LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA’HOOLE. Kathryn Lasky

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.

      “Oh, Noctus, it is very strange – another owlet disappeared?”

      “Yes, my dear, I’m afraid so.”

      “How many is that now in the last few days?”

      “Fifteen missing, I believe.”

      “That is many more than can be accounted for by raccoons.”

      “Yes,” Noctus replied grimly. “And there is something else.”

      “What?” his wife replied in a lower wavering hoot.

      “Eggs.”

      “Eggs?”