A New Deputy

Harper trotted across the sidewalk, heading to her camp. She held a squirrel in her mouth, and was using all of her willpower to ignore her growling stomach and resist gobbling it all up there. She saw an abandoned house filled with cats, and sprinted across the overgrown yard to reach it. The light colored tabby jumped onto the porch, and climbed in through the open window, since the door was locked and the cats couldn’t open it. She dropped the squirrel in the prey pile, a large box in the center of the bottom floor. Harper then looked up to see Stormstar jogging towards her. “Harper!” the young, excited leader called out. Harper looked up and smiled. She felt her heart leap, and her face grow warm. Unfortunately, she would most likely never confess her feelings for her friend, since she already had a mate. “Guess what!” Stormstar whispered. “What?” Harper asked.

“I’m promoting you to deputy!” Stormstar paused when she saw Harper’s shocked expression, and said, “I mean, if that’s okay with you?”

“Oh! Of course it is!”

“Alright!”

Stormstar ran across the room in a flash of dark fur. She bounced up onto the rotting old table in the center of the nearly empty room. “Have all patrols returned?”

As the rogue clan’s leader made her daily announcements, Harper’s mind wandered elsewhere. She stared up at Stormstar, and like they often did, her thoughts stayed on her. She honestly thought Storm was a bit young and inexperienced to be a leader, but she was doing a pretty good job. Her happy and bubbly personality always cheered up the clan if something went wrong. “Harper!”

She snapped back to reality when she heard her name. She sat straight up attentively. Stormstar continued, “Please step up to the high stump.”

Harper hopped up onto the table, which had been named the high stump. Storm recited the Clan’s deputy ceremony script, but it was modified to match StormClan’s beliefs better. “I say these words before the Dark Forest, so that the spirits of our warrior ancestors may hear and approve of my choice. The new deputy of StormClan is Harper.”

Harper touched her nose to Stormstar’s, and gracefully leaped back down to the tiled floow. She grinned and puffed out her chest as she heard her clanmates congratulating her. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier.