Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

CHAPTER ONE
A Reduced Harvest Festival
    B ut, Bell, I don’t understand. I’ve been practicing all summer with Madame Plonk for the Milkberry Harvest Festival and now you say I shouldn’t sing? I just don’t understand. She’ll think I don’t care.”
    “But you shouldn’t care, Blythe,” Bell protested.
    “Why shouldn’t I care? I’ve worked hard on this.”
    “Singing is—you know—sort of prideful.” Bell squirmed a bit as she said this.
    “Prideful?” Blythe blinked her huge, shining black eyes.
    “Yes. It’s, you know, a vanity.”
    Blythe blinked again. “Vanity” was a word often heard in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree since the arrival of the strange blue owl, the Striga, from the newly discovered Middle Kingdom. But the owls of the great tree were deeply indebted to Striga, or “the Striga” as he preferred to be called, especially her parents, Soren and Pelli, and her sisters, Blythe and Bash. This blue-feathered owl had saved the life of little Bell. The Striga had flown across the Seaof Vastness and encountered Bell, who had been caught in a freak storm while out on a routine chawlet-training mission. She had been blown off course and injured. Had she not been found by the Striga she might have died. But that was only the beginning of Bell’s trials. During her recovery, she and the Striga were captured by the Pure Ones and held hostage in the Desert of Kuneer. For many moon cycles there had been no news of the Pure Ones and their maniacal leader, Nyra. It was thought they had been vanquished, that only a remnant survived, and perhaps even that Nyra had been killed. But such was not the case. They had found new recruits, gone underground in the Kuneer Desert, and built themselves an elaborate system of underground nest holes and tunnels masterminded by Tarn, a wily Burrowing Owl.
    The Striga and Bell managed to escape, but during the course of their captivity they had learned of a dreadful plan, a plan to assassinate the Band and the great tree’s king, Coryn. This would have been a fatal blow to the very gizzard of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Had it not been for the Striga, all might have been lost. So it was not just Bell who owed her life to the strange blue owl, but the great tree itself. The Band and Coryn felt so indebted that they issued an invitation to the Striga: If he desired to come to the great tree he would be welcomed. Thus, aftermany moon cycles, the Striga had arrived, leaving the Middle Kingdom and the strange Dragon Court, where he had lived a pampered life of indescribable luxury and indolence.
    “Look,” Bell said excitedly, “you just give this singing up for the Harvest Festival and you’ll get a blue feather from the Striga.”
    “Why would I want some old molted blue feather?” Blythe asked.
    “It means you belong to the club, Blythe. The Blue Feather Club. Don’t you want to be a member? Clubs are fun.”
    Blythe swiveled her head toward her younger sister. She didn’t know what to say. Why were clubs so much fun? Singing was fun. Bell just isn’t the same anymore , Blythe thought.
    “I don’t get it,” Twilight said grumpily.
    “Get what?” Gylfie asked.
    The Great Gray Owl turned his head and peered into the tiny Elf Owl’s eyes. “Now tell me truthfully, Gylfie. Does this seem like the night before the Harvest Festival to you? Where are the milkberry vine decorations?”
    “And where’s the milkberry brew?” Digger said, flying up to a perch in the main gallery in the Great Hollow. “Idon’t smell it brewing. And the harp guild hasn’t been practicing at all. Seems like more of a Final ceremony than the merriest festival of the year.”
    “Agreed,” said Soren. “Although I have to say that last year things did get a bit wild. I mean, did you ever in all your hatched days think you’d see Otulissa getting tipsy? She nearly squashed Martin.”
    “She loves to dance, though. I remember when she got you doing the glauc-glauc that first year we were all here,” Digger said.
    “I was not tipsy!” Otulissa swooped down from an upper gallery. “Ask Martin. He was the one who stumbled mid-flight. If anybody can hold their milkberry wine, it’s me.”
    “Yeah, but I think someone really did spike it with some bingle juice and the two don’t mix—at all!” Gylfie said. “It’s a bad combination. Gives me indigestion. And those autumn mice, my favorite, repeating on me for the next three nights after I drank the stuff. Makes me