“Hello, Lionpaw,” mewed Minnowpaw. “This is
Pouncepaw”—she nodded toward the brown tabby she-cat beside her—“and Pebblepaw.” She flicked her tail toward the gray tom.
“What do you think of the island?” Pouncepaw asked.
“It’s great,” Lionpaw replied.
“We can show you around, if you like,” Minnowpaw offered.
Mousepaw’s eyes lit up. Clearly he liked the idea of a starlit stroll with the pretty apprentice. But Lionpaw would rather explore the place for himself, especially if Mousepaw was going to be round-eyed and moony over Minnowpaw the whole time.
“Thanks for the offer,” he mewed. “But Mousepaw’s promised to introduce me to some of the other cats.”
Mousepaw gazed at him blankly. “Huh? Have I?”
“Come on!” Lionpaw prompted before Mousepaw could object. He padded away from the group and Mousepaw sighed, but followed him across the clearing.
Suddenly a soft voice sounded in his ear. “Are you Jaypaw’s brother?”
He swung around to find a light brown tabby she-cat gazing at him with eyes the color of a late-afternoon sky.
“Y-yes,” he stammered. “How did you know?”
“Berrypaw told me. I’m Heatherpaw, by the way.”
“Jaypaw might have mentioned me,” Heatherpaw went on.
“I was there when Crowfeather saved him from drowning.
Has he recovered?”
Lionpaw forced himself to stop gaping like a startled rabbit. “Jaypaw?” he echoed. “Oh, he’s fine now.”
“Is he here?” Heatherpaw inquired.
Lionpaw was having trouble remembering where any of his littermates were right now.
“Not this time,” Mousepaw answered for him, sounding impatient.
“I still can’t believe he was out alone when he’s blind,”
Heatherpaw breathed. “He must be so brave!”
Lionpaw felt a twinge of envy. “Most of the time he’s just grumpy,” he told her. “Especially now that he’s been confined to the camp for a quarter moon.”
“Poor Jaypaw,” Heatherpaw sympathized. “I’d be miserable if I were stuck in camp.”
“Me too,” Lionpaw agreed.
“How long have you been an apprentice?” Heatherpaw asked.
“Since quarter moon. What about you?”
“For a moon and a half now,” she replied. “This is my second Gathering.”
“Have you met Mousepaw before?” Lionpaw asked, sens-ing that his Clanmate was growing restless and casting long
ing glances back to the RiverClan apprentices.
“We’ve never spoken,” Heatherpaw confessed. “But I saw him last time talking to Russetfur.” She looked at Mousepaw.
“Did Russetfur get any information out of you? She tried to from me, but fortunately Crowfeather had warned me not to give anything away.”
Before Mousepaw could answer, a black tom with amber eyes trotted up to them. “We ought to join our Clan,” he told Heatherpaw gruffly, ignoring the ThunderClan apprentices.
“The meeting’s about to begin.”
“This is Breezepaw,” Heatherpaw told Mousepaw and Lionpaw. “He’s our newest apprentice.” Her whiskers twitched. “Though you couldn’t tell it from his manner. He’s been trying to boss the other apprentices from the moment he went from a ’kit to a ’paw.”
Breezepaw stared furiously at her, and the tip of his tail flicked from side to side.
“Don’t worry, Breezepaw,” Heatherpaw went on. “You’ll be a warrior before you know it, and then you can boss all the apprentices around.”
Breezepaw narrowed his eyes, clearly unsure whether she was being serious or not.
Heatherpaw glanced at Lionpaw, then whispered loud enough for Breezepaw to hear, “He thinks that I have to do what he says because his father, Crowfeather, is my mentor.”
“You know Crowfeather would never—” Breezepaw started to object.
“Oh, come on, Breezepaw!” Heatherpaw pleaded. “Lighten up!” She gave his flank a nudge with her muzzle, then turned back to Lionpaw. “It’s hard to believe, but Breezepaw can be great fun on a good day.”
A commanding meow sounded from the Great Oak. “We meet beneath Silverpelt—”
“That’s Onestar calling for the meeting to start!” Heatherpaw gasped.
Lionpaw swung around and saw the four Clan leaders sitting like owls in the lowest branch of the tree. Onestar, the lithe brown tabby who led WindClan, was speaking.
“. . . commanded by the truce of the full moon.”
Breezepaw flashed Heatherpaw a look that said,
Feeling more confident now, Lionpaw joined the cats gathering around the base of the oak. He weaved among his Clanmates till he found a space between Hollypaw and Spiderleg.
Firestar sat beside Onestar on the branch. A sleek, spotted tabby she-cat sat next to him. Lionpaw guessed that was Leopardstar of RiverClan. Beyond her was a huge white tom with jet-black paws—ShadowClan’s leader, Blackstar.
“WindClan has one new apprentice this moon,” Onestar announced. “Breezepaw.” The black-pelted apprentice lifted his chin, apparently quite undaunted by having cats from all four Clans turning to stare at him. Lionpaw’s heart began to
race. He hoped he could act so coolly when it was his turn to be named.
“Leaf-bare has been kind to us this last moon,” Onestar went on. “The rabbits are running, but not too fast to catch, and the windy weather has made hunting hard for the buz-zards and hawks, which leaves more prey for us.”
An alarming thought struck Lionpaw. Would Onestar mention Jaypaw’s intrusion into WindClan territory? He leaned forward, ears pricked.
“Other than that,” Onestar went on, “WindClan has nothing important to report.”
Lionpaw glanced, relieved, at Hollypaw. She leaned against him. “Thank StarClan he didn’t say anything about Jaypaw,”
she whispered.
Onestar turned to Blackstar, nodding for him to speak next.
“ShadowClan has one new apprentice too,” Blackstar began. He looked down at a wiry brown she-cat sitting among the ShadowClan warriors. “Ivypaw.”
Ivypaw nodded, her eyes narrowed. She didn’t look pleased or proud to be announced as a new apprentice, as Breezepaw had.
He felt Hollypaw fidgeting beside him. Her eyes were shining with excitement. “Our turn next!” she breathed.
But Blackstar had not finished. “Hunting has been good for ShadowClan since we enlarged our territory.”
Lionpaw stiffened as he heard a gasp from the ThunderClan warriors around him. Was Blackstar really going to make out that they had seized the land by the river from ThunderClan?
“Our new stretch of territory is a great source of prey,”
Blackstar meowed.
Spiderleg muttered under his breath, “Firestar would never have given it up if it were!”
“ShadowClan would like to thank Firestar for his generos-ity in granting it to us,” Blackstar finished with
