Guardians of Ga'Hoole 03 - The Rescue

wall!” Soren and Martin both gasped. The eye wall of a hurricane was worse than the eye. It was a wall of thunderstorms that was preceded by the rain bands that delivered violent swirling updrafts that could extend hundreds of leagues from this wall.
    “You can’t see the band from here because of the clouds.”
    Oh, Glaux, thought Soren. Don’t let these young owlets go off on their stories of grandparents being named for clouds.
    “I think that right now we might actually be between two rain bands,” Ruby continued.
    And then it was as if they all were sucked up into a swirling shaft. This IS a hurricane! Soren thought. He saw Martin go spinning by in a tawny blur. “Martin!” he screamed. He heard a sickening gasp and in the blur saw the little beak of the Saw-whet open in a wheeze as Martin tried to gulp air. He must have been in one of the terrible airless vacuums that Soren had heard about. Then Martin vanished, and Soren had to fight with all of his might to stay back up, belly down, and flying. He could not believe how difficult this was. He had flown through blazing forests harvesting live coals, battling the enormous fire winds and strange contortions of air that the heat made, but this was terrible!
    “Strike off to port, south by southeast. We’re going to run down. Rudder starboard with tail feathers! Extend lulus.” The lulus were small feathers just at the bend of an owl’s wing, which could help smooth the airflow. Poot was now calling out a string of instructions. “Downwind rudder, hold two points to skyward with port wing. Come on,chaw! You can do it! Primary feathers screw down. Level off now. Forward thrust!” Poot was flying magnificently, especially considering that under the lee of his wings he had tucked the two young owlets Nut Beam and Silver for protection.
    But where was Martin? Martin was the smallest owl in the chaw. Concentrate! Concentrate! Soren told himself. You’re a dead bird if you think about anything but flying. Dead bird! Dead bird! Wings torn off! All the horrible stories he had heard about hurricanes came back to Soren. And although owls talked about the deadly eye of the hurricane, he knew there was something worse, really—the rim of that eye. And if the eye was fifty leagues away—well, the rim could be much closer. Soren’s own two eyes opened wide in terror and his third eyelid, the transparent one that swept across this eyeball, had to work hard to clear the debris, the slop, being flung in it from all directions. But he paid no heed to the slop. In his eye was the image of little Martin vanishing in a split second and being sucked directly into that rim. The eye of a hurricane was calm, but caught in the rim, a bird could spin around and around, its wings torn off by the second spin and most likely gasping for air until it died.
    The air started to smooth out and the clammy warmth that had welled up from below subsided as a cooler layerof air floated up from the turbulent waters. But it had begun to pour hard. A driving rain pushed by the winds slanted in at a steep angle. The sea below seemed to smoke from the force of the rain.
    “Form up, chaw! SOFP,” Poot commanded. They all assumed the positions of their Standard Operational Flight Pattern. Soren swiveled his head to look for Martin off his starboard wing. There was a little blank space where the Northern Saw-whet usually flew. He tipped his head up to where Ruby flew and saw the rusty fluff of her underbelly. She looked down and shook her head sadly. Soren thought he saw a tear well up in her eye, but it could have been some juice from a leftover meatball.
    “Roll call!” Poot now barked. “Beak off, chaw!”
    “Ruby here!” snapped the rust-colored Short-eared Owl.
    “Otulissa here!”
    “Soren here!”
    Then there was nothing—silence, or perhaps it was more like a small gulp from the position that Martin had always flown.
    “Absence noted. Continue,” Poot said.
    Absence noted? Continue? Was that it? Soren gasped. But before he could protest there was that piercing little voice, “Silver here.”
    “Nut Beam here! But I’m feeling nauseous.”
    “WHERE IS MARTIN, FOR GLAUX’S SAKE!” Soren shrieked in rage.
    “Owl down,” Poot said, “Search-and-rescue commence.”
    Then there was a muffled, slightly gagging sound and a terrific stench. At first, Soren thought Nut Beam had thrown up. But then out of the smoking Sea of Hoole-mere, a seagull rose and in its beak was a