Flying upside down!" Primrose gasped. "How do you do that? It's impossible."

"It's not as hard as you think," Soren said excitedly. "It really doesn't take that much skill. It's kind of like when you first start to fly. You have to just sort of believe you can do it."

"But upside down?" Gylfie said.

"Do you think a big burly Gray like me could do it?" Twilight said.

"Sure, if the conditions are right. See, that's the problema"you can't try it until you're in the gutter of a gale."

"Gutter of a gale?" Twilight said. "You telling me a gale has a gutter? Now, I've seen a lot buta" It was hard for Twilight to admit that anyone had seen or experienced something he had not.

Gylfie and Soren looked at each other and blinked in amazement. Twilight did brag, but he did not have that obnoxious sense of superiority that Otulissa had. Still, he was constantly getting reprimanded in his chaw practices for challenging the rybs. Sometimes he could be annoying but, in spite of this, he was a "good soul," as Mrs. P. would put it. There was never an owl more fiercely loyal than Twilight. As Digger often said, "He makes the best friend and the worst enemy."

"You might not have seen the gutter of a gale," Gylfie said, trying to restrain the peevish note in her voice. "I know you've seen a lot, Twilight, but it is possible that you have not penetrated a gale in the same manner Soren did, under the instruction of Ezylryb."

"Oh, I've flown into the teeth of many a gale, Gylf. I might have been in the gutter and not known I was there. That I admit. Soren here, talking about all this structure of a gale businessa"just words, you know. No offense, mind you, Soren. But you can fly through something and not know what it's called."

"Yes, I think you're right. Otulissa was making a big fuss about how Ezylryb should have given us a vocabulary list before we took off last night."

"Oh, honestly," Primrose muttered, "was there ever a duller owl?"

"Well, I am going to the library because that's part of our a.s.signment nowa"to read up on the structure of gales and blizzards and hurricanes. But I'm glad we flew it first. I think it will have more meaning. We're supposed to have a test soon."

"A flying test or a book test?" Gylfie asked.

"Book test. I promised to help Ruby. She's a fantastic flier but she has a hard time with book thingsa"reading and writing."

"Believe me, as long as she can fly that's what counts." Twilight nodded.

"The grand old sage of the Orphan School of Tough Learning!" Gylfie muttered.

Mrs. Plithiver gave a slight flinch as she often did when she heard an unkind remark at her tea table. It was then that Soren realized that Mrs. Plithiver had barely said a word during the entire teatime. This was most unusual, especially since he had come back so excited from weather chaw. Normally, she would have been thrilled over Soren's enthusiasm. He hoped nothing was the matter. If there was time before good light, after he went to the library, he would go visit her.

Soren flew up to the library humming happily the last verse of the weather chaw song. How quickly life changes, he thought. It was only yesterday that he had returned from walking around with a live coal in his beak, thinking that life could not be much worsea"unless, of course, he was in St. Aggie's picking pellets in the pelletorium. And now he was a member of the best of the best of the chaws.

When he entered the library he saw Ezylryb in his usual spot with a pile of dried caterpillars. He trotted up to him. "h.e.l.lo, Ezylryb. It was a wonderful chaw. Do you think there's any chance of another gale coming through soona"or maybe a tornado? Poot says tornadoes are fantastic to fly."

But Ezylryb barely looked up from his book and growled in that unfriendly way he had. Soren took a step back. He was confused. How could Ezylryb be so different now than he had been when they were flying? During weather chaw, Ezylryb had been loud and boisterous and cracking wet p.o.o.p jokes and singing raucously, and now he was just Ezylryb, a distant, gruff old scholar with his beak buried in a book. "Better study for your test. And Ruby over there needs some help. Flies like a dream but can't spell worth a pellet."

Soren backed away and then turned to Ruby, who was hunched over the book Weather Systems and Their Structure: How to Fly Them, a.n.a.lyze Them, and Survive Them, by Ezekiel Ezylryb.

"This is sooo hard, Soren! I'll never pa.s.s the test."

"Oh, come on, Ruby. You'll do fine. Anyone who flies like you can't flunk a test."

"But it's all these words. I feel flight in my gizzard, but, you know, I can't feel words in my gizzard, except maybe when Madame Plonk sings."

Soren blinked. What Ruby said he thought was probably quite true. "Look, Ruby, I don't think you should try and feel words in your gizzard. You just have to learn a little bit of what they mean in your heada"just for the test. Come on, I'll help you. Let's see the book."

Soren took a look. There were a lot of pictures, drawings of storms and hurricanes and blizzards. Soren flipped through the pages with his talon. "Let's start right here with a gale, because that is what we know."

"But what in Glaux's name is a pyte?" Ruby said.

From the corner of the room came a voice. "A pyte is a unit of measurement roughly the wingspan of a Whiskered Screech like meself. It is used for measuring the different structures of a weather system such as gutters, scuppers, et cetera."

"What's et cetera?" whispered Ruby.

"I don't think that's an important word," Soren said. "Now we know what a pyte is, and that's what counts."

Ruby wasn't what Soren would call dumb, but she certainly had terrible handwriting and difficulty with large words. "Finning in the swa"" She read the heading at the top of one page.

"Finning in the swillages," Soren said.

"What is that?" Ruby asked.

"Ruby, you did it. You were the only one who could do it. Don't you remember? You climbed the baggywrinkles out of the scuppers and flew right on the upper edge, twitching your tail. It was very advanced."

"Oh, you mean like this?" And Ruby did a perfect recreation of what she had done that night.

"Yes, that's it. And it says here that the swillages are measured in tailspans of the individual owl. So if you feel the breeze on either side of your tail at one time you know that it is one tailspan wide."

"Oh, I'll never remember all this! The words, the numbers, it's too much."

"Yes, you will, Ruby."

Otulissa had just come into the library and was pulling out another book on weather interpretation.

"Did you get your chaw changed, Otulissa?" Soren whispered, for he knew she had applied directly to Barran.

Otulissa blinked. Large tears were forming in her eyes. "No! I'm stuck and I can't fly nearly as well as either of you. I'll probably get killed."

For the first time, Soren felt really sorry for Otulissa. Just then a dried caterpillar dropped into the book she had opened.

"You'll do fine, child. Spotted Owls have an amazing talent for sensing pressure changes. Of course, it does make them fussy and hard to live with. I suggest you read that book over therea"Atmospheric Pressures and Turbulations: An Interpreter's Guide. It was written by Strix Emerilla, a renowned weathertrix of the last century. But I always want a Spotted Owl in my chaw, even if they continually beak off." Ezylryb, with his odd three-taloned walk, hobbled out of the library.

Confound that owl, Soren thought. He is as impenetrable as any weather system. Here, he had hardly spoken to Soren and now seemed to go out of his way to chat it up with Otulissa.

"A Strix wrote this?" Otulissa said as she opened the book. "Oh, my goodness, it could be a relative. And, of course, you know, to become a weathertrix requires the most highly refined sensitivities of all. No wonder a Strix would become one. With our ancient lineage, I would imagine these skills have been honed to perfection through the ages."

Oh, Glaux, did this owl ever shut up? Soren decided to go visit Mrs. P. before good light.

"Well, I don't know. I just don't know. I don't think I'm sure about anything, really." Soren stopped just outside the small hollow that Mrs. P. shared with the two other nest snakes. It was the sadness in Mrs. P.'s voice that really stopped him. Mrs. P. never sounded this way. She was always so positive and full of hope. He listened for a few moments.

"The harp guild is the most prestigious and I think it is my destiny to become a member," the other snake was saying. "You know, the way the owls feel things in their gizzards. Now I know that we don't have gizzards, but even so."

"Mercy! The very idea." Mrs. P. sounded genuinely shocked by the suggestion. She spoke sharply now. "I think it is very presumptuous of us to ever think of ourselves as anything like these n.o.ble owls. We are not of their station." Now she was sounding like herself again. Mrs. P. did not have feelings of inferiority. She felt she was the best nest-maid snake ever, but she would never presume, as she said, to think she shared anything with the members of the finest cla.s.s of birds. Her duty in life was to serve them, and to serve them well was a n.o.ble task.

"But Mrs. P.," the snake continued, "you must have some preference for a guild."

"Oh, it is more than a preference. When we went for our tour of the guilds, I knew immediately that the harp was for me. As I slipped through the strings from one note to another, climbing the scales, leaping octaves, the vibrations never left me. And the very best part was to try toa"oh, how shall I explaina"weave the music into Madame Plonk's voice. So that together the sound of the harp and the sound of Madame Plonk's voice made something so large and splendid."

Soren blinked. Mrs. P., he thought, had something much better than a gizzard.

"Must be off myself," the other nest snake said cheerily. "I'm just going around to drop in on Octavia, bring her a few well-seasoned milkberries. She does love them so and, as you know, she does keep the nest for Madame Plonk. Never can hurt, can it? Ta-ta!" And she slithered out of the hollow.

Soren wedged himself into a corner where he wouldn't be seen. But he heard Mrs. P. muttering after the other snake was out of earshot. "To presume to have a gizzard and then go slithering off to Octavia, humming tunes and besieging her with milkberries. Well, I never!"

Soren decided to skip visiting Mrs. P. He knew what he must do. He must "drop by" Madame Plonk's, and he must tell her that here was a very special snake, a snake that had something even finer than a gizzard, a snake of the highesta"what was that word Mrs. P. was always using?a""Sensibilities, artistic sensibilities."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A Visit to Madame Plonk

You see, Madame Plonk, I know that perhaps this is not propera"me coming to you this way." Soren could hardly keep his mind on what he was saying, as he had never in his life seen a hollow like this one. The air spun with colored light from the whirlygla.s.ses that hung from the ceiling and sometimes jutted out from the walls, suspended on twigs jammed into cracks. There were several openings through which light poured. There were pieces of cloth embroidered with beautiful designs and one little niche spilled over with strands of luminous beads. Indeed, the hollow seemed to swirl with color. And in the middle of all this color there was a dazzling whitenessa"Madame Plonk.

Soren gulped and tried to keep his eyes from straying from that whiteness. "But I just know that Mrs. P. is rather shy and would never dare."

"Mrs. P.?" Madame Plonk broke in. "I don't believe I know this snake."

"She came with me, ma'am. She's my family's old nest-maid snake."

"Oh, and you were saying that she wants to be in the harp guild?"

"Yes, ma'am." Soren thought he sounded so stupid. Who cares? he thought. He was here for Mrs. P. She wanted this so much. Then it was as if Madame Plonk nearly took his next thought directly out of his head.

"But wanting is one thing. One cannot merely want."

"Yes, yes, just because you want something doesn't mean it should always happen."

Madame Plonk blinked and nodded. "Very wise, young'un. But tell me nowa"why do you think she, this Mrs. P. as you call her, wants it?"

An idea suddenly popped into Soren's head. "You know," he began thoughtfully, "some snakes might want it just because it is thought of as the most important guild, one for snakes who have served in nests of very old, distinguished families. But I don't think that is why Mrs. P. wants it."

"No?" Madame Plonk seemed surprised.

Soren had a dreadful feeling that he had said something wrong. He took a deep breath. There was no backing out of it now. "No, I don't think she gives two pellets about that kind of thing."

Madame Plonk blinked.

She's laughing at me, Soren thought. But he continued. "I think she wants to be a member of this guild not because it is the most important but because it is the most artistic."

Madame Plonk gave a little gasp. "That's very interesting. Now what do you mean by artistic, young'un?"

Oh, dear, Soren thought. It was as if his gizzard had just dropped out of him. He had no idea what he meant by artistic. But he knew that what he had said was right in some way.

Madame Plonk waited.

Soren continued. "When Mrs. P. spoke about music she said how when she visited the great harp, she tried to weave the notes not just through the strings of the harp but into your voice. So that together the sound of the harp and the sound of your voice made something that she called splendid and grand. Well, I think that is what it means to be an artist."

There was silence in the apartments. And then Madame Plonk sighed deeply and reached for a hankie made by the lacemakers' guild. She blew her beak and dabbed her eyes. "You are most unusual for a Barn Owl." Soren did not know if that was good or bad. "Now I think you must go. It is almost time for Evensong. So, go along. I hear you're doing quite well in weather chaw." Soren was about to ask how she knew about weather chaw but then remembered that Octavia took care of both Madame Plonk's and Ezylryb's nests. "Now fly along."

"Yes, yes, thank you for your time, Madame Plonk," Soren said, backing out of the hollow.

"Octavia!" Madame Plonk called as soon as Soren had left. "Octavia, come in here immediately."

The fat old nest snake slithered in from a branch where she had hung herself just outside the apartment.

"Did you hear that, Octavia?"

"Yes, ma'am. I think we got ourselves a G-flat!"

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Fire!

Ezylryb perched on a limb at the very top of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree and squinted into the blueness of the early summer day. He had been perched here for the last two days almost continuously with Poot by his side. They were studying the cloud behavior on the far side of Hoole-mere.

"Bring the chaw up," he ordered tersely. "There's enough for them to observe."

"What! What!" Soren yawned sleepily as Poot shook him awake. "It's the middle of the day, Poot. We're supposed to be sleeping."

"Not now, young'un. Important lesson, top of the tree. Cap wants you there now. Quick-o!"

What could it be? Soren thought. Poot only called Ezylryb "Cap" when they were on a flight mission. But there wasn't any bad weather. It was a calm, perfectly clear day. It was the time of the golden rain, when the strands of Ga'Hoole berries that hung from the limbs turned a rich yellow.