Read Online The Shattering (Guardians of Ga'hoole) by Kathryn Lasky - Free Book Online Page B

still have one? She had not felt anything in her gizzard, not a twinge, in days, weeks!
    This should panic her, she realized, but oddly it did not. Something is wrong. Something is very strange, but why don’t I care? All I care about is seeing Mum and I don’t even care that she forgets and calls me ‘darling’, not ‘Eggie’ like she used to. Even when the other owls discovered the pages that she herself had torn out of the higher magnetics book, Eglantine had felt nothing. Not guilty, not happy that she had done it, although her mum was happy when she’d brought them toher. In truth, Eglantine didn’t even know what happy was anymore, just as she didn’t know what sad was. She should be sad about Primrose. But it was just too much trouble, too much energy to feel anything. And the oddness of it all struck her now. Her gizzard was still as a stone. She looked at Ginger and out of curiosity said, “You know, Primrose is my best friend. It’s funny I don’t feel sad or anything.”
    “Well, maybe she’s not really your best friend, Eglantine,” Ginger replied. She paused and walked up to her. “Maybe I am.”
    Eglantine looked at Ginger a very long time and then squinted her eyes. “No, no. I don’t think so.” And for the first time in days she felt a dim little pulse in her gizzard.
    “Suit yourself,” Ginger said amiably, and turned her back.
    Eglantine had been assigned to a team of trackers and rescuers led by Digger, who was one of the best in the tracking chaw. Eglantine was a trainee in search-and-rescue and knew many of the basics, such as how to first scan for crows’ nests in any vicinity. Crows were known to mob owls, especially owls flying alone in daylight hours. And then, of course, the searchers tried to listen for any cries of distress. Barn Owls were renowned for their hearing abilities. With unevenly placed ear slits and slightly concave faces that could scoop up sounds from any direction,Barn Owls were able to detect the slightest noise—from the chirp of a lone cricket to the heartbeat of a mouse. As Eglantine flew, she felt that something was just a little off-kilter. Her sight and her hearing were not matching up as they had in the past. That was weird. Oh, well. She just began to say the words to herself when she thought, Oh, well? I shouldn’t be thinking “oh, well” It can mean life or death for an owl if its hearing and its vision don’t match up. I should be in a complete panic. But I’m not. What is happening to me? What has happened to me?
    “For Glaux’s sake!” Martin, a little Northern Saw-whet and a good friend of Soren’s, shouted at her. “Watch where you’re flying, Eglantine! You nearly clipped me on that last turn.”
    “Sorry,” she said mildly.
    Digger swiveled his head around. What is wrong with Eglantine? he wondered for perhaps the tenth time in the last couple of hours.
    There was no sign of Primrose. They had flown out in multiple directions and found nothing. There was now talk of contacting their slipgizzles in certain regions of the Southern Kingdoms. They returned before dawn. Eglantine skipped breaklight and went directly to bed. But she did not sleep. All morning and through the afternoon she satperched above her bed of moss and down. It was scratchier than the one that her mum had fixed so lovingly for her in the dream hollow. She blinked and wondered. Is that all I feel anymore, just the softness or roughness of something? Then there was another little pulse, a twinge in her gizzard. That dream, the very real dream, it had been nice, even lovely. I can visit the dream hollow as I please…as I please. But does it please me? And Ginger is nice, but she’s not like Primrose, is she? Primrose was never jealous. Something stirred uncomfortably in her. Jealous. Primrose had said that Ginger might be jealous. Friends were not jealous. But Ginger wasn’t exactly a friend. Why am I thinking this? Eglantine wondered. And then like the bits and