MIDNIGHT. Erin Hunter

longer, as if she couldn’t believe he really meant it. When there was no change in her mentor’s hard stare, she whisked around and flounced across the clearing toward the elders’ den.

      “If Firestar’s out looking for Squirrelpaw, we’ll have to wait for him to get back before we can report the badger,” Thornclaw observed.

      “Badger? What badger?” asked Dustpelt.

      While Thornclaw and Ashfur began to describe what they had seen at Snakerocks, Brambleclaw bounded across the clearing and caught up with Squirrelpaw just outside the elders’ den.

      “What do you want?” she spat.

      “Don’t be angry,” Brambleclaw mewed. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, even though she had deserved some sort of punishment for leaving the camp without any cat knowing where she was going. “I’ll help you with the elders, if you like.”

      Squirrelpaw opened her mouth as if she were about to make a rude retort, and then clearly thought better of it. “OK, thanks,” she muttered ungraciously.

      “You go and get the mouse bile, and I’ll make a start on the bedding.”

      Squirrelpaw’s eyes opened wide in a winning expression. “You wouldn’t rather get the mouse bile, would you?”

      “No, I wouldn’t. Dustpelt especially told you to do that. Don’t you think he’ll check?”

      Squirrelpaw shrugged. “No harm in trying.” With a flick of her tail, she stalked off to find Cinderpelt.

      Brambleclaw headed for the elders’ den, which was in a patch of grass sheltered by a fallen tree. The tree was a burned-out shell; Brambleclaw could still scent the acrid tang from the fire that had swept through the camp more than four seasons ago, when he was only a kit. But the grass had grown up again around the tree trunk, thick and luxuriant, making a comfortable home for the elderly cats whose service to the Clan was done.

      When he pushed his way through the grasses he found the elders sunning themselves in the small, flattened clearing. Dappletail, the oldest cat in ThunderClan, was curled up asleep, her patchy tortoiseshell pelt rising and falling with each breath. Frostfur, a still beautiful white queen, was dabbing lazily at a beetle in the grass. Speckletail and Longtail were crouched together as if they were in the middle of a good gossip. Brambleclaw felt the familiar jolt of sympathy when he looked at Longtail; the pale tabby tom was still a young warrior, but his eyesight had begun to fail so that he could no longer fight or hunt for himself.

      “Hi, there, Brambleclaw.” Longtail’s head swung around as Brambleclaw entered the clearing, his jaws parted to take in the newcomer’s scent. “What can we do for you?”

      “I’ve come to help Squirrelpaw,” Brambleclaw explained. “Dustpelt sent her to look after you today.”

      Speckletail broke into rasping laughter. “I heard she went missing. The whole camp was in an uproar, looking for her. But I knew she’d just have gone off by herself.”

      “She tagged onto the dawn patrol,” Brambleclaw meowed.

      Before he could say any more, there was the sound of another cat pushing through the grasses, and Squirrelpaw appeared. She had a twig clamped in her jaws; hanging from it was a ball of moss soaked in mouse bile. Brambleclaw wrinkled his nose at the bitter scent.

      “Right, who’s got ticks?” Squirrelpaw mumbled around the twig.

      “You’re supposed to look for them yourself,” Brambleclaw pointed out.

      Squirrelpaw shot him a glare.

      “You can start with me,” Frostfur offered. “I’m sure there’s one on my shoulder, just where I can’t get at it.”

      Squirrelpaw padded over to the she-cat, parting her white fur with a forepaw and grunting when she discovered the tick. She dabbed at it with the damp moss until it dropped off; ticks obviously found mouse bile as disgusting as cats did, thought Brambleclaw.

      “Don’t worry, youngster,” Speckletail mewed as Squirrel paw went on searching Frostfur’s pelt. “Your father was punished many a time when he was an apprentice. Even after he became a warrior. I never knew such a cat for getting into trouble, and look at him now!”

      Squirrelpaw swung around to look at the elder, her green eyes sparkling, obviously begging for a tale.

      “Well, now.” Speckletail settled herself more comfortably in her grassy nest. “There was the time when Firestar and Greystripe were caught feeding RiverClan with prey from our own territory. . . .”

      Brambleclaw had heard the story before, so he began to collect the elders’ used bedding, rolling the moss together until he had gathered it up in a ball. When he took it out into the clearing he spotted Firestar emerging from the gorse tunnel, with Sandstorm and Cloudtail behind him. Thornclaw was hurrying across to meet them from the other side of the clearing.

      “Thank StarClan Squirrelpaw’s safe,” Firestar was mewing as Brambleclaw came into earshot. “One of these days she’ll get into real trouble.”

      “She’s in real trouble now,” Sandstorm growled. “Just wait till I get my paws on her!”

      “Dustpelt already did.” Thornclaw gave a mrrow of amusement. “He sent her to help the elders for the rest of the day.”

      Firestar nodded. “Good.”

      “And there’s something else,” Thornclaw went on. “We found a badger up at Snakerocks, living in the cave where the dogs used to be.”

      “We think it might be the one that killed Willowpelt,” Brambleclaw put in, setting his ball of moss down. “We’ve not seen any trace of a badger anywhere else in the forest.”

      Cloudtail let out a growl. “Oh, I hope it is. I’d give anything to get my claws on that brute.”

      Firestar swung around to face him. “You’ll do nothing of the kind without orders. I don’t want to lose more cats.” He paused for a moment, then added, “We’ll keep watch on it for a while. Pass the word around not to hunt at Snakerocks for the time being. With any luck, it will move on before leaf-bare, when prey gets scarce.”

      “And hedgehogs might fly,” Cloudtail grumbled, stalking past Brambleclaw toward the warriors’ den. “Badgers and cats don’t mix, and that’s the end of it.”

CHAPTER 3

      “Squirrelpaw is upset,” Leafpaw remarked, watching her sister leave the medicine cat’s clearing with the twig of mouse bile clenched in her jaws.

      “She deserves to be.” Cinderpelt glanced up from counting juniper berries. She spoke firmly, though not unsympathetically. “If apprentices think they can go off by themselves, without telling any cat, then where would we be?”

      “I know.” While Leafpaw prepared the mouse bile, she had listened to her sister raging about how unfair the punishment was. Squirrelpaw’s anger churned deep within Leafpaw’s belly, as if the air in the camp were water and her sister was sending ripples of cold frustration into the medicine cat’s den. Ever since they were tiny kits they had always known what the other was feeling. Leafpaw remembered how her fur had tingled with excitement when Squirrelpaw was made apprentice, and how her sister had been unable to sleep on the night when Leafpaw had been apprenticed as a medicine cat at the Moonstone. Once she had felt an excruciating pain in her paw, and limped around the camp from sunhigh to sunset, until Squirrelpaw returned from a hunting patrol with a thorn driven deep into her pad.

      Leafpaw shook her head as if she had a burr clinging to her pelt, trying to push away her sister’s emotions and concentrate on her task of sorting yarrow leaves.

      “Squirrelpaw will be fine,” Cinderpelt reassured her. “It’ll all be forgotten tomorrow. Now, did you get any