Guardians of Ga'Hoole 03 - The Rescue

Ga’Hoole Tree to the hollow he shared with his sister, Eglantine, and his best friends, Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger. As he flew, looping through the limbs, he saw the sun rise fierce and bright. As clouds the color of blood crouched on the horizon, a terribleapprehension coursed through Soren’s hollow bones and set his gizzard aquiver.
    Digger! Why had he never thought of sharing his feelings about Octavia with Digger? Soren blinked as he stepped into the dim light of the hollow and saw the sleeping shapes of his best friends. Digger was a very odd owl in every sense of the word. For starters, he had lived his entire life—until he was orphaned—not in a tree but a burrow. With his long, strong, featherless legs, he had preferred walking to flying when Soren and Gylfie and Twilight first met him. He had planned to walk all the way across the desert in search of his parents until mortal danger intervened and the three owls convinced him otherwise. Nervous and high-strung, Digger worried a lot but, at the same time, this owl was a very deep thinker. He was always asking the strangest questions. Boron said that Digger possessed what he called a “philosophical turn of mind.” Soren wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. He only knew that if he said to Digger, “I think Octavia might know something about Ezylryb,” Digger, unlike Gylfie, would go deeper. He would not be just a stickler for words or, like Twilight, say, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
    Soren wished he could wake Digger up right now andshare his thoughts. But he didn’t want to risk waking the others. No, he would just have to wait until they all rose at First Black.
    And so Soren squashed himself into the corner bed of soft moss and down. He stole a glance at Digger before he drifted off. Digger, unlike the others, did not sleep standing or sometimes perched, but in a curious posture that more or less could be described as a squat supported by his short stubby tail with his legs splayed out to the sides. Good Glaux, that owl even sleeps odd. That was Soren’s last thought before he drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO
Flecks in the Night!
    T he dawn bled into night, flaying the darkness, turning the black red, and Soren, with Digger by his side, flew through it.
    “Strange isn’t it, Soren, how even at night the comet makes this color?”
    “I know. And look at those sparks from the tail just below the moon. Great Glaux, even the moon is beginning to look red.” Digger’s voice was quavery with worry.
    “I told you about Octavia. How she thinks it’s an omen, or at least I think she thinks it is, even though she won’t really admit it.”
    “Why won’t she admit it?” Digger asked.
    “I think she’s sensitive about coming from the great North Waters. She says everyone there is very superstitious, but I don’t know, I guess she just thinks the owls here will laugh at her or something. I’m not sure.”
    Suddenly, Soren was experiencing a tight, uncomfortable feeling as he flew. He had never felt uncomfortableflying, even when he was diving into the fringes of forest fires to gather coals on colliering missions. But, indeed, he could almost feel the sparks from that comet’s tail. It was as if they were hot sizzling points pinging off his wings, singeing his flight feathers as the infernos of burning forests never had. He carved a great downward arc in the night to try to escape it. Was he becoming like Octavia? Could he actually feel the comet? Impossible! The comet was hundreds of thousands, millions of leagues away. Now, suddenly, those sparks were turning to glints, sparkling silvery-gray glints. “Flecks! Flecks! Flecks!” he screeched.
    “Wake up, Soren! Wake up!” The huge Great Gray Owl, Twilight, was shaking him. Eglantine had flown to a perch above him and was quaking with fear at the sight of her brother writhing and screaming in his sleep. And Gylfie the Elf Owl was flying in tight little loops above him, beating the air as best she could to bring down cool drafts that might jar him from sleep and this terrible dream. Digger blinked and said, “Flecks? You mean the ones you had to pick at St. Aggie’s?”
    Just at that moment, Mrs. Plithiver slithered into the hollow. “Soren, dear.”
    “Mrs. P.,” Soren gulped. He was fully awake now. “Great Glaux, did I wake you up with my screaming?”
    “No, dear, but I just had a feeling that you were having some terrible dream. You know how we blind