White Owl Elementary School

The noise of flapping wings and screeching going on in room 320 of the White Owl Elementary School was beginning to grate on Ms, Sheila Godfrey's nerves.  She could feel it all the way from her maicured dark red talons to her black and cream colored feathers behind her yellow eyes.

"Children, children, …. Please stop your screeching and pay attention to what I have to tell you all."

With those words, the classroom went silent.  The owls turned around and flew quickly to their nearest perch.  They knew that failure to heed Ms, Godfrey would lead to severe consequences, both at home and with the school headmaster.

As most of you know, it is time to prepare for graduation and that your presence here has made you eligible to continue your studies in the upper school.  So first let me say congratulations!

Again, the birds burst out with hoots and hollers, patting themselves on their flurry of feathers.

"The last thing to complete before graduation is migration.  It has taken you four long years to reach this point in your life.  Your mothers hand fed you, shared her milk with you, and yours farhers have been dutiful in finding the right food for you.  So now, as a result, you will be taking on your own journey.  You will start out on a migratory path to warmth and survival."

"I have up in front of the classroom, a map for each one of you to carry in your featherpacks."

"Secondly, your teachers have reviewed your grades to date and we have chosen two honor students to lead you on this forthcoming journey."

The owls searched their classroom, trying to guess who had gained such an honor.  All they knew, is it would be an honor if they had made the cut.

"Will Walter White Feather and D'Arcy Greenfield please fly forward?"  The two owls flew, with their broad, but still underdeveloped wings spread in ecstasy to land closely by Ms. Godfrey.

"Now Walter and D`Arcy will be leading the migration flight and I will be moving closely along to ensure that you all stay safe.  But you will follow only their orders.  If I see any pranks against them, or hear any threats, you will personally be removed from the migration and left to fend for yourself."  "Is that clear?"

The class nodded and went on to follow further instruction from their teacher.

"We will meet back here at midnight.  Please make sure that you have a hearty meal tonight, and don't pack too many things that would weigh you down, or interfere with your wings."

One last thing, don't forget to have your parents sign the permission slip in your feather backpacks.  The human weather reports indicates a clear starry night, and a flying temperature of 55°.

With those final instructions Ms Godfrey dismissed the class and went home to make her own preparations.  She had been leading these migrations for twenty years.  This would be her last, and she was more than ready for a quiet retirement.

The class met at precisely midnight and Walter and D'Arcy led them through a beautiful, artistic high flying pattern. The children wings could be spotted by other flocks that were far, far away.  Nobody could have asked for a better time to migrate.

The owls flew north towards Canada where most of their community had already landed safely, just a few short weeks before.

As daylight approached Walter and D'Arcy noted dark nimbus clouds with snow flakes building up at a frightingly fast pace.  The owls would soon be ravenous and tired, so they signalled to their classmates to land on an icy mound.

"I am going to check on the mountain over to the left, and see if I can find anyrhing good there to eat.  From what I remember in our social studies book, there should be a large lemming party in the area forging for their own food."

"You stay here with D'Arcy and try to get a few winks."

 "D'Arcy, please make sure that everyone is comfortable and make sure that Ms. Godfrey is ok. You know she isn't young anymore and ir will soon be time to take care of her."

"Of course, Walter she responded as she rolled her large blue eyes toward the back of her eyes."

Walter reached the mountain ridge and confirmed that there was a large family of lemmings and muskrats, searching for food, along with fields of spider webs and various other vegetables ready for eating.

When the sky had reached total darkness. Walter led his classmates to food and water that would sustain them for days after.  It was a pretty easy accomplishment for a white owl as wise as Walter. and D'Arcy's beauty to overcome a few small creatures to surive an arduous migration.

It took over four weeks before the owls were able to reach the heights of Canada.  Of course not all days and were successful, or free of danger.

For example, one night while the student were napping by a brown cabin they were woken to the roaring of a huge black bear.  The bear, as it turns out, had been separated from its family in an avalanche and was as frozen as an icicle stick.  Because the area had been drowned in white wintry snow, the bear could not smell any red meat or honey and was seeking out its own tasty meal.

He suddenly spotted Gertrude sitting on a low perch. The bear thought it had succeeded in finding his dinner and started pawing at the frightened owl.

Gertrude rememberd hearing a story about an owl in similar situation.  The character in the story was told to sit perfectly quiet and not to move or make a sound.  "If the bear doesn't hear or know how close you are, he will eventually become bored and move on.  So that is what Gertrude did. She stayed so quiet, that she ended up falling sound asleep and the bear was gone by the time she woke up three hours later.

Another time that the owls faced danger was when they ran into a group of five hunters dressed in red and black squared jackets.  The were bent on killing anything that moved; animal, vegetable or mineral.

When D'Arcy noticed the hunters, she distracted them with her sweet music.  D'Arcy had taken a ventriloquist class a year before and could throw her voice in any direction and so when she began her song the hunters were mesmerized and couldn't figure out where the voice was coming from.  They put their guns down and the owls flew away, averting any unforeseen accidents.

With the leadership of Walter, and the nurturing of D'Arcy, the owls arrived to meet their proud parents in an unrecorded three months.  The students went on to become parents themselves.  Their diplomas are displayed proudly on the walls of White Owl Elementary School.

Ms. Godfrey retired and now spends all her time in a senior owl home, and waiting for her grand owls to visit her on Sundays.