The Rescue Read online

  “I’m not sure why. I think those sparks that come off the comet’s tail somehow glinted like the flecks that we picked out of the pellets.”

  “Hmm,” was all Digger said.

  “Now look, it’s almost breaklight time. Why don’t you sit at my table, Soren? It’ll be comfy, and I’m going to ask Matron for a nice bit of roasted vole for you.”

  “No can do, Mrs. P.,” Otulissa said in a chipper voice.

  If Mrs. P. had had eyes she would have rolled them, but instead she swung her head in an exaggerated arc and coiled up a little tighter. “What is this ‘no-can-do’ talk? For a supposedly educated and refined owl”—she emphasized the word refined—“I consider it a sloppy and somewhat coarse manner of speaking, Otulissa.”

  “There’s a tropical depression that’s swimming our way with the last bits of a late hurricane. The weather chaw is going out. We have to eat at the weather chaw table and…”

  “Eat meat raw,” Soren said dejectedly.

  Good Glaux, raw vole on top of a bad dream and eating it literally on top of Octavia! For such were the customs of the weather and colliering chaws.

  The nest-maid snakes served as tables for all the owls. They slithered into the dining halls bearing tiny Ga’Hoole nut cups of milkberry tea and whatever meat or bugs that were being served up. The chaws always ate together on the evenings of important missions. And if one was in the weather or colliering chaw, it was required that they eat their meat raw with the fur on it. Of course, Soren, like most owls until they had come to the Great Tree, had always eaten his meat raw. He still liked raw meat, but on a nippy evening like this, something warm in the gut was of great comfort. Well, he would at least try to avoid sitting next to Otulissa. Eating raw vole with that Spotted Owl yakking in his ear was enough to give any bird indigestion—or maybe even gas, and not of the random variety. He would aim to sit between Martin and Ruby, his two best friends in the chaw. Martin was a little Northern Saw-whet, not much bigger than Gylfie, and Ruby was a Short-eared Owl.

  “Glaux almighty!” Soren muttered as he approached the table of Octavia. The place between Martin and Ruby was taken by one of the new owlets who had been rescued in the Great Downing. He was a little Lesser Sooty called Silver. The name fit for he was, like all the Sooty Owls, black, but his underparts were silvery white. Sooties were all part of the same family of Barn Owls as Soren, the Tyto species, but a different group within that species—Soren being a Tyto alba and Silver a Tyto multipunctata. Still, in the whole scheme of things, they were considered “cousins.” And they shared the heart-shaped face common to all Barn Owls. Silver, much smaller than Soren, now swiveled and tipped his head back.

  “You shouldn’t take the name of Glaux in vain, Soren.” Silver spoke in a voice that was somewhere between a squeak and a shriek.

  Soren blinked. “Why ever not?” Everyone said “Glaux” all the time.

  “Glaux was the first Tyto. It’s disrespectful to our species, to our maker.”

  The first Tyto, Soren thought. What’s he talking about?

  Glaux was the most ancient order of owls from which all other owls descended. Glaux was the first owl, and no one knew if it was a Tyto, let alone male or female or whatever. It didn’t really matter. Apparently, Soren was not the only one confused.

  “Glaux is Glaux no matter what you call him, her, whatever,” said Poot. Poot was the first mate of the weather chaw but now, in the absence of Ezylryb, served as captain.

  Silver blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” said Otulissa. “The first owl from whom we are all descended.”

  “I thought just Barn Owls—owls like Soren and me.”

  “No, all of us,” Otulissa repeated. “No matter what kind of feather pattern, no matter what color eyes we have—yellow, amber, black, like yours—all of us are descended from Great Glaux.” Otulissa could be surprising. For Otulissa to say the words “all of us” was somewhat remarkable for an owl who could be impossibly snooty and stuck-up.

  It was a bit peculiar that all of the owls that had been rescued in the Great Downing had been some kind of Barn Owl. They were either Greater or Lesser Sooties like Silver, or Grass Owls, or Masked Owls. But despite the different names and slightly different coloration, they all had the distinctive heart-shaped faces that marked them as belonging to the family of Tytos, or Barn Owls. Like Silver, they had all arrived with some very strange notions and behaviors. Even the most seriously wounded owls when they were rescued had babbled nearly unintelligible fragments, but they were entranced with music. As soon as they heard Madame Plonk and the harp guild, their strange babbling had stopped.

  The young owlets were getting better every day as they spent more and more time with normal owls. Of course, the owls of Ga’Hoole were not quite normal. When Soren was very young, his parents would tell him and Kludd and Eglantine stories. They were once-upon-a-time stories. The kind that you might wish were true but somehow don’t quite believe could be. One of his and Eglantine’s favorites began, “Once upon a very long time ago, in the time of Glaux, there was an order of knightly owls, from a kingdom called Ga’Hoole, who would rise each night into the blackness and perform noble deeds. They spoke no words but true ones. Their purpose was to right all wrongs, to make strong the weak, mend the broken, vanquish the proud, and make powerless those who abused the frail. With hearts sublime they would take flight…”

  But it was true! And when he and Twilight and Gylfie and Digger had finally found the Great Ga’Hoole Tree on an island in the middle of the Sea of Hoolemere, Soren found that in order to fulfill this noble purpose, one needed to learn all sorts of things that many owls never learn. They learned how to read and do mathematics and, with their entry into a chaw, they learned the special skills of navigation, weather interpretation, the science of metals. This kind of learning was called the “deep knowledge” and they were taught by the “rybs.” The word “ryb” itself meant deep knowledge.

  Tonight, the weather chaw would fly and, for Silver and another young Masked Owl named Nut Beam, it would be their first flight with the chaw. They had not been assigned yet, or “tapped” as it was called, to the weather chaw. They were not even junior members yet. They were only going on a very minor training flight to see if possibly they might be suitable. Before his disappearance, Ezylryb seemed to be able to tell with one glance if an owl might work in the chaw. But now with him gone, Boron and Barran felt it was best for the young new owlets to be tried out for this particular chaw, which required highly refined skills.

  “Are we really going to fly into a hurricane tonight?” Silver asked.

  “Just a mild tropical storm,” Poot answered. “Nice little depression due south of here kicking up some slop in the bight and beyond.”

  “When do we get to fly into a tornado?” Silver asked.

  Poot blinked in disbelief. “You yoicks, young’un? You don’t want to fly into a tornado. You want your wings torn off? Only owl I ever seen who got through a tornado alive with his wings came out plumb naked.”

  Now it was Soren’s turn to blink. “Plumb naked? What do you mean?”

  “Not a feather left on him. Not even a tuft of down.”

  Octavia gave a shiver, and their cups of milkberry tea shook. “Don’t scare the young’uns, Poot.”

  “Look, Octavia, if they ask me I tell them.”

  Ruby, a deep, ruddy-colored Short-eared Owl, who was the best flier in the chaw, blinked. “How’d he fly with no feathers?”

  “Not well, dearie. Not well, not well at all,” Poot replied.

  CHAPTER THREE

  What a Blow!

  Meatballs! Good and juicy.” Poot swiveled his head and flung off a glob of weed, dead minnows, and assorted slop from the Sea of Hoolemere that had landed between his ear tufts.

  “Storm residue. He has a very coarse way of speaking,” Otulissa murmured primly to Nut Beam and Silver. She was flying between the two young owlets, and Soren was in their wake making sure
that they didn’t go into a bounce spiral caused by sudden updrafts, which could be dangerous.

  “See? That’s what you get,” Poot was saying. “You don’t have to go swimming to feel the water below getting warmer do you? You can feel it now, can’t you?”

  Soren could feel warm wet gusts coming off the waves that crashed below. It was odd, for although they were on the brink of winter, the Sea of Hoolemere in this region of the bight and beyond held the summer heat longer than any other. “That’s what causes a hurricane, young’uns, when the cooler air meets up with warm water. Now, I’ve sent Ruby out to the edges of this mess to reconnoiter wind speeds and such.”

  Poot paused and looked back at his chaw members. “All right now—a little in-flight quiz.”

  “Oh, goody,” Otulissa said. “I just love pop quizzes.” Soren gave her a withering look despite the remnants of a meatball that were splattered around the rims of his eyes.

  Poot continued, “Now, Martin. Which way does the wind spiral in a hurricane?”

  “Oh, I know! I know!” Otulissa started waving her wings excitedly.

  “Shut your beak, Otulissa,” Poot snapped. “I asked Martin.”

  But then Nut Beam piped up, “My grandma did a special kind of dive called the spiral.”

  “My grandpa had a kind of twisty talon like a spiral,” Silver said loudly.

  “Great Glaux.” Soren sighed. He had forgotten how young owlets could be. It was clear that Poot did not know how to deal with such young ones. But Otulissa interrupted what was about to turn into a free-for-all bragging match about grandparents.

  “Silver, Nut Beam,” she said sharply, and flew out in front of the two little owls. “Attention. All eyes on my tail, please. Now does anybody here have anything to say that is not about their grandparents, parents, or any other relatives or spirals?” There was silence. Then Silver waggled his wings. Otulissa sighed. “I feel a wing waggle from behind.” She flipped her head back. “What is it, Silver?”

  “My great-grandma was named for a cloud, too. Her name was Alto Cumulus.”

  “Thank you for that information,” Otulissa said curtly. “Now may we proceed? Martin, will you please answer the question?”

  “The wind spirals inward and this way.” The little Northern Saw-whet spun his head almost completely around in a counterclockwise motion.

  “Very good, considering you’ve never flown in a hurricane,” Poot replied. None of them had, as yet, except for Poot.

  “We might not have flown in one yet but we’ve read all about them, Poot,” Otulissa said. “Strix Emerilla devotes three chapters to hurricanes in her book, Atmospheric Pressures and Turbulations: An Interpreter’s Guide.”

  “The most boring book in the world,” Martin muttered as he flew up on Soren’s starboard wing.

  “I’ve read every word of it,” Otulissa said.

  “Now, next question,” Poot continued. “And all you older owls shut your beaks. Which is your port wing and which is your starboard?”

  There was silence. “All right. Wiggle the one you think is port.” Nut Beam and Silver hesitated a bit, stole a look at each other, and then both waggled their right wing.

  “Wrong!” Poot said. “Now, you two have to remember the difference. Because when I say strike off to port, or angle starboard, you’re going to fly off in the wrong direction if you don’t know.”

  Soren remembered that this was difficult for him to learn when he first started flying in the weather chaw. It took Ruby, the best flier, forever to learn port from starboard, but they all did—finally.

  “All right, now,” Poot said. “I’m going out for a short reconnaissance in the opposite direction of Ruby. I want to cover everything. Soren and Martin, you’re in charge here. Keep flying in this direction. I’ll be back soon.”

  Poot had not been gone long when a definite whiff seemed to wash over the small band of owls.

  “I think I smell gulls nearby.” Otulissa turned her beak upwind. “Oh, Great Glaux, here they come. The stench is appalling,” Otulissa muttered. “Those seagulls! Scum of the avian world.”

  “Are they really that bad?” Nut Beam asked.

  “You can smell them, can’t you? And they’re wet poopers on top of it all!”

  “Wet poopers!” Silver and Nut Beam said at once.

  “I’ve never met a wet pooper. I can’t imagine,” Nut Beam said.

  “Well then, don’t try,” Otulissa snapped testily.

  “It’s hard to believe that they never yarp pellets at all,” Nut Beam continued to muse.

  “My sister actually had a friend who was a wet pooper, but they wouldn’t let her bring him home. I think he was a warbler,” Silver announced.

  “Oh, Glaux, here we go again,” said Martin.

  “I think maybe I’ve met one once,” said Nut Beam.

  “Well, it’s not something to be proud of. It’s disgusting,” Otulissa replied.

  “You’re starting to sound like a nest-maid snake, Otulissa,” said Soren, and laughed. Nest-maid snakes were notoriously disdainful of all birds except owls because of what they considered their inferior and less noble digestive systems due to their inability to yarp pellets. All of their waste was splatted out from the other end, which nest-maids considered vile and disgusting.

  “They give us a lot of good information about weather, Otulissa,” Soren said.

  “You mean a lot of dirty jokes. You can find good information in books.”

  Poot was soon back with the seagulls in his wake.

  “What’s the report?” Martin asked.

  “Storm surge moderate,” Poot said, “but building. The gulls say the leading edge of this thing is at least fifty leagues off to the southeast.”

  “Yeah, but I got news for you.” At that moment, Ruby skidded in on a tumultuous draft and a mess of flying spume. She was accompanied by two gulls. It was as if she had come out of nowhere. And suddenly Soren felt an immense pull on his downwind wings. “You’ve been talking to the wrong gulls. It’s not just a storm with a leading edge. It’s a hurricane with an eye!”

  Hurricane! Soren thought. Impossible. How has this happened so quickly? No one except Poot had ever flown a hurricane—and these young owlets! What ever would happen to them?

  “It’s still far off,” Ruby continued. “But it’s moving faster than you think and building stronger. And we’re very near a rain band. And then it’s the eye wall!”

  “Eye wall! We’ve got to alter course,” Poot exclaimed. “Which way, Ruby?”

  “Port, I mean starboard!”

  “The eye wall!” Soren and Martin both gasped. The eye wall of a hurricane was worse than the eye. It was a wall of thunderstorms that was preceded by the rain bands that delivered violent swirling updrafts that could extend hundreds of leagues from this wall.

  “You can’t see the band from here because of the clouds.”

  Oh, Glaux, thought Soren. Don’t let these young owlets go off on their stories of grandparents being named for clouds.

  “I think that right now we might actually be between two rain bands,” Ruby continued.

  And then it was as if they all were sucked up into a swirling shaft. This IS a hurricane! Soren thought. He saw Martin go spinning by in a tawny blur. “Martin!” he screamed. He heard a sickening gasp and in the blur saw the little beak of the Saw-whet open in a wheeze as Martin tried to gulp air. He must have been in one of the terrible airless vacuums that Soren had heard about. Then Martin vanished, and Soren had to fight with all of his might to stay back up, belly down, and flying. He could not believe how difficult this was. He had flown through blazing forests harvesting live coals, battling the enormous fire winds and strange contortions of air that the heat made, but this was terrible!

  “Strike off to port, south by southeast. We’re going to run down. Rudder starboard with tail feathers! Extend lulus.” The lulus were small feathers just at the bend of an owl’s wing, which could help smooth the airflow. Poot was now ca
lling out a string of instructions. “Downwind rudder, hold two points to skyward with port wing. Come on, chaw! You can do it! Primary feathers screw down. Level off now. Forward thrust!” Poot was flying magnificently, especially considering that under the lee of his wings he had tucked the two young owlets Nut Beam and Silver for protection.

  But where was Martin? Martin was the smallest owl in the chaw. Concentrate! Concentrate! Soren told himself. You’re a dead bird if you think about anything but flying. Dead bird! Dead bird! Wings torn off! All the horrible stories he had heard about hurricanes came back to Soren. And although owls talked about the deadly eye of the hurricane, he knew there was something worse, really—the rim of that eye. And if the eye was fifty leagues away—well, the rim could be much closer. Soren’s own two eyes opened wide in terror and his third eyelid, the transparent one that swept across this eyeball, had to work hard to clear the debris, the slop, being flung in it from all directions. But he paid no heed to the slop. In his eye was the image of little Martin vanishing in a split second and being sucked directly into that rim. The eye of a hurricane was calm, but caught in the rim, a bird could spin around and around, its wings torn off by the second spin and most likely gasping for air until it died.

  The air started to smooth out and the clammy warmth that had welled up from below subsided as a cooler layer of air floated up from the turbulent waters. But it had begun to pour hard. A driving rain pushed by the winds slanted in at a steep angle. The sea below seemed to smoke from the force of the rain.