Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

make the best of it. But by Glaux, Blythe knew she wasn’t going to join the club, and she’d be surprised if Bash did.
    “And when we cast off the vanities,” the Striga went on, “we become favored by Glaux and upon our deaths will ascend straight to glaumora.”
    “But that’s a long time off,” Justin said. “I’ve hardly started to budge my primaries.”
    “Oh, but that is where you’re wrong, my dear. The night of the Great Scouring is coming, bringing death to all but a few.”
    “Only a few?” asked Heggety. “Who chooses the few? What happens to them ? Who decides?”
    “Oh, that’s the good part, dear. The few who have renounced the vanities will be swept up directly to glaumora.” The Striga ignored Heggety’s last question.
    Blythe looked around. She saw that many of the little owlets and hatchlings were beginning to tear up. This is not good , she thought. Is this why Bell is trying to make us join this club? Has this stupid owl scared Bell with all his talk of death? It doesn’t amount to a pile of racdrops. I hate this owl! If only she were bigger, she would pop the blue owl a good one, smack in his beak.
    “Why? Why?” Blythe asked in a loud voice. “Why would this Great Scouring be happening? Why should we all die young or get swept up?”
    The Striga looked sternly at her. “The great tree has been suffering. You have heard your parents speak of the time of the Golden Tree, of ornamentation and excess and, indeed, shame. I think that Glaux has chosen this tree and its noble Guardians to lead the way. And you children must lead the grown-ups by taking this pledge to swear off these vanities, and each of you will get your blue feather and become a member of the club. Come, come!” He motioned with his threadbare wing.
    “I don’t know how he flies with that thing!” Blythe whispered. But he did. For one who could barely get off the ground when he was in the Dragon Court he hadbecome a strong flier. She blinked when she saw how many little owls were hopping toward where the Striga perched with his bundle of feathers. But she and her sister Bash clutched firmly to their perches and did not move.
    “Now, repeat after me: ‘I do solemnly swear on my gizzard and all that I hold most dear, to give up the vanities, false treasures, and fripperies so I might attain perfect simplicity and escape the Great Scouring.…’”
    Blythe and Bash looked in astonishment as they saw owlets give up their precious acorn necklaces, their fragments of stained glass from old chapels of the Others, special pebbles they had found. Some of the older owlets who had earned merit badges in chawlet practices gave even them up. Forget about it! If this frinkin’ owl thinks I’m giving up my merit badge from flying that mini squall in weather interpretation, he’s got another thing coming! thought Blythe.
    “What is going on here? A Final ceremony?” Trader Mags gasped as she swooped in on the tree and alighted on the branch just outside of Ezylryb’s hollow, where Octavia, the rather fat, elderly nest-maid snake still lived. The magpie could not have chosen a worse time to appear, for it was precisely the moment when the young owlets were giving up their “vanities” in the foul-weather hollow and instead of music flowing from the tree on this night ofthe Harvest Festival, there was utter silence. Octavia poked her head out of the hollow. She waggled her head back and forth as if trying to find the right words to explain the situation to Mags. “Oh my! Oh my!” she sighed. “It’s…uh…difficult to explain but I hope—we all hope—it’s a passing thing.” Octavia also served Madame Plonk and had been a member of the grass harp guild for many years.
    “I don’t get it,” Trader Mags said.
    Her assistant, the rather dim-witted Bubbles, appeared with the bundles. “Where are we to put these out, madam?”
    “I don’t think there will be much of a call for your goods tonight.” Octavia sighed again.
    Trader Mags was known throughout the Hoolian kingdoms as the foremost dealer in quality merchandise scavenged from the very best ruins of the Others. Her beady eyes now contracted until they were just pinpricks, and her gaze drilled into Octavia. Octavia was blind but had highly developed sensibilities. She could feel Trader Mags’ piercing look.
    “Does this have something to do with that blue owl?”
    “Yes! You know about him?” Octavia replied, suddenly very alert. “He only