Sharpclaw’s tail-tip was twitching back and forth. “Snookpaw—”
“Are you sure we turned the right corner?” Billystorm interrupted, padding up to his apprentice. “Try to remember what it looked like the last time you were here.”
Snookpaw closed his eyes, wrinkling his nose up as if he was thinking hard. “There was a holly tree,” he began. “I know that’s right…” He hesitated a heartbeat longer, then exclaimed, “But the tree was much bigger! Now I know where we are!”
Confident now, he raced back to the corner with the patrol hurrying after him. He ran along the edge of the Thunderpath they had crossed, until he reached the next corner, where a huge holly tree loomed over the top of a pale wooden fence. Around the corner was a narrow alley with Twoleg nests on either side, separated from the path by low stone walls.
“This is it!” Snookpaw trilled. “I can smell the flowers already.”
As she followed him down the alley, Leafstar could hear Twolegs yowling; the sound grew louder until they reached a nest about halfway down the alley. Snookpaw leaped up onto the wall, and Leafstar followed him.
A large square of grass stretched in front of them, with the Twoleg nest at the far side. A male Twoleg was in the garden looking under bushes and inside a small wooden den. He kept on yowling as he searched; a few moments later a female Twoleg appeared from the nest and added her yowls to her mate’s. Even though she had no idea what they were saying, Leafstar could pick up their fear-scent and realized how distressed they were. There was something familiar about their actions, too. It reminded her of the time Sagekit had gone missing among the boulders near the training area, and Clovertail had hunted for him as if he was the most precious piece of prey.
“I think they’re looking for the kit,” she meowed. “Well done, Snookpaw. You brought us to the right place.”
“Yes, you did well,” Billystorm agreed, leaping up onto the wall on the opposite side of Snookpaw from Leafstar.
Snookpaw blinked at his mentor and let out a purr. “I never thought I’d do it,” he confessed.
“So now what do we do?” Sharpclaw demanded, jumping up and gazing out into the garden. “How do we tell the Twolegs where their kit is?”
“I’ll get them to follow me,” Snookpaw mewed, leaping down onto the grass before Leafstar could stop him.
Sharpclaw shrugged. “He’s a kittypet. Maybe he knows how to talk to Twolegs.”
Snookpaw raced across the garden and up to the female Twoleg, who let out a sharp exclamation as he wound himself around her ankles. The Twoleg male spun around and let out a growl as his gaze fell on Snookpaw. He lumbered toward the apprentice, waving his arms and making hissing noises.
Snookpaw stepped back, bewildered. “I know where your kit is!” he meowed loudly. “You have to come with me!”
The Twolegs obviously didn’t understand. The female flapped her hands and screeched at Snookpaw, who backed farther away.
“Come back here, mouse-brain!” Sharpclaw yowled.
At the sound, the male Twoleg turned toward the wall and spotted the cats perched on top of it. He let out a sharp exclamation, and dived to pick up a rounded Twoleg thing that looked as if it was made out of the same reddish stone as the nest.
“Uh-oh…” Sharpclaw muttered. He whipped around and leaped down into the alley.
At the same moment the Twoleg flung the red thing. Snookpaw fled across the grass and launched himself at the top of the wall; Billystorm bundled him down into the alley and Leafstar jumped down after them. The red thing hit the wall just below the spot where they had been standing and shattered into pieces.
“That was close,” Sharpclaw muttered.
Cora and Cherrytail, who had been keeping watch in the alley, were kneading the stony ground with claws extended.
“We’ve got to go,” Cora hissed. “The Twolegs don’t want us here.”
“I don’t understand!” Snookpaw’s fur was ruffled and his eyes wide with disbelief. “Why did they do that? We’re only trying to help.”
“Twolegs are stupid,” Sharpclaw stated, shrugging. “We’ve done all we can here,” he added with a glance at Leafstar. “We’d better get back to camp before there’s any more trouble.”
With every paw step back to the gorge, Leafstar’s uneasiness increased. She couldn’t accept their failure as easily as Cora and Sharpclaw. There must be something we can do! She wished she could ask Billystorm’s advice, but every word she might have spoken stuck in her throat.
When she led her patrol down the trail into the gorge, the rest of the Clan was waiting to hear what had happened.
“Did you manage to find her kin?” Lichenfur rasped, raising one hind leg to scratch behind her ear. “It gives me the creeps, having a Twoleg in the gorge.”
“At least the wailing has stopped,” Tangle muttered.
“We found them,” Sharpclaw reported before Leafstar could reply. “They were searching in their garden for the kit. But they wouldn’t listen when Snookpaw tried to tell them where she was.”
“They threw a flowerpot at us!” Snookpaw exclaimed, his eyes stretched wide with distress and indignation. “I never thought Twolegs would behave like that.”
“Then you’ve learned something, kittypet,” Sparrowpelt murmured under his breath.
“Snookpaw, I don’t think you should let it worry you,” Billystorm told his apprentice, giving him a friendly flick over the ear with his tail. “You know that some Twolegs don’t like strange cats in their gardens.”
“That’s true,” Ebonyclaw agreed. “And if they were searching, they might have thought you were getting in the way.”
Snookpaw’s tail drooped unhappily. “They didn’t have to get so angry.”
“I’m sure this means we shouldn’t get involved,” Petalnose meowed, dipping her head to give her neck fur a few brisk licks. “The Twolegs don’t deserve our help if they’re going to throw things at us.”
Waspwhisker nodded. “There’s nothing more we can do, anyway.”
Leafstar didn’t agree; her paws tingled with the conviction that the Clan was meant to help. And she felt more worried still at the news that the wailing had stopped. The ordinary sounds of the gorge—the rushing water that poured out of the rocks, the rustle of trees, the pad of paws on stone—seemed muted and ominous.
“I’m going to go and see how Echosong is getting along,” she announced.
Several of her Clanmates padded after her as she headed up the gorge. As she rounded the spur of rock to reach the place where the little Twoleg was lying, Echosong came to meet her. Leafstar’s nose twitched at the strong scent of comfrey that wreathed around the medicine cat.
“Did you find her parents?” Echosong asked, her deep green eyes wide with anxiety. “Are they coming?”
“We found them, but they’re not coming.” Quickly Leafstar told Echosong what had happened in the Twolegplace. “How is the Twoleg kit?”
“Not good.” Echosong shook her head, and led the way back to the kit’s side. “She closed her eyes and stopped moving soon after you left. Unless we can get help for her, I don’t think she’s going to wake up.”
The Twoleg lay motionless, her leg still bent at the awkward angle. Her face looked paler than before and her eyes were closed; Leafstar might have thought she was dead, except for the faint rise and fall of her chest. Clovertail was curled up asleep in the crook of her arm, with one of the Twoleg’s forepaws lying lightly across her back.
“I tried putting a poultice of comfrey on her broken leg,” Echosong explained, pointing to the patches of chewed-up herb plastered to the kit’s skin. “But it’s hard to get a poultice to stick when there isn’t any fur for it to stick to.”
Leafstar looked down at the little Twoleg for a few heartbeats without speaking. What if I had kits and one of them was lost, or hurt? she asked herself, pushing away the bleak knowledge that her duties wouldn’t allow her to have kits of her own. I’d be frantic!