THE PLAN

When Daniel’s mother got home from the store, she was not happy about the colorful cat or the empty treat bag.

“Daniel J. Misumi. Why on earth would you let Priscilla play in your paints?” She crossed her arms and pinched her lips. “And a whole bag of treats? She’ll get sick to her stomach! Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” But Daniel couldn’t very well explain that a talking fruit bat had painted and fed the cat.

“No video games for the rest of the weekend,” Daniel’s mom said.

“But—” Daniel started. His mother silenced him with a look, then pulled a yowling, hissing Priscilla out from under the buffet, wrapped her in an old towel and went to run her a bath.

“Sheesh,” Megabat said, once they’d heard Daniel’s mother stomp up the last of the stairs. “Most cranky.” But instead of agreeing, Daniel marched across the kitchen and threw open the back door.

“Out!” he said.

“But—” Megabat began. Daniel copied his mother’s pinched lips.

Well, two could play at that game. “Hmmph.” Megabat crossed his star-covered wings over his rainbow tummy. “Mine was leaving anyway.” Then he flew out without so much as a “seeing you later.”

As he swooped across the yard, Megabat spotted Birdgirl pacing back and forth in the snow. “Yours will not be believing about that no-good trubble cat now,” he announced as he landed beside her, but before he could properly launch into his tale of grave injustice, he noticed the devastated look on Birdgirl’s face. She bobbed her head toward the largest of her squirrel decoys.

Megabat gasped. Attached to the closest statue’s face, below its egg carton eyes and above its pine needle fangs, was a silly mustache made of dried grass. One of the smaller decoys had been knocked right over, and another wore a goofy pointed hat made of twigs.

There was a maniacal chattering in the trees above them. Megabat and Birdgirl looked up to see two puffer rats leaning over a branch. Their tails were twitching menacingly.

“Shoo!” Megabat yelled at the fat gray one. “Getting lost!” he said to the black one with the scraggly tail.

But instead of leaving, the squirrels stood up on their hind legs and tapped their little paws together—a lot like how Daniel and his friend Talia high-fived each other when they passed a new level in their favorite video game.

“SKOOCH!” Megabat yelled. For such a small bat, he could have a surprisingly big voice. The squirrels retreated to a higher branch, but not before the gray one turned to waggle its bum at them rudely.

Birdgirl pulled the mustache off her decoy and pecked at the ground miserably. All the puffer rats had left behind were a few empty sunflower seed shells.

“Mine’s sorry.” Megabat wrapped one wing over Birdgirl to hug her, forgetting for a moment about his starry wings.

“Coo-woo?” Birdgirl asked when she noticed the sticky spots that had transferred to her own feathers.

“Oh yes! Ta-daaaaaah!” Megabat unfurled his magnificent wings to show her.

Birdgirl gave an appreciative coo-woo. She circled around him to get a better look.

“Thanking yours,” Megabat said. At least someone liked his decorations. Daniel certainly didn’t seem to like anything he did anymore. Not since that no-good, ruins-everything, hides-all-the-time cat had arrived.

He wished Daniel’s family would just get rid of her…the same way they’d done a big clean-out that fall and gotten rid of the old blue cabinet that stuck out too far from the wall and the sewing machine that only worked sometimes.

Megabat had an idea! “Birdgirl! Coming here!”

“Coo-woo,” she said, once he’d finished whispering in her ear. Suddenly, Megabat felt much better. With his brilliant plan and Birdgirl at his side, that cat would be gone in no time.

“And now,” Megabat said, “about those rotten puffer rats…”