Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

How can I even think of that? He shook his head. This was not his voice speaking. It was the scroom’s voice that had insidiously seeped into his head.
    To return or not. That is the question, my son.
    No it isn’t, Nyroc replied.
    It is. It is a noble thing to be a Barn Owl, but nobler by far to be a Pure One.
    Then Nyroc suddenly remembered what Phillip had said to him when he had first begun to molt in that fox’s den and was so scared. You are more than just feathers, he had said. So he spoke in the strange silent way of the scrooms to his father. And, as he found the courage to speak, the burnished battle claws of the great warrior were no longer his inspiration. He saw something else in his mind’s eye. It was the dimly pulsating outline of a tree on an island in the middle of a vast sea. But it was more than just a tree onan island. It was a place where truth and nobility resided. Gwyndor was right when he had said that belief is found within, in one’s gizzard, in one’s heart, in one’s mind. It has no value if it is simply ordered like a command. So he turned to face the weirdly glaring mask of his father’s scroom.
    I am more than just feathers. I am brains and gizzard. It was not feathers that spoke to those crows. It was not feathers that figured out how to bargain with them and get a free passage.
    What are you nattering on about, lad? Even featherless it would be nobler to remain a faithful son and suffer the demands of this great and passionate Union of Pure Ones. You are pathetic! Yeepish!
    There was a deafening clamor in Nyroc’s brain. His gizzard quaked with fear and despair. But once again he roared back into the silent channels of the scrooms.
    I am not pathetic. I am not yeepish. My best friend has been murdered by my own mother. There is no question! I will not return—ever. Perhaps it would be nobler if I pick up battle claws and raise them against the Pure Ones. Yes, fight them!
    Then, suddenly, he realized he was back in his own body, the voice was gone, and the mask was dissolving into the night. Nyroc looked down. He was in exactly the same place at the edge of the lake. But he was badly shaken.
    Nyroc decided to take inventory of his state, featherwise. He peered once again at his face in the black mirror of the lake. The bloody mark left by his mother’s talonswas still there. No scroom had made that. It was real. He sighed. Several of the very small darker feathers that ringed his facial disk had molted. He needed to examine the rest of himself. He began stepping slowly in a small circle so different parts of his body would be reflected in the dark water that was illuminated by the rising moon. He cocked and swiveled his head. Well, forget the plummels—they’re history, he thought. I must be the noisiest flier around…Oh, Great Glaux, is there an undertail covert left? No wonder I had trouble ruddering in for this landing…All the primaries seem to be there…But, uh-oh, what happened to the number eleven secondary feather?
    That was another thing Phillip had taught him—counting—along with some letters that he had scratched in the dirt with his talons. Phillip could count only up to nineteen, because owls, at least Barn Owls, had nineteen feathers on each wing. The first ten going inward from the tip of their wings were the primaries. Feathers eleven through nineteen were the secondaries. Anything beyond nineteen, Phillip said, was higher mathematics. But he had told Nyroc that the Guardians of Ga’Hoole owls knew all about higher mathematics. They were the smartest owls in the entire owl universe. But, hey, , thought Nyroc. I’ve got all my primaries. What am I complaining about? The primaries were the most important feathers of all, the power feathersthat thrust a bird forward. He pivoted around some more and observed his image in the black water. And I’ve got most of my facial feathers, missing just one secondary. Yes, and several coverts, but I’ve still got wings. I’m an owl, I can fly—sort of.
    He promised himself that he would not whine and, like some little owl chick, say “no fair.” In that moment, Nyroc realized that although he had many more feathers to grow, he, in the course of this one night, between the time he had hurled himself into the Shredders until now, had grown up.
    He was not yet six months old, but his childhood was gone. He was a hatchling no more, an owl chick no more. He was a grown owl, with or without his feathers, and a