Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

said.
    “They do look kind of planty. Don’t they?” said Digger.
    “What do you mean? Planty?” asked Soren.
    “I know what Digger’s talking about. That bright orange thing growing from the middle of its, I guess, face?”
    “What do you mean—you guess, face?” the creature hollered. “I mean, we’re pretty dumb, but you must be dumber if you can’t tell a face from a plant.”
    “Well, you look a bit like a cactus in bloom—the kind we have in the desert,” Digger said.
    “That’s my beak, idiot. I can assure you that neither I nor anyone in my family is a cactus in bloom—whatever a cactus is and whatever a desert is.”
    “Well, what are you?” Mrs. Plithiver finally spoke up.
    “Well, what in the name of ice are you?” the creature retorted.
    “I’m a snake…a nest-maid snake. I serve these most noble of birds, owls.”
    “Well,” said the creature who was not a cactus, “we’re just a bunch of puffins.”
    “Puffins!” Twilight hooted. “Puffins are northern birds, far northern birds.”
    “Duh!” said one of the little ones. “Gee, Pop, I’m feeling smarter all the time.”
    “But if you’re puffins,” Gylfie continued, “we must be in the North.”
    “Ta-da!” said one of the puffins. “Gee, you owls are getting smarter every minute!”
    “Does she get a prize, Mummy, for answering the question right?” Another little chick, with an immense beak almost as long as it was tall, poked its head out of the hole.
    “Oh, we’re just having fun with them, Dumpy.”
    “But how did we get so far north?” Soren asked.
    “Must have gotten blown off course,” said the female. “Where you come from?”
    “The Beaks,” Twilight said.
    “Where you headed?”
    “The island in the Sea of Hoolemere.”
    “Great Ice! You’ve passed it by. Overshot it by five hundred leagues.”
    “What! We flew over it and didn’t even see it?” Digger said, his voice barely audible.
    “Where are we exactly?” Gylfie asked.
    “You’re in the Ice Narrows, far side of Hoolemere, edge of the Northern Kingdoms.”
    “What!” All four owls gasped.
    “Don’t feel too dumb,” the male said. “Bad weather conditions.”
    “When do we ever have good ones, dear?” his mate mused.
    “Well, true. But with the wind coming from that direction, they just got sucked up into the Narrows and then that williwaw came.”
    “What’s a williwaw?” Soren asked.
    “You get a big tumble, like an avalanche. Suppose you don’t know what that is—an avalanche.”
    “No, what’s an avalanche?” Digger said.
    “You know, a big snow slide, but it’s not snow in a williwaw. Just cold icy air comes over the wall and crashes down. That’s what sucked you up into the Narrows and slammed you into our wall—our home.”
    “This is home?” Twilight asked.
    “Yes, sir. Only one we’ve ever known,” the male said.
    “But where do you live?”
    “In the ice cracks and some rocky holes. The wall is not all ice. Plenty of boulders. There are places if you know how to find them,” he said and then looked at his mate. “Another storm is coming in from the south. We’d better get you owls inside. Follow us.”
    The ice nest was roomy, but it reeked something horrible. “What’s that smell?” Gylfie whispered.
    “What smell?” asked the little puffin they called Dumpy.
    “That smell!” Digger snorted.
    “Probably fish,” the male said.
    “Fish! You eat fish?”
    “Not much else. Better get used to it.”
    “And I’m going fishing before that storm comes,” the female said.
    As she waddled toward the nest opening, Soren began to appreciate how truly preposterous this bird was. It was not only her face, with its large bulbous orange beak and the dark eyes ringed in red and set in slightly skewed ovals of white feathers, but also her body was the strangest shape. Chubby, with not one slim or graceful line and, with her chest thrust out, she appeared as if she mighttopple forward at any second. How this thing flew was a mystery. Indeed, now, tottering on the edge of the nest, it appeared as if she hesitated to take off, but finally she did by windmilling her wings awkwardly until, at last, she seemed to organize them for a direct plunge into the sea. And that was something to behold. She suddenly grew sleek. Her broad head and thick beak split the icy turbulent waters, which then closed over her tail feathers. She completely disappeared beneath the surface. Soren had been joined by