CricketBounce's Story [discontinued]

Chapter 2

CricketKit pounced on Dustkit. He squealed and turned around batting her ear. She bopped him on the nose and he slumped onto the ground and started to wail.

Sleekfeather shot out from where she was watching them play and curled around her kit protectively. "CricketKit! How could you? Go back into the nursery now!" Sleekfeather, the normally calm loving Clanemate, growled.

"but I did nothing!" CricketKit protested, eyes wide.

"OliveBranch will hear about this when she comes back from the patrol! Now get into the nursery!" Sleekfeather snapped.

CricketKit let her tail flop into the dust, dragging it along roughly. She set her paws in her nest and glanced back at the playing kits.

She sat in her nest angrily. She had tapped him on the nose! That's all! Why was Sleekfeather being unreasonable? She didn't like kit games anyway. She was going to become an apprentice any day now.

She watched from between two branches at the kits playing, Mudkit among them.

"Hey!" Mudkit purred as Sunkit jumped onto his back she sqeaked with delight clawing his back. "Ah, not so hard" Mudkit meowed, inhaling sharply.

Oh? CricketKit thought. So it's okay if Sleekfeather's kits do whatever they want but we're not allowed to do anything, but submit? She slumped in her nest and began to groom her pelt.

A crackling in the bushes made her turn around. She sighed irritably, what this time?

"Uh hey" Hookpaw meowed awkwardly. He was crawling through a hole in the nursery, his tail snagging on a briar. He tugged it free, setting his paws in her a nearby nest.

"Hi" CricketKit mewed.

"You look lonely" Hookpaw meowed, sitting beside her. He tucked his paws yens himself, a mouse length from her still prickling pelt.

"Yeah, you noticed?" She teased. "You should be out there winning battles right?" She nudged his broad shoulder with her nose. Her anger at the queen washed away. She didn't need to hold a grudge over Sleekfeather, queens were protectively over their kits, that's all.

"Hey!" Hookpaw purred "I've won all of the battles so far.. No one dares to start one with I, the great Hookpaw" he flexed his black claws in the moss making small indents in the moss, he stifled a purr of laughter.

"Oh really?" CricketKit laughed. "I guess I'll be the first then!" She swatted his ear, fast as an adder. Her paw grazed his ear, just barely pawing it.

"Too slow!" Hookpaw mrrowed, he jumped from the moss nest and out of the den without looking back.

"get back here!" CricketKit laughed chasing Hookpaw out of the den and into the open. Hookpaw skipped over the wresting kits and slid towards the camp entrance and out into the forest.

"Wait I'm not allowed!" CricketKit protested. She glanced at Sleekfeather who was now grooming her pelt in rapid strokes of her tongue.

"Come on! Your no fun!" Purred a taunting Hookpaw. He waved his tail and dashed away, a mocking mrrow sounded from behind the camp entrance.

CricketKit laughed. What would happen anyway? She glanced back to make sure no cat was watching, and then she darted through the entrance.

"Too slow!" Hookpaw meowed skidding past a maple. He pawed her ear and leaped over her,

skidding around a tree and back again.

CricketKit pounded on his heels leaping many tail lengths onto his back. She slipped off and hit