Lost Tales of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky Read Free Book Online Page A

slabs of polished ice to catch the sun. I should really do something to stop them , Flinn thought again, but he did not move.
    Flinn watched as chaos filled the western sky. Beams of reflected sunlight blinded the approaching kraals. They were flying into one another and falling out of the sky! Flinn turned toward the east just in time to see Gylfie and her companion fly off. They made their getaway after all. Funny, Flinn found himself rooting for the prisoner rather than for his fellow kraals.
    What a smart little owl! Flinn thought again.
    After relating to Fritha the tale of the escape of Gylfie and the false, golden-painted Glaux, Flinn told his grown daughter that, many moon cycles after that valiant escape, he was impressed by another little owl.
    It was the night of a full moon. Flinn was watching the diminutive egg in his nest rattle, gently at first, then with increasing urgency. It’s almost time! He could hardly believe it. This was the little egg that was never supposed to hatch. When Flinn’s mate laid this egg, she immediately saw that it was flawed—it was very small, even for the egg of a Pygmy Owl, and had a long thin crack that ran from top to bottom. Damaged eggs don’t hatch, she told Flinn.
    For a while, he thought it was just as well. His mate, Freya, had insisted on going on a raid with the rest of the kraals, and she never made it back. He wasn’t surprised; Freya was always taking risks. She was a kraal through and through—as fierce as an owl ten times her size. He admired that, but he feared it, too. He feared he would lose her one day. And he did. He missed her dearly.
    Flinn did not push the tiny flawed egg out of the nest, as Freya had told him to do. He couldn’t do it, at least not until he knew for sure that it wasn’t a hatcher. So, he had taken care of it, kept it warm, and surrounded it with the softest down he could pull from his own chest. You never know , he figured, the little egg might have a chance .
    And now, it was going to hatch!
    Just as Flinn leaned in to take a closer look, the crack that had always been on the egg grew wider. Pop! A tiny spur sprang out of the egg, making a tiny hole in the shell. The shell split along its crack. Out fell the tiniest little chick Flinn had ever seen, wet and glistening, with a head as big as the rest of its body. He took one look at his daughter and decided that Fritha would be her name.
    The egg that wasn’t supposed to hatch did. Fritha opened her beak and made a noise so loud that it could have come from an owl ten times her size. She looked at her da with big, curious eyes that seemed to be thinking already. Flinn was in love.
    On the day Fritha became fully fledged, Flinn took her to the nearest dye basin in the tundra at dawn and taught her how to paint her own feathers.
    As they went over how to apply dye to one’s own head, Fritha asked, “Da, why do we paint our feathers?”
    “Because the colors look nice,” he answered. “Don’t you like all the colors, Fritha?”
    “I like the colors,” Fritha said hesitantly. “It’s just that…brown and gray are colors, too, aren’t they? What’s wrong with them?”
    “Nothing, dear.”
    “Then why do we cover the brown and gray of our feathers with all these other colors?”
    What an inquisitive little owl , thought Flinn, always asking why this and why that . She left no question unasked, and no answer unchallenged. She was his daughter through and through. He had to think about the answer carefully, because it was bound to lead to a lot more questions.
    “It’s how we make ourselves unique, and how we push the boundaries of our owlness,” Flinn had finally said.
    “The colors do that?”
    “Yes.” Flinn thought a little more and added, “It’s what’s called an art.”
    “An art.” Fritha nodded, seeming to understand. She applied the pink and vermilion dyes over her head with care, just as her da was showing her to do.
    A few days later, Flinn found Fritha