12. Success
With Cometkit's victory in mind, Reedpaw took Sunpaw's advice to heart and managed to catch a fish as well.
Skypelt meowed politely, "Good job, Reedpaw, but I think three fish is enough for today. It's time to head back to camp with the catch."
Mudkit groaned and complained, "That's not fair! I want to catch a fish, too! Why can't we wait a little longer?"
However when a stern look came from Snowtail, Mudkit fell in line. Sunpaw picked up her fish followed by Reedpaw and Skypelt and Snowtail took turns dragging Cometkit's catch.
Cometkit repeated over and over on the way back, "Thank you, thank you so much! I made my first kill, thank you Sunpaw."
When they reached the River clan camp again, the snow had started to fall again, making the cats shiver. Looking over, Sunpaw saw Snowtail's pelt glisten with the melting snowflakes and said purring, "Oh, that's why they call you Snowtail! Your pelt always looks like it has snowflakes melting on it!"
"Yep, you got it," Snowtail purred with amusement.
Glimmerstar and Blueriver met the party at the entrance of the camp. When they saw what the cats were carrying, their eyes betrayed how shocked they were.
"Who caught the big one that you are carrying, Snowtail?" Glimmerstar asked.
"I did!" piped up Cometkit.
"Barely, she only caught it because it was stupid." Reedpaw muttered very quietly under his breath.
"Well she caught it and before you caught yours!" Sunpaw spat back at Reedpaw.
"Reedpaw, go take care of the elders!" Blueriver snarled at his apprentice, "Why must you chastise our kits?"
Reedpaw glared at his mentor, defying him for an instant before slinking towards the fresh-kill pile to drop off his fish before heading to the elders' den.
"What am I going to do with that cat?" Blueriver muttered to himself.
Glimmerstar asked the group to follow her as she turned into the camp. She swerved through the gathered cats that were waiting for the results of the fishing patrol.
Leaping onto her rock, Glimmerstar addressed her clan, "Sunpaw, Reedpaw, Mudkit and Cometkit went out with Skypelt and Snowtail to hunt. Out of the four that went, three of them caught fish. Cometkit, show your fish."
At that, Cometkit grabbed her fish from Snowtail and drug it proudly to the front of the crowd.
"I caught it!" She announced.
The cats gaped at the huge fish and Shimmerfur shouted out, "That fish will feed all of us for a day!"
"Yes! I can't believe I am saying this, but this might actually work," bellowed the elder, Bellyspots.
Glimmerstar waited for the cries of excitement to die down before she called out again, "Yes, I think it is quite worth the effort since, well… look at the fresh-kill pile for yourselves."
Sunpaw turned around and saw that out of four things on the fresh-kill pile, only one of them was a mouse, the rest were fish," she thought to herself.
"If Moonpaw and I hadn't left the camp that day to hunt, my clan might have starved!"
"We shall continue to go on with this fishing patrol. Tomorrow, I would like Streampaw and Moonpaw to also and try to fish. We need all the apprentices to know how to fish." Glimmerstar finished before leaping off of her rock.
Sunpaw ran to catch up with Streampaw and Moonpaw, "How was your day?" she asked enthusiastically.
"Well, Streampaw and I got to explore our territory with Silverwings. It was so cool; I think I saw a Windclan cat in the distance!" Moonpaw yelped with excitement.
"Yes, it was really fun. Silverwings is so great." Streampaw exclaimed. The three walked back to their den, Reedpaw was hunched up in the far corner of the den. Sunpaw took no notice of the tabby striped apprentice and raked some moss together for her bedding. She circled around and around until she was comfortable; then she sighed contentedly as she curled up next to her friends.