Lurking Dangers, Chapter 9

Ravenpaw

     Ravenpaw was standing near at the ThunderClan border the next day. She sighed as the cleaned the mouse bile of her paws in the stream. Her punishment for waking up the warriors the night before was cleaning the ticks of the elders' pelts. Redpaw had offered to help her.

     "Yuck!" Redpaw spat, obviously now regretting his offer. Ravenpaw rolled her eyes and laughed. She snickered and splashed water into Redpaw's face. He jumped back surprised, and then pushed Ravenpaw into a shallow part of the river. She yowled as the cold water splashed on her fur and she waved her paws everywhere until she realized that she could stand in the spot of the stream. Redpaw was laughing, and so was Ravenpaw. But then a scent caught her attention. She looked around, and heard barking.

     "Dogs!" she yowled, leaping out of the stream. She raced towards the sound with Redpaw silently following. In a clearing stood two black and white dogs, cornering Patchpaw. Whitepaw was there, smirking and doing nothing to help, until he spotted Redpaw and Ravenpaw. Whitepaw shyly hid in a bush. "Whitepaw! Wait!" Redpaw exclaimed.

     "There isn't time to get Whitepaw out! Get one of the dog's attention and lure it out of Clan territory. I'll get the other one," Ravenpaw ordered. She pounced on the bigger dog and it swung around. Ravenpaw jumped down and ran, the dog pounding behind her. She swerved away from Clan territory and saw Redpaw doing the same thing with the other dog. She saw a pond up ahead, and had an idea.

     "Redpaw, jump into the pond!" she yelled to him. Redpaw hesitated, but sped up to reach the pond. Ravenpaw reached the pond and leaped in. The dog halted and hesitated. It tried to get in, but when the dog's paw hit the water, it whimpered and backed away. It wasn't long until Redpaw was soaked in the pond. Ravenpaw hissed at the dogs and splashed water into them. They whimpered and ran across the field. Ravenpaw ran out of the water, shivering.

     "I'll never do that again," she murmured as Redpaw approached. "Let's go get Patchpaw and Whitepaw."

     The soaked cats walked towards the clearing that they saw the two cats at. "I wonder why Whitepaw was just staring at Patchpaw instead of helping her, and then he just hid when we came," Redpaw spoke as they walked, shaking his head.

     "Maybe the dogs came right when we appeared so he didn't have time to save Patchpaw. And he's not training to be a warrior, so he figured we could do something and hid," Ravenpaw mewed as they approached the clearing. 

     "Whitepaw!" Redpaw yowled to the bush that Whitepaw ran into. Whitepaw slowly came out and Redpaw walked towards him, but Patchpaw's yowl stopped him.

     "Redpaw! No! He tried to kill me!"