Assignment #3: Lost Gosling Learns to Listen

For our third writing task, we had to come up with a plot, and were given the characters a goose and a gosling. I found this challenging.

Lost Gosling Learns to Listen

“Mummy, why do I have to move? I like it here,” cried the young gosling.

“Because dear, we need to stay near the others,” his mother calmly replied. “Look, there’s your father,” she motioned with a stretch and turn of her long black neck.

“But I’m hungry Mummy, and I like this grass,” the little gosling whined. 

“Baby, you are so young, and know nothing of our ways,” mother chided. “Now come along with your brothers and sisters, and I’ll tell you why you must learn to obey.” Mother waddled ahead, followed by a wiggly line of six goslings, with baby at the rear.

The park was busy for a wet spring day, with cars moving in all directions searching for the best viewing spots. Some even had trailers attached, loaded with those Sea-Doos which terrified the geese and all the other water fowl. 

“Hurry!” cried mother, as she flip flopped her big web feet across the expanse of pavement. She twisted her neck to look back, and was horrified to see her littlest babe standing still, and directly in the path of a monstrous SUV. With a loud honk and a flap of her huge wings she turned and raced back towards baby, ignoring the danger on the oncoming vehicle. 

“Ouch!” cried baby, as mother thwacked him with two sharp pecks from her long beak. 

“Silly gosling!” she rebuked, “you could have been squashed to death!”

Mother and her six young ones reached a patch of grass by the shoreline, where father kept lookout, and settled back down to eating. 

“Children” mother announced, “gather around me while I tell a story about who you are, and who you will soon become.”

Sitting comfortably, legs tucked beneath her, mother goose began. “Never forget, goslings, you are ‘branta’ and should feel pride in your heritage. Pay no attention to those long necked white feathered ones they call swans, they are vain and inconsiderate. And ignore those loud little quackers with their fancy finery, they are only ducks. You, my special children, are Canada Geese!”

The goslings continued pecking at the fresh spring grass, acting as if they knew this all along, but mother continued. 

“Long long ago, there was a gosling, just like baby here, who thought he could do just as he pleased. And one day when all his brothers and sisters followed their goose and gander parents towards the water, this gosling wandered off on his own, into the tall grass. He heard the loud honking of his mother, but he was enjoying the taste of the new grass, and was sure he could find them all later. His poor mother was very worried, but it was summer now, and since the young ones were starting to moult and couldn't fly, it was very important find a place close to the water for protection. 

This foolish young goose noticed his feathers falling out, but hadn’t bothered to learn the ways of Canada geese from his mother, and thought nothing of it. He had more important things to learn, things like finding greener grass, so off he went, pooping as he pleased, until suddenly he found something very special! 

“Oh my goodness!” he honked, “aren't they beautiful! I will stay with them.” What our young goose didn't realize was that the beautiful young geese he saw were ‘ansers’, more commonly known as Snow Geese. He waddled up to them in the deep grass, announced his presence, as if to say “I'm special just like you, how wonderful to be together!” Poor silly goose! Mother Snow Goose hissed loudly, flapped her wings and came running straight towards the foolish little Canada Goose. Thwack thwack thwack, she thumped on his head, and thwack again! 

Away he fluttered just as fast as he could! Those white Snow Geese would have nothing to do with a dirty moulting ignorant ill-behaved Canada Goose! Off he ran, out of the deep grass and back to where he had been nibbling when he mother last called. But oh dear, there was no sign of mother and father now, nor his brothers and sisters, and no honk to guide him back to them. 

“If only I had listened to mother,“ cried the poor goose. “Now I’ll never learn how to fly with the others in a big Vee, or find a partner just like me.”

Little goose felt very frightened being all alone. The Snow Geese didn’t want him, and now he couldn’t find his own family. “Help me!” he honked, as loud as he could. Who would hear him now? And then, just when he was feeling a sadness he’d never felt before, he heard a honk, a honk that sounded exactly like his mother. But where did it come from? Not by the water. Not in the grass. He heard it again, closer this time. And then, like an answer to his pitiful little honk, a louder honk, from the sky above him! It was mother! She made a graceful arc in the air, and landed right beside her poor little lost goose. No thwack on his head this time, just a ruffling of feathers, a slap slap of her big webbed feet, and a motion to come over here to their hiding place, safe by the water’s edge. Foolish goose had learned his lesson, the hard way, and from now on would follow everything he was told.

“So children,” said their mother as she ended her story, “and baby especially, will you listen now when I call?” 

Of course they all honk honked in agreement, with little goose the loudest. He would never forget how that silly goose so long ago thought he could join the Snow Geese who looked nothing like him. One day he would get to lead a Vee formation himself, and when he found his partner, he would have her tell his goslings the very same story, just like his mother had. “Canada Geese are the best!” he honked. 

Ken Bole

CW Assignment #3