Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

are free.
    As we go, this we know
    Glaux is nigh.

    Then there were the sounds of owls burrowing into the downy fluff of their beds and then the first gasps. “Apellet!” Digger exclaimed. “I got tracking chaw. I can’t believe it!”
    Next, a whoop from Twilight. “Hooray! I’m search-and-rescue.”
    From other hollows came more cries:
    “This iron tree is beautiful—great Glaux, I did get metals!”
    “A milkberry—oh, no!”
    “Ten nooties!!!!” But the voice was not Otulissa’s. It was Gylfie’s. “Soren, I can’t believe it. I didn’t think Strix Struma liked me that much,” Gylfie whispered as if she couldn’t believe her great luck. And then there was silence as six pairs of yellow eyes turned to Soren. “Soren,” Digger said, “what did you get?”
    “I…I…I’m not sure.”
    “Not sure?” Gylfie said. They were all puzzled. How could one not be sure?
    “I haven’t looked yet. I’m scared.”
    “Soren,” Twilight said, “just look. Get it over with. Come on. It can’t be so bad.”
    Can’t be so bad? Soren thought. No, of course, not for all of you who got exactly what you wanted.
    “Come on, Soren,” Gylfie said in a softer voice. She had walked over to the pile of down where Soren slept. “Come on. I’ll stand right here beside you.” Gylfie was half Soren’ssize but she stretched up and began preening Soren’s feathers in a soothing gesture.
    Soren sighed and, carefully, with one talon, plucked away the down fluff so as not to disturb anything. A dark lump poked through and beside it the shriveled body of a dried caterpillar.
    “Colliering!” the wail peeled out into the morning. But the voice was not that of Soren, who simply stared in disbelief at the piece of coal and the caterpillar. “I can’t believe it. I’m on colliering and weather chaws. Disaster!” The voice was that of Otulissa. Great Glaux, Soren thought. As if things weren’t bad enough—he was now double chawed with Otulissa!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Visit to Bubo
    O ne—two—one—two. That’s it, Ruby. Tuck the beak…one—two—one—two…” This was their second chaw practice for colliering and Soren had never been more depressed, not since his horrible time at St. Aggie’s. The colliering ryb, a Great Gray named Elvan, stood in the center of a circle that had been inscribed on the ground at the base of the tree. It was near the forge where Bubo worked, keeping them supplied with red-hot coals. Elvan barked commands at them and insisted that they march in time as he kept count. Soren had a deep aversion to marching. They had been forced to march all the time at St. Aggie’s. Elvan said this marching was necessary to establish the proper rhythm that helped in holding a live coal in their beaks. And it seemed as if his previous experience with live coals in the woods of The Beaks had deserted him. He could hardly believe that he had actually picked up live coals, buried them, and flown with them! Soren had spent the first minutes of class being scared andthe remainder being bored. If anyone had told him that it was possible to be both in the same practice, he would have said they were yoicks. It was odd that he hardly felt the heat. He remembered thinking this before when he was in the woods of The Beaks. He did notice, however, that Elvan’s fringe of light feathers below his beak seemed to be a permanently sooty gray.
    Soren thought of his own face, covered in pure white feathers. This was the most distinctive feature of Barn Owls, and he really did not want to think of it growing singed and sooty. Maybe he was vain but he couldn’t help it.
    “Pay attention! Soren!” Elvan barked. “You nearly ran into Otulissa.”
    Thank Glaux she couldn’t speak, thought Soren. That was the only good thing about colliering. It was hard to speak with a live coal in one’s mouth. So Otulissa was effectively shut up for once.
    “All right, rest time. Drop your coals,” Elvan announced.
    Rest wasn’t really rest, however, as the ryb lectured them the entire time. “Tomorrow you shall begin flying with the coals in your beaks. It is not that different, really, from walking. Although you must take care to keep your coal alive and burning.”
    “Yeah!” Bubo boomed. “Dead coals ain’t going to do mea bit of good, young’uns. No sense flying in here with a great lot of ashes, cold as Glaux knows what.”
    “Yes,” continued Elvan. “We don’t want to disappoint Bubo.”
    “Oh, Glaux