The Adventures of Cloudclan 002
In the heart of a deep, deep forest, there lives a great clan of cats. These cats are noble, fearless, and loyal. They will fight to the death to defend their clan. And in times of trouble, they call upon Starclan, the clan of great cat spirits, to help them. This is Cloudclan.
It was late in the day, at sundown, when the training sessions ended. All of the apprentices were taken back to camp and each of them took a piece of prey from the fresh-kill pile. Tulippaw and Waterpaw chatted happily over a squirrel. But Gingerpaw, who was sitting alone, just stared at her shrew as she angrily thumped her tail against a rock. Recently, Gingerpaw had been acting very grumpy. Tulippaw, who was concerned about her friend, sat down beside her.
"What's wrong?" she asked. Gingerpaw sighed and began to explain.
"You know how the warriors are always talking about 'When we become warriors' this and 'When we become warriors' that? Well, it's just- when are we gonna become warriors? I wanna find out what my warrior name will be. I wanna be a warrior!" she wailed, digging her claws into the ground. Tulippaw was taken aback.
"But how do you know you're ready to be a warrior?" she asked.
"Are you kidding me? I was ready ages ago!" Gingerpaw whined. "I know every fighting and hunting move there is! The clan needs all the warriors they can get, but they won't make us warriors. I'm sick of training! It isn't fair!" And with that, she stormed off, leaving her shrew behind. Tulippaw watched after her, gaping.
"Don't worry about her," said Waterpaw, stretching. "You know her. By morning, she'll have forgotten about it."
Just then, a patrol of warriors emerged into camp. The patrol was led by Sunstar, and consisted of Ivyblaze and Skyclaw, a new warrior.
"Those stupid kittypets!" exclaimed Sunstar as she stormed into camp.
"What's wrong?" asked the medicine cat Moonshine, looking up from her painful work of picking thorns off bramble twigs.
"Those kittypets- the cats that live with Twolegs, are coming into our territory to hunt our prey," explained Ivyblaze.
"They never actually catch anything, but they make so much noise that they scare off all our prey," added Sunstar.
"Haven't you just tried to scare them off? Just hiss at them and they'll run away," suggested Snowfang, another new warrior.
"We've tried to scare them off," growled Ivyblaze. "But they just roll their eyes and ignore us. The arrogant fools! They don't understand that while they hunt for fun, we hunt to survive!"
Gingerpaw, overhearing this, rushed out of her den.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go attack them and they'll never come back!" she exclaimed. But Sunstar shook her head.
"We can't risk battle just yet," she said. "If the Twolegs found their kittypets scarred and beaten, they might come into the forest to find who did it. And what would happen to us if they found our territory?" Suddenly, Gingerpaw got very angry.
"What are you talking about?" she cried. "We'd be perfectly fine if we attacked them! The Twolegs wouldn't find us! They never have and they never will. You just don't want to listen to my ideas because I'm just an apprentice, even though my ideas are better than yours!"
The entire camp went silent. No one could believe that an apprentice had the nerve to speak to the leader like that. Finally, Rosepetal spoke.
"How dare you speak to Sunstar like that? If you ever speak to another cat like that again I'll-"
"Rosepetal," Sunstar coolly cut Rosepetal off. "I believe I'll handle this." She leapt down from the Highrock and looked Gingerpaw straight in the eye. "Gingerpaw, as your punishment, you'll be responsible for cleaning out every warrior's nest for a half-moon."
"What?!" cried Gingerpaw. "That's not fair! Can't the warriors clean their own nests?"
"Yes," replied the leader. "But I'm sure that they'll appreciate your help." And with that, Sunstar left.