CHAPTER 1Home Sweet HomeSophie Topfeather flew high over the Park, just as she did every night right before dawn, looking as far as she could into the distance without going past the road. Beyond the road lay apartment buildings and skyscrapers, and beyond that was a vast space that she knew was the City Harbor. In this pre-dawn hour, she could see dots of light from a hundred boats and ships.As usual, Sophie wondered where the ships came from, and where they would go next.I wish I could travel the world, she thought wistfully. Someday. When I''m brave. Swooping in a broad arc, she sighed heavily.
Grandfather has probably used up all the family''s brave genes, anyway. Just like all the smart genes.The sky lightened to the east, and Sophie banked west toward her home in the Park, her grandfather''s maple tree. Catching sight of the basket she carried in her talons, however, she felt a sudden rush of excitement. A cool breeze caressed her feathers, but the shivering she felt had nothing to do with the wind that had just picked up. She wasn''t going to her grandfather''s-she was going to her own home-her new tree!"Thorns and thistles!" she cried aloud, startling a couple of seagulls who were flying nearby. "I''m on my own now! Grandfather doesn''t even have to know if I''m gone!"After that brief surge of excitement, however, doubts set in almost immediately. Where would she go? What would she do when she got there? Her stomach rumbled.
What if she didn''t like the food?Behind her to the east, the dawn broke."Out too-oo late again!" She swept a glance over the Park, which was still mostly shrouded in dark shadows. Not a person in sight. "That''s a relief-it would never do-oo for people to see me out like this. They might come looking for their lost stuff!"A brilliant stripe of sunlight, shining through the gap between two brick apartment buildings that lined the road next to the Park, fell on a large pond. Sophie forgot about the Harbor and the ships, flapped her large wings hard and moved even faster toward a tall oak on the western side of the Park, following the golden, sunlit path home.A sweet-looking owl wearing a pink scarf tied jauntily around her neck flew up behind her."Peek a boo-oo," she cried, putting her wings over the zebra-striped sunglasses that covered Sophie''s eyes.
Lost in thought and excitement about her first night in her new home, Sophie was startled and twisted around to see who it was. She collided with her friend, sending a basket full of treasures careening toward the bright streak of light on the pond."Thorns and thistles, Lulu!" Sophie cried. "My stuff!"Both owls zoomed toward the water. Lulu grabbed a strand of pink beads out of mid-air with her beak, while Sophie rescued a fairytale book with her talons, just before it hit the water. A third owl appeared out of nowhere. He dragged a dripping pink feather boa out of the pond.The three Great Horned Owls landed on a sturdy branch outside Sophie''s rustic door hidden in the bark.
A thick canopy of oak leaves, in glorious summer green, surrounded them."Sorry about that, Sophie! I didn''t mean to make you drop everything.""That''s okay, Lulu-and Hunter! You got there in the nick of time. Thanks!"Lulu yawned and glanced at the sun, which had been moving ever higher. "I''ll come over tonight and help you get unpacked, okay, Sophie? Don''t stay up all day." She nodded at Hunter, who now scratched nervously on the branch with his talons, reminding Sophie of a hen she saw once at the Fair. "Toodle-oo-oo.""Moving day, huh, Sophie?" Hunter asked.
"Looks like a nice place. Aren''t you going to miss your grandfather, though?""You-oo''ve got to be kidding me! Night and day his tree is full of dissident ducks and feuding frogs. I either have to be quiet so my grandfather can think, or the tree is so noisy that I can''t think!"After reminding Sophie to come to tryouts the next night, Hunter took off for home, leaving Sophie to ruminate about her big move. She had a hard time admitting to Hunter or Lulu-or even herself-that she was more afraid that the "Great WHO," as Park animals affectionately called her "Great Wise Horned Owl" grandfather, wouldn''t miss her. He was so busy, so important. Well, she wouldn''t be in his way, or his responsibility, a minute longer.She might have convinced her grandfather that she was grown up enough to take the studio apartment in the old oak when it became available this week, but as she lay in her very own bed for the very first time that day, all Sophie wanted was to hear his deep, confident voice reading her a bedtime story out of the fairytale book that had very nearly taken a bath in Paddleboat Pond.Sophie spent that night unpacking with Lulu, and then the rest of the summer doing exactly as she wished.
She slept in late. She went treasure-hunting with Lulu every night after breakfast; she arranged and rearranged her growing collection of trinkets, sunglasses and scarves, and she watched Hunter defeat owl after owl in the Ultimate Rodent Rundown Tournament. Even though he was nervous before each competition, he seemed unstoppable, and Sophie was sure he''d end up in the championship match. It was held during the City''s late summer Fair, at the animals'' own Owlympics.Setting up her new house was fun, at least at first. She found the perfect set of branches for displaying her many hats, which she set up next to a large dresser that had been left by the previous tenant, and she was delighted with the built-in bed in the back of the room and the little round table and chairs under the knot-hole window. She kept fresh flowers in a vase on the table and used the dresser top to display the things she found, and to store even more in its drawers.Best of all was a full-length mirror that she and Lulu soon put to good use.
Dressing up in whatever hats, scarves, make-up, and even feather boas that little girls dropped when they visited the Park, they modeled for each other in front of the mirror and laughed and laughed. Sophie had never had so much fun.Picking up after all the fun was over, however, was the only thing about having her own place that she definitely did not like. Owls, in general, are not known for their neatness, but her grandfather, Sophie thought with a frown, was exceptional in this regard. As in everything else. "A clean house helps me think," he had said nearly every day, handing her a dust cloth or a broom. "Besides, we have so many visitors.""Well," she thought, "that''s all fine and good, but in my house I''ll do things my own way.
"By the middle of August, everything she owned seemed to be strewn across either the dresser or the floor. Deciding she could put it off no longer, Sophie picked up a broom and started to sweep. The rhythmic movement and the sound of the crickets outside gave her a song in her head, and she started to sing:Thorns and thistles, homework and chores,Goodness'' sakes! What wretched bores!She twirled and leaped over a Mickey Mouse watch that had somehow landed on the floor a day or so earlier. Flapping her wings, she rose a few feet and plucked a straw hat with long black ribbons off the top branch of the hat tree, put it on and twirled again in front of the mirror.Someday I''ll be tidy, neat as a pin,But now friends are waiting-We''ll watch Hunter win!Last trial before the Fair,Hunter''s there, almost there, almost there!Picking up the watch and a feather boa, she gave the rest of the room a silent promise and then took off eagerly into the twilight.Flying home just a few hours later, Sophie felt as light as a baby gull feather, and proud as a peacock. Hunter had indeed secured his position as one of the two Ultimate Rodent Rundown champions who would fly in the championship match.She wished someone other than Scout was the second champion.
The idea of Hunter flying against him made her stomach flip uneasily-Scout had a loose relationship with the Park Rules, and on the way home she caught him bragging about what he would do to Hunter in the Finals.As she caught sight of the oak-her oak-towering high above all the other trees in the thicket on the near west side of Paddleboat Pond, however, she dismissed her worries as nonsense and puffed her chest out with the pride she felt every time she returned home.Her tree. Her home. In the moonlight, with her owl eyes, she could see every feature perfectly. A protective canopy of wide-spreading, gnarled and leafy branches, now just beginning to show fall color, topped the tree like a giant umbrella. Its thick bark ran up the massive trunk like solid gray-brown rivers. Children, on warm days, playing hide and seek in the Park, would thrust their fingers deep into it and cling to the trunk like slugs to a wet barrel; three-even four-kids could hide behind it together.
They had a cool, shady place to play, and in the rain it was not so wet.Sophie didn''t know that in the roots of that very same tree, her tree, there also lived a deer mouse family. The smallest of these was a tiny gray mouse named Timley. He liked to play Pirates.On the night of the Owlympics and its main event, the Ultimate Rodent Rundown, Timley Mouse had his nose deep under his bed. The only part of him that was visible was the long red sash he wore tied around his waist that dragged on the floor behind him, and his tail that pointed high in the air."Aha! Found them!" he shouted triumphantly. He pulled out a toothpick sword, a black eye patch, and a 3-cornered black pirate hat with a jaunty, downy baby gull feather glued to one corner.
Putting them all on and flourishing his sword, Timley Mouse became the fiercest pirate of the Seven Seas. He climbed on top of his bed and thrust his sword into the air."Aargh! Now walk the plank, you Great Horned Monster!" Timley stabbed the air off the bed''s edge. "Ahoy, mateys, we are finally rid of that loathsome creature. Who will join me now for-"and here, with his sword lifted high, he jabbed at the air with each new word-"adven.