FRAIDY-BAT

It was past midnight when Megabat got to sleep, so he was groggy the next morning when he awoke to Daniel leaping out of bed.

“There’s a bug on my pajamas!” He was hopping around swatting at his leg and shouting.

Finally, it was Irwin who climbed down from his bunk to help. “It’s just a caterpillar.” He lifted it off with his finger.

“Woopsy-doops. That’s being mine’s,” Megabat said with a yawn and a stretch.

At first, Daniel was angry about the bug in his bed, but when Megabat explained about the wild bats he’d met the night before, all four boys gathered on the bed to listen.

“Theirs had pointy-pointy teeth,” Megabat reported. “And the mummy bat was rhinormous.”

“Were you scared?” Daniel asked.

“He wouldn’t be scared of other bats.” Irwin smiled, showing his magnificent braces. “Would you?”

“Of coursing not!” Megabat said.

Besides doing cannonballs off the dock, Irwin had already volunteered to go first for the ropes course that day. Megabat could never admit he’d been afraid to someone like Irwin. And he didn’t want to tell Daniel he was scared either—not after he’d said so many times that there was nothing to be afraid of at camp!

“For fact,” he went on, “mine did rescue Babybat.” Megabat said it casually, like it was no big deal.

Irwin looked impressed by the rest of the story, but maybe that was because Megabat changed a few details here and there and left out the part where he got all tangled up and had to be rescued too. And everyone agreed they’d rather do almost anything than eat a live caterpillar.

“So, I bet you’re going flying with them tonight, right?” Irwin said. “Maybe explore some caves? If there are bats around, they probably gather at Devil’s Mouth. The older campers go hiking there sometimes. People swear it’s haunted—but that’s probably not true.”

Megabat didn’t like strange, dark places…and he certainly didn’t want to go anywhere that might be haunted, but he didn’t want to sound like a fraidy-bat either.

“Ubsolutely!” Megabat boasted. “Ours will visit the deepest, darkest caves in all of Camp Wildwood tonight.”

Thankfully, Megabat didn’t have to think about that for much longer. Vijay told them to get dressed for waffles. Then, after breakfast, they were off to shoot arrows at the archery range, climb the ropes course, paddle canoes and tie-dye T-shirts.

The day passed in a blur, and before Megabat knew it, the sun was setting.

“I wonder what ghost story they’ll tell tonight,” Rusty said.

“Probably the ghost of the tune-ahhh,” Daniel joked. “Because we had tuna casserole for dinner.” The boys groaned. “You coming, Megabat?” He held out his hand, but the little bat shook his head. He hadn’t liked the last ghost story, and he didn’t want to hear another.

“He’s going to explore the caves with the wild bats, remember?” Irwin said.

Megabat gulped, but he nodded.

As soon as the boys left, he settled in to read the rest of Irwin’s Diamond Foot book. He hoped the wild bats would forget about him. But just as he reached the part where Diamond Foot kicks his way into a secret underground vault filled with rubies (nearly falling into the five-headed lizard’s tricky trap), there was a knock at the window. Babybat’s fang-filled face appeared, pressed against the glass. She waved with one wingtip for him to come outside.

“Greetings, Babybat,” he said from the doorway. “Where is yours’s mummy?”

She motioned into the distance. Megabat could just make out the silhouette of a large bat. “Is hers gone hunting?”

Babybat nodded.

“Mine was just reading a most adventuresome story. Would yours like to read togethers?”

But Babybat didn’t seem interested in books. She loop-de-looped dangerously around some trees and came skidding in for a landing on the porch.

“Yours wants to fly swoopily through the dark forest?” Megabat asked.

She tugged on his wing.

“And yours wants mine to coming alsowise?”

She grinned.

An owl hooted. The tree branches shifted in the wind. Somewhere on the lake, a loon gave an eerie call that made Megabat shiver.

“Perhapsing another time. Mine gots a muchly funner idea,” he said. “Coming this way.”

Megabat flew past the cabins and the dining hall.

“This is being the craft room,” he said, as he landed on a table with Babybat close behind. She sniffed some supplies: paint, glitter-glue, Scotch tape. Suddenly, she reared up, flared her wings, pounced on a pipe cleaner and tore at it with her fangs.

“No, no, Babybat.” Megabat pulled it from her mouth. “That’s not being a critterpillar. Yours can’t eating that.”

Babybat stuck out her bottom lip in a pout—but soon she spotted a jar of bright beads. She flew across the room.

“Stopping that, Babybat!” Megabat hollered, but it was too late. She’d buried her face in the jar and was tossing beads up in the air one by one, batting them with her wingtip. One pinged against the light fixture and a few more bounced off the window.

Megabat glowered at her. He pointed to a box filled with pom-poms. “Playing with these while yours waits,” he ordered. She couldn’t hurt herself or break anything in there. “Mine will be right back with some sumplies.”

Megabat had hidden in Daniel’s pocket all afternoon, watching through the buttonhole. He knew what they needed for the craft he had in mind, and he made quick work of flying around the camp, gathering the things and dragging them back.

By then, Babybat had abandoned the pom-poms and was eyeing the scissors dangerously, but Megabat distracted her just in time.

“Mine knows a wild bat like yours-self leads an adventuresome life of thrillingness,” Megabat said, “so yours will loving this craft. It’s being called tie…” He paused for dramatic effect. “And die.”

Babybat gasped, then grinned with all her fangs.