Free Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars by Erin Hunter Page A

Flat-faces were walking to and fro among the dens.
    “Why are all the no-claws dressed the same?” Kallik wondered. “Their pelts are all green, like leaves.”
    “Maybe they’re made of leaves?” Lusa guessed.
    “Where would the leaves come from?” Kallik gestured with one paw toward the bare landscape, where nothing grew except for a few straggly thornbushes poking above the snow.
    Lusa shrugged. “Flat-faces are weird.”
    Keeping well inland, Lusa and Kallik skirted the denning place and approached the shore again on the other side.
    Lusa pointed with her chin. “Look! White bears!”
    A whole group of white bears had gathered on the shore near the denning area. Some of them were venturing close to a line of the silver cans that flat-faces put their unwanted food in. It looked to Lusa as if an argument was going on, as if some of the bears wanted to stop the others from going near the cans.
    Lusa recognized one of the bears who had planted himself in front of the row of cans, blocking his companions from approaching. His fur had a reddish tinge, as if the sun were rising behind him.
    Kallik recognized him, too. “That’s the bear who watched us arrive on the island,” she murmured.
    Lusa and Kallik cautiously drew closer to the white bears. “There’s Illa,” Lusa whispered. She looked around to see if Aga was there, too, but there was no sign of the ancient bear.
    The young she-bear was talking to a couple of the males who were trying to get at the cans. “I know you’re hungry, Tunerq,” she said. “We’re all hungry. But we’re bears. We shouldn’t be taking food from no-claws.”
    “They don’t want it,” the smaller of the two males replied sulkily. “And it smells really tasty.”
    “That’s not the point! We—”
    “Stop telling us what to do,” the bigger male interrupted. “I want food, and I’m going to get it.”
    “Are you as fluff-brained as you look, Unalaq?” Illa began scathingly. “We should be hunting seals. That’s what white bears do.”
    “I’m going to talk to them.” Taking a deep breath, Lusa began marching toward the bears, unsure of what she would say when she reached them.
    “Be careful!” Kallik called after her.
    Lusa glanced back. “Aga said we were welcome,” she reminded her friend.
    “Well . . . okay.” Kallik followed at a distance, looking wary.
    Lusa’s confident pace faltered as she drew closer to the white bears. Am I brave enough for this? I didn’t realize how much bigger than me they are!
    First one bear spotted her, then another, until the whole group was staring at her in astonishment.
    “I told you so!” Illa said.
    “You didn’t say she was the size of a hare!” Tunerq retorted.
    I’m bigger than that!
    Lusa’s indignation gave her courage. At least the bears were only looking at her; none of them had tried to attack.
    She marched up to the white bears and stood gazing up at them. “You mustn’t eat any more seals,” she told them, trying to make her voice sound bold and certain. “It’s the seals that are making you sick.”
    Tunerq looked pleased. “You mean we should just eat what’s in these no-claw cans?” he asked, obviously trying to use Lusa to bolster his own argument.
    Lusa glanced at the silver cans, then back at the bears. She knew how tasty flat-face food could be; she had relied on it in the first days after she escaped from the Bear Bowl. But it’s flat-face food, not bear food. . . .
    “No,” she replied. “If you do that, you might forget how to hunt and be wild. You need to find something else to eat.”
    “Lusa . . .” Kallik’s voice, full of foreboding, came from just behind her.
    The white bears huddled together, muttering to one another and casting glances now and again at Lusa. She heard one of them say, “It’s Tungulria. . . .”
    Lusa tensed as she heard the name Aga had called her, remembering the strange look the old she-bear had given her.
    Then Unalaq, the huge