Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

not be this way when Punkie Night comes along! Blythe thought. She and Bash and all their friends had been practicing their four-point rolls. One had to master flying upside down and backward to really do them right. And Punkie Night was the perfect time to show off such tricks.
    The three B’s had only experienced one other Punkie Night in their lives and it was the year before, after they had first fledged. Now it was their favorite holiday and they loved flying around with their uncle Twilight, who went completely yoicks playing pranks on Punkie Night.
    “I am very pleased to see you here,” said the Striga, putting aside the roll call. He spoke to them from the main perch in the hollow. It all seemed so wrong. Normally on this first eve of the Harvest Festival, the music from the grass harp would be streaming out from the Great Hollow higher up in the tree as the nest-maid snakes of the harp guild wove themselves through its strings. Owls, young and old, would be fly-dancing through the milkberry vines that had turned the copper-rose color that gave this time of year its name, the season of the Copper-Rose. But an eerie stillness hung over the tree. And I would be singing for the first time , Blythe thought glumly.
    “Can we see some smiles?” the Striga asked, looking directly at Blythe.
    “Why?” Blythe replied sullenly.
    “Well, that is what I’m going to explain, dear. I think you will have something to be cheerful about after I describe the perils of the world I came from and the new joys I have found on my journey toward simplicity as I have cast off my vanities.”
    “There’s a little bit of blood above your eye,” said Justin, a tiny Northern Saw-whet. Justin was just a hatchling, the first nestling of Martin and his mate, Gemma.
    “That’s part of my story,” replied the Striga. “You see, once upon a time, I was an owl in the Dragon Court. We did nothing all day long except preen. In fact, we did not even do most of the preening ourselves but had special servants to do it.” Several owlets giggled at this. But not Blythe. Nor Bash.
    “That’s silly,” said a new hatchling, who still looked like a fuzz-ball with her owlet’s down.
    “But what about the blood?” Blythe persisted.
    “Don’t interrupt, Blythe,” Bell hissed. “You’re embarrassing me!”
    “I’m getting to that, dear.”
    Blythe felt an uncomfortable twinge in her gizzard. This Striga had no right to call her “dear.” Only her mum and da could call her “dear”—and Mrs. P.! “You see, because of this excessive preening, the deep luxury, thevanities…” The Striga sighed as if the very thought gave him indescribable pain.
    I knew that word “vanities” was coming , Blythe thought, and exchanged glances with Bash. They had gone to the library and looked up the word in the Strix Standard Hoolian Dictionary , and not the owlet version, either, the baby one for beginning readers.
    The Striga continued talking. “Because of that my feathers came in thickly and grew to extraordinary lengths.”
    “Didn’t you ever molt?” Justin asked.
    “Rarely, and only lightly. That is one of the best parts of my life here. Now I molt like a normal owl.”
    There is nothing “normal” about this owl , Blythe thought.
    “Even now, however, my molts continue to be light. So I just help them along by plucking out my feathers. Hence, this speck of blood.”
    “What does ‘hence’ mean?” a hatchling whispered.
    “It means ‘because,’” Bash whispered back.
    “Doesn’t it hurt?” asked Heggety, a Short-eared Owl. “The plucking?”
    The Striga cocked his head slightly and churred softly. “Not really, my dear. It is, how should I put it? A rewarding sort of pain, a cleansing sort of agony. Not nearly as horrid as the vanity that grew these feathers.”
    This is just plain weird! Blythe thought. She wished that she and Bash hadn’t come. But they had promised Bell that they would at least attend one meeting of the Blue Feather Club. And Bell had been so thrilled. She apparently got points for each new member she brought in. When Bash had asked what the points were for, Bell hemmed and hawed and really could not give her an answer. Both Bash and Blythe were simply confounded by the change in Bell. Why did she want points or anything else from this blue owl? Yes, he had saved her life, nursed her when she was wounded, but this all seemed a bit much. Nonetheless, they were here now and Blythe would try to