Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

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 the 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 truly did not 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 seeahead, 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 center 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 maneuver 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 forward 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 forward, although slowly. They had been doing a lot of crabbing since they had left the last hollow and something theythought never could happen had. 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 gray 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 fourowls 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