Guardians of Ga'Hoole 04 - The Siege

request the forbidden book. Of course, they would not go in all at once. Soren and Gylfie would already be there, and Otulissa would arrive with Eglantine and Digger. It was decided that Twilight would not be there at all because he seldom was in the library. Now Soren wondered if Ezylryb would be there, for he often was. What would he say when Otulissa requested the book?
    The whole idea of forbidden books sickened Soren. At St. Aggie’s, all books were forbidden. Entry into the library was not permitted for any owl except Skench and Spoorn, the brutal leaders of the academy. Academy! What a name. No one had learned anything there except how to become a slave and stop thinking.
    Soren and Gylfie could hardly concentrate on the weather charts they were studying in the Ga’Hoolian weather atlas. Ezylryb was in the library, his usual uncommunicative self, sitting at his special desk. The only sound that came from that desk was the crunching of the dried caterpillars that he munched while he read. He was the most inscrutable of owls and only rarely revealed anythingthat could be called emotion. Yet Soren was drawn to him. He loved the old Whiskered Screech because it was Ezylryb who had first looked upon him and seen him as more than a young orphaned Barn Owl, more than just an owl scarred by the horrors of St. Aggie’s. Ezylryb had seen Soren as a real, thinking owl who knew things not only through books and the information that the rybs taught, but through his gizzard. Gizzuition was, according to Ezylryb, a kind of mysterious thinking beyond normal reasoning, by which an owl immediately perceived the truth.
    Gylfie gave Soren a nudge. Soren looked up. Otulissa had just entered the library with Eglantine. And suddenly, Dewlap had appeared behind the circulation desk with the book matron. Soren felt his gizzard turn squishy. He saw Otulissa’s feathers droop as an owl’s feathers do when he or she feels fear. She seemed to shrink. But then Soren watched and saw a fierce glint in the amber of her eyes. Otulissa’s feathers seemed to puff up slightly and she flew the short distance between where she had stood and the desk. “Book Matron, would you be so kind as to look for a book that I can’t seem to find on the shelves?”
    “Certainly, dear. What is the title?”
    “Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard.”
    Complete silence fell upon the library. It loomed up asthick as fog on a humid summer night. Soren lifted his eyes toward Ezylryb, who was staring directly at Dewlap. His gaze bore into her like two fierce points of golden light. The book matron stammered, “Let me go see if I can find it.”
    “Oh, no, Book Matron,” Dewlap said. “That is one of the books that has been temporarily removed from the shelves until certain decisions are made by the parliament.”
    “Removing books? Decisions? Since when are there decisions about books I want to read?” Otulissa drew herself up taller. Her feathers were now fully fluffed up. Otulissa’s plumage was puffed to a degree that was most often associated with a posture of attack. She looked huge.
    “There are plenty of other good books for you to read, my dear,” Dewlap said in a soft voice.
    “But I want to read that book,” Otulissa replied. She paused a second. “Strix Emerilla, one of my distinguished ancestors, the renowned weathertrix, who has written several books on atmospheric pressure and weather turbulations, mentioned it.”
    Dewlap interrupted her. “The book you have requested has nothing whatsoever to do with weather.”
    “That’s possible. But you see, Strix Emerilla had a wide-ranging mind, and I think that she mentioned this book asreferring to a possible connection between gizzard disorders as related to atmospheric pressure variations.”
    “So?” Dewlap said.
    “So, I have a wide-ranging mind, too. Now, please, may I have the book?”
    Glaux bless Strix Emerilla, Soren thought. If anyone had ever told him that he would be blessing Strix Emerilla, whom Otulissa brought up whenever possible, he would have said they were completely yoicks.
    “I’m very sorry, my dear, but that is absolutely impossible. That book has been declared temporarily spronk,” Dewlap said primly and turned to the list she had been making.
    “SPRONK!” Otulissa gasped. There was such emotion in her voice that every owl in the library looked up in genuine alarm.
    “Yes, spronk.” A testy note had crept into Dewlap’s voice.
    “There is