“But, Twilight, if you were in the advanced navigation class with Barran why were you practicing search-and-rescue moves?”
“Because Barran also teaches search-and-rescue. She is the one who taps for the search-and-rescue chaw.”
That was all anyone ever talked about—being tapped for the various chaws. Next, Otulissa came up. “Oh, I don’t know, Twilight, about you getting tapped for search-and-rescue chaw. Don’t get your hopes up. They tend to take owls with very old family lines. Those ranks are almost always reserved for Strix, just like navigation.”
“Oh, racdrops!” boomed Bubo. “Make way! Make way! Let the nest snakes serve tea. We all be starving and don’t need to listen to none of this nonsense about old family lines. It’s what you do here and now on this earth that counts.”
Bubo was the ruddy-colored owl with the very black talons whom Soren had first seen in the parliament. A high-shouldered, enormous Great Horned Owl, his ear tufts alone stood as tall as Gylfie. His plumage was of an unusual coloring for a Great Horned, most of whom tended toward the brownish-gray tones. Bubo’s feathers were actually almost flame-colored, which seemed appropriate, as he headed up the forge and was the blacksmith. So, despite what was said about Bubo’s lowly origins and rough-and-tumble manner—a constant stream of curses issued from his beak—he was treated with great respect in the community of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree because he was an expert blacksmith. The discovery and the taming of fire was the single thing that most impressed Soren about the owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.
“Line up! Line up! Now, please don’t rush the dear snakes. Don’t crowd the snakes by cramming in too many of you around one snake. Please proceed in an orderly fashion.” It was Matron speaking, the Short-eared Owl. The nest-maid snakes began to slither into the dining hollow. These snakes were all blind like Mrs. Plithiver. Gylfie, Soren, Twilight, and Digger always lined up at Mrs. Plithiver’s table for, indeed, she had been invited to join the staff and was thrilled to be in service once more.
The melancholy feelings that had filled Soren a few minutes before disappeared as he and his friends stepped up to Mrs. P.’s back.
“Hello, dearies,” Mrs. P. hissed in her soft voice. “Good night in the Yonder? Classes went well?”
“Look!” Digger said. “Primrose over there doesn’t have a place to sit.”
“Sorry, Primrose,” Otulissa was saying, “but this snake is all filled up.” Otulissa was with four other young Spotted Owls.
“Over here, Primrose.” Gylfie waved a wing. “We have a place.”
“Always room, dearie,” Mrs. P. said as Primrose came over. “I can always stretch myself a little longer and fit in another young one.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you so much,” Primrose spoke in a shaky voice.
“You all right, Primrose?” Digger asked kindly.
“I’m fine. Just fine.” She didn’t sound all that fine. “Well, not so fine,” she admitted. “All this talk of tapping is really making me nervous.”
“Now, I believe there is entirely too much talk about this tapping business,” Mrs. P. said. “I think you young ones should just drink your tea while it is still nice and warm. Cook made a special effort with the milkberries. I think she added a few extra as the season shall be coming again soon and perhaps she can spare more for tea without worrying.”
“It’s hard not to think about tapping, Mrs. P.,” Soren said. “It’s all anyone talks about.”
“They say most Burrowing Owls like myself are tapped for tracking, since we have such strong legs and really know the countryside so well. I think I’d like that,” Digger said quietly.
“I want search-and-rescue myself. You get to wear battle claws,” Twilight spoke up.
“You want to fight?” Primrose said with a note of alarm in her voice.
“I’d like to fight any owl from St. Aggie’s. Let me tell you, we gave those two a run for it that time in the desert. Didn’t we?” He blinked toward Soren and Gylfie. Soren and Gylfie both prayed that Twilight would not break into one of his dancing chants and shadow fights with an imaginary opponent in the dining hall. As much as they loved him, he could be really embarrassing.
“Thank goodness,” sighed Digger. “If it hadn’t been for them and, of course, the eagles, I would be dead.” Digger paused. “Not just dead…eaten.”
“You’re joking?” Primrose gasped.
“I’m not joking,” Digger said.
“Oh, come on, tell me the story,” Primrose urged.
“Young ones, I don’t think this is tea-table talk and since I am the tea table I would prefer not.”
But it was too late. Digger had already launched into his story, and Primrose was spellbound. Mrs. Plithiver just sighed and muttered, “Hukla, hukla,” which, in the special language of blind snakes, meant “Young owls will be young owls.”
Mrs. Plithiver dozed off as the owls continued to talk and sip their cups of tea.
“So here’s how the joke goes. You got a bunch of crows and other wet poopers like hummingbirds and seagulls.” Twilight had begun telling a joke.
“Oh, yes. Seagulls are disgusting,” Primrose offered.
“Definitely,” Soren joined in. “They are disgusting.”
“We should have a contest to see who can tell the slimiest wet poop joke,” Digger said.
Suddenly, their little nut cups of tea trembled. “Enough is enough!” Mrs. Plithiver screeched a hiss that curled through the air. “I shall not have this talk at the table. This is inappropriate on every level.” Then her rosy scalesseemed to shimmer with a new radiance and with one quick writhing motion all the teacups clattered off her back.
This was not the first time a nest-maid snake had shaken off teacups. There were not many rules at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree but, as Matron instructed the young owls, there were to be no wet poop jokes anywhere, and especially not in the dining hollow. Therefore, the nest snakes were under orders, if it was teatime and they were serving, to immediately dismiss the culprits, and this was accomplished in just the manner Mrs. P. had done when she shook herself.
They were ordered to go see Boron and Barran. As could be expected, Barran scolded them and told them that their behavior was shocking. “Poor form,” she called it. Boron kept muttering, “Don’t be too hard on them, dear. They’re just youngsters. Young males do that kind of thing.”
“Boron, I would like to point out that Primrose and Gylfie are not males.”
“Oh, but I still know a lot of wet poop jokes,” Primrose tooted up.
The air was laced with the soft churr sounds that owls make when they laugh. They were all churring except for Barran. Boron was churring the hardest. His big white fluffy body was shaking so hard that he shook loose a few wisps of down.
“Really! Boron! It’s not a laughing matter,” his mate said in dismay.
“But it is, my dear. That’s the point.” And he began to laugh even harder.
The owls had already settled down for the day. It had been several hours since Madame Plonk had sung her lovely “Night Is Done” song and all had wished one another good light until the next night. But Soren had trouble falling asleep, and then he woke up in that slow time of the day for owls, when silence seems to press down over everything and the air is thick with sunlight and the minutes drag by. Time seemed to crawl and one wondered if there would ever be blackness again. Once more, Soren felt that melancholy feeling. He was not sure exactly what was causing it. He should be so happy here. He did feel bad about their misbehavior at tea. Good manners meant a lot to Mrs. P. He hated disappointing her. Maybe, he thought, I should go and apologize. Mrs. Plithiver was often up at this time of the day. Perhaps he would make his way down to her hollow. She lived there with two other nest-maids.
The three snakes shared a mossy pocket in the tree nearly one hundred feet below where Soren slept. It smelled of damp shredded bark, moss, and warm stones. The nest-maid snakes enjoyed sleeping with warm stones. So, these stones were par
t of the furnishings of any hollow in which they slept. Bubo always heated up several so they could have them in their quarters. Soren rather liked the smell. The heat from the stones released the fragrance of the moss, and the moss that grew on the Great Ga’Hoole Tree was especially sweet. It was used in a soup that was made by Cook. There was barely a part of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree that was not used for something. It was for this reason that the owls so carefully nurtured and cared for their home—never overpicking the milkberries, and burying their pellets around the roots of the tree where their rich, nourishing contents would be most directly absorbed.
The fragrance of the moss and warm stones drifted up to Soren as he made his way down. He stopped at the opening of the pocket and peered in. But before he could even speak, Mrs. P. must have sensed his presence.
“Soren, dear boy, what are you doing up this time of day? Come on in, young one.”
“Aren’t the other nest-maids asleep?”
“Oh, no. They’re all out doing guild business.”
There were several guilds: the harp guild, the lacemakers’, weavers’, and others to which the nest snakes belonged. One had to be chosen. It was rather like the tapping ceremony for the chaws. Mrs. Plithiver had not been chosen yet for any guild.
“Mrs. P., I came to apologize for my disgusting behavior at tea. I am truly sorry. I know that…”
Mrs. P. coiled up and cocked her head in that particularly sympathetic way she had. “Soren,” she spoke softly and there was something in the very softness of her voice that brought tears to his eyes. “Soren, dear boy, I know you are sorry, but I don’t think that is why you are here.”
“It’s not?” Soren was dumbfounded. But she was right. That really wasn’t why he was here. He knew it as soon as she had said it. Yet he was still confused. “Why…why,” he stammered, “am I here?”
“I think it has to do with your sister, Eglantine.”
As soon as she said it, Soren knew that she was right. He missed his parents terribly but he did not worry about his parents. Eglantine, however, was another story. Mrs. P. had her suspicions about Kludd. These suspicions deepened when Kludd threatened to eat her. Still, she was not sure if Eglantine had been snatched or not. Eglantine had simply disappeared.
“It’s the not knowing, isn’t it, that’s so hard. Not knowing if Eglantine is dead or alive…”
“Or imprisoned,” Soren said.
“Yes, dear. I know.”
“And if she is dead, it doesn’t help me one bit to think of her being in glaumora if I am here and she is there.”
“No, of course not. She’s too young to be in glaumora.”
“Mrs. P., I know that St. Aegolius Academy for Orphan Owls is the most terrible place. But remember what the dying Barred Owl said about,” Soren dropped his voice, “the ‘you only wish’…”
“Hush now, dear.”
Soren simply couldn’t stop himself. “Have you heard anything else about the ‘you only wish’?”
Mrs. Plithiver waved her head about in a small figure eight, which was the manner in which blind snakes often moved when they could not quite decide what to say or do. Soren peered at her closely. Was something leaking out of the small dents where her eyes would have been? Soren suddenly felt terrible. “I’m sorry, Mrs. P. I won’t speak of this again.”
“No, dear. Come to me whenever you want to talk about Eglantine. I think it will help you, but let’s not get carried away about rumors of terrible places. I have a feeling deep within me that Eglantine is not dead. Now, I cannot tell you more than that, but I think, together, we can hope. Hope is never a foolish thing—although others will tell you it is. But I don’t need to tell you that, Soren—look at yourself. You were snatched and you taught yourself to fly and you escaped from that awful St. Aggie’s. You flew straight out of those deep stone canyons and right into the Yonder. Anyone who flies out of a stone hole into the Yonder knows about hope.”
It was always this way when Soren spoke with Mrs. P. She always made him feel so much better. It was just as if a clean rain had washed away all of the worry and the sadness. Yes, he still missed his parents. He would always miss his parents, and he would never get used to it, but Mrs. P. had given him hope about Eglantine, and this alone made him feel so much better. He decided to take the outside route back to his hollow. The day guard on this side of the tree was very nice and wouldn’t mind that he had gone down to see his old nest-maid. And there weren’t any real rules at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree about having to stay in your hollow asleep all day until the wake-up calls of good night. So he stepped out on a branch and lifted into flight, swooping through the spreading limbs of the old tree. Yes, Mrs. P. was right. He could see the beginnings of the new milkberries forming on the long glistening threads they called silver rain at this time of the year.
These slim vines cascaded down from branches of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree and swayed like sheer curtains in the afternoon sun. In winter, they were white and then in spring they turned silvery, by summer they would be golden, and by fall they would turn a deep coppery rose. Thus, in Ga’Hoole, the seasons were not simply called winter, summer, spring, and fall, but the times of the white rain, the silver rain, the golden rain, and the rain of the copper rose. For the young owls, there was nothing more fun than to fly amid the glistening curtains. Therefore they had developed all sorts of games to be played. But on this bright afternoon, everyone was asleep so Soren found himself alone. Rain must have just fallen for the vines sparkled with beads of water and behind one curtain he caught the shimmering colors of a rainbow.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” A voice melted like a chime out of the silver rain. It was Madame Plonk, the harp singer, who sang them to sleep each morning. She was a Snowy Owl and, as she sailed through the silver rain, Soren blinked in amazement, for he had never seen such a beautiful sight. She was no longer snowy white but indeed had become a living, flying rainbow. All colors seemed to radiate from her plumage.
Soren wished that one of the chaws of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree could be learning the harp and singing from Madame Plonk. But the pluckers of the harp were never owls, only blind snakes. And the only ones trained to sing were direct descendants of the Plonk line of Snowy Owls.
They flew, weaving themselves through the vines and the hues of the rainbow for a few more minutes. Then Madame Plonk said, “Time for me to go, dear. Wake-up time. Evensong must be sung. I see the snakes coming out now, making their way toward the harp. Can’t be late. But I’ve so enjoyed our afternoon flight. We’ll do it again sometime. Or drop by for a cup of milkberry tea.”
Soren wondered if he would ever have the nerve to just”drop by” Madame Plonk’s for a cup oftea. What would he ever have to say to such a beautiful and elegant owl? Flying was one thing, but sitting and talking was another. Soren saw dozens of rosy-scaled blind snakes crawling up to the hollow where the harp was kept. Soon the Great Ga’Hoole Tree would begin to awake and stir to the lovely harmonies of Evensong. For twilight was upon them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Books of the Yonder
Now, young ones, please follow me as we explore the wondrous root structure of our dear tree. You see where the roots bump up from the ground.” It was the Ga’Hoolology ryb, a boring old Burrowing Owl.
“Here’s one.”
“Oh, yes, Otulissa. A perfect example.”
“Here’s one,” Gylfie mimicked Otulissa. “She has the most annoying voice.”
“Now if we can find a pellet or if someone would care to yarp one, I shall demonstrate the proper burying technique. Pellets properly buried nourish the tree,” the ryb continued.
“Oh, I’ll find you one,” Otulissa quickly volunteered and bustled off.
“This is the most borrring class,” sighed Soren. They had been stomping around the base of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree all during twilight.
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” said Digger. Digger, of course, being a Burrowing Owl, preferred ground activities. r />
“I don’t know what I’ll do if I am tapped for Ga’Hoolol-ogy,” Twilight muttered.
“You? Never,” Soren said, but he was secretly worried that he might be. He realized that knowing about the tree was important. The Ga’Hoolology ryb constantly drummed this into them just as she was doing now. “The Great Ga’Hoole Tree has thrived and flourished for these thousands of years because the owls have been such excellent stewards of this little piece of earth that the Great Glaux gave them.” Twilight began to mouth the words as she said them.
“That is so rude,” Otulissa hissed.
“Oh, go yarp a pellet!” Twilight barked back.
“What’s that? Someone has a pellet to yarp? Twilight dear, come up here. I believe I heard you say you had a little gift to bestow on our Great Ga’Hoole Tree.”
Class finally ended an hour before First Black. There was still time to go to the library. This was Soren and Gyl-fie’s favorite place in the old tree. The two young owls had a special fondness for libraries that went beyond the wonderful books that they were now learning how to read. At St. Aegolius Academy, the library had been strictly off-limits to everyone except for Skench and Spoorn, the two brutal owls who ran the orphanage. No one knew how to read at St. Aggie’s except for Skench and Spoorn, but here everyone knew how to read and they read constantly. But the reason why libraries were so special to Gyl-fie and Soren was that it was from the library at St. Aggie’s that they had escaped.
For the two young owls libraries meant freedom in every way. Sometimes, Soren thought that libraries for him were a kind of Yonder, in the sense that Mrs. Plithiver and other snakes spoke of the sky. The sky so far away for snakes, as far as anything could be, was a world unseen. But as Soren and Gylfie learned to read they began to get glimmerings of worlds unseen.