Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

But now as Primrose approached, she saw that Mrs. P.’s table was overcrowded and the place where she usually sat next to Eglantine was taken by Ginger. Soren waved a wing for her to come over, anyway.
    “There’s always room, dearie,” Mrs. P. said. She stretched herself a bit more, and all the owls squashed in a little closer. All of the owls, that is, except Eglantine and Ginger, who continued jabbering away to each other in low whispers.
    Soren blinked. He was shocked at his sister’s rude behavior. “Eglantine! Could you stop talking for one bloody second and move your butt feathers to make room for Primrose?”
    “Oh, dear. Sorry, Prim.” Eglantine looked up and began to move over.
    But Soren was still angry. He blinked and looked at Eglantine and then Ginger. “You know, Eglantine, whispering at the table isn’t very polite. If you have something that is so private that the rest of us can’t hear it, maybe you should eat by yourselves.”
    What, Primrose wondered, could Eglantine and Gingerhave to say that was so private? Primrose suddenly realized that Ginger was often trying to get Eglantine alone, not just away from her but from the group. Was Ginger jealous of all of Eglantine’s friends? True, they were all in training to be Guardians, and she knew how much Ginger hoped to be approved for training, too. Did Ginger think that Eglantine would have some special influence over that approval?
    There was an awkward silence, and then Eglantine and Ginger erupted into convulsive laughter as if sharing a very private joke. The other owls looked on grimly, but Primrose wilfed in the biggest way and became so slender that there was hardly any need for anyone to squash in. She just knew they were laughing about her, or thinking how she wouldn’t understand their little joke, anyway. To think that just last evening she had looked for a joke book. Well, the joke’s on me, she thought sourly.
    To change the subject, Soren began talking about the weather experiments that Ezylryb wanted him to do. “Martin can’t go and neither can Ruby because they are doing other experiments for him. That’s why he said I could ask friends from other chaws for help. So Twilight and Gylfie and Digger are going. You want to go, Otulissa?”
    “No, I can’t,” she replied. “I have to run that experiment on the far beach for him.”
    “Ginger and I will go,” Eglantine piped up.
    “You have to be full-fledged chaw members, and you’re still in training, Eglantine. I don’t think he’d agree. What about you, Primrose? You’re full-fledged. Want to go?”
    “No, not tonight,” she answered quietly. She knew that if she got to go and Eglantine didn’t, it would drive an even deeper wedge in their friendship.
    “Come on, Soren. Go ask Ezylryb,” Eglantine urged her brother.
    “No, I’m not going to bother him when I know what the answer will be.”
    “That frinks me off,” Eglantine said sourly.
    “Well, too bad.” Soren saw Ginger give Eglantine a nudge and whisper something in her ear.
    “Young’uns!” Mrs. P. interrupted. “No bad language, not at the table, please. And need I remind you, I am the table!”
    Tweener, usually a cheerful meal, was not going well. Now Gylfie, in another attempt to change the subject, reminded everyone that on the next evening Trader Mags would be arriving. “Trader Mags always comes on the first day of full shine in the summer,” she said.
    “Why’s that?” Primrose asked, relieved to be talking about something other than Eglantine’s rude behavior.
    “She thinks the full moon shows off her wares best,” Soren said.
    “As if the tawdriness of all that frippery needs any more sparkle,” Otulissa said acidly. Otulissa did not approve of Trader Mags.
    “Who’s Trader Mags?” Ginger asked.
    “You don’t know about Trader Mags?” Eglantine blinked. “Ooh, she brings the most wonderful stuff. We’ll have so much fun looking at it together. Shopping!”
    Primrose sensed a wilfing in her gizzard.
    “Trader Mags,” Otulissa said in a very haughty, superior voice, “is an ostentatious magpie who—true to her nature—is quite skillful at ‘collecting’ a variety of items. ‘Collecting’ is, of course, a euphemism for what some might call stealing.”
    “Ooh!” Ginger exclaimed again, her eyes blinking darkly in anticipation. “Where does she get the stuff?”
    “The Others—their old ruins, their churches, or castles, what have you,” Otulissa