Wabi (2 page)

My brother had seen his chance. My feet grabbed at the small sticks that edged our nest, but I was too late. I had been pushed right out. I was falling.

“RRTTTTBLLL!” my brother hooted triumphantly as I plummeted. Down I went, down, down toward the deadly ground below.

MY DROP COULD NOT HAVE taken long, but it didn't seem that short to me. I had far too much time to think about far too many things as the wind of my fall whistled past me.

Our mother had warned us so many times about what was down there that it seemed to me impossible I could survive. “Stumps and stones will break all your bones,” she would burble whenever she saw one of us even leaning toward the edge of the nest to try and look over.

And if getting all my bones broken didn't kill me, that would not be the end of it. I could then look forward to some hungry creature coming to eat me up.

All of that might have happened if I had just kept tumbling, beak over tail. But at some point I remembered those new wing feathers that I had been admiring.

Birds don't fall,
a voice inside my head said.
They fly.

I thrust my wings open. It stopped my descent almost as suddenly as a spider coming to a halt in midair at the end of its silk thread. Almost. You see, I didn't stop completely. Opening my wings just turned my plummeting fall into a slow glide. Slow enough for me to realize I was heading right toward a big pine tree whose lower branches had died and broken off, leaving stubs that looked as sharp as fangs. If I ran into one, I would be impaled. I wouldn't have to worry then about hungry predators. I would already be dead meat!

I tried wildly to remember how my mother looked when she flew. What was it that she did to stop or change directions as she came in to land? Feet out, shoulders hunched up—that was it. I thrust my legs forward and shrugged my shoulders. It worked! Not only did I slow down, I managed to turn away from the pine tree entirely.

But in my excitement, I thrust my feet and flapped just a little too hard.

Whooops! I flipped backward in midair and landed—if you can call it that—totally upside down. I hadn't struck any of those stumps or stones my mother had warned about, but I had been introduced to something else that wasn't exactly friendly. Blackberry bushes. Their thorns had grasped me as firmly as a wasp stuck in pine sap.

I thrashed around trying to work free. All that it did was make those thorns stick even more firmly into my feathers. I was caught, even though the top of my head was less than a wing's width from the ground.

“That was a very impressive landing,” a friendly voice said from somewhere behind me. “Yes, it was. Yes, indeed.”

I tried to turn toward the voice. Usually that would be an easy thing for an owl to do. Our eyes don't move in our heads the way human eyes do, but we can turn our heads all the way around on our necks to look behind us. However, the stubborn blackberry thorns held me tight. Being upside down was bad enough. Not being able to look around made me even more nervous.

“Ah,” the friendly voice continued. “You cannot turn your little head around to see me? Do not worry. I will make it easy for you to see me. Yes, I will.”

Owls have very big ears. We can hear such things as a vole shuddering in the dry leaves at the base of an oak that is twenty trees away. So even though the one who was talking to me moved softly, I heard every footstep that he made. It was the sound of someone who was used to creeping up on the unwary.

I clacked my beak in frustration. I had a feeling that I knew what I was about to see and that I would be no match for it. But if I just had my wings and talons free, I could at least put up a fight.

“Here I am,” that voice said, a voice that I now realized was not friendly at all. It was pleased. And hungry.

“Here I am. Yes, here I am, indeed,” said the red-coated animal that smiled down at me. “As you can see, I am a fox, yes. Are you glad to see me? I am glad, yes, very glad to see you.”

The fox slid closer. He was so close that I could feel his hot breath on my beak. He opened his mouth wide. His teeth looked longer and sharper than the broken branches of that pine tree.

I KNEW VERY LITTLE ABOUT life outside our nest. But as that fox's mouth opened even wider, I realized that I had now learned two new things. The first was that foxes have very bad breath. The second was that my own life was apparently going to be very short.

I didn't like what was about to happen at all. It wasn't having my little hollow bones crunched between those drooling jaws that bothered me the most, although I certainly didn't look forward to it. It was being unable to do anything about it. Even more than to escape, I wanted to fight back.

I clacked my beak again and struggled against the blackberry thorns. I was so agitated that I was actually able to free one of my legs. Without hesitation, I thrust my foot out toward my enemy's face, claws first. To my surprise, my long middle talon poked the fox right in his black nose.

“YOWP!” The fox jumped back and shook his head. He was even more surprised than I was. A little drop of red appeared on the tip of his nose.

“Little Food, why did you do that?” the fox growled. “Yes, why? I held no resentment toward you, no. I was feeling quite fond of you before you did that. Why, yes, why?”

I didn't answer. There was no point, really. I just kept my eyes on him and my one free foot ready.

“Ah,” the fox said, the grin coming back onto his face, “the Little Food does not answer me. I was just going to eat him in one quick gulp, yes. But now I think I will first pull out all his feathers. Then I will eat him just one little bite at a time. Yes, I will.”

He took a step toward me and I thrust my talons out at him again. This time, though, he stepped back before I could make contact.

“Oh, how sweet. The Little Food likes to fight,” the fox said. His voice was amused again. “But he is still stuck in the thorny, thorny bushes. Yes, he is. He will not be able to see me if I go behind him. No. So that is what I will do. Yes, yes, I will.”

The fox began to move off to one side, as smooth as rainwater flowing down the trunk of a tree. I tried to follow him with my eyes, but he was right. I was caught so tightly I could not turn my body. A few more steps and he was out of my line of vision.

“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.”

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.”

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.

“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.