Erin Hunter - Twilight

As gently as they could, the two she-cats moved the kit closer to the bank of the stream and laid him on a soft cush-ion of moss. Leafpool chewed up a single yarrow leaf, being careful to spit out all the scraps. Then she stuffed the pulp into the kit’s wide-open mouth.

“Swallow it,” she ordered, although she wasn’t sure if the kit could hear her.

The tiny throat convulsed as the kit tried to spit out the scraps of bitter-tasting leaf. But some must have gone down, because a moment later he vomited up several mouthfuls of evil-smelling mucus. His cries died down, and he lay limp and shivering, blinking up at Leafpool.

“Well done.” Leafpool stroked one paw over his head.

“Now I want you to eat one juniper berry for me, and then you can go to sleep. Mothwing?”

The RiverClan medicine cat was already at her side with the juniper berry. She crushed it carefully and held it where the kit could lick it up, massaging his throat to make sure he swallowed it. Her soothing purr—so different from her earlier panic—quieted the tiny kit, and he was asleep by the time Leafpool and Mothwing moved him back to his nest.

“I think he’ll be okay,” murmured Leafpool, sending up a silent prayer to StarClan. “Let’s treat the next one.”

The next kit was still sleeping, but she stirred as the two medicine cats moved her to the edge of the bank.

“My belly hurts,” she moaned.

“This will make it better,” Leafpool promised, stuffing another yarrow leaf into the kit’s mouth.

Instantly the kit spat it out. “Yuck, it’s horrible!”

“Minnowkit, do as you’re told and eat it,” Mothwing mewed sharply.

“Don’t want—” The kit’s protest was interrupted by a feeble wail as her belly was seized by another cramp.

Mothwing took the chance to stuff the yarrow leaf back into her mouth, while Leafpool stroked her throat.

Minnowkit wailed again, and like the first kit soon brought up the reeking mucus.

“Now you can have a juniper berry,” Mothwing meowed, popping it in swiftly as Minnowkit opened her mouth to protest.

“Juniper’s horrible,” Minnowkit murmured, her voice fading as she drifted, still complaining, into sleep.

Leafpool and Mothwing dragged her back to the nest and examined the third kit, the one who seemed weakest.

Mothwing’s eyes were huge with distress. “I think she’s dead.”

Leafpool bent over the tiny kit and felt her whiskers stirred by a faint breath. “No, she’s still alive.” She tried to sound hopeful, though privately she was afraid the kit was well on the way to joining the ranks of StarClan. Not if I can help it , she decided. “I don’t think we should try moving her, though,” she warned. “Fetch a dock leaf, and she can vomit onto that.”

Mothwing hurried over to where docks grew at the edge of the stream and bit through the stem of a large leaf.

Meanwhile Leafpool chewed up more yarrow. All her efforts to rouse the kit failed, so Mothwing had to part the kit’s jaws while Leafpool forced the yarrow as far down her throat as she could.

The kit retched feebly and spat a few scraps of yarrow mixed with mucus onto the dock leaf before lying still.

“That’s not enough,” Mothwing mewed worriedly.

“No, but it’s better than nothing. We’ll let her rest for a while, then try again.”

There were only two yarrow leaves left.

“We should treat Beechpaw next,” Mothwing decided, pointing with her tail to where the young cat lay at the end of the row of sick warriors. “He’s the weakest, except for the kits.” She picked up the remaining yarrow in her jaws and padded off. Leafpool was about to go with her when Mistyfoot reappeared at the top of the bank, her sides heaving.

“Leafpool,” she panted, “I’ve found something. Will you come and see?”

Leafpool glanced at Mothwing, who had also heard the deputy’s arrival and turned to listen. “Go on, Leafpool,” she urged. “I’ll be fine here.”

Leafpool made one last swift check of the sleeping kits, then climbed the bank to join Mistyfoot. To her relief, she spotted Reedwhisker and a silver-pelted apprentice padding across the camp, their jaws full of yarrow.

“That’s great!” she exclaimed. “Take it straight to Mothwing, please.”

“No problem,” Reedwhisker mumbled around his mouthful of stems. “We’ll fetch the juniper next.”

The RiverClan deputy led Leafpool along the top of the bank as far as a barrier of thorns that stretched from stream to stream, blocking off the camp from intruders. When the two cats had pushed their way through a narrow tunnel, curved around many sleek bodies, Mistyfoot followed the smaller stream up a steep slope in the direction of the ShadowClan border.

Soon the slope became an almost sheer, sandy cliff, with jutting rocks that cats could climb, while the stream cascaded down beside them in a waterfall. Leafpool slowed down, careful not to slip on the wet stone. Mistyfoot waited for her at the top, where the stream gushed out of the hillside between moss-covered boulders.

“Not far now,” she promised.

Leafpool paused to catch her breath and taste the air. She caught a faint hint of the Thunderpath that formed the border between RiverClan and ShadowClan, but the scent of monsters was faint and stale, as if none had been there for many days. Her ears pricked as she identified another scent—unfamiliar, but reminding her of the reek of sickness around Mothwing’s den. She glanced at Mistyfoot.

“This way,” the deputy mewed.

The stench grew stronger as they approached the border with ShadowClan. Leafpool was just starting to wonder if the problem lay in RiverClan’s territory at all when Mistyfoot swerved around a hazel thicket and headed back into her own territory. Hawkfrost and Blackclaw were waiting a few foxlengths away, in a small clearing enclosed by brambles.

Hawkfrost swung to face them as they approached, neck fur bristling, then relaxed when he saw who they were.

“Nothing to report,” he meowed. “Everything’s been quiet since you left.”

“No sign of ShadowClan,” Blackclaw added.

Leafpool wondered why the RiverClan warrior was so worried about ShadowClan. They hadn’t crossed the border between the territories. Perhaps he wanted to blame ShadowClan for the sickness.

“This has nothing to do with ShadowClan,” Mistyfoot mewed sharply. “It’s a Twoleg thing, just like you said, Leafpool. Come and see, but don’t get too close.”

Hawkfrost and Blackclaw stepped aside to reveal a smooth, round object about the size of a badger lying at the far side of the clearing, half hidden by brambles. It was hard and shiny, like the Twoleg monsters. As Leafpool crept toward it, she saw that in one place the smooth surface was crushed and broken. A sticky liquid oozed out of the crack, dripping down the side to form a silvery-green puddle.

Traces of the liquid on the grass farther away suggested that cats or some other animal had trodden in the puddle and picked up some of the sticky stuff on their paws.

Leafpool opened her jaws to speak and coughed as the reek hit her throat. “This must be it!” she gasped. “That stuff could kill a cat; it even looks evil.”

“And smells vile,” Hawkfrost growled, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

“I don’t get it,” Blackclaw argued. “Surely no cat would be mousebrained enough to drink that.”

“Mousebrain yourself,” Mistyfoot retorted. “Can’t you see cats must have picked it up on their pads? You tread in it accidentally, you lick yourself clean, and there you are.”

“Other animals would tread in it too,” Leafpool agreed.

“Mice, for example. If cats killed them and ate them, they would pick up the poison that way.”