Read Online Bluestar's Prophecy by Erin Hunter - Free Book Online Page A

her front paws, hoping they might see her, but the kits didn’t look up. Suddenly Bluepaw felt very, very far away from her old denmates.
    Sparrowpelt was standing at the edge of the trees. “Come on!” he called to Snowpaw. “I’ll show you the river.”
    The river! Bluepaw could not even imagine what it must look like. The only water she had seen was in Goosefeather’s clearing and in the puddles they drank from in camp. She knew only that the river was wide and that it flowed like wind through the trees.
    “Are we going to the river, too?” she asked Stonepelt.
    Stonepelt shook his head. “We have something much more important to do.”
    Bluepaw tried not to feel disappointed. After all, somethingmore important could be even more exciting than seeing the river! As Snowpaw’s white pelt disappeared into the forest behind Sparrowpelt, Bluepaw trotted into the trees after Stonepelt.
    Sunlight sliced through the half-bare branches and striped the forest floor like a tiger’s pelt. Bluepaw smelled prey—not the dead smell of fresh-kill, but something far more enticing. She smelled mouse, sparrow, squirrel, and shrew, all with a tang of life that made her mouth water.
    “Are we going to hunt?” she asked.
    “Not today.” Stonepelt hopped over a fallen tree and waited while she scrambled after him before heading deeper into the woods.
    “Border patrol?”
    Stonepelt shook his head.
    “Will you show me the borders?”
    “Soon.”
    They padded down a small slope, the dry, dying leaves crunching under their paws.
    “Are we going to practice battle skills?” Bluepaw thought that Stonepelt must have something really amazing planned. He was being so secretive. “What’s the first move I should learn?”
    “We’ll come to that another time.”
    “So what are we going to do?”
    Stonepelt stopped at the foot of an oak. Its thick roots, covered in layers of green moss, snaked into the ground. “I’m going to teach you how to gather bedding for the elders.”
    “What? Moss?” Bluepaw couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her mew.
    “It keeps their nest warm,” Stonepelt explained.
    “But I thought—”
    “Do you want them to climb all the way up here to gather it for themselves?” Stonepelt gazed at her steadily.
    “No!” Bluepaw shook her head. “Of course not. But I just hoped…” She swallowed back the whine she heard rising in her mew. The Clan was more important than anything else; the elders needed clean, soft, fresh bedding. And she didn’t want Stonepelt to think she was selfish. Still, she couldn’t help feeling resentment itch at her pelt as she began to claw lumps of the spongy, damp moss from the oak root.
    “Wait.” Stonepelt put his paw over hers. “You’re pulling up dirt as well as moss. The elders won’t like that. Let me show you.”
    Bluepaw sat back while Stonepelt demonstrated. “Arch your paw like this, and stretch your claws as far as they’ll go.” With swift, delicate precision he sliced a swath of moss from the tree, leaving the roots and dirt still clinging to the bark while a clean, neat piece of moss dangled from his paw. “Now you try.”
    Bluepaw copied him, arching her paw, stretching her claws till they hurt, and sliced at the moss. The piece she cut was smaller and more ragged than Stonepelt’s, but she had managed to leave the roots and dirt behind.
    “Very good!” Stonepelt purred. “Keep practicing.”
    He sat and watched as Bluepaw sliced away at the moss,cutting piece after piece and dropping them into a growing pile beside her. Before long she felt rhythm in her movement and noticed the moss that she cut was thicker and less scrappy. Pausing, she looked at Stonepelt, hoping for his approval, and was pleased to see his eyes glowing.
    “You’re a natural,” he told her. “And though you don’t know it, you’re practicing valuable battle and hunting skills.”
    Bluepaw blinked. “How?”
    “With each slice of your claw, you’re getting