Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

Soren’s left ear, the higher ear and the easiest for her to reach. “Soren,” she whispered, “I’m not sure if it is a good idea to keep flying with all this light. We don’t want to get mobbed.”
    “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 signaling 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 spiraling 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 backward on Soren. He adjusted his wings. For even with her light weight, as she moved he could feel his balance shift. Mrs. P. could smellthe crow’s stinky breath as it closed in. Soren began to dive. Mrs. P. continued to make her way toward the tail feathers that were stiffer and coarser. A great whiff of crow stench engulfed her. Mrs. Plithiver raised her head in the direction of the foul odor 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.”
    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