Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

lonelier than when he had almost given up on ever seeing any of his family again. This was the most excruciating loneliness he had ever imagined. Eglantine was here at last, but was she really?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Trader Mags
    S oren had been looking forward, it seemed forever, to the day that Trader Mags would come with her wares. But now it meant nothing to him. Still, there was certainly a buzz of excitement as they roused themselves at the end of the day in anticipation of the magpie’s arrival around twilight. Everyone was excited except for Soren and, of course, the nest-maids, who considered magpies among the worst of the wet poopers, almost as bad as seagulls. He supposed he would go and drag Eglantine around, although he doubted it would mean anything to her. Mags would be showing her wares all evening, so there was no rush.
    She was late and no one was more upset than Madame Plonk. From his hollow, Soren could hear her several branches above him on a lookout perch, waiting with other owls. “If that bird was ever on time in her life, I’ll eat my harp!” Madame Plonk was fuming. “She has no sense of time. Here it is past twilight, nearly First Black.” But suddenly,curling out of the night, came a lovely warbling sound.
    “It’s the carol!” someone shouted. And a cheer went up. Mags was approaching and her caroling threaded through the night. The warble of magpies was known as a carol and was like no other birdsong in the world. He heard the owls now, swooping down through the branches to the base of the tree where Mags would set up her wares. She came with several assistants, carrying baskets of her latest “collection,” as she called her wares.
    “Want to go down, Eglantine?” Soren said. Eglantine, of course, said nothing but got up and followed Soren. She had recovered her flight skills almost immediately and the two alighted on the ground together as Mags and her assistants spread out the collection.
    There was a festive mood with much chattering and special treats that cook had whipped up. Bubo stomped forward and gave Mags a great hug with his wings that nearly knocked her over. Mags looked nothing like Soren had expected. Her feathers were mostly black and the sleekest, blackest black he had ever seen, but she did have some streaks of white feathers. Her tail was immensely long and, on this moonlit night, her black tail feathers had a greenish gloss. She wore a jaunty bandanna on her head. “More where these came from, my dears!” she squawked.Soren could have been knocked over by that squawk. How could the same throat that produced that lovely carol be squawking as raucous as a seagull?
    “Come on up, don’t be shy,” Mags said. “Bubbles, Bubbles!” she squawked at a smaller magpie. “Where’re them sparklies I got at the whatchamacallit for Madame? You know the ones. And I got you some nice velvet, dear,” nodding to Madame Plonk, “ever so squashy. Tassels, tassels anyone? Tie some crystals to them and yeh got yerself a charming windchime…Bubbles! Get them crystals out here on the double! I tell you, Boron, you can’t get a good apprentice these days. I mean one would think that to serve Mags the Trader, known from here toTyto, from Kuneer to Ambala, would be enough incentive, if you catch my drift, but no. How’s the missus, now where she be?”
    “Away,” Boron said cryptically.
    The little black eye almost covered by the bandanna gave a quick piercing stare. “Oh,” she said. Then muttered to herself as Boron walked away. “I just mind me own business. I don’t ask no questions, don’t butt my beak in where it ain’t wanted.”
    “Ha!” Bubo laughed. “If that ain’t a pile of yarped pellets.”
    “Oh, scram, Bubo,” she replied merrily. “Get out of herewith your yarping pellet talk. Remember, we’re not fit to associate with you, we wet poopers.”
    “Now, Maggie. I ain’t no snob and you know it. I never held that against you. I mean, you’re different from seagulls, sweet gizzard.”
    “Don’t you go ‘sweet gizzarding’ me, Bubo. And I’ll say we’re different from seagulls. About twice as smart and ten times prettier. Not as pretty as Madame Plonk, though, in that gorgeous tapestry piece I found for her.” She flew over and began to help Madame Plonk arrange it more artfully on her high white shoulders.
    Soren felt Eglantine flinch. “You okay, Eglantine?” She said nothing but he noticed that she had turned toward Madame