“Hrrgrrrblll, hrrrgrrblll!” I said. “Unfair, unfair!”
But even though I could no longer see the fox, I could still hear him. Not that it did me any good. My ears picked up every stealthy footstep, the sound of his slow breathing, even the beating of his heart. Then, though I was not completely certain, I thought I heard something else too. Something that was not the fox.
“Now, what shall I do first to the Little Food?” said the self-satisfied fox. “Shall I pull out his tail feathers and show them to him one by one? Yes, I will do that.”
“Ahem,” said another, deeper voice. “Are you sure that is what you will dooo?”
That second voice too came from behind me. I could not see who was speaking. But my owl ears told me that this other being was both large and looking down at the fox as it spoke to him.
“Eeep,” the fox said. His voice was not at all self-satisfied now. I could hear his heart beat faster.
“Well?” said that deep voice again.
“Ah,” the fox said, his feet moving him backward and away from me as he spoke. “Ah, that is, I mean to say not at all. No, not at all. And now, yes, now I have remembered that I must go somewhere else. Yes, I must go. Right now!”
There was the sound of feet scrabbling in the leaves as the fox made a rapid turn and started to run. Then there was a bonking sound and an “Ouch!” as the fox’s head hit the tree behind him. More frantic sounds of fleeing fox feet followed.
“Excuse me,” the deep voice said. “I think he still needs a little reminder about who is food and whooo is not.”
Then came a sound that I knew well.
Fwoomp, fwoomp, fwoomp, fwoomp.
It was the soft beat of wings that would be silent to any other than owl ears. And next came a more distant, but louder, noise.
“YOWP!”
My ears showed me the picture of a fox being lifted up into the air.
“No, I say, no. Put me down. Not from this high, no. Yooowwp.”
Whomp!
The thud of the fox hitting the ground after being dropped was followed, after a brief silence, by the sound of a fox trying to skulk away quietly, despite the necessity of having to limp while doing so.
Fwoomp, fwoomp, fwoomp, fwoomp.
The wingbeats came back again and then the flying creature landed in front of me. Even upside down I could see that it was another owl. It was not my mother, but an older owl.
I could also see that this new owl had a friendly look on her face and the tip of a fox’s tail hanging from her beak.
“Great-grandson,” she said in a warm, deep voice, dropping the piece of fur to one side as she spoke, “let us get you out of those briars.”
CHAPTER 4
Who?
UPSIDE DOWN I STARED AT that big owl. “Who? Who? Whooo are you?” I said, full of suspicion.
“Little one,” she whootuled, “doooo not worry. I am your great-grandmother.”
Great-grandmother?
I wasn’t sure what that meant. And as she hopped closer to me, what I noticed most was how big and sharp her beak and her claws looked. Sure, she had just driven off that fox. But maybe she had only saved me so she could eat me herself.
I knew that big birds ate smaller birds. We had learned that early on from my mother. Hawks, crows, blue jays, those were all on my mother’s endless list of horrors. It seemed as if everything in the world equated nestlings with lunch.
And aside from my mother, I’d never seen another grown owl close-up before. I know now that usually both the mother and father bring food to their owlets, but my mother had always done it all by herself and I’d never thought to ask where my father had gone. She probably would not have told me. My mother never talked about the past. Just “eat this,” “beware of that.”
So, as that big owl hopped even closer, I stuck out my free foot again and clacked my beak. In response, she laughed. Yes, owls can laugh. I hadn’t known that until then, so I am not sure why the laughter touched me the way it did. Somehow I knew it was a friendly sound. Somehow I knew that it meant she was pleased with me.
“Huutttulllulll, huuttuullull,” my great-grandmother laughed. “You are a brave one, my little Wabi.”
Wabi? I’d never been called that before. The only name I’d ever known was Runt. Wabi. I liked that. I pulled my leg back in.
One more hop and my great-grandmother’s head was right next to mine. She gently nuzzled the base of my neck with her beak. It felt good. Now and then, but never often enough, my mother had done that to me.
I was caught good and tight. It took a lot of pulling and twisting and snipping of that blackberry bush to free me. It wasn’t easy, and I know that more than once those long thorns must have drawn blood from her as she worked. But she didn’t stop or slow down her steady pace. There was a job to do and she would get it done. I learned later that this was the way my great-grandmother did everything in her long life. She would always study a situation before making a decision, but once she was certain, nothing could stop her. That care and determination were two of the reasons why she was older than any other owl.
Finally there was only one more thorn holding me. She bent it with one foot, then leaned forward to tug with her beak.
SNAP!
It broke free and so did I. I landed—PLOP—right on my back. Instinctively, as soon as I felt the earth beneath me, I spread out my wings and thrust both feet up, claws spread wide.
“Huutttulllulll, huuttuullull,” my great-grandmother laughed again. “Wabi is ready to fight. But there is nooo need for that now. You are safe with me.”
Again, somehow, I knew that was so. I pulled my legs back in, folded my wings, and rolled up to my feet. I lifted my head to look up at my great-grandmother as she leaned over and nuzzled me again. And I felt something I had never really felt before in my brief harried life. I felt happy.
CHAPTER 5
First Flight
“GO TO SLEEP, WABI,” MY great-grandmother whootuled down to me softly.
She was perched just above me, on a sturdy branch of the small hemlock. This tree’s branches came down to the ground so thickly that it was impossible for any hungry creature to see the small owl crouched at the base of the tree, half asleep on a soft, dry cushion of needles. But my great-grandmother was not half asleep, even though the red eye of the Day Fire—which is what we owls call the sun—was now glowing bright. Her eyes were only partly open because of the bright daylight, but they were watchful. I looked up at her one more time and then closed my eyes to drift off into a peaceful sleep.
By now you must have realized that my great-grandmother was not like every other owl. Caring for a little one not directly your own was not the usual behavior of an owl. Not only had she spent half the night hunting for food to feed my hungry mouth, she had found this safe spot for me to hide until my wings were strong enough to fly.
It is true that some mother birds keep feeding their little ones when they fall from the nest too soon. My own mother, though, was not one of those. Out of nest, out of mind was her way. Gone is forgotten.
I suppose I can understand that when I consider the fact that my mother was caring for us all by herself. It was probably hard for her to think of anything other than finding enough food. And my mother was not a thinker. Listen, fly, grab, gulp, then do it all over again until the bright eye in the sky comes back. Then sleep and dream about listening, flying, grabbing, and gulping. That was my mother’s entire life, aside from the brief time she’d spent with my father.
Great-grandmother, who for sure was one who thought of many things, explained that to me when I asked her why my mother didn’t do a better job of caring for me.
“Do not be angry at her, Wabi,” she cooed to me. “She does not know much.”
Then she told me I was more like my father, her grandson. Not in thinking. He wasn’t much at that or he never would have ended up with my mother. But in courage.
“Your father,” Great-grandmother said, “ne
ver feared anything, nooo, not him.” Then she shook her head sadly.
As the beautiful light of the night traveler, the moon, shone each night, my great-grandmother kept feeding and preening me. She faithfully kept watch over me during each day. The moon grew from a thin arc to a full round face during that time. I grew too. More than I had ever grown before. Not having to compete with a greedy brother made a difference.
Finally, as I flapped my wings in that little sheltering place under our hemlock, I felt that I was ready.
“I want to try,” I said. “Now, now. I want to fly!”
My great-grandmother pushed a branch aside with her shoulder. I hopped out, and jumped and flapped hard at the same time.
And I flew! I flew strong and straight! I flapped again and again and . . . I ran right into the trunk of a white birch tree.
Whomp! Flop!
I was on my back on the ground again. My feathers had cushioned the blow and I wasn’t hurt, but I was angry. I jumped up and glared at that birch tree, lowered my head, lifted my wings and . . . then thought better of it. It would not do any good to fight with a tree. It hadn’t tried to knock me down. I had flown into it. I lowered my wings and swiveled my head around to look at my great-grandmother, who had just landed behind me.
“Goooood,” she said. Her voice sounded happy.
“That was not a good flight,” I said. I was not happy. “You saw me run into that tree.”
Great-grandmother chuckled. “That is true,” she said. “But I was not talking about your flight. It is good that you did not attack that tree. Your father ran into a birch tree the first time he flew toooo. Then he spent half of the night fighting with it. He clawed all the lower bark off that tree and broke one of his claws. And even when he finally saw he could not beat a tree, he made it a point to never land in a birch from then on. Wabi, it is good that you know how to think.”
Her words pleased me so much that I opened my wings, flapped them, and flew again. This time I didn’t fly into that tree. I shrugged one shoulder a little more than the other, as I had seen my great-grandmother do. It worked. I turned and turned. I flew in a circle around the tall birch, rising higher and higher until I landed in its topmost branch.
“I am Wabi,” I called up to the face of the night traveler. “I can think.”
My great-grandmother came flying up and I moved in a little to make room for her. “That is true,” she called. “True, true, trooo.”
CHAPTER 6
Questions
WHEN I THINK BACK ON those seasons while I was growing up, I realize how patient my great-grandmother was with me. No matter what I asked her, she always tried to give me an answer.
“Why is there day and night?” I asked her once, raising my ear tufts in an inquisitive way. We were sitting together on the high limb of a pine just as the eye of the day was vanishing.
“Hoo-too-loo, long agooo . . .” she began.
I leaned against her, fluffing out my feathers in delight. I loved it whenever she started to answer this way. It meant a story.
“Hoo-too-loo,” she hooted again, “there was nothing but dark. There was darkness everywhere. There was a world then, but it was always night.”
“Hooo-hooo,” I said, raising my ear tufts even higher. The thought of a world where it was always night was wonderful and exciting.
“It was beautiful,” my great-grandmother said. “In that world loooong ago, we flew in darkness all the time. Even the night traveler did not show her face. We hunted and flew and sang in the darkness, and it sang back to us.”
“Hooo-hooo,” I said again as my great-grandmother paused to let the picture of her story grow in my thoughts.
“Ooh-hoo,” said great grandmother, “but although that dark was good for owls, it was not good for all things. The little ones who eat plants and grasses had no food, for their food would not grow without the light. So the Great Darkness spoke to us; it asked us to agree that there should also be light. That way the creatures that feared the darkness could survive, that way plants would be able to grow. And there was one more thing.
“‘Soooon,’ the Great Darkness said, ‘there will be other beings here. They will walk on two legs as you owls do when you are on the ground. But they will not fly and they will be afraid of the darkness for they will not be as brave as owls. You owls,’ the Great Darkness continued, ‘are my best creation, I love you very much. But I ask you to sacrifice, to give up half of the beautiful night so that these pitiful new beings can also live.’”
Great-grandmother paused and looked toward the horizon where the moon was just beginning to appear.
I knew what was going to happen next in her story. It made me feel proud to be an owl. It also made me curious about those two-legged ones that were mentioned by the Great Darkness. I had not heard about them before.
“Soooo,” great-grandmother said, “we owls agreed. We gave up half of the beautiful night to make day. And that is how it has been ever since.”
“Hooo-hoo,” I said.
I felt glad about what the Great Darkness did. Even though the brightness of day hurt my eyes, it was a good thing. Without day, we would not have so many things to eat. Those mice and rabbits and squirrels and other creatures could only grow to be fat and tasty by eating the plants that needed the light to grow.
Thinking back now to when I was sure that everything in the world had been made for us night-flyers, I have to smile at how little I really understood.
“Great-grandmother,” I asked at the time, “who are those two-legged ones that the Great Darkness spoke of? Did they ever get created?”
Great-grandmother looked at me in a strange way, as if she was remembering something sad. Then she nodded her head. “Yes, Wabi. Those two-legged ones are called human beings.”
“Do any of them live near us? What are they like? Can we go and see them?”
She chuckled. “You are asking tooo many questions at once, great-grandson. Yes, there are humans who live close by. And you will learn what they are like one day. I am sure of that.”
I rocked back and forth from one foot to another.
“Can we go see them now?” I asked.
“Not yet, Wabi, but soooon.”
I stared down at my feet, trying not to ask more questions, but it was no use. “Great-grandmother, how is it that you know so much?”
“It is because I know what I do not know, Wabi,” she said to me.
I was confused. How could you know what you do not know? Did that mean knowing or not knowing? I sat staring at my feet through half the night and still didn’t have an answer.
I had so many questions that I felt as if my head would burst. I could not keep quiet.
“Why do I ask so many questions?” I said to Great-grandmother one day.
“It is because you are you,” she answered.
That led to another bout of foot-staring, and not just for one night. How could I be anyone else but me?
It was many winters later when I asked the question that changed everything for me. I was now the biggest owl in the whole forest. That was a surprise to me, but even more of a surprise to others. Usually female owls are bigger than males.
The question came about because of a chance meeting one night with another owl. My sister. I came across her while hunting in our far ridge one look away from my roosting place. (A look is as far as you can see while sitting in a high place. That is how we owls measure distance.)
My sister swiveled her head to look up at me when I floated down onto the branch just above her.
“Sister, hello,” I said in a neutral tone.
I was determined to be polite, even if she had intruded on the hunting territory that great-grandmother and I controlled.
She fluffed up her feathers, trying to look bigger. Then she realized that she recognized my voice. She stared hard at me.
“Rrrtrrbrrll, ull-ooo?” she hooted in a confused voice. Runt, is that you?
“The name is Wabi,”
I said. “I am Runt no longer. What do you think of that? Are you not glad to see me?”
She didn’t answer me. She just kept staring. Perhaps her narrow mind could not accept the fact that I was not only alive but bigger than she was.
She may have been surprised too at the way I looked. And here is another thing I have not mentioned before—the color of my feathers.
In every way but one, I looked like other owls of my kind—from the two tufts of feather that rise like horns on top of my head to the sharp, curved claws on my feet. In every way but one—my color. My color was not like theirs. Where their feathers were brown, mine were pale, almost the color of snow.
That was why my great-grandmother had given me the name Wabi, which means “white.” By the light of the moon, especially on a night when her face was full and open as it was on the night when I met my sister again, I almost glowed.
My sister kept staring at me, her ear tufts flattened down against her head. There was no friendship in her gaze and certainly not much intelligence. I lost patience with her.
“HOO-HOO! HOOOO!” I hooted in my loudest voice, spreading my wings as I did so. “MY TERRITORY! MOVE!”
My sister did just that. She dove off the branch and flapped her wings, not in the leisurely way we do when hunting, but in panic, vanishing into the distance. She would not intrude on my hunting ground again.
I went looking for Great-grandmother. It did not take me long to find her. She was in the top of a great pine that stood not far from the place where I had just had my encounter with my unfriendly sister. She had probably seen—and heard—it all.
That was when I asked the question.
“Why didn’t my sister answer me?”
Great-grandmother looked at me. It was one of those looks that told me I had to be patient and listen closely. So I did, even though I rocked back and forth from one foot to the other as I waited.
“Wabi,” Great-grandmother said at last, looking out at the forest as she spoke, “she could not understand you.”
Wabi Page 2