About this book

The Adventure Of Captain Owl and the feathers of hope

Got it — you want a story, and it’s about Captain Owl. No feathers of hope this time. Just pure _Captain Owl_ adventure. Here’s a short one, grandpa-style again: --- *The Adventure of Captain Owl and the Stolen Tide* “Lean in, little one. This happened the year the sea disappeared. One morning, we woke up on _The Night Feather_ and the water was gone. Just mud. Ships stuck like bugs in honey. Fish flopping, gulls confused. ‘Where’d it go?’ Gizmo asked, his one wing scratching his head. Beaky listened. ‘It’s been taken,’ he said. ‘I hear it sloshing… somewhere east.’ So we walked. A crew of owls, marching across the dry sea floor. Crabs cheered us on. We found it — the tide — all of it — trapped in a giant glass bottle. And sitting on that bottle was Captain Claw. He’d made a deal with a tide-witch. ‘No ships means no heroes,’ he grinned. ‘No heroes means I win.’ Featherlock threw a rock. Missed. ‘Poetic,’ he muttered. I flew up to Claw. ‘You can’t steal the sea,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t belong to anyone.’ ‘Does now,’ he said, tapping the bottle with his metal claw. _Clink. Clink._ So I did the only thing a small owl could do. I told him a story. About Barnacle Bill. About mercy. About how a cat with a broken heart sinks more than ships — he sinks himself. Claw’s whiskers twitched. His real paw — the one made of fur — started to shake. ‘Enough!’ he roared, and slashed the bottle open with his metal claw. The sea came back all at once. _Whoosh._ Picked us up, ships and all. Nearly drowned us in forgiveness. When we surfaced, Claw was gone. But carved into the mud where the bottle sat were three words: _The sea remembers._ Beaky nodded. ‘I hear it again, Captain. The tide’s happy.’ And that’s how Captain Owl saved the sea without swinging a sword once.” _Old Hoot chuckles._ “Sometimes the biggest battles, little one, are won with words.” --- Want me to do another? Maybe _Captain Owl and the Clockwork Kraken_?