Good Nurse Finny
Oh, 12-1! Oh, my goodness! Look at you." Soren groaned and blinked.
"What happened?" Soren asked. His eyes fluttered open and he felt himself basking in the tender yellow light of Auntie Finny's eyes.
"Now, now, dear. Questions are what got you into trouble in the first place. We'll have to be a little stricter. All you need to know is that you were naughty and now you're back with me in the stone pit and ..." A soft babble of soothing hoots streamed from Auntie's beak. But one question after the next pounded inside Soren's head. He nearly had to clamp his beak shut not to ask them. He must have fainted at some point during the laughter therapy session. He was trying to reconstruct what had happened in his head. There had been the question alarm, the two ferocious beaks, the laughter -- oh, the laughter had been terrible -- but why were his wings hurting so much? This time the question simply withered in his mind, not
because he was too frightened to ask but because he had turned his head and seen his wings. Bare!
"Great Glaux!" he muttered, and promptly fell over once more in a faint.
"Now, now!" Auntie Finny was clicking her beak. "I'm going to take care of that. You'll feel better in no time. You don't need those silly little feathers."
"Don't need my feathers!" It was not a question. Was this owl totally yoicks? "Don't need my feathers,"
he repeated, and was about to ask how he would ever fly, but he clamped his beak shut tight. Auntie was now crushing something in her beak. She gave a yarp-like hiccup and a pulpy wad of soggy moss flew from her beak directly onto Soren's wings. It felt good and Soren sighed. "Nice feeling, yes it is.
Nothing like this stone moss for curing what ails you. Now you can call me Nursey."
"Nursey?" And then Soren corrected himself. "Oh, Nursey!"
"You're learning, dear. You're learning fast. Sometimes we do have to be a little stricter. But I bet you've learned your lesson and you'll never get plucked again."
"Plucked!" Soren gasped. They had actually plucked him? This wasn't an accident? "I know! I know what you're thinking. I really don't
approve. But you know I have very little say. I can only do my best for each and every little owlet in my pit. I try. I try" She almost whimpered.
But Auntie or Nursey didn't know what Soren was thinking, not at all. She looked at him kindly. She asked no questions, of course, but Soren felt compelled to say, "Auntie ... I mean, Nursey." Names seemed awfully important to this old Snowy Owl. Very carefully, he was going to try to explain his thoughts without asking questions -- oh, he had indeed learned his lesson. "I do not understand, Nursey, why you are so nice here in the stone pit and they are so awful, the owls in the glaucidium and the pelletorium. They are mean for no good reason."
"Ah, but there is a reason."
"There is a reason." Soren's words were flat and carried no inflection of a question. This was indeed possible.
"You see," Nursey Finny continued, "it builds character.
"It builds character, " Soren repeated in the same even tone.
"Through carefully meted-out punishment and self- denial, you shall be made hardy." Nursey spoke in a singsong voice as if she had said these same words many times before.
"Destroying wings builds character. I see." Soren tried to sound logical and keep any hint of the incredulous out of his voice.
"Oh, yes, you do see. I am so pleased."
"And to think I always thought flight was a natural part of an owl's character. Silly me." He was getting awfully good at this.
"Oh, you are a bright little thing," Nursey hooted cheerfully. "You're catching on. Yes, flight is to be earned if one is destined for flight at all.
"Yes, yes, of course," Soren said, trying desperately to keep the reasonable tone in his voice. But inside, his gizzard was twitching madly, his heart was beating rapidly, and a dark panic began to fill him.
"Oh, and here comes 12-8. A fine example of a DNF." Soren stared at her with incomprehension.
"DNF, dear. It means Destined Not to Fly. 12-8 is one. And a nursey in training, too!"
Who was number 12-8? Soren sorted through all the numbers in his mind. The number sounded familiar and then Soren saw the little Spotted Owl named Hortense, who was so happy to receive her number designation because she hated her name. She was hopping about nearby
"Come here, 12-8. Your first nursing lesson," Auntie trilled.
Hortense, or number 12-8, had an even blanker look than ever in her eyes. "Ooh, a patient! A patient!
Show me how to make moss pulp."
Finny began to show the little owl how to beak the moss until it was soft and squishy. Soren had to admit he didn't mind the attention to his wings that indeed were feeling much better. He observed 12-8
carefully as she applied the moss compresses. He wondered why she was not destined for flight. He carefully tried to figure out how to get the answer without asking a question. "I saw you, I think, in the pelletorium this morning."
"Oh, no, no, not me! I'm strictly a broody."
"A broody" Soren repeated. Only silence followed. "A broody," Soren repeated again. Still silence. "It must be nice to be a broody, to work in the broodorium." Soren just made up the word.
"It's not called a broodorium." 12-8 spoke in the perfect hollow tones of the truly moon blinked.
"Oh, it isn't," Soren said flatly. "Yes, how stupid of me. It's that other word. Slips my mind right now."
"No, it doesn't slip your mind. You don't know. No one does." 12-8's voice had turned brittle. "Top secret."
"Top secret."
"Top secret. I've got clearance." The little owl swelled up now with pride. "Flight clearance."
"Absolutely not! That is stupid. I couldn't have top secret clearance if I had flight clearance." But don't you want to fly? Soren was ready to scream the question. Just then, Finny returned.
"Ah, 12-8, you are doing a splendid job. What a little nurse you'll make."
"My wings do feel a lot better," Soren said sweetly, and marveled how deceptive he was quickly becoming. Oh, yes, his wings did feel better, but Soren had another idea, another question he wanted to throw out under the guise of a statement. "I'll tell you the thing that really always perks me up and makes me feel just fine in the gizzard."
"Oh, that's what we want, my dear," Finny cooed.
"A story. My favorite stories are the legends of Ga'Hoole. Yes, the Ga'Hoolian cycle, I think they are called."
A strange sound halfway between a yarp and the screech of a Screech Owl issued from Auntie Finny's beak, and she crumpled into a dead faint.
"Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness. I don't know what you said, 12-1, but I've got to nurse Nursey now." The little Spotted Owl trotted off to find a remedy.
"I know what I said," Soren whispered to himself. "I said, 'the legends of Ga'Hoole.'"
