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The Capture
Kathryn Lasky
Introducing the newest heroes to children's fiction; the owls of Ga'Hoole. Meet Soren and his friends, the owls charged with keeping owldom safe. Based on Katherine Lasky's work with owls, this adventures series is bound to be a hit with kids. Join the heroic owls in the first of a series of mythic adventures.Out of the darkness a hero will rise…Soren the enthusiastic and young owl is busy learning the rituals of being a barn owl– First Meat Ceremony, how to fly and of course, about the legendary Guardians of Ga'Hoole. However, his life is quickly transformed when he abruptly falls from his parent's cosy nest to the bare and dangerous forest floor.Helpless, he is captured by evil chick snatching owls that bring him to St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls, where his identify disappears as he receives a number instead of a name.Soren quickly befriends another young owl Gylfie, with whom he works to withstand "moon blinking" (brainwashing), and instead develops plans to escape.But before long, Soren realizes that he in fact has already embarked on an extraordinary adventure with much more excitement in the future.
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_46fcd9ce-e7d0-5953-b97d-bb33e58b123b)
HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
First published in the USA by Scholastic Inc 2003
First published in Great Britain as The Capture by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2006
Text copyright © Kathryn Lasky 2003
Kathryn Lasky asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007215171
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9780007369782
Version: 2016-12-02
To Ann Reit, Wise Owl, Great Flight Instructor
… and then the forest of the Kingdom of Tyto seemed to grow smaller and smaller and dimmer and dimmer in the night …
CONTENTS
Cover (#ude917bf8-ab92-55fe-a5e0-4fdc9c92a93c)
Title Page (#u2be7bafb-71a5-574d-ac8b-b2ad4a6edc6c)
Copyright (#ulink_3e492778-2ba8-5650-b2ef-0632ec23dc1b)
Dedication (#u3d3ccf26-9218-53f7-b1f5-62369402e900)
Chapter One: A Nest Remembered (#ulink_8ce8df4f-3efe-58d4-bc72-1a979e35cd83)
Chapter Two: A Life Worth Two Pellets (#ulink_6af51a31-898d-5abd-bc11-5e89bc33b1a6)
Chapter Three: Snatched! (#ulink_df3ba3d6-cf4a-5ebe-a965-cda230d7d9fa)
Chapter Four: St Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls (#ulink_a0ff1004-974c-58d6-8a95-9edc6c8bf2bc)
Chapter Five: Moon Blinking (#ulink_f7ec1a1c-ef0e-5690-9665-a18ca2df06b1)
Chapter Six: Separate Pits, One Mind (#ulink_1605d19b-eba3-5d18-b663-2c8e6bf99329)
Chapter Seven: The Great Scheme (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight: The Pelletorium (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine: Good Nurse Finny (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten: Right Side Up in an Upside-down World (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven: Gylfie’s Discovery (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve: Moon Scalding (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen: Perfection! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen: The Eggorium (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen: The Hatchery (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen: Hortense’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen: Save the Egg! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen: One Bloody Night (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen: To Believe (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty: Grimble’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One: To Fly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Shape of the Wind (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three: Flying Free (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four: Empty Hollows (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five: Mrs P! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six: Desert Battle (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Hortense’s Eagles (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Other Books By (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_133eb0b3-3be8-575f-a5b8-7a637df8436b)
A Nest Remembered (#ulink_133eb0b3-3be8-575f-a5b8-7a637df8436b)
“Noctus, can you spare a bit more down, darling? I think our third little one is about to arrive. That egg is beginning to crack.”
“Not again!” sighed Kludd.
“What do you mean, Kludd, not again? Don’t you want another little brother?” his father said. There was an edge to his voice.
“Or sister?” His mother sighed the low soft whistle Barn Owls sometimes used.
“I’d like a sister,” Soren peeped up.
“You just hatched out two weeks ago.” Kludd turned to Soren, his younger brother. “What do you know about sisters?”
Maybe, Soren thought to himself, they would be better than brothers. Kludd seemed to have resented him since the moment he had first hatched.
“You really wouldn’t want them arriving just when you’re about to begin branching,” Kludd said dully. Branching was the first step, literally, towards flight. The young owlets would begin by hopping from branch to branch and flapping their wings.
“Now, now, Kludd!” his father admonished. “Don’t be impatient. There’ll be time for branching. Remember, you won’t have your flight feathers for at least another month or more.”
Soren was just about to ask what a month was when he heard a crack. The owl family all seemed to freeze. To any other forest creature the sound would have been imperceptible. But Barn Owls were blessed with extraordinary hearing.
“It’s coming!” Soren’s mother gasped. “I’m so excited.” She sighed again and looked rapturously at the pure white egg as it rocked back and forth. A tiny hole appeared and from it protruded a small spur.
“The egg tooth, by Glaux!” Soren’s father exclaimed.
“Mine was bigger wasn’t it, Da?” Kludd shoved Soren aside for a better look, but Soren crept back up under his father’s wing.
“Oh, I don’t know, son. But isn’t it a pretty, glistening little point? Always gives me a thrill. Such a tiny little thing pecking its way into the big wide world. Ah! Bless my gizzard, the wonder of it all.”
It did indeed seem a wonder. Soren stared at the hole that now began to split into two or three cracks. The egg shuddered slightly and the cracks grew longer and wider. He had done this himself just two weeks ago. This was exciting.
“What happened to my egg tooth, Mum?”
“It dropped off, stupid,” Kludd said.
“Oh,” Soren said quietly. His parents were so absorbed in the hatching that they didn’t reprimand Kludd for his rudeness.
“Where’s Mrs P? Mrs P?” his mother said urgently.
“Right here, ma’am.” Mrs Plithiver, the old blind snake who had been with the owl family for years and years, slithered into the hollow. Blind snakes, born without eyes, served as nest-maids and were kept by many owls to make sure the nests were clean and free of maggots and various insects that found their way into the hollows.
“Mrs P, no maggots or vermin in that corner where Noctus put in fresh down.”
“’Course not, ma’am. Now, how many broods of owlets have I been through with you?”
“Oh, sorry, Mrs P. How could I have ever doubted you? I’m always nervous at the hatching. Each one is just like the first time. I never get used to it.”
“Don’t you apologise, ma’am. You think any other birds would care two whits if their nest was clean? The stories I’ve heard about seagulls! Oh, my goodness! Well, I won’t even go into it.”
Blind snakes prided themselves on working for owls, whom they considered the noblest of birds. Meticulous, the blind snakes had great disdain for other birds, which they felt were less clean due to the unfortunate digestive processes that caused them to excrete only sloppy wet droppings instead of nice neat bundles – the pellets that owls yarped, or coughed up. Although owls did digest the soft parts of their food in a manner similar to other birds, and indeed passed it in a liquid form, for some reason they were never associated by blind snakes with these lesser digestive processes. All the fur and bones and tiny teeth of their prey, like mice, that could not be digested in the ordinary way were pressed into little pellets just the shape and size of the owl’s gizzard. Several hours after eating, the owls would yarp them up. ‘Wet poopers’ is how many nest-maid snakes referred to other birds. Of course, Mrs Plithiver was much too proper to use such coarse language.
“Mum!” Soren gasped. “Look at that.” The nest suddenly seemed to reverberate with a huge cracking sound. Again, only huge to the sensitive ear slits of Barn Owls. Now the egg split. A pale slimy blob flopped out.
“It’s a girl!” A long shree call streamed from his mother’s throat. It was the shree of pure happiness. “Adorable!” Soren’s mother sighed.
“Enchanting!” said Soren’s father.
Kludd yawned and Soren stared dumbfounded at the wet naked thing with its huge bulging eyes sealed tightly shut.
“What’s wrong with her head, Mum?” Soren asked.
“Nothing, dear. Chicks just have very large heads. It takes a while for their bodies to catch up.”
“Not to mention their brains,” Kludd muttered.
“So they can’t hold their heads up right away,” said his mother. “You were the same way.”
“What shall we call the little dear?” Soren’s father asked.
“Eglantine,” Soren’s mother replied immediately. “I have always wanted a little Eglantine.”
“Oooh! Mum, I love that name,” Soren said. He softly repeated the name. Then he tipped towards the little pulsing mass of white. “Eglantine,” he whispered softly, and he thought he saw one little sealed eye open just a slit and a tiny voice seemed to say “hi”. Soren loved his little sister immediately.
One second Eglantine had been this quivering little wet blob, and then, minutes later, it seemed as if she had turned into a fluffy white ball of down. She grew stronger quickly, or so it appeared to Soren. His parents assured him that he too had done exactly the same. That evening it was time for her First Insect ceremony. Her eyes were fully open and she was bawling with hunger. Eglantine could hardly make it through her father’s “Welcome to Tyto” speech.
“Little Eglantine, welcome to the Forest of Tyto, forest of the Barn Owls, or Tyto alba, as we are more formally known. Once upon a time, long long ago, we did indeed live in barns. But now, we and other Tyto cousins live in this forest kingdom known as Tyto. We are rare indeed and we are perhaps the smallest of all the owl kingdoms. Although, in truth, it has been a long long time since we had a king. Someday when you grow up, when you enter your second year, you too will fly out from this hollow and find one of your own in which to live with a mate.”
This was the part of the speech that amazed and disturbed Soren. He simply could not imagine growing up and having a nest of his own. How could he be separated from his parents? And yet there was this urge to fly, even now with his stubby little wings that lacked even the smallest sign of true flight feathers. “And now,” Soren’s father continued, “it is time for your First Insect ceremony.” He turned to Soren’s mother. “Marella, my dear, can you bring forward the cricket?”
Soren’s mother stepped up. In her beak she held one of the summer’s last crickets. “Eat up, young’un! Headfirst. Yes, down the beak. Yes, always headfirst – that’s the proper way, be it cricket, mouse or vole.”
“Mmmm,” sighed Soren’s father as he watched his daughter swallow the cricket. “Dizzy in the gizzy, ain’t it so?!”
Kludd blinked and yawned. Sometimes his parents really embarrassed him, especially his da with his stupid jokes. “Wit of the wood!” muttered Kludd.
That dawn, after the owls had settled down, Soren was still so excited by his little sister’s arrival that he could not sleep. His parents had retired to the ledge above him where they slept, but he could hear their voices threading through the dim morning light that filtered into the hollow.
