The Rescue

But then Nut Beam piped up, “My grandma did a special kind of dive called the spiral.”

“My grandpa had a kind of twisty talon like a spiral,” Silver said loudly.

“Great Glaux.” Soren sighed. He had forgotten how young owlets could be. It was clear that Poot did not know how to deal with such young ones. But Otulissa interrupted what was about to turn into a free-for-all bragging match about grandparents.

“Silver, Nut Beam,” she said sharply, and flew out in front of the two little owls. “Attention. All eyes on my tail, please. Now does anybody here have anything to say that is not about their grandparents, parents or any other relatives or spirals?” There was silence. Then Silver waggled his wings. Otulissa sighed. “I feel a wing waggle from behind.” She flipped her head back. “What is it, Silver?”

“My great-grandma was named for a cloud too. Her name was Alto Cumulus.”

“Thank you for that information,” Otulissa said curtly. “Now may we proceed? Martin, will you please answer the question?”

“The wind spirals inwards and this way.” The little Northern Saw-whet spun his head almost completely around in an anticlockwise motion.

“Very good, considering you’ve never flown in a hurricane,” Poot replied. None of them had as yet, except for Poot.

“We might not have flown in one yet but we’ve read all about them, Poot,” Otulissa said. “Strix Emerilla devotes three chapters to hurricanes in her book, Atmospheric Pressures and Turbulations: An Interpreter’s Guide.”

“The most boring book in the world,” Martin muttered as he flew up on Soren’s starboard wing.

“I’ve read every word of it,” Otulissa said.

“Now, next question,” Poot continued. “And all you older owls shut your beaks. Which is your port wing and which is your starboard?”

There was silence. “All right. Wiggle the one you think is port.” Nut Beam and Silver hesitated a bit, stole a look at each other and then both waggled their right wing.

“Wrong!” Poot said. “Now, you two have to remember the difference. Because when I say strike off to port, or angle starboard, you’re going to fly off in the wrong direction if you don’t know.”

Soren remembered that this was difficult for him to learn when he first started flying in the weather chaw. It took Ruby, the best flier, forever to learn port from starboard, but they all did – finally.

“All right, now,” Poot said. “I’m going out for a short reconnaissance in the opposite direction of Ruby. I want to cover everything. Soren and Martin, you’re in charge here. Keep flying in this direction. I’ll be back soon.”

Poot had not been gone long when a definite whiff seemed to wash over the small band of owls.

“I think I smell gulls nearby.” Otulissa turned her beak upwind. “Oh Great Glaux, here they come. The stench is appalling,” Otulissa muttered. “Those seagulls! Scum of the avian world.”

“Are they really that bad?” Nut Beam asked.

“You can smell them, can’t you? And they’re wet poopers on top of it all!”

“Wet poopers!” Silver and Nut Beam said at once.

“I’ve never met a wet pooper. I can’t imagine,” Nut Beam said.

“Well then, don’t try,” Otulissa snapped testily.

“It’s hard to believe that they never yarp pellets at all,” Nut Beam continued to muse.

“My sister actually had a friend who was a wet pooper, but they wouldn’t let her bring him home. I think he was a warbler,” Silver announced.

“Oh Glaux, here we go again,” said Martin.

“I think maybe I’ve met one once,” said Nut Beam.

“Well, it’s not something to be proud of. It’s disgusting,” Otulissa replied.

“You’re starting to sound like a nest-maid snake, Otulissa,” said Soren, and laughed. Nest-maid snakes were notoriously disdainful of all birds except owls because of what they considered their inferior and less noble digestive systems due to their inability to yarp pellets. All of their waste was splatted out from the other end, which nest-maids considered vile and disgusting.

“They give us a lot of good information about weather, Otulissa,” Soren said.

“You mean a lot of dirty jokes. You can find good information in books.”

Poot was soon back with the seagulls in his wake.

“What’s the report?” Martin asked.

“Storm surge moderate,” Poot said, “but building. The gulls say the leading edge of this thing is at least fifty leagues off to the southeast.”

“Yeah, but I got news for you.” At that moment, Ruby skidded in on a tumultuous draft and a mess of flying spume. She was accompanied by two gulls. It was as if she had come out of nowhere. And suddenly Soren felt an immense pull on his downwind wings. “You’ve been talking to the wrong gulls. It’s not just a storm with a leading edge. It’s a hurricane with an eye!”

Hurricane! Soren thought. Impossible. How has this happened so quickly? No one except Poot had ever flown a hurricane – and these young owlets! What ever would happen to them?

“It’s still far off,” Ruby continued. “But it’s moving faster than you think and building stronger. And we’re very near a rain band. And then it’s the eye wall!”

“Eye wall! We’ve got to alter course,” Poot exclaimed. “Which way, Ruby?”

“Port, I mean starboard!”

“The eye wall!” Soren and Martin both gasped. The eye wall of a hurricane was worse than the eye. It was a wall of thunderstorms, preceded by rain bands delivering violent swirling updrafts that could extend hundreds of leagues from the wall.

“You can’t see the band from here because of the clouds.”

Oh, Glaux, thought Soren. Don’t let these young owlets go off on their stories of grandparents being named for clouds.

“I think that right now we might actually be between two rain bands,” Ruby continued.

And then it was as if they all were sucked up into a swirling shaft. This IS a hurricane! Soren thought. He saw Martin go spinning by in a tawny blur. “Martin!” he screamed. He heard a sickening gasp and in the blur saw the little beak of the Saw-whet open in a wheeze as Martin tried to gulp air. He must have been in one of the terrible airless vacuums that Soren had heard about. Then Martin vanished and Soren had to fight with all of his might to stay back up, belly down, and flying. He could not believe how difficult this was. He had flown through blazing forests harvesting live coals, battling the enormous fire winds and strange contortions of air that the heat made, but this was terrible!

“Strike off to port, south by southeast. We’re going to run down. Rudder starboard with tail feathers! Extend lulus.” The lulus were small feathers just at the bend of an owl’s wing, which could help smooth the airflow. Poot was now calling out a string of instructions. “Downwind rudder, hold two points to skyward with port wing. Come on chaw! You can do it! Primary feathers screw down. Level off now. Forwards thrust!” Poot was flying magnificently, especially considering that under the lee of his wings he had tucked the two young owlets Nut Beam and Silver for protection.

But where was Martin? Martin was the smallest owl in the chaw. Concentrate! Concentrate! Soren told himself. You’re a dead bird if you think about anything but flying. Dead bird! Dead bird! Wings torn off! All the horrible stories he had heard about hurricanes came back to Soren. And although owls talked about the deadly eye of the hurricane, he knew there was something worse, really – the rim of that eye. And if the eye was fifty leagues away – well, the rim could be much closer. Soren’s own two eyes opened wide in terror and his third eyelid, the transparent one that swept across this eyeball, had to work hard to clear the debris, the slop, being flung in it from all directions. But he paid no heed to the slop. In his eye was the image of little Martin vanishing in a split second and being sucked directly into that rim. The eye of a hurricane was calm, but caught in the rim, a bird could spin around and around, its wings torn off by the second spin and most likely gasping for air until it died.

The air started to smooth out and the clammy warmth that had welled up from below subsided as a cooler layer of air floated up from the turbulent waters. But it had begun to pour hard. A driving rain pushed by the winds slanted in at a steep angle. The sea below seemed to smoke from the force of the rain.

“Form up, chaw! SOFP,” Poot commanded. They all assumed the positions of their Standard Operational Flight Pattern. Soren swivelled his head to look for Martin off his starboard wing. There was a little blank space where the Northern Saw-whet usually flew. He tipped his head up to where Ruby flew and saw the rusty fluff of her underbelly. She looked down and shook her head sadly. Soren thought he saw a tear well up in her eye, but it could have been some juice from a leftover meatball.

“Roll call!” Poot now barked. “Beak off, chaw!”

“Ruby here!” snapped the rust-coloured Shorteared Owl.