The Capture

is tossed with their chuckles!" said one of the owls.

    "You, 12-1," the other owl was speaking now. "You are our first object of the day for laughter therapy."
    Soren remained mute. No matter how many questions might batter his brain, his imagination, or dance on the tip of his beak, he would never ask them. The two owls had now alighted with him on a very high ledge that was visible to the entire pelletorium below. The laughter of the owlets and the scores of monitors and guards ricocheted off the stone walls. It filled Soren's head with a terrible clatter. He thought he would go yoicks right there and start screaming.

    "And now for the best moment of all in laughter therapy!" There was a shrill screech. The air stirred, and Skench, the Ablah General, landed next to Soren. And then Skench's second-in-command, Lieutenant Spoorn, arrived, eyes darting in an amber glee. Oh, great Glaux! thought Soren. What now?

CHAPTER NINE

    Good Nurse Finny

    Oh, 12-1! Oh, my goodness! Look at you." Soren groaned and blinked.

    "What happened?" Soren asked. His eyes fluttered open and he felt himself basking in the tender yellow light of Auntie Finny's eyes.

    "Now, now, dear. Questions are what got you into trouble in the first place. We'll have to be a little stricter. All you need to know is that you were naughty and now you're back with me in the stone pit and ..." A soft babble of soothing hoots streamed from Auntie's beak. But one question after the next pounded inside Soren's head. He nearly had to clamp his beak shut not to ask them. He must have fainted at some point during the laughter therapy session. He was trying to reconstruct what had happened in his head. There had been the question alarm, the two ferocious beaks, the laughter -- oh, the laughter had been terrible -- but why were his wings hurting so much? This time the question simply withered in his mind, not
    because he was too frightened to ask but because he had turned his head and seen his wings. Bare!
    "Great Glaux!" he muttered, and promptly fell over once more in a faint.

    "Now, now!" Auntie Finny was clicking her beak. "I'm going to take care of that. You'll feel better in no time. You don't need those silly little feathers."

    "Don't need my feathers!" It was not a question. Was this owl totally yoicks? "Don't need my feathers,"
    he repeated, and was about to ask how he would ever fly, but he clamped his beak shut tight. Auntie was now crushing something in her beak. She gave a yarp-like hiccup and a pulpy wad of soggy moss flew from her beak directly onto Soren's wings. It felt good and Soren sighed. "Nice feeling, yes it is.
    Nothing like this stone moss for curing what ails you. Now you can call me Nursey."

    "Nursey?" And then Soren corrected himself. "Oh, Nursey!"

    "You're learning, dear. You're learning fast. Sometimes we do have to be a little stricter. But I bet you've learned your lesson and you'll never get plucked again."

    "Plucked!" Soren gasped. They had actually plucked him? This wasn't an accident? "I know! I know what you're thinking. I really don't
    approve. But you know I have very little say. I can only do my best for each and every little owlet in my pit. I try. I try" She almost whimpered.

    But Auntie or Nursey didn't know what Soren was thinking, not at all. She looked at him kindly. She asked no questions, of course, but Soren felt compelled to say, "Auntie ... I mean, Nursey." Names seemed awfully important to this old Snowy Owl. Very carefully, he was going to try to explain his thoughts without asking questions -- oh, he had indeed learned his lesson. "I do not understand, Nursey, why you are so nice here in the stone pit and they are so awful, the owls in the glaucidium and the pelletorium. They are mean for no good reason."

    "Ah, but there is a reason."

    "There is a reason." Soren's words were flat and carried no inflection of a question. This was indeed possible.

    "You see," Nursey Finny continued, "it builds character.

    "It builds character, " Soren repeated in the same even tone.

    "Through carefully meted-out punishment and self- denial, you shall be made hardy." Nursey spoke in a singsong voice as if she had said these same words many times before.

    "Destroying wings builds character. I see." Soren tried to sound logical and keep any hint of the incredulous out of his voice.

    "Oh, yes, you do see. I am so pleased."

    "And to think I always thought flight was a natural part of an owl's character. Silly me." He