Kathryn Lasky - The Capture

“Oh dear oh dear!” Mrs Plithiver moaned. She was not much good in a crisis. One could not expect such things of nest-maids, Soren supposed.

“How long until Mum and Da get home?” Soren called up.

“Oh, it could be a long while, dearie.”

Soren had hop-stepped to the roots of the tree that ran above the ground like gnarled talons. He could now see Mrs Plithiver, her small head with its glistening rosy scales hovering over the edge of the hollow. Where Mrs Plithiver’s eyes should have been there were two small indentations. “This is simply beyond me,” she sighed.

“Is Kludd awake? Maybe he could help me.”

There was a long pause before Mrs Plithiver answered weakly, “Well, perhaps.” She sounded hesitant. Soren could hear her now, nudging Kludd. “Don’t be grumpy, Kludd. Your brother has … has … taken a tumble, as it were.”

Soren heard his brother yawn. “Oh my,” Kludd sighed and didn’t sound especially upset, Soren thought. Soon the large head of his big brother peered over the edge of the hollow. His white heart-shaped face with the immense dark eyes peered down on Soren. “I say,” Kludd drawled. “You’ve got yourself in a terrible fix.”

“I know, Kludd. Can’t you help? You know more about flying than I do. Can’t you teach me?”

“Me teach you? I wouldn’t know where to begin. Have you gone yoicks?” He laughed. “Stark-raving yoicks. Me teach you?” He laughed again. There was a sneer embedded deep within the laugh.

“I’m not yoicks. But you’re always telling me how much you know, Kludd.” This was certainly the truth. Kludd had been bragging about his superiority ever since Soren had hatched out. He should get the favourite spot in the hollow because he was already losing his downy fluff in preparation for his flight feathers and therefore would be colder. He deserved the largest hunks of mouse meat because he , after all, was on the brink of flying. “You’ve already had your First Flight ceremony. Tell me how to fly, Kludd.”

“One cannot tell another how to fly. It’s a feeling, and besides, it is really a job for Mum and Da. It would be very impertinent of me to usurp their position.”

Soren had no idea what “usurp” meant. Kludd often used big words to impress him.

“What are you talking about? Usurp?” Sounded like “yarp” to Soren. But what would yarping have to do with teaching him to fly? Time was running out. The light was leaking out of the day’s end and the evening shadows were falling. The raccoons would soon be out.

“I can’t do it, Soren,” Kludd replied in a very serious voice. “It would be extremely improper for a young owlet like myself to assume this role in your life.”

“My life isn’t going to be worth two pellets if you don’t do something. Don’t you think it is improper for you to let me die? What will Mum and Da say to that?”

“I think they will understand completely.”

Great Glaux! Understand completely! He had to be yoicks. Soren was simply too dumbfounded. He could not say another word.

“I’m going to get help, Soren. I’ll go to Hilda’s,” he heard Mrs P rasp. Hilda was another nest-maid snake for an owl family in a tree near the banks of the river.

“I wouldn’t if I were you, P.” Kludd’s voice was ominous. It made Soren’s gizzard absolutely quiver.

“Don’t call me P. That’s so rude.”

“That’s the last thing you have to worry about P – me being rude.”

Soren blinked.

“I’m going, Kludd. You can’t stop me,” Mrs Plithiver said firmly.

“Can’t I?”

Soren heard a rustling sound above. Good Glaux, what was happening?

“Mrs Plithiver?” Only silence now. “Mrs Plithiver?” Soren called again. Maybe she had gone to Hilda’s. He could only hope, and wait.

It was nearly dark now and a chill wind rose up. There was no sign of Mrs Plithiver returning. “First teeth” – isn’t that what Da always called these early cold winds? – the first teeth of winter. The very words made poor Soren shudder. When his father had first used this expression, Soren had no idea what “teeth” even were. His father explained that they were something that owls didn’t have, but most other animals did. They were for tearing and chewing food.

“Does Mrs Plithiver have them?” asked Soren. Mrs Plithiver had gasped in disgust.

His mother said, “Of course not, dear.”

“Well, what are they exactly?” Soren had asked.

“Hmm,” said his mother as she thought a moment. “Just imagine a mouth full of beaks – yes, very sharp beaks.”

“That sounds very scary.”

“Yes, it can be,” his mother replied. “That is why you do not want to fall out of the hollow or try to fly before you’re ready, because raccoons have very sharp teeth.”

“You see,” his father broke in, “we have no need for such things as teeth. Our gizzards take care of all that chewing business. I find it rather revolting, the notion of actually chewing something in one’s mouth.”

“They say it adds flavour, darling,” his mother added.

“I get flavour, plenty of flavour, in my gizzard. Where do you think that old expression ‘I know it in my gizzard’ comes from? Or ‘I have a feeling in my gizzard’, Marella?”

“Noctus, I’m not sure if that is the same thing as flavour.”

“That mouse we had for dinner last night – I can tell you from my gizzard exactly where he had been of late. He had been feasting on the sweet grass of the meadow mixed with the nooties from that little Ga’Hoole tree that grows down by the stream. Great Glaux! I don’t need teeth to taste.”

Oh dear , thought Soren, he might never hear this gentle bickering between his parents again. A centipede pittered by and Soren did not even care. Darkness gathered. The black of the night grew deeper and from down on the ground he could barely see the stars. This perhaps was the worst. He could not see sky through the thickness of the trees. How much he missed the hollow. From their nest, there was always a little piece of the sky to watch. At night, it sparkled with stars or raced with clouds. In the daytime, there was often a lovely patch of blue, and sometimes towards evening, before twilight, the clouds turned bright orange or pink. There was an odd smell down here on the ground – damp and mouldy. The wind sighed through the branches above, through the leaves and the needles of the forest trees, but down on the ground … well, the wind didn’t seem to even touch the ground. There was a terrible stillness. It was the stillness of a windless place. This was no place for an owl to be. Everything was different.

If his feathers had been even half-fledged, he could have plumped them up and the downy fluff beneath the flight feathers would have kept him warm. He supposed he could try calling for Eglantine. But what use would she be? She was so young. Besides, if he called out, wouldn’t that alert other creatures in the forest that he was here? Creatures with teeth!

He guessed his life wasn’t worth two pellets. But even worthless, he still missed his parents. He missed them so much that the missing felt sharp. Yes, he did feel something in his gizzard as sharp as a tooth.

CHAPTER THREE

Snatched!

Soren was dreaming of teeth and of the heartbeats of mice when he heard the first soft rustlings overhead. “Mum! Da!” he cried out in his half sleep. He would forever regret calling out those two words, for suddenly, the night was ripped with a shrill screech and Soren felt talons wrap around him. Now he was being lifted. And they were flying fast, faster than he could think, faster than he could ever imagine. His parents never flew this fast. He had watched them when they took off or came back from the hollow. They glided slowly and rose in beautiful lazy spirals into the night. But now, underneath, the earth raced by. Slivers of air blistered his skin. The moon rolled out from behind thick clouds and bleached the world with an eerie whiteness. He scoured the landscape below for the tree that had been his home. But the trees blurred into clumps, and then the forest of the Kingdom of Tyto seemed to grow smaller and smaller and dimmer and dimmer in the night, until Soren could not stand to look down any more. So he dared to look up.