Guardians of Ga'Hoole 15 - The War of the Ember

screamed HARVEST FESTIVAL BACK IN FULL FORCE: STUNNING SINGING DEBUT! B FLAT? NO WAY!
Blythe, one of the three daughters of Soren and Pelli, opened the Harvest Festival celebration with the traditional “Dearest Tree” carol. Singing with clarity and lovely expression, she gave a polished rendition of that beloved song. However, it was when young Blythe broke into her next number, an old gadfeather favorite, that we saw what a daring artist this little owl is. Belting out “When an Owl Loves an Owl,” she was all gizzard!
    There was obvious musical chemistry between Blythe and the members of the harp guild, in particular with the brilliant Mrs. Plithiver, who gyrated through those strings, twanging and plucking in her capacity as a sliptween with unmatched precision. After last year’s disastrous festival, this reporter cannot imagine a better way to commence the harvest celebration than with this bold, self-assured young singer and the brilliant sliptween.

CHAPTER TWO
Dumpy’s Dilemma
    T he moonlight in the ice cave had grown faint. It had felt like forever before the two owls left. Their conversation had sent chills through Dumpy, and for a bird hatched and reared in the Ice Narrows to feel chilly was freakish. And what was that word the owl had said? Hagsfiend! It sounded frightening. And then Dumpy realized that the crevice he was lodged in had suddenly become roomier; that a thing he thought could never happen had happened. I’ve wilfed. Actually wilfed. I’ve grown skinny with fear. Owls wilf, not puffins! Oh, dear…oh, dear. I must REALLY be scared. What are these hagsfiends the owls spoke of? And what does their talk of “eggs” mean? Dumpy’s head almost ached as he felt his brain stretching as it never had before. Little slivers of thought, sharp as ice needles when the katabats blew, were storming through his mind.
    What is the meaning of all I have seen and heard here? Dumpy tried to recall his second-to-last thought before the mind storm in his wee brain had begun.
    I must do something! And that scares me almost as much as what I have seen and heard. I must do something! But what?
    Then Dumpy the Fifteenth’s thoughts came swiftly. I must tell someone what I have heard and seen. Not Pop and Mummy. They’re too stupid. Grandpop and Grummy—even stupider! He thought of his older brother, the Chubster. No, never! Oh, Great Ice, what am I to do? Then it came to him. I must tell somebody smart. Should I go to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree? The owls! The Guardians! He’d seen them once or twice. And there were the four called the Band. Oh, and that very nice Spotted Owl from the north. What was his name?…Cluck, Clem—Cleve! Yes, Cleve. Cleve had passed through when Dumpy was just a chick. But he remembered. Indeed, he did! Dumpy’s foot had had a sea tick lodged in it, and Cleve had removed it. I must find Cleve and I must find the Band. But they’re so smart, and I’m so dumb! It would be so embarrassing, and it’s so far to travel. Maybe…maybe I can tell the polar bears. They are big and tough. And they’re much closer.
    Dumpy waddled to the back entrance of the cliff cave and perched on a ledge that overhung the Ice Narrows. He looked down into the churning waters. Hecould see his brother, the Chubster, as he was known, diving for fish for his own young family. The Chubster caught sight of him, opened his beak to shout a greeting, and the twenty-four fish that he had neatly lined up in his beak dropped back into the sea.
    “Ah, for the love of ice!” A squawk erupted from one of the ice nests that notched the cliffs. “Chub, you idiot. You lost our dinner!” It was the Chubster’s mate, Pulkie.
    “Just wanted to say hi to Dumpy. Hey, Dumpster, baby! How’s it icing?”
    “I got young’uns to feed,” Pulkie shouted, and blasted out of the nest. Folding her wings back against her plump sides, she hurled herself into the thrashing water below. Some baby pufflings peered over the edge of the ice nest.
    The Chubster, oblivious to his hungry pufflings, flew up to where Dumpy perched. “What ’cha doing?”
    “Uh…nothing.” Dumpy wasn’t sure if he should say anything to his brother about what he had just witnessed. He tried changing the subject. “Pulkie—she can really dive. Look at her.”
    “Yep, she’s a can-do sort of puffin. You got to get yourself a mate, Dumpy.”
    “I don’t think I’m ready.”
    “Ready? Mum always said you were the smartest. Too smart for