Kathryn Lasky - The Journey

“Mobbed?” Soren asked.

“You know, crows.”

Soren felt a chill run through his gizzard.

Perhaps if Mrs Plithiver had not been whispering her warning in his ear he might have heard the chuffing sound of wings, and not owl wings, overhead.

“Crow to windward!” Gylfie cried. And then suddenly the rosy dawn sky turned black.

“We’re being mobbed!” shrieked Twilight.

Oh Glaux! thought Soren. This was the worst thing that could befall any owl flying in the daytime. But it was still very early. Crows at night were fine. Owls were crows’ worst enemies at night. They could attack them as they slept, but crows during the day were something else. Crows in daylight were terrible. If a crow discovered an owl during the daytime, even if it was just one crow, that bird had a way of signalling others and soon an entire flock would arrive and mob the owls, diving at their heads with their sharp beaks, trying to tear out their eyes.

“Scatter!” Gylfie cried out.

“Scatter and loop.” Suddenly, Gylfie seemed to be everywhere at once. She was like a crazed insect, zipping through the air. Soren, Digger and Twilight began to follow her lead. Soren quickly noticed that Gylfie would swoop up from her loops and spiralling dives to just beneath the crows, stabbing them on the underside of their wings. This made the crows drop their wings down close to their bodies and lose altitude.

“I feel one coming up behind,” hissed Mrs P. “Off your windward tail feathers.”

Mrs P carefully began to crawl backwards on Soren. He adjusted his wings. For even with her light weight, as she moved he could feel his balance shift. Mrs P could smell the crow’s stinky breath as it closed in. Soren began to dive. Mrs P continued to make her way towards the stiffer and coarser tail feathers. A great whiff of crow stench engulfed her. Mrs Plithiver raised her head in the direction of the foul odour and began screaming, “Scum of the sky, curse of the earth, riffraff of the Yonder. Scurrilous crowilous,” she ranted.

The Yonder was what all blind snakes called the sky because it was so far away, about as far away as anything could be for a snake. But Mrs P saved her most poisonous insult for last – “Wet pooper!” Blind snakes were especially impressed by owls’ digestive systems, which allowed them to compress certain parts of waste into neat pellets that they yarped up through their mouths, as opposed to other disgusting birds whom they referred to as ‘wet poopers’. The crow seemed to brake mid-flight. His beak fell open, his wings folded.

Crows are simple birds. And what this crow had just seen and heard – a snake hissing curses and rising from the back feathers of an owl – stunned him. He went ‘yeep’, which meant that he simply froze in flight and began to plummet to earth.

The crows by this time had begun to disappear. Twilight flew up to Soren’s windward side. “Digger’s hurt,” he said.

Indeed, when Soren looked in the direction of Digger, he saw the Burrowing Owl tipping dangerously to one side. “We’ve got to find a place to land.”

Gylfie flew up breathlessly. “I don’t know how much longer Digger can last. He’s not flying straight at all.”

“Which way is he tipping?” Mrs P asked.

“Downwind,” said Twilight.

“Quick!” she ordered. “Let’s get over there. I might be able to help.”

“You?” Twilight asked somewhat incredulously.

“Remember, dear, how Digger had been asking me to ride on his back in the desert? This might just be the time.”

A few seconds later they were coming in on Digger’s upwind wing.

“Digger,” Soren said, “we know you’re hurt.”

“I don’t know if I can make it,” the Burrowing Owl groaned. “Oh, if I could only walk.”

“There’s a stand of trees really close,” Soren said. “Mrs P has an idea that might help you.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s going to get on your good wing. That will tip your injured wing up again, lighten the drag on it. Gylfie meanwhile will fly under your bad wing and create a little updraft for it. It might work.”

“I don’t know,” Digger moaned miserably.

“Faith, boy! Faith!” exhorted Mrs Plithiver. “Now let’s get on with it.”

“I really don’t think I can make it,” Digger gasped.

“You can, boy! You can!” said Mrs P. Her voice grew amazingly strong. “You shall go on to the finish. You shall fly to the forests, to the trees, to Hoolemere. You have defended yourself against these crows. You have strode across deserts. You shall defend yourself now by flying. You shall fly into the wind, into the light, into this new day. Whatever the cost, you shall fly on. You shall not fail or falter. You shall not weaken. You shall finish the flight.” Mrs P’s voice swelled in the growing light of the morning and somehow it filled them all with new courage.

Now Soren flew in so close to Digger that his wing was touching the tip of Digger’s good wing. They were ready for the transfer. “Now, Mrs P! Go!”

The old nest snake began to slither out on to Soren’s wing. Soren felt the pressure of air around his body and the cushions of wind under his wings shift. The air surrounding him seemed to fray. He had to concentrate hard not to go into a roll. But if he was frightened, he could not imagine what Mrs P was feeling as she blindly slithered out to the tip of his wing and began the precarious transfer to Digger.

“Almost there, dear, almost there. Steady now. Steady.”

Suddenly, she was gone. His wing felt light. Soren turned his head. She had made it. She was now crawling up towards the base of Digger’s wing. It was working. Digger’s flight grew even.

“We’re bringin’ him in! We’re bringin’ him in!” Twilight shouted triumphantly. Creating direct updrafts that supported Digger’s flight, Twilight flew below, along with Gylfie who, under the injured wing, was doing the same.

Finally, they landed in a large spruce tree. There was a perfect hollow for them to spend the day in, and Mrs Plithiver immediately launched into a frenzy of action. “I need worms! Big fat ones, and leeches. Quick – all of you! Go out and get me what I need. I’ll stay here with Digger.”

Mrs Plithiver crawled on to Digger’s back. “Now, this won’t hurt, dear, but I just want to feel what those awful crows did to you.” Gently, she began flicking her forked tongue over his wound. “It’s not deep. The best thing I can do is to curl up right on the wound until they come back. A snake’s skin can be very healing in many cases. We’re a little too dry for the long run, however. That’s why I want the worms.”

Soon the owls were back with the worms and leeches that Mrs P had ordered. She directed Soren to place two leeches on the wound. “That will cleanse it. I can’t tell you how filthy crows are!”

After the leeches had done their work, Mrs Plithiver pulled them off and gently replaced them with two fat worms.

Digger sighed. “That feels so good.”

“Yes, there’s nothing like a fat slimy worm for relief of a wound. You’ll be fit to fly by tomorrow night.”

“Thank you, Mrs P. Thank you so much.” Digger blinked at Mrs P, and there was a look in his large yellow eyes of disbelief that he could have ever considered such a snake a meal – which, as a desert owl, Digger often did.

Within the spruce tree where they perched, there was another hollow that housed a family of Masked Owls.

“They look almost exactly like you, Soren,” Gylfie said. “And they’re coming to visit.”

“Masked Owls look nothing like me,” Soren replied. Everyone was always saying this. He had heard his parents complain about it. Yes, they had white faces and buff-coloured wings, but they had many more spots on their breasts and head.