THE SURPRISE

The day the cat arrived started out special but ended up spoiled.

It was Christmas morning, and Megabat was dreaming. He was deep in the jungles of Borneo, about to feast on fruit so fresh it was still on the vine. He could smell a heavenly aroma.

“Mmmmmmm,” the tiny fruit bat said. He began to rock back and forth.

“Mellllons,” he drooled.

“Guess again,” he heard his friend Daniel say—as if from a great distance.

“Lemmmmons.”

“Not quite.” The dream was drifting away. Daniel sounded closer now.

The bat squinted one eye open. He was in the backyard shed, hanging upside down from the beam where he always slept. Beneath his snout, his friend was holding a plump, juicy mandarin orange! Quick as a flash, Megabat grabbed it in his wingtips. “Gots it!” he cried triumphantly, and plunged his snout in.

Daniel laughed. “Good morning. And happy holidays.”

“Yes, yes,” Megabat said between slurps of juice. “Joyous day of the dead tree.”

It was Megabat’s first Christmas in Canada. Not so long ago, he’d lived on a papaya farm in Borneo with other fruit bats who’d never heard of Christmas either. The whole thing was strange to him.

Besides the baffling tradition of dragging a dead tree into the house, it was the idea of Santa that had him most confused.

“The man is too fatish and oldish to be climbing stairs?” Megabat had asked when Daniel showed him a picture of Santa sliding down the chimney.

“Well, no. I mean, Santa’s old…with a big, round belly…but that’s not why he comes down the chimney. I guess it’s because he doesn’t have keys to the houses.”

Megabat gasped. “Santa is being a rotten robber!” He tapped one talon on the picture, which showed a row of stockings hung along a mantel. “His is having large feets.” Megabat studied Santa’s big black boots. “Therefores, his comes for stealing the giant socks.”

“He doesn’t take the socks,” Daniel had explained with a smile. “He brings presents and puts them inside. The big socks are called stockings.”

At that, the bat’s eyes lit up. Because even though Megabat was puzzled by Christmas, he understood presents. In fact, he was a huge fan.

“Presents for Megabat?” he’d said.

Daniel had promised there would be…and now the big day had finally arrived.

Daniel produced a rectangle-shaped package from behind his back. It had a shiny silver bow on top.

Megabat flapped his wings in excitement. “Santa has filled the sock-things!”

“Stockings,” Daniel corrected. He took a bag from his coat pocket and set it on the beam. “And I bet he brought us lots of presents. But these ones are from me.”

Megabat examined the tag on the bag. “Birdgirl!” he called down to his beloved, a pretty-pretty pigeon who was still asleep in her nest underneath his beam. She lifted her snowy white head and looked up at him groggily. “There’s being a present for you.” Over the last few weeks, Daniel and his friend Talia had been teaching Megabat and Birdgirl to read. They were getting better every day. Megabat had recognized the B-I-R-D birrrrd sound on the tag straight away.

“Coo-woo!” The pigeon bobbed her head when she saw that the bag was filled with sunflower seeds.

It really was a thoughtful gift.

“The puffer rats will not be getting those, Birdgirl,” Megabat said with a satisfied smile.

Ever since the autumn, the no-good puffer rats that lurked in Daniel’s yard had been stealing the birdseed Daniel’s mother set out each morning. She used to put it in the old bird feeder in the tree, but now that the feeder had started to come loose and tilt to one side, she just threw the seeds onto the lawn instead. And because the rats were frisky and ferocious, poor Birdgirl rarely got her fair share.

“They’re actually called squirrels,” Daniel reminded him. But Megabat had seen enough rotten rats to recognize one when he saw it—even if these ones did have strange puffy tails.

“And this”—Daniel put the big present down—“is for you, Megabat.”

“Merr-why Ch-rist-mass, Megabat,” he read off the tag. The bat plucked the bow off and stuck it firmly to the top of his head. Then he tore into the paper, scattering bits everywhere.

“Oooooooooh!” he said. It was a six-pack of juice boxes. Apple-boysenberry. His favorite.

“Come on. Christmas isn’t over yet.” Daniel held out his hand for Megabat to perch on. “Mom and Dad are making pancakes, and then it’ll be time for more presents.”

Megabat gasped. “Waiting! Waiting!” He took off toward the back of the shed where Daniel’s parents kept the recycling box. He could hardly believe he’d forgotten to wrap the present he’d made for his very best friend, but thankfully there was still time. He covered the gift in crumpled newspaper, then took the big silver bow Daniel had just given him and stuck it on top.

“Present!” he declared moments later, dropping his creation on Daniel’s head. Daniel fumbled, trying to catch it, then bent down to pick it up.

“Is yours loving it?” Megabat asked, flapping his wings eagerly as Daniel unwrapped the gift.

“Umm…sure?” Daniel examined the thing.

The present was made of a toilet paper roll with a tinfoil ball shoved into one end.

“Is R2-D2!” Megabat said. “Looking!”

Daniel’s face lit up. Watching Star Wars movies was one of their favorite things to do—and the droid named R2-D2 was the character they liked most.

“Oh yeah!” he said. “Thanks, Megabat.”

The two friends left Birdgirl to her seeds and went inside. “Shhhh,” Daniel said, reminding Megabat to keep quiet and out of sight. He slipped the bat into his bathrobe pocket. Daniel’s mother was terrified of bats. If she ever found out there was one in the house, she’d scream.

“There you are!” Daniel’s mom walked past with a plate of pancakes and ruffled his hair. “Would you grab the maple syrup?”

As they sat down to breakfast, Megabat could see the stacks of brightly wrapped presents in the living room. Eating took forever, but finally it was time to open gifts.

There was Lego and a new video game, art supplies, a hat with earflaps and even a paint-your-own model steam engine that would really drive around a track. It was just the right size for Megabat to sit in!

Megabat gasped quietly inside Daniel’s pocket as each new present was revealed. All in all, it was a great haul, but then…

“Hang on,” Daniel’s mom announced. “There’s one more surprise.” Daniel’s parents shared a secret smile before his mom waded through the ripped-up wrapping paper and disappeared upstairs.