a sigh of relief as it gave up the search and padded over to the cave mouth, where it squeezed itself inside and was gone.
Thornclaw leaped down from the tree where he had taken refuge. “That was closer than I’d like,” he meowed as Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw scrambled down to join him. “Where’s Ashfur?”
“Here.” Ashfur’s pale grey head popped out of a tangle of briars. “Do you think that badger is the same one that killed Willowpelt last leaf-bare?”
“Maybe,” Thornclaw replied. “Cloudtail and Mousefur drove it away from the camp, but we never found out where it went.”
A pang of sadness went through Brambleclaw as he remembered the silver-grey she-cat. Willowpelt was the mother of Sorreltail, Sootfur, and Rainwhisker, but she had not lived to see her kits become warriors.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Squirrelpaw asked eagerly. “Shall we go in there and kill it? There are four of us, and only one badger. How hard could it be?”
Brambleclaw winced, while Thornclaw closed his eyes and waited a moment before speaking. “Squirrelpaw, you never go into a badger’s den. Or a fox’s, for that matter. They’ll attack right away, there isn’t enough room to manoeuvre, and you can’t see what you’re doing.”
“But—”
“No. We’ll head back to camp and report it. Firestar will decide what to do.”
Without waiting for Squirrelpaw to argue any more, he set off in the direction they had come. Ashfur fell in behind him, but Squirrelpaw paused at the edge of the clearing. “We could have dealt with it,” she grumbled, glancing back longingly at the dark mouth of the cave. “I could have lured it out, and then—”
“And then it would have killed you with one swipe of its paw, and we’d still have to go back and report it,” Brambleclaw meowed discouragingly. “What do you think we would have said? ‘Sorry, Firestar, but we accidentally let a badger get your daughter’? He would have our fur off. Badgers are bad news, and that’s that.”
“Well, you wouldn’t catch Firestar leaving a badger in ThunderClan territory without doing anything.” Squirrel paw swung her tail up defiantly and plunged into the undergrowth to catch up with Thornclaw and Ashfur.
Brambleclaw raised his eyes, murmured, “Great StarClan!” and followed.
When he emerged from the gorse tunnel into the clearing, the first cat he saw was Dustpelt. The brown tabby warrior was pacing up and down outside the apprentices’ den, his tail lashing from side to side. Two of the other apprentices, Spiderpaw and Whitepaw, were crouched in the shade of the ferns, watching him apprehensively.
As soon as Dustpelt spotted Squirrelpaw, he marched across the clearing towards her.
“Uh-oh,” Squirrelpaw muttered.
“Well?” the tabby warrior’s voice was icy. Brambleclaw winced, knowing how short-tempered he was; the only cat who had never felt the rough side of his tongue was Ferncloud. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
Squirrelpaw met his glare bravely, but there was a quaver in her voice as she replied, “I went on patrol, Dustpelt.”
“Oh, on patrol! I see. And which cat ordered you to go? Greystripe? Firestar?”
“No cat ordered me. But I thought—”
“No, you didn’t think.” Dustpelt’s voice was scathing. “I told you we would train today. Mousefur and Brackenfur took their apprentices to the training hollow to practise their fighting moves. We could have gone with them, but we didn’t, because you weren’t here. Do you realise that every cat has been searching the camp for you?”
Squirrelpaw shook her head, scuffling the ground with her front paws.
“When no cat could find you, Firestar took out a patrol to try following your scent. Did you see anything of him?”
Another shake of the head. Brambleclaw realised that following a scent in the heavy dew that morning would have been next to impossible.
“Your Clan leader has better things to do than chase after apprentices who can’t do as they’re told,” Dustpelt went on. “Thornclaw, why did you let her go with you?”
“I’m sorry, Dustpelt,” Thornclaw apologised. “I thought she’d be safer with us than wandering around the forest by herself.”
Dustpelt snorted. “That’s true.”
“We could still go and do the training,” Squirrelpaw suggested.
“Oh, no. No more training for you until you learn what being an apprentice really means.” Dustpelt paused for a heartbeat. “You can spend the rest of the day looking after the elders. Make sure they have enough fresh-kill. Change their bedding. Go over their pelts for ticks.” He blinked. “I’m sure Cinderpelt has plenty of mouse bile for you.”
Squirrelpaw’s eyes flew wide in dismay. “Oh, yuck!”
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
The young apprentice stared at him for a moment 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.
