Janet kept low to the ground, using her tail to keep her perfectly balanced as she quietly moved though the tall grass. She felt herself purring in excitement, but knew to keep it quiet so her prey didn’t hear. She silently moved forward slowly, getting closer and closer until she was mere feet away from the unlucky robin… And she pounced, feeling an unbelievable surge of powerful moving through her tiny little cougar kitten body as she dove through the air. She saw the robin getting closer and closer as her jaws closed shut…!
“Bleh, yuck!” Janet said as she landed with a mouthful of feathers, seeing the robin fluttering off in fear and missing a couple of its long tailfeathers but otherwise unharmed. She spat out the feathers onto the ground, shaking her head and wondering what had come over her just now. Off in the woods, she heard a loud squawk and the rustling of leaves, and a moment later Lily stalked out of the bushes, wiping away small stain near her mouth with her paw and picking a feather out of her sharp teeth.
“Looks like you didn’t get lucky this time, Janet,” Lily said cheerfully as she licked her lips. “It’s okay, you just need some more practice. I didn’t catch my first prey until I was nine, so it’s fine that you didn’t get anything this time.”
The rest of the Critter Cats appeared out of the woods, some of them smiling happily and licking their lips and others, like Janet, looking a little disappointed. The adult part of Janet’s mind was screaming, knowing that these girls had just killed and eaten some innocent animals, but the cougar part of her was impressed with the older girls’ incredible hunting prowess and wished she could be just like them someday…
Suddenly, Janet’s nose twitched and her finely-honed senses picked up a familiar scent, and her ears wiggled and pointed themselves in the direction of something getting closer. Alex, Lily, and the other Critter Cats noticed it coming as well and started to whisper amongst themselves.
“I’m gonna get Marianne back for that, I’m tellin’ you!” she heard Jack saying as he walked up the path with Sean and Rick. Jack was still grumbling after Marianne had pulled off his shorts back at the lake. “She’d better watch her back, or else…”
“Just let it go, Jack,” Rick said, trying to calm Jack down and keep his friends from drifting further apart. By now, he had more-or-less embraced his raccoon boy self and just wanted to have a ton of fun at camp, but he was worried that if things kept going like this he’d have to choose between them, which made him feel really sad…