Swiftpaw's tale

Chapter one

I prodded my littermates awake. "Wake up, Galekit! Wake up, Nimblekit! Rise and shine, sleepyheads."

Nimblekit muttered an excuse, rolled over and went back to sleep. Galekit did not even stir. I felt so annoyed! "It morning.", I yelled in Galekit ear. "Today's the day we planned to sneak out of camp to go see Sunningrocks and maybe chase out a few intruders if we're lucky."

That got her attention. "Sunningrocks? Why didn't you wake me up earlier, you mousebrain? You know that we must hurry up and sneak out before the camp awakens."

"Shh!", I cautioned, nodding in the direction of our sleeping mother, Goldenflower. "And I have been trying to wa..."

But my hyperactive sister wasn't even listening. She had gone over to Nimblekit, and was prodding him awake in the exact same way as I had been doing sometime back, but unbelievably, she woke him up in a heartbeat!

"Come on, what are we waiting for? Lets go!", Nimblekit urged. I may have been the biggest kit in the litter, but Nimblekit was the leader. Galekit was the funny, energetic, enthusiastic one, who kept us going, even when the going was tough. As for me, I was the loyal follower, the one who did most of the work.

With Nimblekit in the lead, we made our way across the nursery, careful not to wake up any of the queens. There were three other queens in the nursery, apart from my mother Goldenflower.

My favourite was the white queen Frostfur. She was curled up at the right side of the nursery, with her five kits. Cinderkit, Brakenkit, Brightkit, Thornkit and Honeykit were hardly a moon younger to me.

To the left slept Frostfur's sister Brindleface. She had no kits, neither was she expecting any. When I asked my mother why, she explained that Brindleface had extended her stay in the nursery till she got back in the pink of health. She had suffered from a nasty bout of a strain of greencough that had ravaged ThunderClan during early leaf-bare.

It was off a slightly different strain from the regular greencough that frequented all the Clans every four seasons, and so had been nicknamed bluecough. This sickness had claimed the lives of seven kits, three elders, one queen and the medicine cat himself. Even our Clan leader had lost one of her lives. Thankfully, it had been eradicated by the time my litter was born.

The warmest neat in the nursery was occupied by Speckletail, the senior most queen. He belly was swollen from the kits she was carrying. She was grumpy at times, and we all were a little bit scared of her.

Frostfur was gentle and easygoing.
Brindelface was pliable and boring.
Speckletail was grumpy and cantankerous.
But my mother was the best.
That pretty much summed them up, in my opinion.

"Are you just going to stand there and stare around or are you going to come?", Galekit hissed at me.

"Coming!"

Just beyond the nursery entrance, Nimblekit turned around to face us. "Okay, here's the plan: we make for that hole in the brambles over there" he flicked his tail in the right direction " and sneak out as silent as a shadow."

"We know, mousebrain! Just lead on, will you?", Galekit snapped.

I surveyed the clearing, bathed in the early morning sunlight. The ground, rendered grass-free by generations of paws looked golden-brown, the brambles surrounding it a lush, dark green. The morning patrol had obviously left, but the rest of the camp were asleep. Even the warrior standing guard at the camp entrance, Darkstripe was dozing.

We reached the bush and squeezed through the narrow hole. The forest, with its symphony of smells greeted us.

This was my first time in the forest. Nothing had prepared me for it's beauty, with more shades of green, brown and yellow than I could count. The air was cool and clear and alive with fragrances. The songs of the birds sounded sweeter here. The sky, a pale blue was completed by the contrasted by the leaves of the canopy. The trees rose up, up, up and it hurt my neck just looking at them. I caught my breath. I heard an admiring sigh escape Nimblekit's mouth.