“Surely, we can’t be any threat to them, can we? But they’re really getting angry now!” she added, getting increasingly alarmed.
Roger said nothing and kept on walking. He wasn’t going to be scared off by a bunch of belligerent birds, not on his first real adventure and journey into the unknown!
“I don’t know,” he grunted moodily. “Let’s get to the top, like we said we would, O.K.?”
He tended to get snappy like that whenever he got scared. And this was definitely one of those scary times, for sure.
“Well, I certainly get the feeling that we’re not wanted here, don’t you?” Mary persisted.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Roger answered curtly. He was not at all used to trekking across such unknown country and climbing up steep, wooded hills either, let alone then being bothered and bush-whacked by a bunch of rude and raucous birds.
Wings were being flapped and feathers ruffled, and talons scraped bitingly against bark. But the incessant cawing, chirping, and hooting was the worst and was still getting louder. All the branches above them were raining down debris of twigs and leaves, some were even bouncing off their heads and shoulders.
They were both well and truly caught up in the middle of a ‘mad maelstrom of arboreal ire and dire ornithological outrage,’ as Roger would have put it; or, at least, would have, if he’d had his usual wits to think clearly with; which of course he didn’t have right then.
Mary, of course, would have just said that they were in an angry wood full of angry birds!
Then, without warning, everything went suddenly quiet. All the birds, as one, stopped their chirping, and the rain of leaves and twigs dwindled to nothing. Roger froze in his tracks, with Mary standing right behind him. A few late afternoon sunbeams came through the branches of the trees above, and the last drizzles of dirt and dust swirled eerily in the air around them.
Mary stepped toward Roger and was about to say something, but then froze too, her eyes widening, and gazing pointedly at Roger, in a mix of horror and amazement.
“Wh-wh-what’s up, Mary?” he asked, looking at her, and getting even more worried.
“Y-y-yes, exactly!” she cried, wide-eyed. “Up, up, UP!… Above you, Roger! Look up!”
Roger shrank into himself, suddenly gripped with the fear of what might be above him.
He stood, stone-statue still, frozen immobile, swallowing hard and trying to decide when he would actually dare to raise his head and look upwards and behind him. Then, after a heart-stopping second or sixty… he finally decided to look.
He lifted his head slowly upwards and raised his eyes towards the leafy branches of the tree above, that loomed so dark and menacingly behind him.
There, perched on a low, broad branch, sat three huge, rotund and dish-eyed birds.
Roger, in his confusion, didn’t at first recognize what they were, but of course Mary did, right away.
“They’re owls, Roger, three huge, enormous owls!”
“Oh, by Newton’s Nobbly Noggin, it seems there are some unusually big creatures in this Bad Wood, aren’t there, Mary?” he whispered to her incredulously, trying to control his steadily rising panic. “Wh-wh-what do you think they want?”
But Mary said nothing. She too was on tenterhooks as to just what they were in for now.
Keeping his eyes on the three giant owls, Roger cringed and felt his stomach shrinking, then he started to very slowly step backward, taking hold of Mary’s hand and preparing to run for it. “Prudence is the better part of valour!” he thought.
Then one of the Owls spoke.
“Whooooo are yooooouuu?”
“I’m n-n-not anyone, s-s-sir,” replied Roger meekly, after a short, tongue-tied hesitation.
“Hmmmmm, not anyone, eh? Oh dear, dear, dear. I’m sooo very sad to hear that, indeed,” said the giant owl, speaking slowly and in deep and sonorous tones. “Well, young Humdrum, I am someone, and my name is Strix, and these are my Co-Primes, Tyton, and Athene; and we three represent all of the Birds of the Greater Lundun Owl Parliament.”
Roger gulped and didn’t know what to say. These were like no owls he’d ever seen or had heard of before; they had massive, razor-sharp talons that tightly gripped the branch on which they were perched. Each Owl had a short hawk-like beak on a flat, dish-like face and very large, forward-facing eyes, surrounded by conspicuous circles of feathers.
One had a mix of dark brown and tawny-coloured feathers with orange-gold eyes, another had black and white feathers with pale amber eyes, and Strix himself had mottled grey-silver plumage, with bright yellow eyes. However, the most striking feature for all three of them was the fact that they were each at least five-foot high.
These, indeed, were truly Giant Owls.
The three owls now patiently waited for Roger’s reply, but Mary came forward and took the lead, quickly realizing Roger had temporarily lost his power of speech, and possibly his mind, as well.
“Please, Master Owl, please do excuse us, we didn’t mean to disturb you, really we didn’t. We’re just sort of… well, we’re sort of exploring, is all,” she finished somewhat bashfully, feeling quite inadequate in her explanation, as well as in herself. After all, these large and noble creatures seemed so very regal and so, well … important.
“And whooooo are yooooouuu?” Strix now asked her.
“M-m-my name’s Mary.” She curtsied, feeling a bit ridiculous doing so, but still wanting to make as good an impression as she possibly could. “And this is my good friend Roger,” she added, pointing at Roger. “We’re really not used to talking to animals, you see, or such big b-b-birds like you.”
“Big Birds?” cried out one of the owls; Athene, by the look of it, Mary judged correctly.
“Maybe it’s rude to call a bird Big,” she thought, “oh dear, I bet I’ve put my foot in it!”
“We are not Big Birds!” Athene huffed, ruffling her tawny feathers in indignation. “We are the Co-Primes of the G.L.O.P., The Greater Lundun Owl Parliament, and as such, are the elected leaders of all avian peoples. Also, my little Humdrum, we are not all ‘Masters’ either; I for one, am a ‘Mistress’ and you will kindly address me as such, if you please.”
“Y-y-y-yes, Sir, Ma’am, M-m-mistress — sorry!” Mary answered, getting more and more flabbergasted by the second.
The third Giant Owl, Tyton, had remained silent throughout. He had sat and quietly maintained a lofty and unnerving gaze on Roger and Roger had begun to feel even more uncomfortable than he had been already. Tyton’s gaze was unwavering and somehow very penetrating. Roger felt as if the Owl was slowly stripping his exposed soul away, layer by exposed layer, like an onion; which, strangely, in a way, was just what he was doing.
“I wish to hear the boy speak,” said Tyton in a commanding tone whilst still staring at Roger, his large amber eyes glowing as if lit with an inner fire.
“Wh-wh-what would you like to know, Sir?” Roger stuttered.
“Now, that’s a very good question,” replied Tyton, “that’s a very good question indeed. What would I like to know? Hmmmm, well, let me see. I would like to know many, many things, young Humdrum, but right now I would like to know why you are here, in our wood, disturbing our Owl Parliament?”
Roger felt that it was about time he stopped being such a wet-blanket and a ‘wet-wuss’ (as Mary had put it). He was sick and tired of always being chased and threatened and scared.
“And, on top of it all, I’m now about to be bullied by a bunch of over-sized bird-brains, who really if they’re so wise ought to know better,” he thought, getting himself worked up.