Guardians of Ga'Hoole 06 - The Burning

commander of this mission. You have to do what I say.”
    “I don’t care if you are the commander, Soren. I know what it’s like to be left behind and all alone. I’m staying.”
    “Eglantine, we cannot endanger the entire mission for the sake of one baby seal.”
    “I’m not going to leave her, Soren. I won’t. I don’t care if you are the boss.” Soren looked down at Eglantine as she stood firmly on the ice floe. She had grown stronger in every way since recovering from her shattering by the Pure Ones.
    By this time the bear had ceased to eat. He seemed to be looking back and forth between Soren, who flew in circles above the two ice floes, and Eglantine, who stood next to the baby seal. He dipped one enormous paw into the sea and commenced to wash his muzzle, then brushed off some seal hair that had fallen on his chest. Soren, Twilight, and Digger heard him mumble something, or perhaps it was more like a rumble. They looked down in horror as they saw Eglantine stepping closer to the edge of the ice floe. The bear had slipped off his piece of ice and had placed his huge paw on the edge of the floe where Eglantine stood. “Get back, Eglantine! Get back!”
    “Fly, you fool!” Twilight screamed.
    “Eglantine, have you gone yoicks?” Digger shouted.
    “Shut up, the lot of you!” she screamed. Then she tipped her head back and nosed her beak closer to the muzzle of the polar bear.
    At this point Soren went yeep. Never in his life had hegone yeep, but how could he lose his only sister after all he had gone through to save her? He had saved her from the Pure Ones twice already. “But that is a polar bear, for Glaux’s sake!” he cried, and recovered his wing power a foot from the ice floe. So he did not crash but set down gently some distance from his sister and out of the reach of the bear.
    Eglantine turned to Soren and in a patronizing voice said, “He says he doesn’t eat babies.”
    “Oh, so all of a sudden you speak Krakish, do you?” Soren challenged his sister and took a small step forward.
    “Few words speak sister…me speak little bit Hoole.” The polar bear raised his other huge paw, which had been underwater and, with the longest, deadliest claws Soren had ever seen, tried to indicate the “little bit” of Hoole he spoke by holding together his pinky claw with his first claw. It was a gizzard-freezing sight. Meanwhile, Eglantine pressed on, and Soren listened to one of the oddest conversations he had ever heard.
    “Phawish prak nraggg grash m’whocki,” said the polar bear.
    “You don’t say?” said Eglantine.
    Does she really understand all this or is she just pretending? I bet she’s pretending, Soren thought. “What’s he saying, Eglantine?”
    “Uh, it’s something about lemmings and…”
    “And mice and all things owl eats,” rumbled the polar bear.
    “Huh?” said Soren. He blinked in amazement. Eglantine had understood some of this.
    “Ja! Ja! Ja!” The polar bear was nodding his head and saying yes in Krakish. To do this he dropped his jaws wide open. His mouth was as big as a tree hollow. Four owls could have easily fit in it. “I no tell owl what to eat. Rodents disgusting, snake never. You no tell polar bear what to eat. Mishnacht?”
    “Mishnacht means ‘understand,’ Soren,” Eglantine said primly. “You do understand, don’t you?” she said in a tone that was really beginning to annoy Soren. Eglantine then turned to the polar bear. “Yes, we mishnacht.”
    “Gunda, gunda!” the bear replied.
    Before Eglantine could translate Soren said, “That means ‘good, good.’”
    “And I eat no babies.”
    “No babies, right,” Soren said.
    “No owls, either?” Digger asked. He was hovering above the bear at a safe distance.
    “Nachsun! Blahhh! ” He made a throw-up sound in the back of his huge throat. “Owls no blubber. Feathers disgusting!”
    “Yes, quite,” Digger replied and flew off.
    The bear focused now on Soren. Suddenly, the ice floe tipped at a precarious angle. Soren and Eglantine began a precipitous slide toward the polar bear. Eglantine smacked right against his muzzle still stained with the seal’s blood despite having been washed in the seawater.
    “Eglantine! Fly!” Soren screeched. She did, as did Soren.
    “A millimeter! I swear you missed those jaws by a millimeter.” Digger was gasping.
    Meanwhile, the polar bear, still resting his elbows on the ice floe, scratched his head and looked up. “Hvrash g’mear