Lost Tales of Ga'Hoole (Guardians of Ga'Hoole) Read online

  Though they were well hidden from view, the ground nests in which owls in this region lived were easy to spot for an owl who knew where to look. Fritha found the bulges of the nests in between and underneath the boulders that sat on the vast spongy surface. The mosses, lichens, and low shrublike plants that lived in the tundra made these nests quite comfortable.

  Now, where was that nest? The boulders were hard to tell apart. As Fritha scanned the rock formations below, she saw an owl poke its head out from between two boulders. She guessed that it was a Long-eared Owl, but it was so elaborately painted in at least five different colors that it could have just as easily been a Striped Owl for all she knew. The Long-eared Owl eyed Fritha suspiciously, but then pulled back into its nest. Was that a hint of recognition Fritha saw in its eyes? No matter, Fritha thought, you’re not the kraal I’m looking for.

  Then, right beside an especially round boulder, another kraal emerged from his nest. There were very few Pygmy Owl kraals, and he was one of them. And he was the very pirate that Fritha sought.

  Fritha landed on the round boulder, right in front of the kraal. She looked at him with wide eyes. He had dyed most of his feathers a royal blue, but at the very tips of his wings, there was a hint of pink.

  “Well, look who has come to the Pirates’ Lair,” the Pygmy Owl said. The kraal extended his wings out to the side as if in flight. To Fritha’s utter delight, the entire undersides of his wings were dyed her favorite shade of pink.

  “Oh, Da, I’m so glad to see you!” Fritha exclaimed in her first language—a dialect of Krakish. She hopped toward her father and laid her head on his chest. “And you remembered my favorite color!”

  “Of course, my love,” Flinn greeted his daughter with joy in his voice. “I’m happy to see you, too! You are looking very fetching in green.”

  “I wouldn’t think of arriving plain-feathered,” Fritha said. “How did you know I was coming?”

  “Oh, call it a father’s gizzuition,” he answered. “Now, come in. You must be famished. I’ve got a nice fresh lemming for you.”

  “A lemming would be splendid,” Fritha replied happily. She was quite hungry, but had not realized it in her excitement to see her da. “I have so much to tell you, Da! I’ve been having the best time at the great tree. You wouldn’t believe all the things I’ve learned to do!” The long trip was already worthwhile.

  The two Pygmy Owls, father and daughter, disappeared into the ground nest, chatting excitedly.

  Fritha was happy to be with her da. She would have liked to visit with her da for a full moon cycle, but she dared not be away from the tree so long. She would be missing too many chaw practices—the idea of missing even one chaw practice pained her; she couldn’t imagine missing more. It had been almost a year since Fritha last visited her da in the Pirates’ Lair. She would fit as much into her short visit as she possibly could, and the two talked into the dawn almost every night.

  Still, she couldn’t help missing the great tree. The season of White Rain would be in full swing, and she was looking forward to all the activity that came with it. She couldn’t wait to get back to her nest and see all her friends. How different she’d felt about her first trip to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, she thought. She was so young at the time that she barely remembered it. What she did remember was feeling immensely sad. She was being sent away from home, after all. She feared that she would never see her da again. And even though her da told her it was for her own good, she didn’t fully understand why he was sending her away. And here she was now, being homesick for the tree.

  Although she still didn’t know why he had done it, how right her da had been to send her there! She was thriving at the tree—she was one of the best owls in the weather and colliering chaws, earning the highest merit badge a colliering chaw owl could earn, and she just loved writing for The Evening Hoot.

  As much as she loved her da, her visits with him always reminded her that the kraal way of life was just not for her—the vanity, the disorderliness, not to mention the thuggishness. And when it came down to it, most of the kraals were just not that smart, and they didn’t feel the need to get smarter, either. Her da was different in that respect. He was always inventing this and that, working out his “hypotheses.” Even now, as Fritha watched him, Flinn was tinkering with a new formula for a dye that changed colors depending on the angle of the sun. He was much more like the owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree than he was his fellow kraals. The kraals realized this, too, and regularly left Flinn out of important activities. No one at the tree knew that Fritha was the daughter of a kraal, or that she would have become a kraal herself if it weren’t for her da sending her away. It wasn’t exactly that she was ashamed of where she came from…well, maybe she was, just a little bit.

  As a newly arrived young owl at the tree, Fritha didn’t dare talk about her kraal heritage. The Guardians’ infrequent encounters with the kraals had never been amicable. The kraals’ reputation, she learned, was worse than she had imagined. She had meant to tell her fellow Guardians the truth about her identity someday; she wanted to let them know where she came from and who she was. But night after night, season after season, she never found the opportunity or the courage. And now, she found herself leading this double life—sneaking away from the tree once or twice a year to see her father, inevitably telling lies in the process. With each visit, the lies and half-truths weighed more and more heavily on her gizzard.

  As Fritha watched her da fiddle with his pigments, she wondered again why he had chosen to send her away to a life so different from his own.

  “Da,” she began gently, “why did you send me to the tree? Why didn’t you keep me here and raise me as a kraal?”

  Flinn didn’t seem surprised by Fritha’s question. He put down his mortar and pestle, and paused before he began his long answer.

  “I was just a young owl myself when I first learned of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree,” he said. “I had heard of it in songs sung by passing gadfeathers, but didn’t know it was a real place with real owls until a raiding party returned one night with a certain little owl as a captive.” He seemed lost in his memories as he spoke.

  Flinn remembered clearly, he had been painting his feathers at a dye basin—red and turquoise. As he admired his own artistic creation, he spotted in his ice mirror a group of owls flying toward the lair. Ah! Finally! They’re doing it right! The four kraals were flying in the formation he invented, correctly this time. He called it the VAT, short for Vacuum-assisted Transport. It was one of his proudest inventions. He got the idea when he was flying with a group of Snowies through some rough winds the previous winter. Being a Pygmy Owl in these parts had its challenges, and the katabats were one of the biggest ones. He realized, as he flew with the four much larger owls, that if they all positioned themselves a certain way, they created a small still space in their midst where the heaviest winds were blocked. He was able to get through the katabats that way. With further experimentation, he found that he could expand upon the idea. If the owls flying around the periphery flapped their wings in a certain rhythm, they created a vacuum in the space between them. Whatever was in the middle got sucked along. Flinn was very excited to tell the other kraals of his discovery. He had thought it would be a great way to transport injured owls or fledglings and smaller owls who couldn’t fly through heavy gusts. But the kraals saw it only as a way to transport captives. Typical.

  Flinn wondered who was being brought to the rock cell in the VAT. He saw that the owl in the middle of the formation was very small, even smaller than he was. It must have been an Elf Owl, he decided. An owl that size was in for a bad time in the Pirates’ Lair. Until now, Flinn had been one of the smallest owls in the area. This prisoner’s diminutive size intrigued him.

  From the main room of the Pirates’ Lair, Flinn could see into the stone cell where the Elf Owl was being kept. He chatted with the guards and they gave up all the information like gadfeathers at a grog tree. The prisoner was called Gylfie,
and she came from the Southern Kingdoms. The kraals were holding her on behalf of some old Screech Owl who would be coming to question her.

  The most fascinating thing Flinn learned was that the owl came from the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, and was in fact a Guardian of Ga’Hoole. He had heard stories about the Guardians—that they were a group of knightly owls that fought for justice and sought wisdom—but he never thought he would meet one, let alone have one brought to the Pirates’ Lair with his invention.

  For the next two nights, Flinn couldn’t help but think about the little Elf Owl being kept in the rock cell. He wanted to know more about this Gylfie, but he had no business in the whole matter. He wasn’t involved in guarding the prisoner—he was too small. Vlink and Phlinx, two dim-witted Snowies, were selected for that task. He wasn’t involved in questioning the prisoner, either—he was not important or high-ranking enough. One of the Snowy captains was working with that creepy Whiskered Screech, Ifghar, on that task. What were they asking her? he wondered. As much as he tried to keep busy, his thoughts always fell to Gylfie and the Guardians of Ga’Hoole.

  What was it like, he wondered, to live at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree? I bet she’s not left out of raids or missions. And I bet they don’t laugh off her ideas.

  The very next day, Flinn got to know Gylfie a little better. Most of the kraals were out on a raid. Vlink and Phlinx were left behind to guard Gylfie, and Flinn was left behind to…well, Flinn was just plain left behind. He milled about in the main room of the lair hoping to catch bits of the conversation between the prisoner and her guards, or better, speak with the Elf Owl himself. But all he heard was Vlink and Phlinx going on and on about being left out of the raids.

  Suddenly, he heard both Vlink and Phlinx gasp in awe.

  “Look! Look!” said one.

  “It’s coming this way. By my talons, it can’t be!” added the other.

  Flinn tried to see what had caused this reaction, but couldn’t. He tried to position his head so that he could hear as much as possible. But all he could hear was a bit of mumbling in a language he didn’t understand. Glaux? Vlink and Phlinx were saying that Glaux had come to the Pirates’ Lair to anoint them? What rubbish! Just what’s going on?

  Flinn had to see for himself. He left the main room of the lair and snuck around to the front entrance of the rock cell. He got there just in time to see an owl, who had been painted ear slit to talon in gold, cutting the Elf Owl loose. Ah, he suddenly understood. Vlink and Phlinx must have thought this golden owl was Glaux. What imbeciles! This owl was clearly just a regular Short-eared Owl who had found some of the prized golden sedge berries that the kraals were always on the hunt for. Flinn didn’t know where to find the berries or how to make a gold dye himself, but he was smart enough to know that another owl might be able to. It became clear that the Elf Owl and the Short-eared Owl had executed a most cunning plan to trick Vlink and Phlinx into letting them go. Gylfie, clearly out-sized, had no hope of fighting her way to freedom; she used her wits instead. That must be one smart little owl, thought Flinn.

  Gylfie and the golden owl were about to get away. Flinn knew he should try to stop them. The thing was, he didn’t want to. He wanted to see Gylfie get away. He wanted to see if she could really do it.

  Flinn looked to the western sky and realized that it was not going to happen. He saw the rest of the pirates returning from the raid. The whole raucous crew was approaching, and fast! He was almost disappointed. It looked like Gylfie and her companion wouldn’t get away after all.

  But wait! What were they doing? Gylfie and the golden owl were moving the two great ice mirrors, the ones that were set up so that the kraals could admire their own image as they returned home. With considerable effort, the two owls tilted the two big slabs of polished ice to catch the sun. I should really do something to stop them, Flinn thought again, but he did not move.

  Flinn watched as chaos filled the western sky. Beams of reflected sunlight blinded the approaching kraals. They were flying into one another and falling out of the sky! Flinn turned toward the east just in time to see Gylfie and her companion fly off. They made their getaway after all. Funny, Flinn found himself rooting for the prisoner rather than for his fellow kraals.

  What a smart little owl! Flinn thought again.

  After relating to Fritha the tale of the escape of Gylfie and the false, golden-painted Glaux, Flinn told his grown daughter that, many moon cycles after that valiant escape, he was impressed by another little owl.

  It was the night of a full moon. Flinn was watching the diminutive egg in his nest rattle, gently at first, then with increasing urgency. It’s almost time! He could hardly believe it. This was the little egg that was never supposed to hatch. When Flinn’s mate laid this egg, she immediately saw that it was flawed—it was very small, even for the egg of a Pygmy Owl, and had a long thin crack that ran from top to bottom. Damaged eggs don’t hatch, she told Flinn.

  For a while, he thought it was just as well. His mate, Freya, had insisted on going on a raid with the rest of the kraals, and she never made it back. He wasn’t surprised; Freya was always taking risks. She was a kraal through and through—as fierce as an owl ten times her size. He admired that, but he feared it, too. He feared he would lose her one day. And he did. He missed her dearly.

  Flinn did not push the tiny flawed egg out of the nest, as Freya had told him to do. He couldn’t do it, at least not until he knew for sure that it wasn’t a hatcher. So, he had taken care of it, kept it warm, and surrounded it with the softest down he could pull from his own chest. You never know, he figured, the little egg might have a chance.

  And now, it was going to hatch!

  Just as Flinn leaned in to take a closer look, the crack that had always been on the egg grew wider. Pop! A tiny spur sprang out of the egg, making a tiny hole in the shell. The shell split along its crack. Out fell the tiniest little chick Flinn had ever seen, wet and glistening, with a head as big as the rest of its body. He took one look at his daughter and decided that Fritha would be her name.

  The egg that wasn’t supposed to hatch did. Fritha opened her beak and made a noise so loud that it could have come from an owl ten times her size. She looked at her da with big, curious eyes that seemed to be thinking already. Flinn was in love.

  On the day Fritha became fully fledged, Flinn took her to the nearest dye basin in the tundra at dawn and taught her how to paint her own feathers.

  As they went over how to apply dye to one’s own head, Fritha asked, “Da, why do we paint our feathers?”

  “Because the colors look nice,” he answered. “Don’t you like all the colors, Fritha?”

  “I like the colors,” Fritha said hesitantly. “It’s just that…brown and gray are colors, too, aren’t they? What’s wrong with them?”

  “Nothing, dear.”

  “Then why do we cover the brown and gray of our feathers with all these other colors?”

  What an inquisitive little owl, thought Flinn, always asking why this and why that. She left no question unasked, and no answer unchallenged. She was his daughter through and through. He had to think about the answer carefully, because it was bound to lead to a lot more questions.

  “It’s how we make ourselves unique, and how we push the boundaries of our owlness,” Flinn had finally said.

  “The colors do that?”

  “Yes.” Flinn thought a little more and added, “It’s what’s called an art.”

  “An art.” Fritha nodded, seeming to understand. She applied the pink and vermilion dyes over her head with care, just as her da was showing her to do.

  A few days later, Flinn found Fritha playing with a small chunk of ice from a broken ice mirror. She held it this way and that in her talons, examining it. She tilted the smooth, triangular chunk of ice, catching the light of the setting sun. When she held the ice at a certain angle, the sunlight burst through it, splitting into a rainbow.

  “Look, Da!” she exclaimed, holding the prism steady in the light s
o that Flinn could see what she saw.

  “Lovely, my dear!” he replied.

  “They’re all here, Da!”

  “What’s there, Fritha?”

  “Colors! Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet…All the colors you’d ever want to see,” she answered. Then she added, “You don’t need sedges and berries to make colors. You can have all the colors your want in this little chunk of ice!”

  What a smart little owl, Flinn thought, and churred.

  Fritha waved the ice in her talons excitedly. The sunlight reflected from the polished surface and hit Flinn right in the eye. For just a moment, he was blinded. He shielded his eyes from the beam with his wing. When he looked up again at his daughter, he was reminded of an owl from his youth—Gylfie, another smart little owl.

  Flinn watched Fritha play with the chunk of ice until twilight, all the while thinking about what that Elf Owl might be doing at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. They probably taught proper lessons there—lessons about how a chunk of ice could contain all the colors of the rainbow, lessons about the properties of mirrors and light. Here, a small owl like himself was often overlooked. But there, perhaps, they were valued and respected as much as the bigger owls.

  Just then, a small raiding party flew toward them from the south. There was a huge commotion in the sky. The owls, a dozen or so of them, landed raucously, boasting of their spoils. Some of them looked to be painted a brownish red, but Flinn immediately knew that it was not paint or dye—it was blood.

  Among them was a Screech Owl named Drusilla—one of Fritha’s young friends. She was but half a moon older than Fritha, and was already going out on raids. Fritha had been quite taken with the slightly older owl. Drusilla was covered in dried blood, and proud of it.