CHAPTER 7-The Fledgling
The round, pale moon shone against an even paler sky. The black, skinny trees thinned out as we neared the WindClan territory. Tonight was my first Gathering, and I was nervous. My heart fluttered anxiously against my rib cage.
The smooth surface of the Lake gleamed and glittered with starlight, and it peered up at the ThunderClan cats with a full, pale face.
Onestar and his cats greeted us at the rise of a hill, and we journeyed onwards to the island. The dry stalks of grass crunched underneath my paws. Crunch. Snap. Crunch. Crunch.
They whispered in my ears. Snowpaw bounded with excitement next to me. "This is going to be our first Gathering!" he exclaimed. "I can't wait!" My fur was fluffed out with tension. How many cats were going to be on the island? Fifty? One hundred? How would I fit in? Would everyone stare at me, the newcomer? Graystripe breathed in the crisp night air. "I smell a lot of cats," he meowed. "There's going to be one hundred of them tonight." I felt light-headed.
We neared the fallen log that acted as a bridge from the bank to the island. I twitched my ears as the wind carried the murmurs and voices from the Gathering towards me. The ThunderClan and WindClan cats began to scramble onto the log. I hesitated. It looked thin, delicate, and sleek. What if it collapsed from underneath me? What if I slipped? I could never swim.
Snowpaw seemed to sense my tension, for he rested his fluffy tail against my black pelt and steadied me. He mewed brightly, "Come on! We'll help eachother." Together, we scrabbled onto the log and journeyed across it. I leaned on him for support.
At one point, I nearly slipped, but he managed to steady me.
My paw brushed the soft fur of grass. I looked up anxiously as we continued on towards the clearing. The chatter of voices grew steadily louder as we neared. The cats sounded like a whole tree full of birds! They chirped and sang, and chatted and talked, but to me, they talked about nothing. Their voices went murmur, murmur, murmur and they mingled with eachother, but the sounds were empty and meaningless. Cats, more cats than I've never seen at one place, nestled together so that it was a whole crowd of endless shifting pelts.
So this was a Gathering.
There were too many people. It was too loud. Too loud! Too much!
I quivered nervously, and when I looked around, I realized that Snowpaw had disappeared. He had probably bounded off to explore. The cats chatted with eachother and laughed. They shouted. They bellowed. They roared and yelled.
"Berrynose, come over here!"
"Hey, Reedwhisker, how are you doing?"
"Are the prey running smoothly?"
"How was your day?"
The loud noises hurt my ears. It was too much, all of it. I began to feel stuffy. My heart pounded furiously, and I crouched down and began to back away. Maybe I could get back to camp without anyone noticing…
"Oh, hey, there's that cat that I've been telling you about!"
I stiffened. There was a small group of apprentices a little while away. Dewpaw was among them. He called, "Come over here, Ashley!"
That was strange. Dewpaw had never liked me very much, and now he wanted to hang out? But I couldn't just ignore him.
I shyly padded over to the group and sat down. There was a tabby she-cat, a brown tom, and a tortoiseshell. Dewpaw grinned at me. But it was a funny grin, one that curled at the corners and widened at the ends like the Cheshire cat's. "She's a kittypet," he said to his friends.
I was not!
My tail bristled. He shouldn't make up lies and spread rumors about me! But he was only an apprentice, not much bigger than a kit. He probably didn't know any better. I forced my fur to lie flat.
The apprentices stared at me with fascination and contempt. The tabby she-cat wrinkled her nose. "Does that mean you eat kittypet food? Yuck! They look like rabbit dung and smell much worse. Why would anyone want to eat that?" I opened my mouth to speak, but the brown tom sneered, "Why would Bramblestar want to accept a kittypet into his Clan? I thought they were much too fat and dull to make a good warrior."
I quivered and looked down at my paws. I wanted to shrink and make myself invisible.
The tortoiseshell she-cat's fur was matted and dirty, as if she hadn't groomed herself in a moon. Her yellow eyes didn't shine and she spoke much too loudly. She shouted, "What was your name again? Ashley? That sounds so weird and different."
I was too shy and humiliated to speak. I peered around at the other cats for help, but they were paying no attention and chatting with eachother.
So this was a Gathering?
The apprentices guffawed and snickered. "How queer. How peculiar. How very strange indeed," they mewed. "Kittypets didn't belong in Clans." They snickered and hurled insults at me, while Dewpaw sneered. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I wanted to disappear.
Luckily, Snowpaw came to my rescue. He dashed forwards and planted his paws firmly in front of them.
He hissed, "Don't make fun of her! Ashley's my friend!"
A friend. He said I was his friend?
Blackstar climbed up onto the branch of the pine tree and yowled, "The Gathering is about to begin! I will go first with my announcements."
A hush fell over the huge crowd like a blanket. Everyone was intent on listening to what the leaders were saying.
Snowpaw stayed by my side the entire time and didn't leave. He had said I was his friend.
"Don't make fun of her! Ashley's my friend!" I repeated the words over and over again in my head and pictured the scene.
"Ashley's my friend!" he had said.
And I thought, How miraculous.
When I was a human, I was always shy and quiet. I didn't talk much to other people. Instead, I would sit by myself and think quiet thoughts, never speaking, never talking, just sitting there without a sound like a still puddle after the rain. At times, I would feel very lonely indeed. Oh, yes, I did have a few acquaintances, but they were never very close.
And here was Snowpaw, who said that I was his friend.
"Snowpaw," I said, when the Gathering was over. He looked at me. "Yes?"
I closed my eyes and breathed, "Thank you."
I suddenly felt embarrassed, and scampered on ahead.