Oh, StarClan! I’ve come out on WindClan territory!

“What are you doing here?” Featherpelt repeated.

“I’m sorry,” Twigpaw gasped. “I didn’t mean to be here.”

She staggered to her paws and wanted to shake the water out of her pelt, but she realized in time that if she did that she would shower the WindClan patrol. And I don’t suppose they’d be pleased with me, she thought, frustrated at having to put up with her wet pelt.

“Your clumsiness cost us prey,” Emberfoot hissed. “We were stalking a pigeon, but when you made all that noise falling in, it flew away.”

I’ll try to fall in quietly next time, Twigpaw thought, but all she dared to say aloud was “Sorry.”

“‘Sorry’ fills no bellies,” Featherpelt snapped. “And what are two apprentices doing out here anyway, so far from camp and without your mentors?”

Twigpaw glanced across the stream to see Finpaw standing there, his eyes huge and worried. She wished he had hidden himself in the undergrowth, so that he wouldn’t be in trouble too.

At first she wasn’t sure how to answer Featherpelt’s question. She wasn’t sure if she ought to admit that she and Finpaw were hunting, but also she didn’t want to suggest that ThunderClan mentors were so careless that apprentices could just wander off without them knowing. It makes ThunderClan look so bad. . . . It’s not the way for me to earn my warrior name.

“Uh, we . . . we just went out for a bit and got distracted,” she stammered at last.

Even while she spoke, she felt a stab of fury at looking like a dumb apprentice in the hope that the WindClan cats would let them go.

But at least her tactic seemed to work. Featherpelt’s claws slid back, and her fur smoothed out. Emberfoot and Smokepaw both took a pace back, though they kept a wary gaze on Twigpaw.

“In that case,” Featherpelt meowed, “we’ll escort you back to the ThunderClan camp. Just to make sure that you don’t get distracted again.”

“There’s no need!” Twigpaw protested, thoroughly alarmed. “We’ll go straight back, I promise.”

“No, I think your Clan leader needs to know what you’ve been up to,” Featherpelt responded with a dismissive wave of her tail. “Emberfoot, you come with me. Smokepaw, go back to camp and tell Harestar what happened. Meet me back here, and we’ll carry on hunting.”

The apprentice dashed off through the trees, while Featherpelt and Emberfoot padded farther upstream to a place where the stream was narrow enough to leap across. Twigpaw was forced to go with them.

Anger and shame burned through her as she and Finpaw made their way back through the forest, firmly escorted by the two WindClan warriors.