“Stay away, filthy badger!” Petal’s brother, Fox, stood at her side, his brown fur bristling. “Don’t come back!” Petal could hear the tremor in Fox’s voice and knew that his whole body was shaking as violently as hers.
Like the badger will listen to a couple of kits, she thought. It could have snapped us up in a mouthful.
A chilly breeze blew through the forest, rattling the branches and sending a few more dead leaves to whirl through the air. Petal’s shivers increased as she felt claws of cold sinking through her pelt.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
Fox turned to her and touched her ear with his nose. “We’ll have to look after ourselves now,” he replied. “We’ll be fine. We have to be.” He turned his face away from the sight of their mother sprawled on the ground before them.
No, we won’t, Petal thought. She could tell that Fox was trying to sound braver than he felt. We don’t really know how to hunt. Mother never had the chance to finish teaching us.
Looking at Fox—he was strong and compact but still smaller than some of the prey they would need to hunt—she saw how unprepared they both were. What chance do we have, alone in the forest?
She began to claw at the dead leaves, showering them over her mother’s body. After a heartbeat Fox joined her, and the two kits scratched at the debris on the forest floor until their mother was completely covered.
Who will look after us now? Petal wondered as she sat with her brother. Then another thought tore through her. Who will look after our mother? She raised her face to the sky and closed her eyes. It was as though she were drowning; it was hard to breathe. Something that felt as heavy as a stone sat in her chest, where her heart had once been. Will I ever know happiness again?
She opened her eyes, and looked again at the outline of her mother’s dead body beneath the leaves. “Stay safe,” she murmured. “Wherever you are now.”
“Come on,” Fox meowed, cleaning his claws. “We’ll go and hunt.”
He wouldn’t look Petal in the face, and his voice sounded matter-of-fact, but she knew he was only trying to help. We have to survive now, on our own, she thought. He’s doing his best.
Side by side, Petal and Fox padded through the forest. Petal started at every unexpected sound from the undergrowth. She knew that Fox was just as scared, however much he tried to hide it. There was no knowing if that badger would attack again—it knew they were without protection now.
Petal’s belly growled hungrily. She tried to taste the air for signs of prey as their mother had taught them, but she couldn’t pick up any scents. Am I even tasting the air in the right way? she wondered, trying to remember her mother’s lessons.
Fox sniffed around the roots of an oak tree, a spot where their mother had often snapped up a mouse or two, but he found nothing.
“All the prey is snug down their holes,” he grumbled. “How are we expected to catch anything when it’s as cold as this?”
As the sun moved down the sky, Petal began to be afraid that her brother was right. Now and again she spotted a bird perched on a branch above their heads, and once a squirrel whisked up a tree trunk in front of them and vanished into a hole. None of the creatures seemed to be scared of them.
And why should they be? she asked herself. We’re only kits.
A familiar scent drifted past her. She halted, her nose twitching and her whiskers quivering. “Do you smell that?” she breathed out.
Fox sniffed the air. “Cats!” he exclaimed, his yellow eyes gleaming with excitement. “We’re saved! They’ll share their prey with us!”
He took off, scampering through the undergrowth in the direction of the scent. Petal scurried along behind him. A few heartbeats later they broke out into a clearing. Twilight was gathering, but they could still make out three cats curled up together in the shelter of a mossy boulder.
“Hi!” Fox meowed, skidding to a stop in front of them.
Petal halted at Fox’s shoulder, her excitement fading as one of the three—a skinny gray-and-white she-cat—sprang to her paws and faced them with fierce green eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, her lips drawn back in the beginnings of a snarl.
Petal took a deep breath. She had never seen such a hostile cat. The only cat they had really known was their mother. And she was so kind and gentle, not like this cat at all! “We… we’re on our own,” she stammered. “We were hoping for… looking for food.” She hoped they wouldn’t be forced to retell the story of their mother’s death—not so soon after… She shook herself.
Glancing at Fox, she saw that his fur had started to stand on end, reacting to the other cat’s hostility. Calm yourself! she willed him. They’d come here for help, not a fight.
The she-cat’s green gaze raked over them like a bunch of thorns. “Then you should look elsewhere,” she hissed. She slid out her claws, leaving Petal in no doubt about what would happen to the kits if they disobeyed.
The other two cats said nothing, but their eyes were hard and unsympathetic.
Petal and Fox backed away. “What’s the matter with her?” Fox muttered. “Why doesn’t she want us to stay?”
Petal shook her head. “I don’t know.” The world had become a colder place, even in the few moments since covering their mother’s body with dead leaves.
Petal and Fox turned away from the other cats. Petal tried not to hear the snarls behind them, warning them never to bother these cats again. Her drooping tail brushed the ground as she and her brother trudged on through the forest. The last of the light was fading fast; Petal shivered afresh at the thought of spending the night without their mother’s warm body curled around them.
Then there was a rustling in the undergrowth. “Look!” Fox whispered, pointing with his tail.
Petal gazed in that direction and spotted a squirrel nibbling on a nut at the foot of a nearby beech tree. At once both kits flattened themselves to the ground and began to creep up on it the way that their mother had taught them. Petal’s jaws began to water at the thought of sinking her teeth into the prey.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” a voice growled behind them.
A lightning bolt of shock passed through Petal, and she sat up to see the gray-and-white she-cat standing over her. How did she get here so quickly and silently?
Fox crept on for another paw step, and let out a squeal as the gray-and-white cat cuffed him around the ear.
At the same moment a big tabby tom flashed past them and flung himself on top of the squirrel as it tried to leap to safety up the tree.
“Hey!” Fox protested. “That was our prey!” But all he got was another cuff to the ears.
The gray-and-white she-cat pushed her face close to Fox’s. “All prey around here is ours,” she snarled. “Learn that now, before you get really hurt.”
Petal bristled in anger at the threat. It’s not fair, she thought, as the tabby tom padded past her, the body of the squirrel dangling limply from his jaws. We saw it first! But she was too scared to make her objection aloud.
The two cats melted back into the trees, happy to leave Fox and Petal with nothing to eat. They don’t care that we’re just kits. They’re leaving us to die, Petal thought as she watched them go. We’re truly on our own.