Megabat and Fancy Cat

by Anna Humphrey

  With one wingtip, Birdgirl drew a heart shape on the frosted glass then added a jagged line down the middle. She looked at Megabat imploringly.

  “Oh. Don’t be being silly,” Megabat said, rubbing out the broken heart. “Daniel will be forgetting the trubble cat soon.”

  But Megabat grew worried when, that day at lunch, Daniel’s mother announced that they were having a party the next night—and Daniel still didn’t smile.

  “Talia just got home from her grandparents’ house. She and her parents are going to celebrate New Year’s Eve with us,” Daniel’s mother explained. “Won’t that be fun? We’ll have pizza. You can even stay up until midnight.”

  As soon as she left to do laundry, Megabat blew into one of the honky noisemakers she’d brought up from the basement.

  “Woooot! Party time!”

  Daniel sighed, so Megabat ducked underneath a sparkly party hat. He scooted up the table, playing bumper cars with the other hats. “Mine’s esscited for seeing Talia!” he said, leaping out from under the hat. “Isn’t yours esscited, Daniel?”

  “I guess,” his friend answered dully. “It’s just…I really wanted to introduce her to Priscilla. And now all I can say is that I had a cat, but I lost her.”

  Talia and her parents arrived just after dark the next night, carrying a stack of board games, a pillow-sized bag of cheese puffs and a large fruit platter.

  “This is for Megabat,” Talia whispered to Daniel, holding up the platter. At the sound of his name, the fruit bat poked his head out of Daniel’s pocket.

  “Oooooh!” He drooled at the sight of the melon chunks, grapes and fresh strawberries.

  “I’m sorry about your cat, by the way,” Talia said to Daniel as they headed for the TV room to start a game of Monopoly. “I’ve been keeping an eye out. I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” Daniel said hopelessly.

  “Where’s your brother?” Daniel asked. Talia’s younger brother, Jamie, wasn’t Daniel’s favorite person, but it seemed strange not to have him there.

  “He’s at a sleepover,” Talia answered. “They’re watching horror movies until midnight. Where’s Birdgirl?” Talia asked in return.

  “In the shed,” Daniel answered. “You know she’s not very good at keeping out of sight.”

  “Oh.” Talia sounded disappointed.

  Megabat—who’d been busy counting Monopoly money (and giving himself just a little extra)—glanced up in time to catch her looking out the back window.

  “You know, though…” Talia said, “if we kept her in here, I bet your mom and dad wouldn’t even notice. Not tonight.” There was loud laughter from the dining room, followed by the clinking of glasses. “And we’d have more fun. Birdgirl’s always the life of the party.”

  This was true. Megabat had never met a pigeon who played Pin the Tail on the Donkey better.

  “I dunno.” Daniel glanced meaningfully at Megabat. “I’ve been in trouble enough lately.”

  “Okay,” Talia said sadly. But then she added: “I guess I was just thinking, nobody should be alone on New Year’s Eve. It’s bad enough that your cat’s out there by herself in the cold.”

  As soon as Talia said the words, tears sprang to Daniel’s eyes.

  “Sorry!” Talia bit her lip. “I shouldn’t have reminded you.”

  “It’s okay.” Daniel sniffed. “She’s all I can think about anyway.”

  Talia smiled sadly, and then she went to the craft cupboard. A minute later, she was back with construction paper and markers. “How about if we just try inviting Birdgirl,” she suggested as she laid out the supplies. “We can play music. Her dance moves always cheer you up. If she gets spotted, we’ll just pretend she got in by accident.”

  When Talia kneeled down at the coffee table and started to write, Megabat abandoned the Monopoly money to watch.

  “Well…” Daniel said. “I guess it’d be okay.”

  “It’ll be better than okay,” Talia said cheerfully. “And she’ll love getting this special invitation. That way she won’t feel like we forgot her.”

  Daniel got out some red and gold glitter glue to add a fancy border, and when it was all done, he handed the card to Megabat. “We need you to do an important job,” he said.

  Megabat loved important jobs.

  “Can you deliver this to Birdgirl?”

  “Tell her we really, really want her to be our guest of honor,” Talia added. “Megabat will not delay!” He grabbed the invitation in his talons and perched on the windowsill.

  “Careful.” Talia nudged the window open. “The glitter glue’s still wet.” Outside, the wind was whistling, kicking up drifts of snow, but the sky was clear and the stars were bright. Megabat meant to head straight for the shed. He could hardly wait to see the look of delight on Birdgirl’s face—only—WHOOSH! A gust of wind swept the card from his talons and blew it over the fence. “Oh no!” Megabat called, swooping after it.

  He followed the card over the neighbor’s back shed and nearly caught up with it, but another gust carried it sideways, out into the street.

  “Coming back here.”

  The invitation kept floating, traveling higher now, over the roofs of two houses, past the school and toward the busy street. It whizzed past the library and the coffee shop. Finally, the card came to rest in an alley beside the back entrance of a restaurant. Megabat recognized it from the sign as Burger Barn: one of Daniel’s favorite places. He swooped down after the invite. “Aha!” he said. “Gots you!”

  But before he could lift off again with the card in his talons, he heard an all-too-familiar hiss.

  FOUND CAT

  The cat was crouched in a cardboard box near a vent that was blasting meaty-smelling steam. Megabat couldn’t even be sure at first that it was Priscilla. She wasn’t very fluffy or clean. But then the hissing came again and the cat started to swish her tail—matted and dirty, but still thick as a feather duster.

  “Oh,” Megabat said, trying to act casual. “It’s being yours.”

  The cat glared at him. She obviously hadn’t forgotten about the stink potion. In fact, Megabat could still see a sticky patch of it on her back.

  “Well, mine’s not the least bit happy to seeing yours either,” he countered. He turned to go…but something stopped him. It was a greasy hamburger wrapper stuck to his talon. As soon as he’d shaken it loose, the cat lunged at it and started to lick it clean, glancing in his direction every so often to be sure he wasn’t making any sudden moves to steal it.

  When she was done, she turned tail, stalked back to the cardboard box and curled up inside.

  “Well,” Megabat said, trying to sound more certain than he felt. “Yours is seeming right at home here.” After all, the cat had a nice box…and judging by the garbage that littered the ground, lots of hamburger wrappers to lick. What’s more, she certainly didn’t seem to want his help. If he headed home now, Daniel would never even need to know that he’d found the cat. It would be for the best.

  Megabat was just about to pick up Birdgirl’s invitation and head back to deliver it when a man walked out the back door of the restaurant with a trash bag. Quickly, Megabat ducked underneath the card to avoid being spotted. The man kicked at the cat’s box. “You!” he said. Priscilla ran out. Her feet scrambled against the ice and she slipped, landing on her belly. The man stomped and she managed to find her footing and dash behind the dumpster. “Mangy cat. I already told ya ta get lost,” he grumbled before heading back inside.

  Once Megabat’s heart had stopped racing, a heavy feeling crept in. With the card still tented over him, he crept around the side of the dumpster.

  “Is yours oka-hay?” the bat asked the cat. She was breathing fast and her fur was standing on end. In the big, dark alleyway, behind the dirty dumpster, she looked very small and all alone.

  “Listening,” Megabat went on, against his better judgment. “Perhaps yours should be coming home now.”

  The cat narrowed her eyes at
him. Instead of thanking him for his generous offer, she hissed again.

  “Fine! Being like that!” Megabat turned to go, but the heavy feeling stopped him again. He remembered the tears in Daniel’s eyes, and how Talia had said nobody should be alone on New Year’s Eve. As much as he disliked the fancy cat, she didn’t deserve to eat trash in an alley and be yelled at by a box-kicking man. Nobody did.

  “Yours won’t have to be eating garbage anymore,” Megabat tried. “And Daniel’s house is being nice and warm.”

  At that, the cat sauntered back to her box. Megabat had never met a prouder, more maddening animal! She thought she was soooooo special, didn’t she?

  Suddenly, he knew exactly how to convince her.

  Still carrying the party invitation like a tent over his head, Megabat followed the cat. “Fine,” he said. “Staying here if yours wants. Just before mine goes, one question…”

  The cat ignored him, but Megabat pressed on. “Daniel has asking-ed mine to invite yours to do a great honor…A very important job.”

  That got the cat’s attention.

  “Tonight is being New Year’s Eve. And ours is having a party, seeing?”

  He was about to hold up Birdgirl’s invitation to show her, but he thought better of it at the last second. “Scuzzi.” Megabat turned his back on the cat and dipped one wingtip into the still-wet glitter glue that Daniel had used to decorate the border. He carefully covered the word Birdgirl with the word KAT. Then he cleared his throat and presented the invitation with a little bow.

  “Looking.” He pointed to the letters. “Yours is invited to be being our guest. New Year’s is the fanciest night of the year. So ours is needing the fanciest guest.”

  The cat stared at him, unblinking.

  “For fact,” the bat went on, “this is saying kat will be being the guest of honor.”

  The cat emerged slowly. She sniffed the card, and for a moment Megabat thought his plan had worked, but then she glared at the paper with distaste before swishing her tail and disappearing behind the dumpster.

  Megabat shrugged his wings. He was just about to leave when the cat came back with something in her mouth. It took Megabat a second to recognize it as half of an onion ring—one of the foods Daniel always ordered when they came to Burger Barn.

  “No, no,” Megabat said. “Yours is disunderstanding. Mine was not asking yours for food. Mine was inviting yours to coming home for being a special guest.”

  The cat swatted the card out of Megabat’s wingtips, then batted at it until it fell flat. She dropped the greasy onion ring on top and nudged it with her nose.

  “Mine told yours!” Megabat said. “Mine is not wanting—” But then he noticed that the half-eaten, C-shaped onion ring had ended up right on top of his glittery K. “Is yours for sure?” he said. “Kuh…Kuh…” He made the K sound Daniel had taught him. “Kat is most definitely starting with K.”

  The cat nudged the onion ring again, and now that she mentioned it, Megabat wasn’t so sure. Letters were sneaky. Sometimes C did try to fool you by making a K sound. Perhaps she was right?

  And, even more surprisingly—he realized with a shock—perhaps she could read! Megabat couldn’t help but look at the cat with just a little bit of admiration.

  “Oka-hay, fine then. Cat-with-a-C,” he conceded, “will yours coming home?”

  The cat tilted her head to one side, like she was waiting for a slightly better offer.

  “Peeze?” he added reluctantly.

  That did the trick.

  SEEDS

  Because the cat couldn’t fly and her paws were nearly frozen, it took them a long time to get home. Priscilla picked her way through snowdrifts and across icy patches while Megabat flapped overhead, urging her on and pointing the way. It was blustering cold and pitch-black by the time they arrived in Daniel’s backyard—but never had a guest of honor been so warmly welcomed.

  When Megabat knocked on the TV room window and told Daniel what had happened, Daniel ran to the kitchen, threw the back door open and scooped Priscilla up. “Mom! Dad!” he’d called joyfully. “The cat’s back!”

  The adults crowded around while Daniel’s dad toweled the snow off the cat’s fur and Daniel’s mother opened a can of stinky cat food. Meanwhile, Daniel’s eyes watered with happy tears, and Megabat, who was nestled in his friend’s shirt pocket, licked them up while Daniel swatted at his tongue and laughed.

  After that, Daniel’s mother took the cat upstairs to give her a bath, and right before midnight, Megabat flew back to the shed to get Birdgirl. The pigeon was overjoyed to be included in the party, and, safely hidden from the adults in the TV room, she polished off all the cheese puffs left in the bowl. When Megabat and Birdgirl shared a beaky kiss at midnight, both of their faces came away sprinkled with beautiful orange dust.

  It was a very good night indeed, but the next day things went back to how they’d been the week before—only worse. Instead of hiding, the cat slept on a special, soft pillow in the sunniest spot in the living room. She no longer played with R2-D2’s head, but now she had all kinds of new toys. Dangly ones and jingly ones and ones that looked like little mice. Megabat wasn’t allowed to play with any of them.

  On top of that, even Daniel’s dad admitted that the cat wasn’t so much trouble after all, and the whole family made a bigger fuss than ever—brushing her fur, giving her treats, telling her “good job” when she pooped in a box and, most of all, trying to keep her from escaping again—until one day the next week…

  “Mom bought this for Priscilla,” Daniel explained. He showed Megabat a collar studded with twinkling diamonds. It was the most breathtaking thing Megabat had ever seen, and he burned with jealousy. “She won’t stop scratching at the back door trying to get out,” Daniel explained as he fastened the collar around Priscilla’s neck. “Mom and Dad figure we might as well let her. I mean, she came back last time, right? With a little help.” Daniel scratched the top of Megabat’s head in thanks, which made him feel a little better—although he still couldn’t take his eyes off that diamond cat necklace.

  Priscilla, on the other hand, didn’t seem to appreciate it one bit. She scratched at the collar with her back foot, but then she turned her attention to the door. “Miew!” she said insistently, looking back toward Megabat. “Miew!” Megabat followed the cat’s gaze, but there was nothing in the yard except the puffer rats. And they were just doing what they always did: digging holes.

  It hardly mattered. Since he and Birdgirl had devised their ingenious honking machine, Birdgirl had been safely collecting and storing the seeds in the shed. Let the rats dig if they wanted to.

  “Miew!” the cat cried again. Daniel opened the door, and Priscilla leapt into the snow. But instead of going exploring, she made a beeline for the shed and began to scratch at that door.

  “What does she want in there, I wonder?” Daniel said. “Come on…let’s go see.” He slid his boots on and tucked Megabat into his coat pocket.

  “This is Megabat and Birdgirl’s home,” Daniel explained to the cat. “And we keep things like the lawn mower here too. See?” He threw the door open to show her.

  But instead of the homey and well-ordered shed Birdgirl usually kept, the sight that met them was utter chaos. The rake was tipped over, the recycling was spilled everywhere and there, at the very back of the shed, was a terrified Birdgirl perched atop her pile of seeds, surrounded on all sides by chattering puffer rats.

  Before Daniel or Megabat could react, the cat gave a low, menacing growl.

  The greedy puffer rats were busy stuffing their cheeks with seeds as the cat crept toward them, her feather duster tail beating wildly. They hadn’t seen her yet, but there was no missing her when, a moment later, she pounced and pinned a tail to the ground with her big furry paw. She hissed at a second puffer rat, baring her pointy fangs.

  Megabat was used to seeing the puffer rats scurry here and there, but he’d never seen them move quite so fast. They jumped like bouncy balls. Three of
them dashed straight out the shed door, but the last one—the fat gray squirrel—clung to the shed wall, frozen with fear.

  Priscilla glared at the gray puffer rat and motioned with her head toward the corner of the shed. As if obeying her command, the gray squirrel—who was breathing hard and fast and making small squeaky sounds—inched down the wall and backed toward the corner.

  “Daniel!” Megabat gasped. “Theys is thinking hers is the Queen Puffer Rat!” It made perfect sense, after all. She had the same puffy tail, but while the squirrels were small, silly and skittish, she was large, dignified and commanding—exactly like a queen.

  A few seconds later, Megabat’s theory was confirmed. The squirrel gave a humble little bow, as if begging her pardon, before disappearing into a small hole in the ground that Megabat had never seen before.

  “Aha!” Megabat said. “Theys been tunneling in. Those rotten puffer rats has been trying to steal Birdgirl’s seeds.” And then he realized something else. “And the fancy cat has been trying to warn mine!” For days, she’d been staring out the back window, pawing at the glass.

  The cat stepped toward Birdgirl, and at first Megabat thought maybe she was going to pounce on her too, but then she swished her fluffy tail and miewed pleasantly, as if to say “hello,” and maybe even, “nicely to officially meet you.”

  “Coo-woo,” Birdgirl exclaimed, shaking her feathers in astonishment.

  And then Megabat realized he’d probably gotten something else wrong! Maybe, when the cat had tried to hunt Birdgirl in the living room, she hadn’t realized the pigeon was family! Perhaps that was why she’d pushed the puzzle pieces of pigeons together the next day—to apologize!