News Flurries.

"This is where it all began, my dear. In this humble row of human houses."

I twirl my head around 360 degrees, just like my mom taught me in the barn where I was born. This place isn't any better. "It's not much, is it?"

Instructor Willoughby flicks his toe and flutters to a low stone wall. He's been one of the owl instructors for a long time. "Well, Hector, even these dismal circumstances were seen as a blessing by the end. It's amazing how much imagination can be kept among four walls if the mind is willing." He jerks his head toward the door that would lead to where the magic began.

A small, wiry plant grows up from the corner of the sidewalk just below them and I grin an owly grin to myself. I have an idea.

"Snake! It's a snake!" I shoot off the edge of the wall and hover over Professor Willoughby in terror, as if I've seen the worst thing imaginable. The instructor turns on it with eyes wide and talons ready to strike. I shake my feathers, picking at the bit around my neck that is still out of place from our long flight from Tennessee. "No, just kidding. It's just a Phaulothamnus spinescens" trying to use what I've newly learned. "A snake-eyes plant."

"And what kinds of things do you think this plant has seen?"

I find myself giving Instructor Willoughby a tilt of my head, something that I despise in each of my twenty-one sisters when they try to act more confused than they are. But I am really confused. We've entered the world of humans with this question and I am reluctant to admit that I am not keeping up. I try to conjure up some knowledge, to act like I might know, "Oh, right! That was one of the most important elements to the entire first month at AcknOWLedge Academy! Scariest part of learning right there!"

"Tell me," Instructor Willoughby continues, "what is so bad about being thrown off a hundred foot cliff with your wings bound over deep water with only instructions to 'escape your bonds'?"

I gulp, the reminder of that experience terrifying me. And I'm standing on a rock, not hurtling through the air. I close my eyes against the imagined movement. "Um, everything?"

Instructor Willoughby nods. "Whenever you are falling, you need to look at what is holding you. This is similar to..." He goes off on another rant. My mind flies to other places, something else that I can do with my brain instead of reliving the terror. Like seeing how far I can look from the top of this house! I perch on the corner of the house overlooking Privet Drive and do my best to avoid the holes that have been made in the roof. Instructor Willoughby is still reciting, "This teaches you that the most important way to..." There is a small group of people who are wandering rather slowly down the road, but I notice that one of them is an old man with crazy white hair and a mustache, another middle-aged man with two very active young kids. The older girl chases the younger boy, no doubt glad to be out of school for the holidays. Father Christmas comes but once a year, and they are enjoying the break to the fullest!

"Now that you have wandered off, let's begin our last little mission for this old year. First of all, your task is to enter this measly little attic and to discover something that was left here. Our goal is to make sure that it remains here long after the house itself is demolished." His head does a 360 degree turn. "Which will be, according to my perspective, very soon indeed."

He flutters down into the hole that I had just so carefully avoided, tilting to the side to allow his wingspan and I follow him a bit easier. Underneath there is a very shallow attic and it is barely enough for the two of us to sit in, much less any human people.

"Hash-whooo!" I exclaim, my feathery body thrown into my instructor's startled face. I flit back, trying to get my bearings. "Sorry, Instructor Willoughby. There's just so much--"

"Not enough time, little Hector. You've got to keep your head on straight."

That's easy for him to say, after he just flipped his brain around in a complete circle! Listening is not my main focus.

"We've come on the right day...let me see here..." He hops over to a container with many rolled up parchments, and even with his small owl-like frame, tries not to hit his head. He plucks a large piece of paper out of a container and I fly over to help him.

"Why do you think someone would create something such as this?" He motions with his wing and I lean past his beak to see where he is indicating. It doesn't look like much. There are lots of lines and scribbles in what looks like crayons. At one end is an X. It's a map! One that maybe a small boy might have drawn to understand his world!

"Little humans do this all the time. Sometimes it's for play, but other times it's so that they can understand the adult humans a little better. What was this child trying to find?"

"Look at the text!" Instructor Willoughby puts on his commanding voice. Intimidating, but effective. My beak slides over to the map and I see one squiggle that stands out. It looks like a tree. I fly out of the window, which has been broken for a while now. In the area where the tree should have been is a hole. It only goes down a couple feet, and it looks like there was a lot of movement around it.

"What do you see?" He prods.

I look up and down. Not a lot of room. And not a lot of trees. This tree looks like it grew for a little bit and then was uprooted. Why would a child take a tree? If that was his thing that he grew, it probably became like family. The footsteps and worn grass told a story in itself. He visited every day. And when it was time to leave, the tree was his family.

"He took it with him!" I flutter up and down, excited that I have figured out my first real study. "He took it with him because he had cared for it and wanted to see it grow."

"Exactly, little one. And we want to do the same thing with you. We're starting a new year. We will travel to many places, but we are going to take you with us. You will learn until you are ready to get out there on your own."

I can believe that.