by Erin Hunter
“Cuddle? Purr?” Clovertail gave Leafstar a doubtful look. “Okay, Leafstar, if you say so.” She plodded off up the gorge, shaking her head.
Leafstar watched her go, feeling faintly amused in spite of everything. Then she gathered her patrol with a wave of her tail. “Let’s go.”
Leafstar stared up at the Twoleg nests as she and her patrol halted on the outskirts of Twolegplace. The red stone walls loomed over the cats and blocked out part of the sky. Already her senses were attacked by a chaos of scents and noises: monsters, dogs, strange cats, and the weird aromas of Twoleg food.
How can the kittypets put up with this every day?
“Okay, Snookpaw,” she meowed. “You’re in charge now. Which way do we go?”
Snookpaw gave her a scared look, as if he was overwhelmed now that he was actually faced with the task of finding the little Twoleg’s nest.
“Take your time,” Billystorm murmured. “You’ll be fine.”
Snookpaw flashed a grateful glance at his mentor. “I think it’s this way.”
He padded down an alley, pausing every few paw steps to taste the air. Leafstar followed, with the rest of the patrol bunched close behind her. After a few heartbeats, Sharpclaw brushed past her and bounded up beside Snookpaw. His paw steps were firm and his tail was erect, as if he was completely confident in these strange surroundings.
Leafstar watched him through narrowed eyes, her pelt quivering with concern. Had Billystorm been right after all, about the secret night patrols in the Twolegplace? She tried to catch the ginger-and-white tom’s eye, but Billystorm was resolutely not looking at her.
Sadness stabbed at Leafstar’s heart like a thorn. More than anything she wanted to forget her duty to her Clan, just for once, and ask Billystorm’s forgiveness. But I can’t do that, she thought with a sigh, trying to push the sadness away. And right now we have to concentrate on helping the little Twoleg.
Snookpaw led the patrol around a corner and to the edge of a small Thunderpath. “I think we have to cross here,” he mewed.
“Right.” Sharpclaw took over at once. “Every cat get ready. Run when I say ‘Now!’”
Leafstar stood at the edge of the Thunderpath beside her Clanmates, wrinkling her nose at the acrid scent that rose from the hard black surface. Her ears flicked up at the sound of a monster, and she exchanged a warning glance with Sharpclaw. The noise grew louder; the cats crouched down as the monster growled past, rushing on round black paws. A gust of wind buffeted their fur as it raced by, a couple of tail-lengths in front of their noses.
“It didn’t see us,” Cherrytail whispered as the noise died away.
Leafstar glanced up and down the Thunderpath. The monster had left a foul stink behind it; she passed her tongue over her lips a few times, trying get rid of its taste.
“Now!” Sharpclaw yowled.
All six cats launched themselves forward. Leafstar felt her flying paws beating on the hard surface; then she was safely across, looking around to make sure the rest of the patrol had made it, too.
“Nothing to it, really,” Sharpclaw mewed nonchalantly.
Oh, yes? Leafstar thought. And how come you’re so experienced with Thunderpaths?
Snookpaw took the lead again, over a fence and across a garden where a strange kittypet peered out at them from under a bush, but didn’t try to approach the patrol.
“I think the next nest is the one we want,” he told Leafstar.
Bounding up to the fence, he clawed his way up it and balanced, swaying, at the top, his fur spiked in shock. In the same heartbeat, a dog started yapping loudly on the other side of the fence.
“Now what?” Sharpclaw muttered. “He never said there was a dog.”
The wooden fence shook as something thumped into it from the other side, and the yapping grew louder still. Snookpaw half jumped, half fell down and staggered across the grass to where the patrol was waiting.
“S-sorry,” he stammered. “That’s the wrong garden.”
“Thank StarClan for that!” Cherrytail exclaimed, with a glance across to where the dog was still hurling itself at the fence.
“So what do we do now?” Sharpclaw asked with an irritable flick of his tail-tip. “Are we lost?”
“I’m really sorry…” Snookpaw repeated.
“Take it easy.” Billystorm rested his tail across his apprentice’s shoulders. “Just think. When was the last time you were really certain of where we were?”
“When we crossed the Thunderpath,” Snookpaw replied with a look of relief.
“Then let’s go back there,” Leafstar meowed.
She took the lead, all her senses alert for more dogs or monsters, until the patrol stood once more by the side of the Thunderpath. “Do we need to cross again?” she asked Snookpaw.
The apprentice shook his head. “I think it’s this way,” he meowed, pricking his ears as he led the patrol farther along the Thunderpath, slipping along in the shade of bushes that hung over the walls. He whisked around the next corner, picking up the pace as if he felt he was getting close, only to come to a halt when the path ended in a high wall built of the same Twoleg red stone.
“I don’t remember that at all,” he murmured unhappily.
Leafstar heard Cora’s claws scraping impatiently on the ground and cast a swift glance at the black she-cat. Cora’s eyes were snapping with annoyance, but she didn’t say anything.
Sharpclaw’s tail-tip was twitching back and forth. “Snookpaw—”
“Are you sure we turned the right corner?” Billystorm interrupted, padding up to his apprentice. “Try to remember what it looked like the last time you were here.”
Snookpaw closed his eyes, wrinkling his nose up as if he was thinking hard. “There was a holly tree,” he began. “I know that’s right.…” He hesitated a heartbeat longer, then exclaimed, “But the tree was much bigger! Now I know where we are!”
Confident now, he raced back to the corner with the patrol hurrying after him. He ran along the edge of the Thunderpath they had crossed, until he reached the next corner, where a huge holly tree loomed over the top of a pale wooden fence. Around the corner was a narrow alley with Twoleg nests on either side, separated from the path by low stone walls.
“This is it!” Snookpaw trilled. “I can smell the flowers already.”
As she followed him down the alley, Leafstar could hear Twolegs yowling; the sound grew louder until they reached a nest about halfway down the alley. Snookpaw leaped up onto the wall, and Leafstar followed him.
A large square of grass stretched in front of them, with the Twoleg nest at the far side. A male Twoleg was in the garden looking under bushes and inside a small wooden den. He kept on yowling as he searched; a few moments later a female Twoleg appeared from the nest and added her yowls to her mate’s. Even though she had no idea what they were saying, Leafstar could pick up their fear-scent and realized how distressed they were. There was something familiar about their actions, too. It reminded her of the time Sagekit had gone missing among the boulders near the training area, and Clovertail had hunted for him as if he was the most precious piece of prey.
“I think they’re looking for the kit,” she meowed. “Well done, Snookpaw. You brought us to the right place.”
“Yes, you did well,” Billystorm agreed, leaping up onto the wall on the opposite side of Snookpaw from Leafstar.
Snookpaw blinked at his mentor and let out a purr. “I never thought I’d do it,” he confessed.
“So now what do we do?” Sharpclaw demanded, jumping up and gazing out into the garden. “How do we tell the Twolegs where their kit is?”
“I’ll get them to follow me,” Snookpaw mewed, leaping down onto the grass before Leafstar could stop him.
Sharpclaw shrugged. “He’s a kittypet. Maybe he knows how to talk to Twolegs.”
Snookpaw raced across the garden and up to the female Twoleg, who let out a sharp exclamation as he wound himself around her ankles. The Twoleg male spun around and let
out a growl as his gaze fell on Snookpaw. He lumbered toward the apprentice, waving his arms and making hissing noises.
Snookpaw stepped back, bewildered. “I know where your kit is!” he meowed loudly. “You have to come with me!”
The Twolegs obviously didn’t understand. The female flapped her hands and screeched at Snookpaw, who backed farther away.
“Come back here, mouse-brain!” Sharpclaw yowled.
At the sound, the male Twoleg turned toward the wall and spotted the cats perched on top of it. He let out a sharp exclamation, and dived to pick up a rounded Twoleg thing that looked as if it was made out of the same reddish stone as the nest.
“Uh-oh…” Sharpclaw muttered. He whipped around and leaped down into the alley.
At the same moment the Twoleg flung the red thing. Snookpaw fled across the grass and launched himself at the top of the wall; Billystorm bundled him down into the alley and Leafstar jumped down after them. The red thing hit the wall just below the spot where they had been standing and shattered into pieces.
“That was close,” Sharpclaw muttered.
Cora and Cherrytail, who had been keeping watch in the alley, were kneading the stony ground with claws extended.
“We’ve got to go,” Cora hissed. “The Twolegs don’t want us here.”
“I don’t understand!” Snookpaw’s fur was ruffled and his eyes wide with disbelief. “Why did they do that? We’re only trying to help.”
“Twolegs are stupid,” Sharpclaw stated, shrugging. “We’ve done all we can here,” he added with a glance at Leafstar. “We’d better get back to camp before there’s any more trouble.”
With every paw step back to the gorge, Leafstar’s uneasiness increased. She couldn’t accept their failure as easily as Cora and Sharpclaw. There must be something we can do! She wished she could ask Billystorm’s advice, but every word she might have spoken stuck in her throat.
When she led her patrol down the trail into the gorge, the rest of the Clan was waiting to hear what had happened.
“Did you manage to find her kin?” Lichenfur rasped, raising one hind leg to scratch behind her ear. “It gives me the creeps, having a Twoleg in the gorge.”
“At least the wailing has stopped,” Tangle muttered.
“We found them,” Sharpclaw reported before Leafstar could reply. “They were searching in their garden for the kit. But they wouldn’t listen when Snookpaw tried to tell them where she was.”
“They threw a flowerpot at us!” Snookpaw exclaimed, his eyes stretched wide with distress and indignation. “I never thought Twolegs would behave like that.”
“Then you’ve learned something, kittypet,” Sparrowpelt murmured under his breath.
“Snookpaw, I don’t think you should let it worry you,” Billystorm told his apprentice, giving him a friendly flick over the ear with his tail. “You know that some Twolegs don’t like strange cats in their gardens.”
“That’s true,” Ebonyclaw agreed. “And if they were searching, they might have thought you were getting in the way.”
Snookpaw’s tail drooped unhappily. “They didn’t have to get so angry.”
“I’m sure this means we shouldn’t get involved,” Petalnose meowed, dipping her head to give her neck fur a few brisk licks. “The Twolegs don’t deserve our help if they’re going to throw things at us.”
Waspwhisker nodded. “There’s nothing more we can do, anyway.”
Leafstar didn’t agree; her paws tingled with the conviction that the Clan was meant to help. And she felt more worried still at the news that the wailing had stopped. The ordinary sounds of the gorge—the rushing water that poured out of the rocks, the rustle of trees, the pad of paws on stone—seemed muted and ominous.
“I’m going to go and see how Echosong is getting along,” she announced.
Several of her Clanmates padded after her as she headed up the gorge. As she rounded the spur of rock to reach the place where the little Twoleg was lying, Echosong came to meet her. Leafstar’s nose twitched at the strong scent of comfrey that wreathed around the medicine cat.
“Did you find her parents?” Echosong asked, her deep green eyes wide with anxiety. “Are they coming?”
“We found them, but they’re not coming.” Quickly Leafstar told Echosong what had happened in the Twolegplace. “How is the Twoleg kit?”
“Not good.” Echosong shook her head, and led the way back to the kit’s side. “She closed her eyes and stopped moving soon after you left. Unless we can get help for her, I don’t think she’s going to wake up.”
The Twoleg lay motionless, her leg still bent at the awkward angle. Her face looked paler than before and her eyes were closed; Leafstar might have thought she was dead, except for the faint rise and fall of her chest. Clovertail was curled up asleep in the crook of her arm, with one of the Twoleg’s forepaws lying lightly across her back.
“I tried putting a poultice of comfrey on her broken leg,” Echosong explained, pointing to the patches of chewed-up herb plastered to the kit’s skin. “But it’s hard to get a poultice to stick when there isn’t any fur for it to stick to.”
Leafstar looked down at the little Twoleg for a few heartbeats without speaking. What if I had kits and one of them was lost, or hurt? she asked herself, pushing away the bleak knowledge that her duties wouldn’t allow her to have kits of her own. I’d be frantic!
“We’re not going to give up,” she announced. “We have to try again.”
“But what else can we do?” Sharpclaw asked, with a frustrated lash of his tail. “We didn’t manage to get through to the Twolegs, and I don’t see how we’ll ever be able to.”
“That’s right,” Sparrowpelt agreed. “It’s impossible to know the way that Twolegs think. They don’t seem to have any reason.”
Leafstar’s pelt tingled as the beginnings of a plan slid into her mind. “If we don’t know the way Twolegs think,” she began thoughtfully, “we’ll have to use the way cats think instead. The Twolegs were hunting for their kit; we’ll just have to help them.”
CHAPTER 28
“When we’re tracking prey, we follow a scent trail,” Leafstar mused, tasting the kit’s strong Twoleg scent. “Is there any way to lay one for the Twolegs?”
“There’s no point,” Harveymoon pointed out. “Twolegs have enormous noses, but their sense of smell isn’t worth a mouse-tail. Otherwise they’d know we were here!”
Leafstar admitted that the daylight-warrior had a point. “Then how can we let them know where their lost kit is?”
She wasn’t expecting an answer, but just then an excited cry came from Frecklepaw, who had been scrambling among the rocks at the foot of the cliff. “Look what I’ve found!”
Her voice woke Clovertail, who blinked and stretched her jaws in an enormous yawn. “That was the best sleep I’ve had in moons,” she meowed. “Leafstar, what’s going on? Are the kit’s parents coming?”
Leafstar explained what had happened in the Twolegplace while she padded over to Frecklepaw to see what the apprentice had discovered.
Clovertail stepped carefully out of the Twoleg’s grasp and followed, her whiskers twitching in disappointment. “Poor little kit,” she murmured. “We have to do something.”
“Look,” Frecklepaw repeated as the two she-cats approached. She pointed with her tail at a bright blue object lying between two rocks.
“What is it?” Leafstar asked, stretching out a paw to give the object a tentative prod. “It looks as if it’s made of Twoleg pelt-stuff.”
“It’s the kit’s backpack,” Frecklepaw told her. Her eyes shone with pride at being able to help. “Twolegs use them to carry stuff.”
Leafstar nodded. “I see. Like a very big leaf wrap.”
She gripped the edge of the backpack between her teeth and tugged it up onto the surface of the nearest rock. Several smaller objects fell out of it, scattering around the cats’ paws.
More of the Clan cats were starting to gather around, murmuring among
themselves as they saw what Frecklepaw had found. The apprentices wriggled to the front, their faces alive with curiosity.
“Twolegs are weird,” Mintpaw mewed, dipping her head to sniff at a scrap of white pelt. “Why do they want to drag all this stuff around with them? What’s it all for, anyway?”
“That’s a hanky,” Frecklepaw told her importantly. “Twolegs wipe their noses with them.”
“Wipe their…?” Mintpaw’s eyes widened and she took a pace back. “You mean they don’t just lick it off? Yuck!”
“And what’s this?” Sagepaw asked, nosing at a round green thing that looked a bit like the backpack, but much smaller. Something inside it jingled when he moved it.
“Sorry, I don’t know,” Frecklepaw replied, her sense of importance suddenly deflating. “But this is a hair band,” she added, snagging her claws into a long pink thing and holding it up. “Twoleg females tie up their head fur with them.”
Egg gave the hair band a nervous sniff, while Mintpaw exchanged a glance with her brother.
“Hey, you should try that,” Sagepaw suggested, giving her a friendly shove. “Tie some bindweed around your head fur.”
“My head fur is fine as it is, thanks,” Mintpaw snapped.
Meanwhile Snookpaw had approached, carrying something long and glittery in his jaws. “Here’s her necklace,” he mumbled around it. “I guess it came off when she fell.”
“And what’s that for?” Mintpaw squeaked.
Snookpaw shrugged. “Dunno. My Twoleg female puts them around her neck. I thought maybe it was to stop her head from falling off.”
“That can’t be right,” Sagepaw murmured, puzzled. “This one’s head hasn’t fallen off—”
“That’s all very well,” Clovertail interrupted, rolling her eyes at Leafstar, who suppressed a mrrow of amusement. The apprentices could go on like this all day! “But what are we going to do with all of this? Does it help us at all?”
“I think it does, actually,” Leafstar replied slowly. “The Twolegs can’t follow a scent trail, but they can see all right, can’t they? We can use this stuff to lead them from Twolegplace to here, so that they find their kit.”