Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

at once.
    “Shattering. It’s terrible when it happens, worse than any moon blinking that Soren and Gylfie went through at St. Aggie’s, believe me.”
    “How could anything be worse than moon blinking?” Digger wondered aloud.
    “Well, shattering is. I was reading about it in that book, Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard , which we have Dewlap to thank for confiscating and then losing.”
    “Well, what is it? Did you read enough to learn anything about it?” Digger asked.
    “A little bit.” Otulissa’s plumage suddenly drooped and flattened. She was “wilfing.” This happened to owls when they experienced extreme fear or agitation.
    Primrose blinked. Shattering must be awful, she thought, if just reading about it does this to Otulissa.
    “You see,” Otulissa continued, regaining some of her composure. “Moon blinking is caused by the moon—especially the full moon—shining down upon the head of a sleeping owl, resulting in massive disorientation andconfusion of one’s sense of self. But shattering is much worse. It is not caused by the moon but by the exposure to flecks under certain conditions.”
    “You mean like when we infiltrated St. Aggie’s and discovered that the Pure Ones’ agents were putting flecks into the nests in the eggorium?” Digger asked.
    “Yes, precisely. When owls are still in the egg it can happen. Young owls in general are very susceptible. But it is thought that shattering can happen to almost any owl.”
    “But look at all the flecks at St. Aggie’s,” Digger said. “When we were there, we weren’t hurt by them. It was the moon blinking that was bad.”
    “I know it’s very odd. Sometimes I guess one can rub right up against flecks, and it doesn’t cause shattering. Like with Hortense from Ambala. They say that the streams of Ambala have lots of flecks. But she wasn’t shattered. Instead she simply has deformed wings and is small for her age. It’s a very complicated thing. If only that stupid old Burrowing Owl Dewlap—no offense, Digger…,” she apologized because Digger himself was a Burrowing Owl, “…but if only she hadn’t taken that book.”
    “But aren’t there other books in the library that might tell about it—about shattering?” Primrose asked. “I mean now that nothing is spronk any longer.”
    “Not so far, and believe me, I have scoured this library.”
    Books being declared spronk had been the beginning of Otulissa’s problems with Dewlap, indeed the beginning of all of their problems with the strange old Burrowing Owl who was the Ga’Hoolology ryb. Spronk meant forbidden, and nothing, especially books, had ever been forbidden at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Then, for some reason, Dewlap had forbidden the young owls access to certain books. No one had really agreed with her, and Ezylryb had personally delivered the fleckasia book to Otulissa. But then Dewlap had confiscated and lost it.
    At that moment, a matron, a rather chubby Short-eared Owl stuck her head in the library. “Almost time for tweener,” she hooted cheerfully. Tweener was their evening meal, just as breaklight was their morning meal and the last food they consumed before going to sleep for the day.
    So the three owls made their way to the dining hollow.

CHAPTER THREE
A Grim Tweener
    P rimrose stopped in her own hollow to check if Eglantine had gotten up. She’d become a late sleeper lately, which was strange because it was summertime when the nights were so short that every owl wanted to be flying about having “larks in the dark.” With no heavy study or chaw schedule, flying on the smooth air of warm nights under the great summer constellations was so much fun that no owl wanted to miss a minute of the blackness. Primrose was pleased to see that the hollow was empty and that Eglantine and Ginger would not be late to the dining hollow as they so often were. She smelled good things as she approached. Could it be barbecued bat wings? Bats were common summer food. Fruit bats in particular were thick around the Great Ga’Hoole Tree in the early part of the summer evenings. It could hardly be called hunting as an owl only had to stick its head out of a hollow opening to catch one on the wing.
    Primrose made her way to her usual spot at Mrs.Plithiver’s table. The nest-maid snakes of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree also served as dining tables for the owls. They stretched their supple, rosy-scaled bodies to accommodate at least a half-dozen owls for dining.