Here is chapter six for you all!! Hope it’s as good as the rest 😉

Six

The sun had begun to stretch up above the mountain of Karioi when the mob of Kiwis waddled in a pod from the clearing and into the trees.

Starwatcher was ready for sleep, but thoughts wouldn’t SHUT UP in her head. Who was Kowhai? Who killed the queen? What happened to Dreamcatcher? Who was that unbearable bird leading that mob of Kiwis? She had four mysteries on her feathers, and just one had been overwhelming enough.

Although the sun was shining through the treetops, Starwatcher didn’t curl back up in her crammed, uncomfortable hole. Careful not to get too close, she followed the mob of Kiwis through the undergrowth, hoping the browns and greens would mask her awkward movements as she tried to avoid sharp rocks, gorse and logs.

The wiry Kiwi was still in front, gloating dramatically about her plans. It hurt Star to see all those Kiwis waddling after the beast of a bird, nodding and cheery, delighted about their new future. 

But this mob of Kiwis wasn’t the only mob. Barbie and Toadstool had mentioned many mobs, meaning Star’s entire tribe – the beautiful, intelligent Kiwis – had split apart into groups who’d evidently grow to hate each other. 

The leader of this party of Kiwis would have to get ALL the Kiwi birds across Karioi to vote her the new queen, and even then, she wouldn’t really be queen, would she? She wasn’t the sister or daughter of Queen Moonstone. She just had a voracious appetite for power.

“Who killed the queen?” a young, smiley Kiwi asked the leader, trust expressed in every movement.

The leader kept walking, but turned her neck and smiled back. “A bad, bad bird,” she said quietly, nodding sadly. “She was greedy.”

“What was her name?” the little Kiwi asked.

The leader hesitated. “…Starwatcher.”

“KO-”

A bird from the back of the group yelled ahead, fluttering and squawking.

“Don’t shout my name!” the leader hissed angrily, glancing frantically in every direction. “And you’ll remember to add ‘queen’ at the beginning when you address me, beetle-brain!”

The bird clamped his beak shut and glanced across at the foliage the mob of Kiwis were passing through. He had seen another Kiwi – fuzzy, brown and small, dart through the leaves in a brown blur. But his leader was obviously not in the mood for being notified of this. He patted an anxious Kiwi chick beside him reassuringly.

Starwatcher was reeling in fury. Her? Kill Queen Moonstone? How could that brainless, arrogant, mean bird say that? 

The plants around her bent out of her way as she rushed through the trees, a storm cloud brewing in her head. She had to talk to Barbie. Even if it meant him loathing her for the rest of her life.

Her claws dug into the ground and she nearly fell flat on her beak in front of her small hole. She could see Barbie’s pink glasses through the sparse ferns she’d parted the day before. Hurrying over, Star coughed to announce her arrival. Barbie whirled around, beak and claws bared.

“Don’t scare me,” he growled darkly, adjusting his glasses which were slipping off his beak.

“Barbie,” she gasped, inhaling as much air as possible.

“What is it?” he spat, circling her, his eyes dark with uncertainty and anxiousness.

“Barbie, I saw a mob,” Starwatcher cried, trying to slow her breathing.

The sinewy Kiwi’s expression softened ever so slightly. “Ah. You haven’t waddled off to join one yourself, I see. Smart, smart. I never thought a hairy fuzzbucket like you would make such a wise decision.”

Starwatcher wrinkled her beak, unsure what to do with that last sentence. She ignored it, and continued. “They had this leader. She was thin, and her feathers were greyer than the rest of her ‘comrades’ as she called them. But she didn’t look old, either. She waddled very smartly, and sneered a lot. She wants to become the next Kiwi queen!”

Barbie nodded gloomily. 

“Who was that bird?” Star demanded sharply. “You look like you know her!”

Barbie sighed, tsked, and sat down with a plop on the leaves. “It’s not for me to tell you,” he said bluntly. “You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”

“Why?” Star snapped impatiently. “You know. Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because it goes back further than I know,” the big Kiwi said, getting up and shuffling through the leaves for insects. “But night-time will arrive soon, and the mob will be awake. Then you might hear her name. And something might click.”

Starwatcher found herself wriggling in impatience with Barbie’s slow sentences and mysterious words. He waved a claw.

“I’d love to help you, Star, but I’ve got problems of my own that I must fix. I will see you soon, amigo.”

“Amigo is Spanish!” Starwatcher called after him. “Hoa, is Maori! Or friend is English!”

“Goodbye, amigo.” Barbie disappeared into the leaves.

Starwatcher glared at the disturbed leaves. Barbie was right. She could learn some more tonight. She wandered back to her hole and fell asleep, legs squished up around her face.

When she woke up, the night sky was aglow by the moon, and she could see the foggy clouds through the sparse canopy. The chittering of Kiwis found its way to her, and she followed the sound, curiosity ignited. After a nice snuggly, and sort-of-uncomfortable- sleep, she felt much better.

The mob of Kiwis she’d seen the day before we huddled around that same wooden-and-metal chair, and the same wiry Kiwi was standing proudly on it, shouting glorious speeches to the beaming birds below.

“Do you trust me?” she screeched, spreading her little flappers.

“YES!” the Kiwis hollered, at the same time as Starwatcher growled ‘no’.

A bird in the center of the group raised his wing eagerly. “Uh…Queen Kowhai, ma’am, do you know what happened to uh…Queen Moonstone’s sister?”

The forest fell dead silent. Not a worm stirred.

Star’s blood had frozen in her veins. She thought she might faint as the leaves became blurry, but it was just an icy night breeze rustling the plants around her. That bird was…Kowhai? Barbie was right. She was a two-legged excuse for a Small-Mouth feather duster. The next generation of Kiwis couldn’t be ruled by her. 

“Foul bird, isn’t she?” a voice whispered beside her.

Starwatcher nearly jumped out of her feathers. It was Obsidian.

The hairy brown stoat grinned nastily at her. 

“What are you doing here?” the Kiwi growled, turning her attention to Obsidian.

“Helping you,” the stoat responded breezily, peering through the curtains of green at the group of Kiwis who were impatiently awaiting Kowhais’ reply. “You’ll need my brains to make up for all your feathers.”

Starwatcher opened her beak to protest, but Obsidian held up a furry paw. “Don’t,” she warned darkly. “You might want to hear this.”

But neither of them could hear anything. The Kiwis huddled around their leader, excited whispers murmuring through their feathers. Then the forest seemed to shout. The Kiwis were hollering in surprise, fear and excitement. 

“What did she say?” Star cried, squirming closer through the tree-line.

“Shut up!” Obsidian spat. She licked her paw, which had been scratched by a sharp gorse branch. “I’ll have to tell you myself,” she said slyly, before adding, “But only if you appoint me your apprentice.”

Starwatcher wrinkled her expression. “You? Joining me on my missions? A stoat?”

“Oh stop it. You’re acting like I’m a dumpster rat or something. Sure, my tribe has all these plans for taking over your tribe, but we’re so useless we haven’t done anything yet. So what would a useless stoat be to you except company?” Obsidian jeered. Her fur was smooth and oily from her vigorous licking moments before. 

“Fine,” Starwatcher grouched, brushing aside a thick fern blocking her view. “What do you have to tell me?”

Obsidian hesitated, evidently for a more dramatic effect. “Your mother is dead. She hasn’t vanished. She isn’t in secret hiding, waiting for a heroic moment to come back. I knew she was dead when you told me in the forest.”

Starwatcher sank into the leaves. She stared out at the group of Kiwis, her small beady eyes blurred by water.

“Who killed her?” she sobbed, a single tear rolling down her cheek-feathers.

Obsidian looked grim. “The same thing that killed Queen Moonstone, I suspect,” the stoat sighed.

“But why her?” Star asked, her heart twisted in a million knots. “She was just a warrior! A servant!”

“I don’t know,” Obsidian admitted sadly. “But you have my word as your accomplice, it wasn’t me. I do have it out for your mother, but I didn’t kill her, I swear.”

“It’s not good to swear,” the little Kiwi corrected her, remembering Queen Moonstone’s harsh insults when she ever said ‘oh fuzzheads’ or ‘oh TWOLEGS!’. 

“It has a different meaning,” Obsidian insisted. “But I know something else, Star.”

The Kiwi, whose eyes were wet and wide, looked across at her rodent-friend. “What?”

“I think…” Obsidian paused, frowning as she seemed to search through her head, before continuing, “I think Kowhai and Moonstone are cousins.”

Star felt like the wind had been knocked out of her feathers. That bird, the wiry, sneery little grub-bottom, was her imperious guardians’ cousin?

“That makes her…the next Kiwi queen,” Starwatcher sighed, peering through the leaves that shivered impatiently in the cool midnight breeze. “If you’re right, of course. Queen Moonstone doesn’t have anyone closer to her in royal blood. She said to me, ‘None of her sisters stood a chance.’”

“What does that mean?” her companion snapped, glaring frostily at Kowhai, who was now passing each Kiwi of her party a voting-leaf. 

“When the daughters who hatched together in the same burrow are twelve months old, they all have to fight each other. Usually to the death, but I think you can pull out, on the condition you’ll never be a higher rank than a Lady in the royal court,” the little Kiwi explained, remembering Queen Moonstone’s vivid stories about her fighting her sisters for the throne.

Obsidian wrinkled her nose so she looked like she’d smashed head-first into a Rata trunk. “You Kiwi are weird. In the Stoat Kingdom the eldest princess is always first to be queen. If she dies, her younger sisters take over, followed by their age.”

Star snorted. “Haven’t you gathered that our tribe loves fighting?”

The stoat shrugged. They sat in silence, peering out at the unbearable toxic Kiwi who marched along the wooden-and-metal chair, tricking her ‘comrades’ as she called them, into bowing to her as their queen. Which she was. Rightfully.