Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

said Twilight.
    The owls got up and crept from their hollow out onto a madly shaking branch and took off for the dining hollow. There was acorn porridge and steaming cups of milkberry tea, roasted tree slugs and braised mice. But as Sorenheaded for his place at Mrs. Plithiver’s, a voice scratched the air.
    “Over here, boy. Weather chaw eats it raw with the hair on.” It was the unmistakable voice of Ezylryb.
    “What?” Soren beaked the word in disbelief.
    “You mean you haven’t heard?” Otulissa was suddenly beside him.
    “Heard what?” Soren said, not sure if he really wanted to know.
    “We’re having our first weather interpretation chaw tonight.”
    “You have to be kidding, Otulissa. We aren’t going out in this gale.”
    “Oh, but we are,” she said. “And I think it’s outrageous. I’m going to have a word with Strix Struma. I’ll go right up to Barran if I have to. This is reckless. This is endangering our lives.”
    “Oh, hush up, dearie. Sit down and eat your mouse—and all the hair, mind you, and that goes for every one of you.” It was the fat old blind snake named Octavia, who had served as the weather chaw table for years. Unlike the other blind snakes whose scales were colors varying from rose to pink to a deep coral, Octavia was a pale greenish-blue. Soren sat next to Martin, the smart little Northern Saw-whet who had asked the question in colliering practiceabout the need for fresh coals. Indeed, Soren realized suddenly that there was more room at the table than he was accustomed to and as he looked about he knew it was because all of the young owls in the weather chaw seemed to have diminished in size. Their feathers were pulled, in tightly indications that the owls were very nervous about their first weather flight. When relaxed, an owl’s plumage is loose and fluffy. When angered, owls can puff up their feathers until they appear much, much larger. But now it was as if they had all become suddenly slim. The tension hovered in the air.
    Ezylryb fixed the young owls in the amber light of his squinted eye. “Eat up, maties…every single little hair. You’ve forgotten what raw meat tastes like with the fur, as you call it. Poot here is my first mate. He’ll tell you what it’s like to fly with no ballast in your gizzard.”
    “I remember that time before I had acquired the taste for hair and thought I could go through that hurricane. Last time I ever tried that. Nearly got caught in the rim of the eye, I did. Now, you don’t want to do that, young’uns.” Poot was a Boreal Owl like Soren and Gylfie’s old friend Grimble.
    “What happens if you get caught in the rim of the eye of a hurricane?” asked Rudy.
    “Oh, you spin around till you’re dead. Just around andaround and around. Awful nasty way to go. Usually get your wings torn off in the process,” said Poot.
    “Now, don’t go scaring them, Poot,” Octavia said and gave a ripple so that all their plates clattered a bit. “And please, young’uns, don’t try that trick of slipping the fur under the table. Remember, I am the table and it itches something fierce.”
    It was not even dark yet, but the weather chaw owls were already on the takeoff limb. It was all they could do to hang on as the gale lashed about them and the limb bucked in the turbulent wind. Shards of ice flew through the air.
    “We take off upwind, naturally.” Although Soren was not sure in this gale which way upwind even was. “We’re going to fly straight out over the Sea of Hoolemere. Try to find the main part of the gale.” Ezylryb spoke in short snappish sentences. “Now listen up. Here’s what you need to know about a gale, or any storm, really—except for hurricanes—they be a little different with their eyes and all. But what you got in a gale, or storm, is you got your gutter. That’s what we call the main trough where the wind runs its punch through. It’s at the center. It not be like the eye in a hurricane. Not nearly so dangerous. Then on either side of the gutter you’ve got the scuppers. That’swhere the edge of the winds from the gutters spills over. Then at the very outside edge of the scuppers you got your swillages—more about them later. I fly point. Poot flies what we call upwind scupper. You just follow behind. Do what you’re told. Any questions?”
    Otulissa raised her talon. “Ezylryb, sir, with all due respect, I have to say that I am surprised that we are going out before it is completely dark.