The Brown Frizz appears at my nest but does not pick open the web and come inside.
Strange.
Instead, she kneels down, pushes open a space in the web, and pokes something inside.
Even more strange.
The something rolls like an egg. Is it an egg? I stretch my wings and drop beside the egg. I snatch at it with a claw. It’s hard. My talons slip over it and it hops away, unscathed. The audacity of this egg—scampering off from a great horned owl.
YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME, EGG!
I am all talons after this egg. It hops and scrambles, but I am fast and cunning and—nope. Got away again.
DIE, EGG!
I pierce it with a claw—nothing.
“Honestly, Owl, did your mother teach you nothing?” Red is glaring down from her perch near the opening.
“That’s cold.” How could she say such a thing, knowing what she knows?
“I am being serious,” she squawks. “Did she teach you anything? Because that is not how we birds of prey hunt. Do you think I stomp around in the grass hoping to pierce a meal on my talons?”
Wait.
Did she screech “hunt”?
Mother never would have sunk so low as to bob along the grass after a meal. No, she dropped down like the night sky itself, her talons invisible until they sliced into their target.
That’s it.
I have to smother this egg. That’s the trick of it.
I flap up, fix my eyes on the egg, stretch forward with my talons, and dive down onto it. Four toes grip its smooth surface and squeeze. THE EGG IS MINE!
I peck it for good measure.
It is very hard. I will not do that again.
The Brown Frizz is giving off Good Feelings, so apparently this egg hunt is what she’d been hoping for.
“Nice catch,” Red screeches from her perch. “Now try it again.” She turns her head away toward the space between our nests and the human nest, or the perch meadow, as I like to think of it.
If I can hunt this egg once, I can do it again.
Releasing my talons, I let the egg roll. I hop after it, but my talons keep slipping off each time I reach out to grab it.
Have I learned nothing?
I flap up, sight the egg, extend my talons so they’re nearly at the tip of my beak, and crash down on the egg.
IT IS MINE!
I release it again. And smash down upon it. I do it again. And again. I AM MASTER OF THE EGG!
The Brown Frizz is practically buzzing with Good Feelings. She comes inside the web and calls me to her paw with a scrap of mouse, which is just the thing I’m needing about now after all that egg hunting. As I swallow it down, she attaches the infernal tails and vine to my leg sparkles and walks us into the perch meadow. She lifts the paw and I fly to the nearest perch. I glance around the space, taking in the late afternoon light, the rush of the day noises, which are mostly the furless creatures’ growling monsters. The Gray Tail has come out of the human nest and walks across the perch meadow. A crow flaps far off, its caw like a talon through my ears.
My ear tufts flatten; I really hate crows. Just hearing them brings back that long-ago day in the woods, the swarm, having to walk, humiliated, through the leaves . . .
The Brown Frizz cries out, interrupting my dark thoughts, and suddenly I see a rustling in the grass.
Is the Brown Frizz warning of danger? Tufts up!
The grass rustles again, and now I see what appears to be a mouse with a large green wing sticking out of its back.
The mouse hops.
If I can catch an egg, I can catch this mouse.
Okay, first steps: prepare for flight, open wings, get some air, take aim, talons out . . . Now DIVE! I am like a bolt of lightning shooting down from the clouds. I stretch my talons wide and smash down onto that mouse and—oh, it’s dead.
This green wing is hard and shiny and definitely not a normal part of a mouse. There is a vine coming off the green wing, and—ah, yes. The Brown Frizz is holding the end of the vine.
So, we are both on vines, eh, mouse? But you are dead and I am not, so I’m calling you dinner!
I rip off a beakful, and the Brown Frizz shuffles over in her little toe covers and removes the green wing. Because I know she won’t take my mouse, I let her.
After I eat, I flap up to a perch. Red swoops down from a tree. When did she get out of her nest?
“You’re catching on quick,” she chirps.
“I’m a great horned owl,” I say. Even the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl is a still a great horned owl.
Red raises her crown, feathers fluffing. “Oh, are you, now?”
“I am a GREAT HORNED OWL!” I screech.
The Brown Frizz tweets and holds up her paw, and I soar across the perch meadow. As I pass the forest, I hear the thrum of life—heartbeats in the grass. I could catch them all, I know it. I twist, I flap.
The Brown Frizz whistles again. I glance back at her. She shakes the paw. There’s mouse on it.
Ah, the forest can wait.
I bank again, flap, and soar over to her paw. She’s giving off waves of fear, her heartbeat pounds. Did I do that?
“I’m sorry, Brown Frizz,” I peep, nibbling at her frizzy head fur. “I just heard the call.”
“You heard it?” Red sits atop the Gray Tail’s paw. Her amber eyes bore into me.
I turn to look again into the deepening black of the forest. The heartbeats pound, the darkness pulls me. “I feel it.”
Red fluffs her crown again, then rouses. “That’s good,” she chirps. “Very good.”
The Brown Frizz puts me back in my nest, and I flap up to my favorite perch. Something has changed, though. The roof feels so much lower, like it’s pressing down on my tufts. The walls feel so much closer around me, though I can still flap as far.
How can the world change without actually changing?
As the dawn breaks, I hear the sound of squeaking. The Brown Frizz is nearby but outside my nest. The squeaking is definitely inside.
Glancing around in the half day, I see movement across the dirt.
I twitch my feathers. The heartbeats sweep and swerve and then stop. The dark patch of dirt below me is no longer a stretch of black: in the corner, the noise of the heartbeats glows slightly. I can see the heartbeats, I can see the mouse.
This is just like the egg.
This is hunting.
I lift and stretch my wings, and drop silently. I extend my legs forward, talons near my beak.
The mouse scuttles along the wall.
I hear you . . . I see you.
I flap, swerve, and adjust my feet, all silently, like a movement of the night itself. I dive, dropping like rain.
I hit the mouse. Squeeze my talons. The heartbeats stop.
I caught the mouse.
“I did it!” I screech.
Red squawks, flaps loudly. “What skunk! Where?!”
“No skunk, Red—I caught a mouse! Right here! It snuck into my nest!” I grab the meat in my beak and gobble it down in one gulp.
I haven’t tasted anything like it since . . . since Mother.
“Well done, Hatchling,” Red tweets.
The Brown Frizz is clapping her wing-toes and hooting with joy. The Gray Tail is with her and is giving off Good Feelings.
I did it.
I hunted.
I am no longer the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl in All of Owldom.
If I can hunt, I’ve definitely moved up to being one of the Marginally Capable Great Horned Owls Who Probably Still Won’t Survive the Winter.
And that’s a start.