The furless creature has fallen asleep. Its bare face is half covered by the frizz of brown hair that sprouts from its head. It is my chance.
I must escape this cave and find a place to pellet. The cave is larger than any tree hole I’ve lived in, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to foul my nest. There are standards to be maintained. Even for the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl in All of Owldom.
I creep forward and the cave shifts. Its walls groan and scratch. This cave does not seem to be stable.
The opening of the cave is blocked by some kind of web—the same web that had protected the mouse that trapped me. My talons are no use on it.
Pellets.
So I am stuck in here? The furless creature is going to force me to foul my nest?
I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!
My screech has woken it up.
It pushes aside the skin that hung down over the outside of the web and peers in at me, growls something. It looks away, howls for its mate: the big one with the gray fur tail dangling off its head.
They grumble to each other. I keep up the chatter to remind them that THINGS ARE DESPERATE. They must remove this web.
The one with the gray tail kneels in front of the cave and fiddles with the web. Some agreement must have been reached regarding my freedom. It grabs my feet in one thick, rough paw, wraps the other around my wings so I have no chance to fly, and carries me across what appears to be an even larger cave that my small nest-cave is inside to another small cave in the opposite corner.
So these are my options? Pellet in this nest or pellet in my own? These furless creatures are ruthless. The first chance I get, I am escaping this nightmare.
Once I have expelled my pellet, the gray tail snatches me up and puts me back in my nest-cave. The web is resealed over its opening. The brown-frizz creature resumes its watch.
I’ve seen animals play with their meals, but these furless creatures are taking things to an extreme. First, I’m poked and stretched and blustered by the smallish one with the black fur on its head. Then these two put me in this cave within a cave. I sense other owls have been trapped in here. Or at least other birds. There are talon scratches in the walls of the cave.
Is this what happened to my mother? She was taken by a furless creature. The shadowy silhouette that emerged from the rumbling monster was the same as these creatures’ forms. And now, having been inside a rumbling monster myself, I realize that she was not eaten by the monster. She was . . . or will be . . . eaten by the furless creature.
I wish Mother were here. I mean, not that she should be trapped with me or eaten, but just that, if we’re both to be trapped and eaten, I wish that we could have been trapped and eaten together.
This is how bad things are? My one wish is to die with my mother at the hands of these skin monsters?
I huddle as far from the cave’s web as I can get and glare at the furless creature. I may be the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl in All of Owldom, but I am still a great horned owl. I will not be taken down without a fight.
The furless creature has produced a squarish, flat rock that glows like moonlight on water. It taps the flat stone with its featherless wing-toes, the light flashes, and noise comes out of the rock. It sounds like . . . Great Beak, there are owls in that stone!
I start chirping quietly. Maybe the furless creature won’t notice . . . Maybe the owls will hear me and bring help.
But the furless creature notices. It puts the flat rock down, and the rock goes dark. The other owls cease to hoot.
Pellets.
The furless creature growls softly, all the while staring at me with its tiny brown eyes. It pinches a bit of mouse in its long, sharp, shiny removable claw and shoves the morsel in through the web.
“No way, Skin Monster,” I squawk, clacking my beak and retreating to the back of the cave.
I will not fatten myself up for its dinner. The furless creature can go choke on a bone.
But the furless creature is undeterred. It growls again, puts its face right up to the web. And then it does the strangest thing: It eats a nut. Or at least, something squishy and squarish that smells nutty. And right in front of my cave. I may not be able to smell much, but I can smell that! It chomps away on nuts like some overgrown squirrel that shed its fur like a leaf tree in winter.
This creature is taunting me.
Then again, it seems to really be enjoying those nuts.
Could it be that the furless creature is not keeping me here to eat me?
The smallish creature with the black hair on its head did seem to be surrounded by all sorts of animals. I heard everything from a rabbit snuffle to a coyote’s snort while in its cave. My wing does feel less hot and stingy after whatever the creature did to it. And the creatures were awfully nice about not making me foul my nest earlier.
Could it be that the furless creatures help other creatures? And eat nuts?
The furless creature puts its nuts away. It slips one big, rough paw over its naked little wing-toes and then picks up a mouse morsel. It fiddles with the web and then the web opens a crack. The paw reaches in with the mouse.
The meat does look good.
And I am a bit peckish.
I chance a step toward the paw.
The paw holds still. The mouse beckons with sanguine odors.
I chance another step. The noise of the furless creature’s huge heart pounding in its chest rattles my skull. What is it so nervous about?
Stretching my beak, I snap onto the morsel and gobble it down.
The creature gives off an excited squeak. It slips the paw back out of my cave, grabs another mouse morsel, and slowly, ever so slowly, moves the mouse toward me.
That one bite has got my gizzard screeching. I snap at the paw.
The creature grumbles, pulls the paw back.
Is it afraid of my beak?
I ruffle my feathers, lay back my ear tufts. “Okay, furless creature,” I chirp. “I promise I will not bite your paw.”
The creature must understand Owlish because it slowly brings the paw closer to me. I let it get right up near my beak and then carefully, not scraping even a scrap of that doofy paw, peck the morsel off the paw and gobble it down.
The creature squeaks again. Its face contorts into this creepy sneer. It looks happy, though. Its heart has slowed down.
This is what it wants? To have me nibble off its paw?
There’s a hoot in my head that it is unbecoming of a great horned owl to eat off any animal’s paw. But, then again, I am the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl ever. And I am still feeling off—weak and thirsty and hungry as a bear coming out of its sleep cave.
Perhaps eating off a paw is not such a bad thing. Perhaps, given recent events, I don’t give a hoot whether it’s becoming or not.
The creature grabs some more mouse with its paw and we go back and forth like this, me carefully nibbling off the paw, the creature squeaking with delight at each bite, until I am as full as I have ever been in my life.
When I can’t suffer another beakful, I hoot quietly, “That’ll be good morning,” and shuffle to the back of the cave, where I’ve scrunched up the thin, nubby matted fur on the bottom of the cave into a bit of a nest. I snuggle down into myself, let my eyelids drift up, and catch the furless creature outside the web snuggling down into itself, its eyelids drooping.
It’s nice to go to sleep with another heartbeat in your ears, even if it is the heartbeat of a giant furless beast.