a blockhead, hesitating in plain sight, increasing the probability that the old witch would see her and chase both of them off.
No wonder Roscoe had covered the distance so fast: He hadn't been concerned with something as ordinary as evading the old witch; he'd been trying to impress a girl.
Roscoe once again waved Alina on, and Alina ran for the high weeds.
Howard had time to count to nine.
Howard also had time to remember how the villagers—starting with Alina's father—had thrown stones at him: step one in the How-to-Cook-a-Goose recipe—Dumphrey's Mill style. And how his own parents had not recognized him even when he had honked as clear as anything at them. There was no way Roscoe could have come to suspect Howard was here, trapped in a goose body.
Roscoe wasn't here to rescue him after all.
Maybe..., Howard insisted to himself, trying to recapture that moment of relief when he had first seen his friend.
He can't know the old witch changed me into a goose, but he COULD suspect she's done something. So he'll be on the lookout for something unusual, some clue.