starving during that long siege, she had her own private supply of milkberries and Ga’Hoole nuts. You didn’t see her getting any thinner last winter while the rest of us were so pathetically skinny we could have slipped through a knothole.”
“I can already do that,” Primrose said, trying to make a small joke. After all, she had come here to read a joke book. She had not expected such serious conversation.
“Oh, sorry,” Otulissa replied. “I wasn’t talking about Pygmy Owls, but you got awfully skinny yourself, Primrose. Probably could have slipped into a hummingbird hole.”
“What are you reading, Otulissa?” Primrose asked, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Dowsing and divining techniques for metals and water. There’s a short chapter in here by Strix Emerilla. You know, my ancestor—”
“The renowned weathertrix,” Primrose finished the sentence. They all knew about Otulissa’s ancestor Strix Emerilla. There was hardly a word written by her that Otulissa hadn’t read, and she rarely missed an opportunity to remind them of her connection to the great owl. But Primrose didn’t mind. She was happy that Otulissa was showing signs of being herself again.
“That’s terrible, about the hoarding,” Digger said. “I never knew that. I wonder what the parliament will decide about Dewlap.” Then he looked slyly at Otulissa. “Have you been to the roots lately?”
Very few of the owls knew about the roots, but Primrose had once overheard the band – as Soren, Gylfie, Twilight and Digger were often called – talk about them. Of course, they had immediately sworn her to secrecy. The place they called ‘the roots’ was a cramped space deep under the Great Ga’Hoole Tree directly beneath the parliament chamber. Something about the tangled roots and ceiling timbers caused sounds to resonate, most particularly the sounds coming from the owls’ innermost parliament chamber. The roots transmitted the voices of the owls in the parliament above. Listening in on closed parliament sessions was the only really bad thing that the band, plus Otulissa, ever did. It was out-and-out eavesdropping. They all knew it. They all felt guilty about it. But they simply couldn’t stop. They had a million and one ways of rationalising their snooping activities, but their excuses never made them feel much better. Still, they continued to secretly listen.
“I just don’t buy it – the stuff about Dewlap having a nervous breakdown: she’s not shattered.”
“Shattered?” Digger and Primrose both said 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 read 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 happens to owls when they experience 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 and confusion of one’s sense of self. But shattering is much worse. It is not caused by the moon but by 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 offence, Digger …” she apologised 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.
Primrose stopped in her own hollow to check if Eglantine had got up. She’d become a late sleeper lately, which was strange because it was summertime and 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 half a dozen owls for dining. 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 the owls, that is, except Eglantine and Ginger, who continued jabbering away to each
