Эрин Хантер - The Apprentice's Quest

“Well… okay,” Sandstorm agreed reluctantly. “You see if you can get it out of there. I’ll keep watch.”

She stayed by the ferns at the edge of the clearing while Sparkpaw eagerly led the way over to the rock. Alderpaw looked up; there was shiny black stuff poking out of the cave at its top, and its sides were shiny silver with no paw holds.

“How are we going to get in?” Molewhisker asked, sounding as if he didn’t really expect an answer.

Cherryfall tried climbing up, but her paws skidded on the smooth surface of the rock, and she slipped back before she got anywhere near the top. “Mouse dung!” she exclaimed.

“I’ve got an idea!” Sparkpaw’s fur bristled and her tail bushed out with excitement. “Stand back, all of you.”

She trotted back for several fox-lengths, then raced and took a flying leap to the top of the rock, balancing precariously on the cave’s edge.

“Come down!” Cherryfall yowled. “You’ll fall in, and how will we get you out?”

“I’m fine!” Sparkpaw squealed.

She swayed to and fro as she gripped the top edge of the cave with her paws. The rock tilted with her weight and suddenly tipped over.

Sparkpaw leaped to safety as the rock thumped to the ground and masses of Twoleg stuff spilled out of it.

“There you go,” Sparkpaw panted, a smug look on her face. “Easy.”

Molewhisker put his head into the cave, Twoleg leaf wraps crackling under his paws, and emerged with a lump of something in his jaws.

Alderpaw breathed in more of the enticing smell.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Dunno,” Molewhisker mumbled around his prey. “Some kind of bird, I think. Go and get some. There’s plenty.”

Sparkpaw instantly followed, dragging out a huge piece of the bird. “This is so big it must have been an eagle,” she meowed. “I’ll share it with Sandstorm.”

Alderpaw and then Cherryfall ventured in and collected some of the prey for themselves.

“Thanks, Sparkpaw,” Alderpaw murmured as he joined the group beside the ferns. “You’re really good at hunting Twoleg prey, too!”

Biting into his piece of fresh-kill, Alderpaw realized that it tasted even better than it smelled. But as he gulped it down, he began to feel a prickling in his pelt, as if some creature was watching him. He tried to tell himself not to be stupid, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling.

A rustling sound came from the trees.

Alderpaw tensed, glancing back over his shoulder.

Maybe the crazy Twoleg kit came back?

Or maybe the Twolegs weren’t really done with their food after all.

But the rustling died away, and there was nothing to be seen. Alderpaw tried to pick up a scent, but the aroma of the delicious Twoleg prey swamped everything else. He turned back to finish his food, trying to tell himself that he was imagining things.

It’s weird… I just have the feeling that we’re being watched.

The sun was going down, the sky a blaze of scarlet, as the cats plodded on through the trees. Alderpaw’s belly was growling with hunger; he had felt so tense since sunhigh, moving farther and farther away from his home, that he hadn’t realized the pain in his belly was because he hadn’t eaten. It felt like days since they had eaten the Twoleg food.

“I think we ought to stop and hunt,” Molewhisker meowed. “It’ll be dark soon.”

Sandstorm looked undecided. “We still need to get across the Thunderpath,” she responded. “I thought we might cross first, and then hunt.”

Alderpaw noticed for the first time an acrid tang in the air, and a distant rumbling sound that he would have thought was thunder, except that the sky was clear. The scent reminded him of the monster that had swallowed the Twolegs, and he realized it must come from the Thunderpath.

“But I’m starving!” Sparkpaw protested to Sandstorm. “ Please can we hunt first?”

Sandstorm twitched her whiskers. “Okay,” she agreed at last. “I’m hungry myself, I admit it.”

Before she had finished speaking, Sparkpaw plunged into the undergrowth and emerged a few moments later with the limp body of a vole in her jaws.

“Good job,” Sandstorm commented with a nod of approval.

“I don’t know how she does it,” Molewhisker muttered.

At the same time as he admired Sparkpaw’s skill, Alderpaw tried to subdue his feelings of envy. It was even harder when Molewhisker turned to him and mewed, “Do you want to hunt with me, Alderpaw?”

“Yeah… sure.” Alderpaw guessed that Molewhisker didn’t think he was capable of catching prey by himself. It’s like being his apprentice again, he thought as he followed his former mentor into a clump of thickly growing hazel bushes.

“Try the way I taught you before,” Molewhisker suggested. “Concentrate on one small area at a time. That seemed to be working well for you.”

Not well enough, Alderpaw reflected, crouching down and focusing on the fallen leaves and twigs underneath the nearest hazel bush. Sniffing carefully, he caught the scent of mouse, and a moment later he spotted it almost hidden by a heap of dead leaves.

Trying to remember everything he had learned when he was Molewhisker’s apprentice, Alderpaw crept forward. The mouse seemed unaware of him, scuffling about among the leaves. Then Alderpaw paused, his gaze flicking to a branch above his head. Do I have room to pounce? Will I touch the branch and alert the mouse?

While he was hesitating, the mouse suddenly froze, then scuttled away. It would have escaped if Molewhisker hadn’t leaped for it and slapped a paw down on it.

“Try again,” Molewhisker suggested, clearly fed up with hunting with Alderpaw. “I’m going to see if I can find a squirrel.”

He padded off, leaving the mouse for Alderpaw to collect.

Alderpaw tried again, spotting a blackbird pecking in the grass at the edge of the hazel clump. He slipped into the hunter’s crouch and began to creep up on it, determined that this time he wouldn’t fail. He imagined himself trotting back to meet his Clanmates with the bird clamped in his jaws. His paws began to shake with excitement as he drew closer.

But then one of his forepaws slipped to one side, and he lost his balance. The blackbird flew off with a raucous cry. “Fox dung!” Alderpaw hissed as he righted himself and realized that he had stumbled over a small hollow in the ground, screened by overhanging grass.

That could have happened to any cat, he thought, trying to defend himself, then added wretchedly, but it had to happen to me.

He glanced around to spot more prey, but all he saw was Molewhisker, dragging a squirrel along the ground between his forepaws.

“No luck?” his former mentor asked sympathetically. “Never mind. You can share this. Don’t forget to pick up the mouse.”

When he returned to the spot where he had left his Clanmates, Alderpaw saw that Sandstorm had caught a plump pigeon, while

Cherryfall had two mice.

“Hey!”

Sparkpaw exclaimed as Molewhisker and Alderpaw approached. “You caught a mouse!”

“No, I didn’t,” Alderpaw replied, dropping the prey. “Molewhisker caught it.”

He felt more useless than ever as he and his Clanmates feasted on the prey.

By the time they had finished eating, the sun had gone down, and shadows were gathering under the trees. “It’s getting late,” Sandstorm mewed. “If we want to cross the Thunderpath tonight, we’d better get a move on.”

As they set out, Alderpaw felt his pelt start to prickle again with the sensation that they were being followed. Eyeing some thick undergrowth as they padded past, he was almost sure that something was watching them from deep inside it. He wondered whether he should tell Sandstorm his suspicions, but when he tasted the air, he was so overwhelmed by his companions’ scents that he couldn’t make out anything strange. They’d just think I was imagining things, he told himself, trying to shrug off the feeling. And maybe I am.