Echo: The Kits Take A Stand

Chapter 3

Sagepelt was sitting in the corner of the nursery, glaring at her.

"It's terribly late! Go to bed this instant! I'll tell you what your punishment is tomorrow," said her mother. With her head down, Echokit curled up beside Wetkit and drifted off.

Echokit woke up the next morning, and knew instantly what was coming next. Her own punishment for what had happened the night before. She opened one eye. All of the other kits had woken up. Echokit must have slept late because she was so tired from staying up till moonhigh. Echokit opened her other eye and stood up. The other kits were wrestling with each other.

"Echokit, you're awake!" exclaimed Sagepelt. She had been talking to the other queens in the nursery. Now she stood up and walked over to Echokit.

"I have thought long and hard about your punishment. And I've decided that for the next moon, you will go to sleep early every night. And I also want you to tell Hazelstar you're sorry about sneaking to the Gathering. And while all of your siblings will be allowed to leave the nursery at two moons old, you will have to wait until you're two-and-a-half moons to leave the nursery and explore camp. Though I'm sure you saw some of it when you snuck to the Gathering."

Echokit didn't think the punishment was very bad. Going to bed early wasn't that bad, after all, she still had the rest of the day to play, and as for having to wait a half a moon to leave the nursery and explore camp-that didn't matter, because Echokit had snuck out and explored the entire camp many times before. And saying sorry to Hazelstar would be easy. Just a little "I'm sowwy" with sad kitty-cat eyes would work. Echokit just shrugged and mewed "Ok," to her mother and walked away. Ha! That would show Sagepelt. Nobody could give a good enough punishment for Echokit!

"I heard about what you did," commented Wetkit as Echokit joined their game. "I told you you'd get caught! And at the worst time, too. Sneaking to the Gathering was the worst thing you ever did. I bet you won't be sneaking out again for a while!"

"Oh, shut up, I will always be sneaking around," Echokit hissed.

"You know, Father's visiting us today. He'll have something to say about what you did!" Oh no! Echokit had forgotten that Grayclaw was coming to visit them. Grayclaw had only met his kits once before, and they were so young that their memories of it were very faint. And Wetkit was right. He definitely would have something to say about what she did!

"When do you think Father'll come?" Echokit asked her siblings.

"Soon. Sometime before sunhigh, I think," answered Falconkit as he wrestled with Rockkit.

"You're lucky your father visits you at all! Wolfpelt hasn't visited us once! Mother says it's 'cause he's 'too busy with deputy duties'," complained Swiftkit,of Firestripe's kits, as he leaped on top of Falconkit.

"Our mother won't even tell us who our father is. I'm starting to think she doesn't even know who he is!" added Blossomkit, one of Frostpelt's kits'. She was struggling to get on top of Swiftkit. Eventually Swiftkit won their wrestling game.

"Ha! I'm going to be the best fighter of all!" cried Swiftkit.

"I'm tired of play-fighting!" complained Nightkit, Blossomkit's sister. "Let's play tag! Swiftkit's it!"

"What? No fair!" Swiftkit protested, but everyone else was already running from him.

Echokit played with the rest of the kits for a couple of hours. It helped her forget about Grayclaw and stop worrying about what he would say. But the dreaded moment still came.

A gray head poked its way through the nursery entrance.

"He's here!" cried Rockkit.

"Grayclaw!" exclaimed Sagepelt. "I haven't seen you in a moon!" The gray tom walked over to her and licked her ear.

"It's good to see you, Sagepelt. What's new with my kits?" Grayclaw asked.

"Oh plentiful!" Sagepelt answered. "As you can see, they've opened their eyes, well they did quite a while ago-I wish you'd been here for that-and they can speak quite well and also walk and-well, I'm sure you heard of what Echokit did."

Echokit flinched. Her father turned to look at her. "Yes, I did hear," he said to Sagepelt, glaring at his daughter.

"I only wanted to have some excitment!" she protested. "Please don't be mad! I'm still your kit!"

"No kit of mine breaks the code," Grayclaw (cough slash Spiderleg cough) hissed. He turned away from her to greet her siblings. What? Echokit thought. He's not going to spend any time with me? Echokit ran to the corner next to her mother. She sat there, looking crestfallen until Grayclaw finally left.

Sunpaw sat next to Echokit. "I'm so sorry," the golden apprentice said. "You don't deserve this."

"Nobody deserves this," Echokit responded. "You and Leafpaw should be apprentices, and all of the kits should be apprentices at 6 moons. None of this is fair. We have to prove to Hazelstar that the rules should be changed back. And kits should be able to go to Gatherings."

"Leafpaw!" Sunpaw hissed. "He still hasn't spoken to me or apologized for letting us take all the blame. I can't believe my own brother would do that to me!" she glared over to the brown tom, sitting alone in the corner of the nursery.

"Maybe we should tell Hazelstar he was part of it too," Echokit suggested,

"Yeah..." Sunpaw responded after a while. "At first I didn't want to tell because then he would hate me, but he deserves it!" she paused. "But...would he believe us?

He might believe you, but he won't believe me, Echokit thought sharply, but her reply to Sunpaw was, "Maybe...but we should give Leafpaw time to come forward with Hazelstar himself. If he doesn't confess in half a moon, we'll tell Hazelstar."

Sunpaw mewed in agreement. They sat there for a while, quietly thinking.

"In the meantime, we need to convince Hazelstar to change the rules back. We need to prove that us kits are stronger than he thinks,"

"How would we do that? Chase an enemy off our territory? Kill a dog?" Echokit laughed. "You have a little bit of fighting training, but the rest of us kits are only a moon old! And we won't even start training until we're ten moons old! We can't prove anything to Hazelstar without training!"

"Exactly," mewed Sunpaw mischievously. "I'll train you and the kits. By the time you're three moons old, and since there are eleven of us, we'll definitely be able to fight off something. And I'll try to get Leafpaw in on this too."

"Really?" asked Echokit, surprised. "How would you train us?"

"I could sneak you into the forest at night."

"But what about Wetkit? She certainly would tell the queens on us!"

"Then we won't train her."

"How will we get the other kits to know about this?"

"That's up to you. I'll tell Leafpaw, you tell every kit but Wetkit."

Echokit nodded and went back to their game while Sunpaw talked with Leafpaw. She whispered Sunpaw's plan to some of the other kits, telling them to spread the word around but not tell Wetkit. Once she was sure every kit but Wetkit knew and agreed with the plan, she went back to tell Sunpaw.

"Every kit knows and agrees with the plan, but Wetkit is clueless," she reported to Sunpaw.

"Great! And Leafpaw over here wants to make a deal with us," Sunpaw replied. She motioned for Leafpaw to speak.

"I'll train with you, and I'll help fight off that enemy or whatever we're going to do when everybody's trained, but only if you don't tell Hazelstar about you-know-what."

"Fine," Echokit agreed. "Let's shake on it." They shook tails.

Now there was only one thing left to do: wait for the night.