Bat Summer (11 page)

“That's not fair.” I say it to myself, but Mom hears me.

“What's that?” I can feel my face getting red. Somebody needs me, and now Mom's pulling this stupid adult trip on me. A five o'clock curfew and I didn't even do anything.

“There's no freak out there, Mom. She ran away… I mean, Rico told me she ran away.” I have to be careful not to spill the beans. I'm rocking the chair really fast now. “Elys would let me stay out.” I think I hurt her feeling with that one. She sits back down again.

“Well, I'm not Elys, am I?” she says finally. “Elys has a new job and she isn't going to be around so much anymore. That's why I'm coming home earlier.”

Everything's changing so fast. Who am I going to watch television with? Mom? I'm going to eat stupid hot dogs for the rest of my life because that's all Mom can cook.

“I guess that won't leave you much time for Farley.” It was a stupid thing to say. I want to piss her off. I want her to feel bad like me.

She doesn't even say anything. She just stands up and walks to the kitchen.

“There's some lasagna for you in the oven.”

Elys must have made it for me. My favorite food and I don't even feel like eating.

I stop the rocking chair and head for the kitchen. What a rotten day this turned out to be. “And wipe that black gunk off your tongue. What have you been doing, eating charcoal?”

When I wake up the next morning, the house is empty. For once, it doesn't seem like all that many hours between nine and five. I root around the house for things to take Lucy. I should show my face up at Wells Hill Park today. Try to find out what's going on at Lucy's house.

I get a big knapsack from the basement and start filling it with stuff: a pillow, a blanket, a flashlight, a big jar of cranberry juice, my Swiss army knife, a toothbrush and some toothpaste squeezed into a baggie, a pack of playing cards, a crummy harmonica I got in my Christmas stocking last year and a whole shopping bag full of cheese sandwiches (some with mayonnaise and some without).

I get halfway down the block with the whole heavy pack and turn back for some fruit and celery. Lucy should try to eat a balanced diet to keep up her strength.

I take the back way into the ravine so that I won't have to go through the park. That way I can just cruise into Wells Hill later with no load on my back and make like I just slept in.

My knapsack jams in the mouth of the cave and I fall flat on my face.

“Oof.” I crawl the rest of the way inside. I can't see anything.

“Lucy?”

No answer. I open the knapsack and fish out the flashlight. I turn it on and beam it on the bed. It's lumpy. I go over and nudge the lump, but it's just the sleeping bag. Empty.

Oh, no. She moved! Where could she have gone? Maybe there is some freak wandering around. I shouldn't have let her stay here. I should have taken her home, bald head or no bald head.

I beam the flashlight around, looking for clues. I look in the pot of spaghetti and see that it's all gone. She must have been hungry. Maybe she went out to steal some food. I hope not. What if she gets caught? What are they going to make of a little bald bat stealing chips?

It looks like she's still here. The strand of spaghetti on the bottom of the pot is still kind of wet, so she couldn't have eaten it that long ago.

I leave the knapsack and crawl out of the cave. Halfway out I feel a hard blow on the back of my neck and fall flat on my face again.

“Terence! I'm so sorry.” I look up at her, but I can hardly see through the flapping wings of the little birdies flying around my head. “I saw lights in the cave and thought maybe the police were in there. I was going to hide, but you came out too quick. Are you okay?”

“Okay?” I try to get to my feet and knock my head on the top of the cave entrance. “Owwww.” Lucy pushes me back inside and onto the bed. I hear some fumbling about and then the light goes on.

“What did you bring me?” She's over by the knapsack and unloading it in a hurry. She has the bandanna back on her head. She looks like a gypsy fairy in the half-light of the cave.

“Pass me the pillow,” I say. My head smarts something fierce.

“Celery?” She says it like it's a dirty word.

“Cheese sandwiches, too. You have to keep your strength up.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bats eat insects. That's all bats need. But thanks. Your mom buys good bread. We always get the white stuff. I mean, that's what they have in their apartment.”

My head hurts badly. What if it were the police in here? She would have knocked the police on the head.

“You should go home, Lucy. It's not safe here. I'm sure your family won't care about your hair.”

She keeps unloading the knapsack like she hasn't heard me. She pulls out the Swiss army knife.

“Excellent. This is exactly what I need.”

Now I'm sorry I brought all this stuff. Especially the knife. What if she stabs someone trying to come into the cave? I'll be an accessory to murder.

“When are you going to go home?”

She gives the harmonica a try. It sounds awful.

“You know, baby bats that can't hold onto their mothers fall to the bottom of the cave and are eaten by predators who are just waiting there for them to fall down. It's no wonder they hold on so tight. You have to learn how to fly on your own really early. That way if you fall it's no big deal because you can fly, right?”

I'm not following her. She's talking like a bat again. Maybe I should tell someone she's here. I don't want her to hate me, but she might be in trouble. In the head, I mean.

“Are you going to go home?” I say.

Finally, she turns away from the knapsack to face me. She flips through the attachments on the Swiss army knife: a knife, a saw, a magnifying glass, a can opener, a corkscrew and some short, sharp pointy thing. She flicks them back in and looks at me.

“Thanks for bringing the stuff. I have a plan, you know. I have a really important project I'm working on. I have a lot of work to do. A lot of work… do you have a tape measure? Because that would really help.” She looks around at all the stuff. “A tape measure and a big sheet of heavy plastic — like a drop sheet for paint. I need a lot of stuff, actually. I think I got good branches this morning.” She tugs at something at the door and brings it into the light. She has two huge branches.

“What are you making?”

“You gave me the idea with the kite yesterday. I've got to do something. I can't just sit back and let us all die. It will throw off the whole ecosystem. Did you know bats eat fifty percent of their body weight in bugs every day? Well, the ones who eat bugs. The ones who eat fruit help pollinate the fruit trees, just like bees. And they're killing us, Terence. They think we have rabies. They're scared of us. They aren't thinking. They don't know what we do for the world.” She has this stunned look on her face. Her head is practically drowning in the bandanna.

“You're making a kite? For…why are you making a kite?” I sit up straight.

“It's like that Moran guy, only it's going to be me flying. It's time for me to fly, Terence. And I'm not going to be screaming for people to buy candy bars. I'm going to be saving bats.”

“I don't get it.”

“I'm going to make a huge kite and paint it with the message Save the Bats, and I'm going to fly it all over town and everywhere where bats are endangered.”

I am stunned.

“You can't do that. I mean, I've heard of Save the Whales and Save the Seals and Save the Rain Forest, but Save the Bats? Forget it. It's like Save the Mosquito. People just won't go for it. Plus there's no
way you're going to build a kite that will carry you. No way.”

It all just bursts out of me. Someone has got to bring her back to earth.

“You don't believe in anything, do you, Terence?” She says this like she feels sorry for me.

“I do, too.”

“Like what? What do you believe in?”

I think hard. What do I believe? I never really thought about it before. I believe that there are gaps in the world that someone should get around to filling in. I believe it's not cool to pretend to be anything you aren't, except…don't I like Lucy and isn't Lucy pretending she's a bat? The way she's looking at me with those laser eyes of hers, it seems important that I believe in something.

“I believe in believing,” is what I end up saying. It is all I can think of that is true, and if there's one person in the world I couldn't ever say one false thing to, it's Lucy.

“Good,” she says. “I believe in bats, and I believe in kites. If you believe in believing, then you should believe in me.” And with that she opens up the Swiss army knife and starts whittling at one of the branches. “Bats are a really important part of the ecosystem, Terence. Seals? Seals are practically useless. They eat all the fish and don't do anything. Just because they're all cute and white when they're little
— that's the only reason people want to save them. You shouldn't be picked on just because you're ugly. People just don't understand bats. They kill them because they aren't beautiful like cats or seals.” She whittles away.

Why shouldn't I believe in Lucy? Why not bats? My whole summer's been turned upside-down since I became a bat. I don't know about anything anymore.

I watch Lucy whittle the branch. She's good with the knife. She has this concentrated look on her face, like nothing's going to stop her, and I guess that includes me.

“I think bats are beautiful,” I say.

Lucy keeps on whittling like she didn't hear me say anything.

I should go to Wells Hill Park and show my face, see if anyone can tell me what the police have been up to.

“I gotta go soon. What did you say you needed again?” She doesn't even look up.

“Tape measure, a big piece of plastic sheeting, string, glue, tape —”

“Hold on, hold on. How about I come back later with a pen and paper and we figure it out?”

“Fine,” she looks up again. It'll be hard working in the dark. “Thanks a lot, Terence. You're good.” I slip out of the cave — careful not to hit my head this
time — and make my way toward the park.

She said I'm good. It must be true. Lucy never says anything that isn't true. She may be a thief, but she's not a liar.

I get to the park and, for the first time ever, Russell isn't there. The picnic table looks naked without him.

I go to get a drink at the water fountain and see Rico and Daphne sitting on a bench down the hill. Daphne has long dark-brown hair that falls down her back like a horse's tail. She's not exactly pretty, except in that way that older girls seem to be prettier. They look better-cooked or something, like those pictures of steaks you see with the grill marks on them.

I look at the birthmark on the side of Daphne's face. It looks like someone threw grape juice at her. I wonder what she thinks of Lucy putting tattoos on her face on purpose when she's never going to be able to get rid of that thing. It looks like she has a permanent black eye. She wears all these bracelets on both her arms that make her look like a prisoner. She always hunches her shoulders forward, too, as if she had a knapsack on even though she doesn't.

I go down the hill toward them. Rico looks at me and juts out his chin. I try to look like I don't know anything.

“Hey, Terence, seen Lucy?”

I shrug. I'm not a good liar.

“She hasn't come home yet?” I ask. Daphne shakes her head.

“My parents are freaking out. It's worse than last time. Way, way worse. I can't even work now because my hands are shaking so bad I keep flipping the Fatso burgers on the ground.”

“Have the police found anything?”

“No…and they say they can't do anything because she's a runaway. It would be different if she didn't leave the note. I should have never said anything about the note. Rico said the two of you were good friends. Did she say anything to you about going any place?”

I want to spill my guts, but I promised Lucy. Or did I? It feels like I did.

“She didn't say she was going anywhere. I saw her at Loblaws on Friday.” Daphne gets this hopeful look on her face. She would be perfectly pretty if it weren't for that birthmark. Only the birthmark makes me want to look at her longer.

“What time was that?”

“I don't know. Three-thirty maybe. Something like that.” She looks over at Loblaws as if looking there is going to make Lucy come out.

I want to tell her so bad. I can't. I'm here to gather information.

“Did you tell the cops that?” Rico asks. He seems
way more concerned than he was yesterday. “I sent the cops to your house.”

“Yeah. My mom talked to them. I wasn't there. Thanks a lot, Rico. Now my mom thinks there's some psychotic killer on the loose and I have to be home by five.”

“Oh, my God,” says Daphne. She puts a hand over her mouth. I can see tears forming in her eyes.

What a stupid thing to say. I always say the wrong thing.

“I know she's all right,” I say. “I mean, I have a feeling she's fine. I mean, Lucy's really smart. She knows how to play chess and everything. She can take care of herself.” And she can steal, and she can find caves, and she's got my knife which I hope she doesn't use to take out any snooping cops while I'm gone.

My words aren't working to calm Daphne down. Her face is all pale and tense.

“I should have come home when she called. Oh, my God. I can't believe we left her alone so long. She called me and I didn't come. She must have been so angry. And all I could think about was that my stunned boss would be mad about me taking a personal call. If I knew she…I just know I could have stopped her going. We should know better by now.”