And with that, the parliament of owls was adjourned. An immense fluttering swelled up as they left. Soren, Gyl-fie, Twilight, and Digger looked at one another with tears in their eyes.

"And to think," Digger said, "that we are the ones who found him."

"But that's just the problem," said Gylfie. "What do we do now? Tell Boron and Barran that?"

"Then they'll know we were eavesdropping," Twilight said.

"Precisely," Gylfie replied.

Soren began to speak slowly, "I think we shouldn't say anything, at least not now. Nothing we will say will change their plans. They still need to send in a reconnaissance team or whatever they call it and find a new slipgizzle. Our knowing that the Barred Owl is dead and telling them really doesn't change anything."

"I think Soren's right," Gylfie spoke. "You know, eavesdropping like thisawellaI have a feeling Boron would really be mad."

"Definitely," said Twilight.

So the four owls wound their way back to their hollow and slept until First Black.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Weather Chaw

A sliver of wet ice hit Soren's face and woke him up abruptly. Outside the hollow, the wind shrieked and a gale raged.

"Great Glaux, it's a mess out there," Twilight muttered.

"It's cold, too," said Gylfie, her tiny body shivering.

"Hop under here," Twilight said, and spread one of his enormous wings so that it touched the other side of the hollow and knocked Digger from his bed.

"Twilight!" Digger complained. "Watch it with that wing."

"Gylf is cold."

"I sure hope they will serve something hot for breakfast," Gylfie said through her clattering beak.

"Me, too," said Twilight.

The owls got up and crept from their hollow out onto a madly shaking branch and took off for the dining hollow. There was acorn porridge and steaming cups of milkberry tea, roasted tree slugs and braised mice. But as Soren headed for his place at Mrs. Plithiver's, a voice scratched the air.

"Over here, boy. Weather chaw eats it raw with the hair on." It was the unmistakable voice of Ezylryb.

"What?" Soren beaked the word in disbelief.

"You mean you haven't heard?" Otulissa was suddenly beside him.

"Heard what?" Soren said, not sure if he really wanted to know.

"We're having our first weather interpretation chaw tonight."

"You have to be kidding, Otulissa. We aren't going out in this gale."

"Oh, but we are," she said. "And I think it's outrageous. I'm going to have a word with Strix Struma. I'll go right up to Barran if I have to. This is reckless. This is endangering our lives."

"Oh, hush up, dearie. Sit down and eat your mousea"and all the hair, mind you, and that goes for every one of you." It was the fat old blind snake named Octavia, who had served as the weather chaw table for years. Unlike the other blind snakes whose scales were colors varying from rose to pink to a deep coral, Octavia was a pale greenish-blue. Soren sat next to Martin, the smart little Northern Saw-whet who had asked the question in colliering practice about the need for fresh coals. Indeed, Soren realized suddenly that there was more room at the table than he was accustomed to and as he looked about he knew it was because all of the young owls in the weather chaw seemed to have diminished in size. Their feathers were pulled, in tightly indications that the owls were very nervous about their first weather flight. When relaxed, an owl's plumage is loose and fluffy. When angered, owls can puff up their feathers until they appear much, much larger. But now it was as if they had all become suddenly slim. The tension hovered in the air.

Ezylryb fixed the young owls in the amber light of his squinted eye. "Eat up, matiesaevery single little hair. You've forgotten what raw meat tastes like with the fur, as you call it. Poot here is my first mate. He'll tell you what it's like to fly with no ballast in your gizzard."

"I remember that time before I had acquired the taste for hair and thought I could go through that hurricane. Last time I ever tried that. Nearly got caught in the rim of the eye, I did. Now, you don't want to do that, young'uns." Poot was a Boreal Owl like Soren and Gylfie's old friend Grimble.

"What happens if you get caught in the rim of the eye of a hurricane?" asked Rudy.

"Oh, you spin around till you're dead. Just around and around and around. Awful nasty way to go. Usually get your wings torn off in the process," said Poot.

"Now, don't go scaring them, Poot," Octavia said and gave a ripple so that all their plates clattered a bit. "And please, young'uns, don't try that trick of slipping the fur under the table. Remember, I am the table and it itches something fierce."

It was not even dark yet, but the weather chaw owls were already on the takeoff limb. It was all they could do to hang on as the gale lashed about them and the limb bucked in the turbulent wind. Shards of ice flew through the air.

"We take off upwind, naturally." Although Soren was not sure in this gale which way upwind even was. "We're going to fly straight out over the Sea of Hoolemere. Try to find the main part of the gale." Ezylryb spoke in short snappish sentences. "Now listen up. Here's what you need to know about a gale, or any storm, reallya"except for hurricanesa"they be a little different with their eyes and all. But what you got in a gale, or storm, is you got your gutter. That's what we call the main trough where the wind runs its punch through. It's at the center. It not be like the eye in a hurricane. Not nearly so dangerous. Then on either side of the gutter you've got the scuppers. That's where the edge of the winds from the gutters spills over. Then at the very outside edge of the scuppers you got your swillagesa"more about them later. I fly point. Poot flies what we call upwind scupper. You just follow behind. Do what you're told. Any questions?"

Otulissa raised her talon. "Ezylryb, sir, with all due respect, I have to say that I am surprised that we are going out before it is completely dark. Isn't there a very real danger that in this light we could be mobbed by crows?"

Ezylryb began to laugh and then said, "With all due respect, Otulissa, no one else is yoicks enough to be out on a day like this!"

Soren couldn't help but laugh. But how could he be laughing when he was scared to death? Then again, how could he have been bored in colliering chaw when he was also scared? If this was being all one could be, as Bubo had told him, he certainly had a lot of confusing feelings.

And then, suddenly, with an enormous scream, the old Whiskered Screech Owl spread his wings and lifted into the ice-spun twilight.

They flew straight out over the Sea of Hoolemere. The storm was so fierce and the torrents of sleeting rain so thick they could barely see the water, but they did hear the crashing waves. Otulissa was flying near Soren.

"I have never heard of a ryb who used such poor judgment. This is so irresponsible. I am going to have to speak with Boron and Barran. I cannot believe that they would approve of this."

Soren, meanwhile, could not believe that Otulissa could fly through this mess and still keep talking. It took all of his concentration just to fly. The winds seemed to come from every direction. They were constantly buffeted by confused drafts. Martin, the little Saw-whet, was a tumbling blur ahead of him. He had been instructed, as the smallest, to begin flying in Ezylryb's wake for better control.

One minute the owls might be buoyed up several hundred feet and the next they might fly into a dead fall, a kind of hole in the wind, and drop. And, of course, there was the ice and rain. Constantly, Soren was having to use the transparent eyelid, the third eyelid that all owls have, to clear out the debris. Great Glaux, he hoped his third lid didn't simply wear out under these conditions. No wonder Ezylryb squinted. A lifetime of flying into this stuff would be enough to shred any owl's eyelid.

"Oh, for Glaux's sake," Otulissa hissed.

"What now?" Soren said, trying to antic.i.p.ate the next dead fall, almost hoping for it, to get away from Otulissa.

"He is speaking with seagulls!"

"So?"

"So? How can you say *so,' Soren? I know you come from a very fine family. I can see that you have been well brought up. You must know that seagulls are the absolute worst kind of bird. They are, pardon the coa.r.s.eness of my language, the sc.u.m of the avian world. Trashy, loud. You want nothing to do with them. And look, there he is talkinga"laughing with them."

"Maybe he's getting weather information from them," Soren said.

"Oh, now that's a thought," Otulissa said and was quiet for several seconds, an amazing occurrence in and of itself. "I think I'll fly up and ask him."

"Don't bother him, Otulissa."

"No, you heard him say if we had any questions we should ask." So off she flew.

"Pardon me, Ezylryb. I am most curious to know why you werea"how shall I put ita"consorting with seagulls? I thought perhaps it was to gain weather information."

"Seagulls? Oh, no, darlin'. They are the dumbest birds on earth and the laziest."

"Well, then why would you even consort with them?"

"I wasn't consorting. I was telling dirty jokes."

"What?" Otulissa gasped.

"Yes, they love wet p.o.o.p jokes even though they are the wettest of all p.o.o.pers. *Oh, tell us another one Ezyl,' they always say! And, I must admit, I get a few from them. But the blasted birds are so dumb, half the time they can't remember the punch lines. Very frustrating."

"Well, I never!"

"The jokes were really funny, Otulissa," Martin, the Northern Saw-whet, piped up.

"Now, don't go getting your feathers in a twist, darlin'. You just mind your own business. Get back into position. We're getting near the gutter now. And this is when the fun begins."

"Hoooh-hah!" Poot let out an enormous, raucous hoot. "Here we go, mates. Climbing the baggywrinkles and then straight into the gutter. Follow us!" The baggywrinkles were the shredded air currents that lay between the scuppers and the gutter. A power thrust was required to get over them. Soren banked and followed the veteran owl, Poot. Martin was in between the two. The tiny owl would get a boost from Poot's speed, as a vacuum would be created, through which he could be sucked up and over the baggywrinkles right into the gutter. Ruby was just ahead of him. She let escape a small joyous hoot. And then, suddenly, Soren knew why. Here, at the center of the gale, in the gutter, the winds all seemed to flow like one great turbulent river. And if one let one's wings sweep slightly forward, just as Ruby was doing, and angled the taila"well, it was a wonderful sensation, a cross between soaring and glidinga"no effort at all. And in the gutter, the ice shards seemed to melt away.

"Oh, tickle me hollow bones. Ain't this the life!" It was Ezylryb, who had dropped back from the point position and now flew between Soren and Otulissa. He yarped a pellet into the river of wind that flowed about them. "Now follow me to the edge of the scuppers, maties, and I'll show you the hurly-burly. And then we'll climb the baggywrinkles and dump right into the scuppers for the ride of your life."

"What is he talking about?" huffed Otulissa. "He should have given us a vocabulary list. He's very disorganized as a teacher."

Why would a vocabulary list matter? Soren thought. What was the use of a word if one could not feel the action in his gizzard? And right now Soren's gizzard was in a fantastic quiver of excitement. This was flying as he had never known it.

"Here we go!" cried Ezylryb. "Now I want to see you punch the wind and then we pop the scuppers and it's tail over talons."

"Oh, my heavens!" Otulissa shrieked and Soren gasped as he saw the distinctive three-taloned foot of Ezylryb scratch the moon-smudged sky. He was flying on his back! Then right side up and in the scuppers.

Suddenly, Soren saw a red blur as Ruby did a talons-over-tail somersault and popped the scuppers to join him. "Oh, come on!" she cried. "There's nothing to it."

"Nothing to it. Who's ever heard of an owl flying upside down? I think there's something most unsavory about it!" Otulissa gasped. "It's reckless, unsafea"yes, unsavory, unsafe, un-owl."

Oh, shut up! Soren thought and punched the wind just as Ezylryb said, and in a flash he was arcing up toward the sky that spun with dark clouds and was splattered with sheets of icy rain, and then he was right side up in the scuppers next to Ruby.

"Push forward a bit with your talons and keep angling your tail. It gives you a lot of control and you can ride the waves," Ezylryb called back.

Finally, Otulissa arrived, sputtering with rage and talking about a report that she was going to make about "this outrageous activity."

"Oh, shut your beak!" Poot screeched at her. And then they skidded and spun, doing what was called the hurly-burly. In the scuppers, Ezylryb began to squawk a raucous ditty into the teeth of the gale.

We are the owls of the weather chaw.

We take it blistering, We take it all.

Roiling boiling gusts, We're the owls with the guts.

For blizzards our gizzards Do tremble with joy.

An ice storm, a gale, how we love blinding hail.

We fly forward and backward, Upside down and flat.

Do we flinch? Do we wail?

Do we skitter or scutter?

No, we yarp one more pellet And fly straight for the gutter!

Do we screech? Do we scream?

Do we gurgle? Take pause?

Not on your life!

For we are the best Of the best of the chaws!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Mrs. Plithiver's Dilemma