Lost Tales of Ga'Hoole

great adventure. Red Chief drives his captors yoicks with his game of pretend, tormenting them with pranks and making them play wearying games with him. In the end, instead of getting the ransom they demanded, the two criminals pay the boy’s father to take him back.
    Sasha, Patch, and Avi had heard the story so many times that they nearly had it memorized themselves. Still, they listened with great anticipation.
    Braithe got to the part where the two criminals first take the boy captive. He recited: “‘That boy put up a fight like a welterweight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away.’” His mind began to wander. The Others snatched young’uns, too, he thought. How terrible. He began to think about his da again, and all the owlets and eggs he might have snatched from families who did want them back. And if he was hatched from a snatched egg, who were his real parents, and did they want him back?
    The three owlets listening to Braithe tilted their heads and then looked at one another quizzically. He wasn’t telling the story right. Not only that, Braithe’s voice had become monotonous to the point of being too boring to listen to. It was a far cry from the animated and exciting storytelling they were used to.
    Braithe finished the story, all the while still thinking of his father, Bo, St. Aggie’s, and the snatched eggs. He looked up at the three owlets. They stared at him curiously.
    “Um, I think you missed a part,” said Avi.
    “You missed the best part!” complained Patch.
    “Yeah, you got the ending all wrong! Without the part about the dad’s letter, it doesn’t even make sense!” added Sasha.
    Braithe was confused. He thought he had told the whole story just as it was written.
    The owlets were quick to point out his mistake.
    “The dad sends a letter back to the bad guys, he says no, I won’t give you two thousand dollars and if you want me to take Red Chief back, you’re going to have to give me money!” Sasha exclaimed in a single breath.
    “And when they bring Red Chief back the dad has to hold on to him because he doesn’t want to go home and keeps trying to run back to Bill and Sam…”
    “And then the two criminals run away!” Avi finished for his brother.
    “I missed all of that?” asked Braithe, embarrassed by his own blunder.
    “YES!” the three owlets whined, looking disappointed.
    Patch added, “It’s a good thing we already knew the story. If we had never heard it before, we might have thought it was a bad story. But it’s a good story, a really good one.”
    “I’m very sorry,” said Braithe, and he was. He felt he had let the owlets down. He couldn’t believe that he would miss something so simple yet so vital to the story.
    “It’s okay,” said Sasha, “just please remember the whole story next time.”
    Braithe roosted in his nest, determined to sleep. He had not slept in days. His eyes were heavy and he felt groggy, but every time he began to doze, he started himself awake. It was a vicious cycle—the less he slept, the more he worried about not sleeping. It was beginning to make him forget things. Just the other night, Braithe had to stop midway through reciting the Fire Cycle of the legends to another group of hatchlings. He had forgotten the story! The Fire Cycle, of all things, for shame! Getting lost while reciting a story by one of the Others was one thing, but the Fire Cycle was different. It was one of the first tales he had ever memorized, one that parents have told to their owlets for generations, one that he thought was etched in the deepest part of his memory. The dreams of his father were tormenting him more than he had realized. They were beginning to cause him to lose that which was most precious to him—the books he kept in his mind. Even when he was awake, his thoughts kept returning to his da and the fragments of parchment hidden in the secret compartment in the knot. Braithe wondered if he could ever be free of his haunting dreams.
    As he nestled deeper into the moss, he noticed that a stillness had fallen over the dell. It was as if a heavy cloud had enveloped him. The air thickened and blurred with mist. Braithe felt as if he were in a dream, but he knew he was still wide awake. From the corner of his eye, Braithe saw an owl. His head felt almost too heavy to move. He had to will himself to turn his head toward the direction of the owl. But when he did, he saw nothing but the