Amanda lay very still outside Firestars den. What a funny dream, she thought. She stood up, something was wrong. She looked down at her chest -- shiny black fur. What is happening! How can this be?
Firestar came out of his den. He stared at Amanda.
"Wha…" He began, his voice trailed away.
Amanda took a deep breath and gazed at the flame colored cat.
"I had a dream. A cat, Bluestar I think she was called, came to me. She said I was singled out by,… by…a clan called Star."
"StarClan" responded Firestar.
"Yes that was it. Bluestar told me that I could become a cat if I wanted to. I said yes, and she…she…she…"
Amanda's voice trailed away helplessly. There was no way she could describe what had happened to her.
"She turned you into a cat." Firestar finished. "This is incredible. I've never heard tell of such a thing. You are a Twoleg. No, not anymore, now you are one of us, a cat…"
Firestar gazed toward the horizon, toward the rising sun. His eyes returned to the newly formed black cat.
The two cats watched each other silently. Finally, Firestar spoke.
"You will need an appropriate name, an apprentice name." He leapt onto a big, jutting rock.
"Let all cats old enough to catch there own prey please join here beneath the Highrock for a clan meeting!"
Out of many dens and hollows came cats of all sizes. They assembled beneath the Highrock.
Unstably, Amanda walked toward the Highrock. She tripped once, than pulled herself up. She watched her padded paws trod gently on the sand. She turned and looked carefully at the small furrows in the ground where she'd stepped.
"Amanda has been turned into a cat by StarClan. I must give her a name."
Firestar took a deep breath.
"Spirits of StarClan, you know every cat by name. I ask you now to take away the name from the cat you see before you, for it no longer stands for what she is."
The black cat sat below the Highrock, nameless before StarClan.
"I give this cat a new name. From this moment on she will be known as Shadowpaw."
Shadowpaw suppressed a shiver. It was weird, knowing that she would never be called Amanda again.
"Ashfur may be her mentor." Firestar put in.
Mentor? She wondered. What's a mentor?
Cats began to move around Shadowpaw.
"We're going with the other apprentices for training." Ashfur meowed. "I'm your mentor, I teach you the ways of the wild."
"What's an apprentice?" Shadowpaw asked.
"It's a young cat, six moons or older that gets taught how to live in the wild."
She joined a group of cats trekking to the training hollow.
"Who are the other apprentices?" she asked a white she-cat.
"There's me, Whitepaw, Spiderpaw, Shrewpaw, and Bramblepaw." Whitepaw answered.
They arrived at the training hollow, as Whitepaw called it. It was a clearing in the forest.
"I want to show you the territory first." Ashfur meowed.
The first place he showed her was Fourtrees. It was four huge oaks, whose trunks creaked like bones in the wind.
Next, they started out by the river.
Suddenly Firestar raced over to them.
"Ashfur! I need you for a hunting patrol! We're short on warriors, you see."
"Fine." Ashfur wasn't interested in Shadowpaw. "You stay here." He told her.
Shadowpaw felt anger burning in her chest. How could Ashfur leave her all alone, in a forest she didn't know!
The summer sun was hot, making her fur scorch. She decided to go for a swim in the river to cool her self off.
She looked at herself in the river. She was shiny black, with large, intriguing deep amber eyes.
Shadowpaw dove into the river. She was instantly soaked. She could swim, she had learned how in the summer of 6th grade.
She pulled herself up on the other bank. Something was wrong with this environment. These trees were different. They even smelled different.
Suddenly something grey and solid slammed into her and knocked her off her paws. A whirlwind of claws and teeth hit her. It must be a badger. She shot upward, tail fluffed out twice its size. She landed on the opponent, who gave a furious snarl and raked its claws down her flank.
It was a cat!
Shadowpaw loosened her grip. The cat scrambled away and turned to face her with an angry glare, ears flat against his head.
"Sorry," Shadowpaw meowed. "I didn't know you were a cat."
"You're stupid!" the tom cat growled. "Don't you know to fight cats from enemy Clans, you lunkhead? You're in enemy territory, RiverClan territory!"
Shadowpaw shook her head. "No I didn't thank you," she meowed icily.
"Wait…" the cat looked closely at her dripping body. "You know how to swim?"
"Of course I know how to swim, everyone knows how to swim." She snapped.
"You're new here…Right?" he asked.
"Yes I am."
"I hear a patrol coming, go!" he whispered urgently.
Shadowpaw sprinted over to the river. She glanced back, and the tom whispered "I'm Skypaw."
"I'm Shadowpaw," she whispered back.
She swam across the river.
Soaking wet, heart hammering, she ran back to the camp.
Suddenly a smoky black tom stalked angrily up too her.
"Where have you been?" he growled.
It was Ashfur.
Is Shadowpaw going to get in trouble? Find out August 10th!