Echo: The Kits Take A Stand

Chapter 5

Echokit froze as she stepped inside the nursery. Wetkit had seen them leave camp! They were sure to be busted now. Sunpaw poked her head inside the nursery.

"Uh oh," the yellow apprentice mewed, seeing that Wetkit was awake.

"Leafpaw!" she called quietly. "Look,"

The brown tom glanced at Wetkit, then flicked his tail. "Why, hello there, Wetkit," he meowed swiftly. "I see that you're awake."

"I can tell you've been somewhere you're not supposed to," Wetkit accused. "Without me. Not that I care I wasn't involved in rule-breaking. But I will tell somebody you've been sneaking out to go somewhere, unless you let me in on this."

"Fine," Leafpaw meowed curtly. "But once we tell you everything, you can't tattle on us."

"I won't make any promises about that, but you might have a chance of getting away with this if you tell me," Wetkit meowed. She seemed pleased with herself that she could use her knowledge to boss other cats around.

"Leafpaw, this isn't a good idea-" Sunpaw started.

"It looks like we don't have a choice if we don't want to be punished," Leafpaw cut her off, staring at Wetkit.

Sunpaw let out a long sigh. "Tell her, I guess," she meowed defeatedly.

"We wanted to prove to Hazelstar that all kits should be apprenticed at six moons. We wanted to prove that young cats should be given more freedom. So we decided to fight off an enemy, like a fox or a dog or something. Sunpaw had an idea to train all of the kits so that we could do that. And so, for the past few nights, Sunpaw and I have been taking the kits out at night to train them," Leafpaw told her.

"That makes sense," Wetkit replied. "But that leaves one question. Why train every single kit in PondClan but me?"

"Uhhh...." Leafpaw paused. "It was Echokit's idea! Talk to her!" he meowed quickly.

Wow, great job, Leafpaw, put all of the blame on another cat. Echokit thought.

"Look what you're doing, Wetkit," Echokit meowed. "You're threatening to tattle on us if we don't tell you the secret. And that's exactly the reason we chose not to train you. We didn't want you to tattle on us."

Echokit expected Wetkit to whine, but instead her sister proudly boasted, "Ha! Well that's where you're wrong! I won't tattle on you...if you make me the leader of your training sessions."

"We would never! We have all voted it that Echokit, Sunpaw and I are in charge of the training sessions." Leafpaw hissed. "But you can join in the training if you don't tattle."

"Fine, but if you do any things too crazy for training I will tell," Wetkit replied, looking pleased that she had won, in a way.

It had been a few days since Wetkit had tagged along in the night-time training sessions with Sunpaw and Leafpaw. As a group, they had decided to try sneaking to the Gathering again. This time they would bring every kit, and they were going to be more cautious. They were going to sneak out after the rest of the Clan left and they would return before the rest of the Clan returned. And they wouldn't be sitting in the clearing like everybody else. Instead they would be hiding in the background, listening.

"We can't be doing this!" Wetkit cried as the group was traveling through PondClan's territory. "This is going to far!"

"Wetkit is right! What if we get caught again?" Swiftkit meowed looking at Leafpaw, Sunpaw and Echokit.

Sunpaw sighed. "Fine, but this isn't the last time we're going to try." The group headed back to camp. Nobody had noticed they were gone.

The next morning, the kits did not play their usual morning games. Instead, they were called to the elders den for a story. Echokit mostly disliked elder's tales, but she had been told that this story would be much more thrilling. Apparently each Clan had some sort of ancient legend that every kit was taught at a few moons old. It was unknown if any of these legends were true, but Echokit liked those kinds of stories.