Bat and the End of Everything

by Elana K. Arnold

  After he’d finished reading Israel’s letter for the third time, Bat laid it out on the table and smoothed it flat. He stood up carefully, picking up Thor and balancing him on his shoulders, and went to his room to get a piece of paper and a pencil. Then he went back to the kitchen and sat down again, all without disturbing Thor, who was awake but perfectly relaxed. The soft, warm weight of the skunk resting on his shoulders helped Bat to feel calmer and less worried about whether Israel was missing home and whether he liked Robert more than Bat.

  Janie, who was still sitting across the table from Bat with her laptop open in front of her, watched Bat sit down. “Wow,” she said. “Thor sure likes it up there on your shoulders.” She picked up her camera from where it rested on the table and took a picture of Bat and Thor.

  Bat didn’t say anything. He was focused on what he was going to write.

  Dear Israel,

  Thor is getting big. He’s like a small cat now. He eats and sleeps a lot and is good about using his litter.

  This summer I have been helping Laurence at my mom’s veterinary clinic. I help with baths and walks and I hold the dog paws steady while Laurence clips their claws. Also, I have been riding bikes with my dad and Janie, and one day we went to the pool. It was hot.

  I saw Babycakes when Jenny and her grandmother brought her into the vet clinic when she was sick and then at Jenny’s house.

  Your friend,

  Bat

  Bat read his letter through two times. It was shorter than Israel’s letter to him.

  “Janie,” he said. “I need your help.”

  “What is it?” Janie asked, but she didn’t look up from the computer. She was typing.

  “Israel wrote me a letter and I wrote back, but his letter is way longer than mine.”

  “Just a second,” Janie said, and she typed a little more, and then there was the whooshing sound of an email being sent, and then she closed the laptop. “Let me see,” she said.

  Bat passed her both letters, the longer one that Israel had written and the shorter one that he had written in response.

  “Well, Bat, all you did was answer his questions. That’s why your letter is so short.”

  Bat had been careful to read closely through Israel’s letter and to answer each question he’d asked. “That’s what you’re supposed to do when someone asks a question,” Bat said. “You’re supposed to answer it.”

  “Well, sure,” said Janie, “but writing a letter to a friend isn’t like taking a test. You don’t have to just answer the questions. You’re supposed to say more!”

  Bat was irritated. He felt like chewing on the neck of his shirt, but Thor was comfortable on his shoulders and Bat didn’t want to pull the shirt out from under him and make him slide off.

  “What else am I supposed to say?” Bat asked.

  “Look,” Janie said. She took his pencil and lightly underlined some of the sentences in Israel’s letter. “See?” she said. “All of this is just Israel telling you stuff about himself, his summer, stuff like that. You don’t have any of that in your letter. You only answer his questions, and you don’t give any extra information. Like here,” she said, tapping the pencil on Bat’s letter, where he wrote about Babycakes coming to the clinic. “You write that Babycakes was sick, but you don’t say what happened, or that she got better, or anything! And also, you don’t ask Israel anything about his summer. It’s more thoughtful to ask some questions back.”

  Bat hadn’t thought about it that way. “But,” he said, “even if I did ask Israel questions, he wouldn’t have time to answer them and send me another letter back. By the time I send this letter to Canada, and he gets it, and reads it, and writes another letter, and sends it to me, he’ll be home already.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Janie told him. “It’s just polite to ask questions back.”

  “Even if he can’t answer them?”

  “Even if,” Janie said, and she sounded sure. “Sometimes, it’s nice to know that someone is wondering about you when you’re not together.”

  So Bat erased the bottom part of his letter, where he had written, Your friend, Bat, and he wrote some more about how Babycakes had had the snuffles and head tilt, and how she’d had to stay at the vet clinic for four nights, but that she had taken antibiotics and she was all better.

  Now Bat’s letter was almost as long as Israel’s.

  “How many questions should I ask?” Bat said to Janie.

  “I don’t know, Bat, just a few,” said Janie.

  “A few is three,” said Bat.

  “Then ask him three,” Janie said.

  Bat wrote,

  How is the weather in Canada?

  Are you homesick?

  When you get home, do you want to have another sleepover with me?

  And then he rewrote,

  Your friend,

  Bat

  Satisfied, he folded the letter into thirds. “Where do we keep envelopes?” he asked.

  CHAPTER 20

  A Hot, Sweaty Day

  Sometimes, Bat had a hard day. If he had a hard day in Mr. Grayson’s class, Bat would cuddle Babycakes, even if it was time for science or reading circle, thanks to Mr. Grayson’s open-door Babycakes policy.

  Wednesday was a hard day. Mom had the afternoon off work, but she had to spend the whole time running errands. Because Janie was at the pool again with some friends, Bat had to run the errands too.

  The air-conditioning in the car was not working properly; all week, it had taken way too long for the car to cool. It was so hot that they had to roll down all four windows, which Bat hated because it made a really loud noise and it blew his hair all around.

  “Put on your hat,” Mom suggested, looking at Bat in the rearview mirror.

  Bat took the baseball cap Dad had given him from the pocket in the back of Mom’s seat and put it on. It helped with the hair but not with the sound.

  And then there were the lines. Everywhere they went—the hardware store, the grocery store, the dry cleaners—it was waiting and waiting and more waiting.

  And each time they came out of one place to drive to the next place, the car was even hotter. Bat’s T-shirt stuck to his back with sweat. His socks felt too tight around his ankles. The hat was making his head itch, but when he took it off, the wind blew his hair and so he put it back on.

  “I’m really sorry, Bat, but we have to make one more stop,” Mom said as she checked her phone after they left the dry cleaners. “We just have to swing by the pool and pick up Janie.”

  “I thought she was getting a ride home with Ezra,” Bat said. He knew his voice sounded whiny, but he couldn’t make it sound different.

  “That’s what I thought too, but she sent me a message that she’s ready to come home now,” Mom said. She laid the dry cleaning in the back of the station wagon, next to the groceries and the bag with light bulbs and batteries from the hardware store. Bat groaned and climbed reluctantly into the back seat.

  “Can’t she walk home?”

  “Bat,” said Mom, “no. It’s too far for her to walk.”

  “Then she should wait for Ezra’s mom,” Bat whined.

  “I know you’re frustrated and ready to go home,” Mom said. “But we’re going to pick her up. If you needed to come home from something early, Janie and I would pick you up. That’s the way we do things.”

  So, after all those errands, they had to drive all the way across town to the pool. And in the meantime, Bat could practically hear the ice cream melting in the grocery bag.

  And then, when they got to the pool, Janie wasn’t even in the front waiting for them! They waited a whole extra five minutes before she came out to the parking lot. In those five minutes, Bat’s head got so itchy from the hat that he had to take it off again.

  “What took you so long?” Bat blurted when Janie got into the car at last.

  “Jeez, Bat, don’t yell,” Janie said loudly.

  “You’re yelling,” Bat yelled back.

 
“I’m not yelling,” Janie said.

  “You’re not yelling now,” Bat said. “You were yelling before.”

  “Whatever, Bat,” Janie said, and she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

  Which hurt his feelings. Bat crossed his arms too, but because it was so hot, that was uncomfortable, so he uncrossed them.

  “Everything okay?” Mom asked Janie when they’d pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

  “No,” said Janie.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Mom asked.

  “No,” said Janie again, but then, a minute later, she said, “Ezra always thinks he’s so funny.”

  “Ah,” Mom said.

  “I don’t think Ezra is always funny,” said Bat. “Sometimes, he’s a mean tease.”

  Janie sniffed. Mom looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Did Ezra tease you, Janie?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Janie said, but then, after the next red light, she said, “I don’t think it’s weird that I like to use my camera to take pictures instead of my cell phone. I don’t think it makes me stuck-up!”

  “Is that what Ezra said?” Mom asked.

  Janie nodded.

  “I don’t think it’s weird,” Bat said. “I like your camera.”

  “That wasn’t very nice of Ezra,” Mom said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Janie said again.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it,” Bat said, “then why do you keep talking about it?”

  “You’re not always nice either, Bat,” said Janie.

  “No one is always nice,” Bat said. He didn’t tell Janie that she had hurt his feelings. He just looked out his window.

  The rest of the ride home was silent, except for the rush of air coming in through the windows, and when Mom pulled into the driveway and turned off the car, Janie jumped out and slammed her door.

  “She slammed the door,” Bat told Mom.

  “I know, Bat,” Mom said. She sighed and rubbed the spot right above her nose. “I heard.”

  “We’re not supposed to slam doors,” Bat said.

  “That is true,” Mom said. “But sometimes, we slam them anyway.”

  Bat slid out of the back seat. His T-shirt felt glued to his back.

  “Will you help me carry in the stuff from our errands?” Mom asked.

  “Why doesn’t Janie have to help?” Bat asked. He just wanted to go inside and change his shirt. He didn’t want to be out in the hot sun for one more minute.

  “Because Janie is having a hard day,” Mom said.

  “I’m having a hard day too!” said Bat. “My day has been harder than Janie’s. I had to run errands and the air-conditioning is broken and then we had to drive all the way to the pool instead of home.”

  “Okay, Bat,” Mom said. “We don’t need to have an argument about who has had the hardest day. I’ll get the bags myself. You can go inside.”

  Bat went inside. He went to his room and took off his sweaty T-shirt and put on a clean one. But he didn’t feel better. He felt worse, because part of him knew that he should have stayed outside to help his mom bring in all the errand stuff. But then he heard the front door close and he knew it was too late to go back out to help.

  Bat just stood in the center of his room.

  Then he heard a rustling sound. It was Thor, who was awake, and who had come out of his nest in the corner of his pen when he heard Bat. He pressed his nose between the panels of the enclosure.

  “Hey, little Thor,” Bat cooed. Even if it was a bad day, he wanted to use a good voice with the skunk. He opened the gate and Thor shuffled out. Bat admired how thick and bristly his tail was getting, how shiny and clear his eyes looked, and how plump and healthy his belly was.

  Thor came right up to Bat and pushed Bat’s leg with his snout. Bat crouched down and scooped him up and then walked over to his bed. He lay down on his side, facing the wall, and made a little crook with his arm to cradle the skunk.

  For some reason that Bat couldn’t name, he started to cry. Not a lot, but a little, and his body shook and tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Thor sniffed Bat’s ear, his cheek, his nose. Bat closed his eyes. Thor’s whiskers tickled Bat’s face. His rough tongue brushed against Bat’s skin, licking at the tears. Slowly, Bat stopped crying.

  Above Bat’s head, the ceiling fan whirled around and around, circulating nice, cool air. His bed was soft and comfortable. When Bat’s tears were dried, Thor turned in a little circle and tucked his head into the bend of Bat’s elbow. Drowsy and perfectly comfortable, Bat and the skunk fell asleep together.

  CHAPTER 21

  Two Parts

  “Bat! Where’s Thor?”

  Bat woke, drowsily, to the sound of Mom’s voice from the doorway to his bedroom. He turned his head to see her standing there looking worriedly at Thor’s open enclosure.

  “Shh,” Bat whispered, not wanting to disturb the skunk, still curled in his arms, the end of his tail tucked over his nose. “He’s right here.”

  Mom came into the room and across to the bed, peering over Bat to see the sleeping skunk. “Oh,” she said, “he’s with you.”

  “We took a nap,” Bat said. His arm was stiff and tingly from being in the same position for so long, but he didn’t want to move it. “My arm is asleep,” he said.

  Mom sat down gently on the edge of the bed. She rested her hand on Bat’s leg. “My arm used to fall asleep when I would hold you or Janie in the same position for too long,” she said. “I never wanted to shift and take the chance of waking you up.”

  “I know what you mean,” Bat said.

  They stayed there together, Thor sleeping, Bat and his mom watching him, for a long time, as the sky outside the window changed from blue to dusky pink. Finally, Thor twitched his nose, stretched all four of his legs, and yawned, his pink tongue curling out from between two rows of fine white teeth.

  Then Bat rolled over and sat up. “You had a long nap, little Thor,” he cooed. Thor blinked open his eyes, and he looked perfectly content and happy to find himself in Bat’s arms. “I was sad,” Bat told his mom, “but Thor made me feel better.”

  Bat stood and carried Thor to the enclosure and set him down. The skunk meandered over to his litter box and used it, then went to his water bowl for a nice long drink.

  As Thor drank, Bat went to the kitchen to get a scoop of the special food he and Mom had made a couple of days earlier, following a recipe Bat had found on the internet and with special supplements that Mom had ordered through the vet clinic. It was a smelly mix of ground turkey, brown rice, and egg, mixed together with the supplements. They kept it in a plastic container in the refrigerator.

  Thor must have smelled his supper, because when Bat went back into his room, the skunk scurried over to his enclosure’s gate and paced excitedly.

  “Okay, okay,” Bat said in his soothing voice. “Settle down.” He set Thor’s dish on the plastic placemat Mom had let him take into his room, opened the enclosure’s gate, and watched as Thor dug into his meal.

  Mom was still there, sitting on Bat’s bed. “You look happy,” she said.

  Bat nodded. “It’s satisfying to watch him eat,” he said. “It’s the best feeling.”

  Mom laughed. “That’s how I always felt when you or Janie would finish a whole plate of food.”

  Bat didn’t like to think about what would happen when Thor was returned to the wild. Sometimes he started to imagine it, and he’d picture Thor’s black-and-white tail disappearing into a bush, and then his eyes would fill with tears and his heart would feel like it was made of sharp splinters. Then he would do whatever it took to get the image out of his mind. He would let himself chew on his shirt or he would rock back and forth or he would kick the wall by his door over and over again, not really hard, not hard enough to hurt the wall, just hard enough to make his toes sore so that he could think about the pain in his foot instead.

  He pictured it again now—Th
or disappearing from him—and he pulled the collar of his shirt into his mouth and began to rock back and forth.

  Mom stood up from the bed and came over to Bat. She stood close to Bat, and she opened her arms, which was her way of saying that if he wanted a hug, she was there to hug him.

  Part of Bat didn’t want anyone to touch him. That part of him felt like it was fighting with the part of him that very much did want a hug.

  “I love you, Bat,” Mom said softly, and then the part of him that wanted the hug was stronger, and he stepped into her arms.

  CHAPTER 22

  Pancake Juggling

  “It was such a great trip! My cousin Robert has chickens, so every morning we went out to the coop to collect eggs, and we could eat as many as we wanted. They were delicious! Way better than store-bought eggs. And their yolks were orange instead of yellow. And we went swimming every afternoon, and we slept in bunk beds, and my cousin Robert knew about a million jokes and he can juggle. You would have liked it.”

  Israel was home at last. He was darker from the sun and maybe taller, too. He had gotten home the day before, and the first thing Bat and Israel were going to do together was visit Babycakes at Jenny’s house. Israel’s dad, Tom, was driving them there, in his truck. Then later they would go back to Bat’s house for a sleepover.

  “What did he juggle, clubs or balls?” Bat asked. “Laurence can juggle clubs, too. Lots of people can.”

  “He can juggle anything!” Israel said enthusiastically. “Clubs, balls, toys, spoons—you name it, he can juggle it.”

  “Apples,” Bat said.

  “Yep,” said Israel.

  “Calculators,” Bat said.

  “Definitely,” said Israel.

  “Pancakes,” said Bat.

  “Pancakes?” said Israel.

  “Yes,” said Bat. “Pancakes.”