Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

hoot. And then, suddenly, Soren knew why. Here, at the center of thegale, in the gutter, the winds all seemed to flow like one great turbulent river. And if one let one’s wings sweep slightly forward, just as Ruby was doing, and angled the tail—well, it was a wonderful sensation, a cross between soaring and gliding—no effort at all. And in the gutter, the ice shards seemed to melt away.
    “Oh, tickle me hollow bones. Ain’t this the life!” It was Ezylryb, who had dropped back from the point position and now flew between Soren and Otulissa. He yarped a pellet into the river of wind that flowed about them. “Now follow me to the edge of the scuppers, maties, and I’ll show you the hurly-burly. And then we’ll climb the baggywrinkles and dump right into the scuppers for the ride of your life.”
    “What is he talking about?” huffed Otulissa. “He should have given us a vocabulary list. He’s very disorganized as a teacher.”
    Why would a vocabulary list matter? Soren thought. What was the use of a word if one could not feel the action in his gizzard? And right now Soren’s gizzard was in a fantastic quiver of excitement. This was flying as he had never known it.
    “Here we go!” cried Ezylryb. “Now I want to see you punch the wind and then we pop the scuppers and it’s tail over talons.”
    “Oh, my heavens!” Otulissa shrieked and Soren gaspedas he saw the distinctive three-taloned foot of Ezylryb scratch the moon-smudged sky. He was flying on his back! Then right side up and in the scuppers.
    Suddenly, Soren saw a red blur as Ruby did a talons-over-tail somersault and popped the scuppers to join him. “Oh, come on!” she cried. “There’s nothing to it.”
    “Nothing to it. Who’s ever heard of an owl flying upside down? I think there’s something most unsavory about it!” Otulissa gasped. “It’s reckless, unsafe—yes, unsavory, unsafe, un-owl.”
    Oh, shut up! Soren thought and punched the wind just as Ezylryb said, and in a flash he was arcing up toward the sky that spun with dark clouds and was splattered with sheets of icy rain, and then he was right side up in the scuppers next to Ruby.
    “Push forward a bit with your talons and keep angling your tail. It gives you a lot of control and you can ride the waves,” Ezylryb called back.
    Finally, Otulissa arrived, sputtering with rage and talking about a report that she was going to make about “this outrageous activity.”
    “Oh, shut your beak!” Poot screeched at her. And then they skidded and spun, doing what was called the hurly-burly. In the scuppers, Ezylryb began to squawk a raucous ditty into the teeth of the gale.

We are the owls of the weather chaw.
    We take it blistering,
    We take it all.
    Roiling boiling gusts,
    We’re the owls with the guts.
    For blizzards our gizzards
    Do tremble with joy.
    An ice storm, a gale, how we love blinding hail.
    We fly forward and backward,
    Upside down and flat.
    Do we flinch? Do we wail?
    Do we skitter or scutter?
    No, we yarp one more pellet
    And fly straight for the gutter!
    Do we screech? Do we scream?
    Do we gurgle? Take pause?
    Not on your life!
    For we are the best
    Of the best of the chaws!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mrs. Plithiver’s Dilemma
    F lying upside down!” Primrose gasped. “How do you do that? It’s impossible.”
    “It’s not as hard as you think,” Soren said excitedly. “It really doesn’t take that much skill. It’s kind of like when you first start to fly. You have to just sort of believe you can do it.”
    “But upside down?” Gylfie said.
    “Do you think a big burly Gray like me could do it?” Twilight said.
    “Sure, if the conditions are right. See, that’s the problem—you can’t try it until you’re in the gutter of a gale.”
    “Gutter of a gale?” Twilight said. “You telling me a gale has a gutter? Now, I’ve seen a lot but…” It was hard for Twilight to admit that anyone had seen or experienced something he had not.
    Gylfie and Soren looked at each other and blinked in amazement. Twilight did brag, but he did not have that obnoxious sense of superiority that Otulissa had. Still, hewas constantly getting reprimanded in his chaw practices for challenging the rybs. Sometimes he could be annoying but, in spite of this, he was a “good soul,” as Mrs. P. would put it. There was never an owl more fiercely loyal than Twilight. As Digger often said, “He makes the best friend and the worst enemy.”
    “You might not have seen the