Right Side Up in an Upside-down World
The next night, Gylfie ànd Soren met under the arch of the glaucidium. They were to begin the Great Scheme, but Soren suddenly had doubts.
"I'm really worried, Gylfie. It might not work."
"Soren," Gylfie pleaded, "who knows if it will work or not, but what have we got to lose if we don't try it?"
"Our minds, to start with," Soren replied. Gylfie gave the soft churn sound of a chuckle that is nearly universal for all owls.
There was a swoosh in the air and suddenly the little Elf Owl was flat on her back. "There is no laughing.
Laughter may only be practiced under the direction of Lieutenant Spoorn. Don't do it again. Next time you shall be reported immediately, and I shall anticipate eagerly your first lesson in correct laughter."
The monitor then moved away. Soren and Gylfie looked at each other wordlessly. This had to be the strangest place imaginable. They taught one how to sleep! Lessons in laughter! Laughter therapy! Soren wondered what possibly could be the purpose of a place like St. Aggie's. What were they really learning to do here and why? What were the flecks, more precious than gold? What were Skench and Spoorn trying to turn them into? Not owls, for sure! But there was not time to dwell on that. Soren had another matter that had been bothering him more and more since his own laughter therapy session.
"Gylfie, you can get out, maybe, but not me. But you can. "What are you talking about, Soren?"
"Gylfie, you are just a short time from being fully fledged -- look at you. I think you've budged some more beginning primaries today. You'll be able to leave soon."
"And so will you."
"What are you talking about? I think you have been moon blinked. They just plucked my feathers, Gylfie."
"They plucked your down. Look, your primary shaft points are still there, and I see some secondary ones, too."
Soren lifted one wing and examined it. There were still budging points. Gylfie was right on this. But, Soren wondered, without down what...?
It was as if Gylfie had read his thoughts. "You don't
need down to fly, Soren. Down just keeps you warm. You can fly without it. It'll just be cold, and who knows? By the time your flight feathers really come in, you'll probably have some more down."
Soren blinked again. For the first time, there was hope in the dark eyes set like polished stones in his white heart- shaped face, and something quickened in Gylfie's own heart. She had to convince Soren that he could do this. She had to make him really believe in the Great Scheme.
Gylfie had watched as her older brothers and sisters had reached that point, when they seemed to mysteriously gather strength and lift into flight after days of endless hopping. She remembered asking her father how they did it. Now her fathers words came back to her: "Gylf, you can practice forever and still never fly if you do not really believe you can. That is what gives you that feeling in the gizzard." Then her father had stopped and, in a musing tone of voice, said, "Funny isn't it, how all our strongest feelings come through our gizzards -- even a feeling that is about our wings." He had ruffled a few of his flight feathers as if to demonstrate. "It all comes through our gizzard," he had repeated.
"Listen to me, Soren," Gylfie said. "I found out a lot in the pelletorium after you fainted and they had to carry you out."
Soren blinked and shivered his shoulders in the way young owls do when they are embarrassed or ashamed. "Yes, Gylfie, while I was stupidly asking questions you were listening."
"Quit beating up on yourself," Gylfie said sharply. "They've already done that." Gylfie's directness shocked Soren. He stopped blinking and looked straight at the Elf Owl. "Look. What did I just tell you?
Everything here at St. Aggie's is upside down and inside out. It's our job not to get moon blinked and to stand right side up in an upside- down world. If we don't do that we'll never be able to escape. We'll never be able to think. And thinking is the only way we'll be able to plan an escape. So listen to me."
Soren nodded and Gylfie continued. "Now first, I have figured out that tonight is the third night of full shine. In fact, the moon has already started to dwenk. Remember, I told you about this. You'll see that in a few days it shall almost disappear and we won't have to worry about being moon blinked. Every night in the glaucidium, it will become darker and darker and easier and easier for us to find the shadows. But in the meantime, we must act as if we are moon blinked."
Soren resisted asking a question even though he knew there was no danger with Gylfie.
But still, he simply did not want to break into Gylfie's thoughts. It was clear to Soren that this Elf Owl might be very small in every way but her ideas. And he could tell that Gylfie was thinking very hard now.
"After one more newing," Gylfie continued, "you shall be very close to having fledged all of your flight feathers, and certainly by the time of full shine, you shall be ready to fly."
"But what about you, Gylfie? You will be ready in a few days."
"I shall wait for you."
"Wait for me!" It was not a question. Soren was simply shocked. Too shocked to even speak. So finally it was Gylfie who asked the question.
"What's wrong, Soren?"
"Gylfie, I cannot believe what you just said. Why would you wait for me when you can get out of here?"
"That's just the point, Soren. I would never leave you behind. You are my friend, first of all. If I escaped without you, my life would not be worth two pellets to me. And second, we need each other."
"I need you more than you need me," Soren said in a small voice.
"Oh, racdrops!" Once more Soren could hardly believe his ears. Racdrops, short for raccoon droppings, was one of the most daring, dirtiest, worst words an owlet could say. Kludd had gotten thumped good and hard by his mother when Mrs. Plithiver had reported that he had said "racdrops" to her when she insisted he stop teasing Eglantine.
"Soren, you were the one who realized that they were
trying to moon blink us with our own names by having us repeat them. That was brilliant."
"But you were the one who knew about moon blinking in the first place. I'd never heard of it."
"I just knew something that you didn't. That's not thinking, just happening to know it. You would have known it if you had been hatched a little earlier or lived in the desert. But now I learned something new.
You see, Soren," Gylfie continued, "after they took you away, I made a discovery That owlet 47-2, she sent me on an errand. It was outside the pelletorium and ..." Gylfie looked about, then continued her tale in a low voice. The first shine of the moon was just beginning to slither over the dark horizon.
