The Shattering (Guardians of Ga'hoole) by Kathryn Lasky Page B

Soren.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t rush that,” Ginger said. “Don’t you want to have your mum all to yourself for a while?”
    “Well,” Eglantine hesitated.
    “Look. You’ve been left out so much,” Ginger said soothingly, “you should have something that’s just for you.”
    “Yes, yes, I suppose you’re right.” For a sliver of a second Eglantine felt a tiny bit greedy, but she quickly forgot about the feeling and basked in the anticipation of her mum’s love and attention.
    So night after summer night, Eglantine and Ginger managed to slip away. Certain odd things happened to Eglantine’s mind and her memory on these visits. She could never, for instance, quite recall how she got back from The Beaks, and it seemed odd to her that Ginger was rarely in her mum’s hollow. And her father never appeared. But none of this bothered her much, just as her mum’s occasional slips of calling her darling stopped bothering her. She quickly forgot about anything disturbing, just as she had forgotten to tell Soren about having found their mother, and just as she had forgotten about visiting Primrose in the infirmary. No, once she flew over The Beaks and neared the hollow, all her concerns and worries simply melted away.
    And her mum was always so proud of her, especially her reading and her writing skills. Her mum saved every little paper Eglantine brought her and praised her finepenmanship. She always showed such interest in the books that Eglantine was reading.
    “There’s one, Mum, that tells all about flecks and how to make more flecks from flecks.” At this her mum grew very excited.
    “Oh, darling! I would love to know about that. Please copy that one down.”
    “Oh, Mum, I don’t know. It’s in a very big book with a lot of writing on each page and very complicated diagrams.”
    “Well, darling, I think if you would just tear out a couple of the pages, no one would notice.”
    Eglantine blinked. Did something perhaps prick at the back of her mind? Did her gizzard perhaps flinch ever so slightly? Although it hardly stirred at all anymore. She simply said, “Sure, I’ll get it next time.”
    And she did.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Primrose’s Last Thought
    B ut Eglantine, I was in the infirmary for two weeks and never once did you come to visit me. Not one time.” Primrose peered at her friend in genuine confoundment.
    Eglantine blinked. “I’m sorry, it just slipped my mind.” But she didn’t look the least bit sorry. She did look different, though. Her usually lustrous black eyes had a dull gaze to them. Primrose didn’t know what to think. “I’ve been so busy, you know.”
    “No, I don’t know,” Primrose replied. “How would I if you never came to visit me?”
    “Oh, well. I’ve been busy, trust me.”
    And it was when Eglantine said those two simple words “trust me” that something clicked in Primrose’s brain and her gizzard gave a painful little twitch. Primrose did not trust Eglantine. Not one bit. And she was going to find out why. What had changed her friend? It was no longer a question of not being included. Primrose guessed that she might not even want to be included in whateverEglantine was up to, but she planned to find out what it was, nonetheless. Until she knew more she would keep her thoughts to herself, but as soon as she figured it out, she would go directly to Soren. However, before she did that, she dared to ask Eglantine a question. “Eglantine, I want to know something.”
    “Yes. Sure. Anything, Primrose.”
    “What’s Ginger really like?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean it seems strange to me that she is always wanting to get you off by yourself.”
    “Off by myself?”
    “Yeah, it’s kind of like she’s jealous.”
    “Jealous?” Eglantine blinked and stared blankly into space.
    “Yeah, jealous. I don’t think real friends are jealous.”
    “Real?”
    It’s useless, Primrose thought. All Eglantine did was echo back her own words. This wasn’t a