Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

frightening as he had been that day when Soren first saw him in the parliament and felt his squinted eye burning into him. The old bird rarely spoke and when he did it was in a low, growlish hoot. He had a fondness for caterpillars and kept a store of dried ones for when they were out of season. These he put in a little pile by his desk in the library. It was not what Ezylryb did say that Soren and Gylfie found unnerving, it was what he didn’t. Heseemed to quietly observe everything even as he read with his one and a half eyes. Every once in a while he emitted a low growl of what they could only feel was disapproval. But worst of all was his deformed foot. And although Soren and Gylfie knew it was impolite to stare, their eyes just seemed drawn to that foot. Soren admitted to Gylfie that he couldn’t help it, and Gylfie said that she herself was fearful of making a terrible slip.
    “Remember when Matron came in the other day to serve tea and she asked me to take the cup to him and to ask if he wanted his usual with it—whatever that was. I was so afraid I was going to say something like, ‘Ezylryb, Matron would like to know if you’d like your tea with your usual fourth talon.’” Soren laughed but he knew exactly what Gylfie meant.
    There were, however, too many compelling reasons to go to the library. So they went and learned to ignore his occasional growlish hoots, trying not to stare at his foot and trying to avoid the amber squint of his eye. The library was quite high in the great tree in a roomy hollow that was lined with books, and the floor was spread with lovely carpets woven of mosses, grasses, and occasional strands of down. When Soren and Gylfie entered, they spotted Ezyl-ryb in his usual spot. There was the pile of caterpillars. Every now and then he would pluck one and munch it.His beak was now poked into a book titled Magnetic Properties as They Occur Naturally and Unnaturally in Nature.
    Soren made his way toward a shelf that had books about barns and churches for, indeed, once upon a time Barn Owls like himself had actually lived in such places and Soren enjoyed looking at the pictures and reading about them. Some of the churches were magnificent, with windows stained the colors of rainbows and stone spires that soared high into the sky. But Soren actually preferred the simpler little wooden churches, neatly painted, with something called steeples for their bells. Gylfie liked books with poems, funny riddles, and jokes. She went to see if a book she had discovered yesterday was still there, called Hooties, Cooties, and Nooties: A Book of Owl Humor with Recipes, Jokes, and Practical Advice. It was written by Philom-ena Bagwhistle, a well-known nest-maid snake who had spent many years in service.
    But just as Gylfie was about to pull the book from the shelf there was a low growl. “You can do better than that, young one. One day with that Philomena Bagwhistle slop is quite ’nuff, I’dsay. Whyn’t try something a little weightier?”
    “Like what?” Gylfie said in a small voice.
    “Try that one over there.” Ezylryb raised his foot, the one with three talons, and pointed.
    Soren froze. He could not take his eyes off the talons. Was it a deformity that he had been born with, as some said, or had it been snapped off in a mobbing by crows? The three talons raked the air as he pointed, and Soren and Gylfie’s feathers automatically drooped as owl feathers do when they find themselves in conditions of fear. The old owl now got up from his desk, lurched toward the shelf, and pulled the book off using only one talon. Gylfie’s and Soren’s eyes were riveted on the talon. “Look at the book, idiots, not my talons. Or, here, take a good look at the talons so you can get used to it.” And he shook the deformed foot in their faces. The two owls nearly fainted on the spot.
    “We’re used to it,” Soren gasped.
    “Good. Now read the book,” Ezylryb said.
    Gylfie began sounding out the words, “ Tempers of the Gizzard: An Interpretative Physiology of This Vital Organ in Strigi-formes.”
    “What are Strigiformes?” whispered Soren.
    “Us,” Gylfie said softly. “That’s the fancy name for all owls, whether we’re Elf Owls or Barn Owls or…” Gylfie hesitated, “a Whiskered Screech.”
    “Right-o. Now go on, the both of you. Try something harder. Read it together.” He fixed them in his ambersquint. “And you can now quit wasting time thinking about my three talons. If you