The Journey

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“Oh, I’ve got to try that!” Digger said. In no time the four owls were having a burping contest. They were laughing and hooting and having a grand old time as the blizzard outside raged. They had figured out prizes as well. There was a prize, of course, for the loudest, but then one for the most watery sound, and one for the most disgusting, and one for the prettiest and most refined. Although everyone expected Gylfie to win with the prettiest, Soren did, and Gylfie won for the most disgusting.

“Absolutely vulgar,” muttered Mrs P.

But soon they became bored with that and they began to wonder when the blizzard would let up. And although not one of them would admit it, secretly their thoughts turned to the Mirror Lakes and they grew quieter and quieter as they tried to remember their lazy beautiful days, flying in spectacular arcs over the lakes’ gleaming surface. And the food, the food was so good!

“Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a nice vole,” Soren sighed.

“You know, young’un, I think the wind is lessening. I think maybe we should take off.” Mrs Plithiver sensed the four owls’ thoughts turning to the Mirror Lakes. She simply couldn’t allow that. So even though she did not truly believe that the wind was lessening, it was essential to get them flying again.

“You call this less?” Digger hooted from his downwind position.

“A bit, and believe me, dear, sitting there burping pine needles isn’t going to get you any closer to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.”

But what would? thought Soren. They could barely see ahead, behind was thick with swirling snow, below was dense fog that not even a treetop could poke through, and, off to windward, sheets of frigid air seemed to tumble from somewhere.

“There are cliffs to windward.” Twilight drifted back from his point position. “I think that if we could get under the lee of them we might be protected and able to fly better.”

“Sounds like it’s worth a try. We’d better get Gylfie between us,” Soren said.

The owls had become adept at creating a still place for Gylfie in the centre of their flying wedge formation when the winds became too tumultuous for the Elf Owl. Gylfie moved into that spot now. “All right, let’s crab upwind,” Twilight hooted over the fury of the blizzard.

Crabbing was a flight manoeuvre in which the owls flew slightly sideways into the wind at an oblique angle so as not to hit it head on. The owls scuttled across the wind in much the same way a crab moves – not directly forwards but in this case taking the best advantage of a wind that was determined to smack them back. But now, by stealing a bit off the wind’s edges, the owls could move forwards, although slowly. They had been doing a lot of crabbing since they had left the last hollow and something they thought could never happen had happened. Their windward wings had actually grown tired and even sore. But at least their wings weren’t icing up.

Suddenly, there was a terrible roar. The owls felt themselves sucked sideways as if an icy claw had reached out to drag them. There was another roar and they felt themselves smash into a wall of ice. Soren began sliding down a cold, slick surface. “Hang on, Mrs Plithiver,” he called, but he had no sense of her nestling in her usual place. It was impossible to grab anything with his talons. His wings simply would not work. He felt himself going faster than he had ever flown. But something huge and grey and faster whizzed by him. Was it Twilight? No time to think. No time to feel. It was as if his gizzard had been sucked right out of him along with every hollow bone. But then he finally stopped. He was dazed, breathless, but mercifully not moving, on the slightly curved glistening white ledge on which he had landed.

“Lucky for you and you and you and what?” came a low gurgling sound from above.

“Who? Who’s that talking?” Soren asked.

“Oh, great Glaux!” Gylfie whispered as she slid next to Soren. “What in the …”

Then Soren saw what she was looking at. The four owls and, luckily, Mrs Plithiver had survived. They were all flat on their backs looking up a sheer white wall of ice and, poking their noses out of a hole in the ice above, were the faces of three of the most preposterous creatures any of them had ever seen.

Gylfie whispered, “What are they? Not birds.”

“No, never,” Twilight said.

“Do you think they’re part of the animal kingdom?” Gylfie asked.

“What other kingdoms are there?” Twilight said.

“Plant kingdom – I heard my father speak of the plant kingdom,” Gylfie said.

“They do look kind of planty. Don’t they?” said Digger.

“What do you mean? Planty?” asked Soren.

“I know what Digger’s talking about. That bright orange thing growing from the middle of its, I guess, face?”

“What do you mean – you guess, face?” the creature hollered. “I mean, we’re pretty dumb, but you must be dumber if you can’t tell a face from a plant.”

“Well, you look a bit like a cactus in bloom – the kind we have in the desert,” Digger said.

“That’s my beak, idiot. I can assure you that neither I nor anyone in my family is a cactus in bloom – whatever a cactus is and whatever a desert is.”

“Well, what are you?” Mrs Plithiver finally spoke up.

“Well, what in the name of ice are you?” the creature retorted.

“I’m a snake … a nest-maid snake. I serve these most noble of birds, owls.”

“Well,” said the creature who was not a cactus, “we’re just a bunch of puffins.”

“Puffins!” Twilight hooted. “Puffins are northern birds, far northern birds.”

“Duh!” said one of the little ones. “Gee, Pop, I’m feeling smarter all the time.”

“But if you’re puffins,” Gylfie continued, “we must be in the North.”

“Ta-da!” said one of the puffins. “Gee, you owls are getting smarter every minute!”

“Does she get a prize, Mummy, for answering the question right?” Another little chick, with an immense beak almost as long as it was tall, poked its head out of the hole.

“Oh, we’re just having fun with them, Dumpy.”

“But how did we get so far north?” Soren asked.

“Must have been blown off course,” said the female. “Where you come from?”

“The Beaks,” Twilight said.

“Where you headed?”

“The island in the Sea of Hoolemere.”

“Great Ice! You’ve passed it by. Overshot it by five hundred leagues.”

“What! We flew over it and didn’t even see it?” Digger said, his voice barely audible.

“Where are we exactly?” Gylfie asked.

“You’re in the Ice Narrows, far side of Hoolemere, edge of the Northern Kingdoms.”

“What!” All four owls gasped.

“Don’t feel too dumb,” the male said. “Bad weather conditions.”

“When do we ever have good ones, dear?” his mate mused.

“Well, true. But with the wind coming from that direction, they just got sucked up into the Narrows and then that williwaw came.”

“What’s a williwaw?” Soren asked.

“You get a big tumble, like an avalanche. Suppose you don’t know what that is – an avalanche.”