It all just bursts out of me. Someone has got to bring her back to earth.
“You don’t believe in anything, do you, Terence?” She says this like she feels sorry for me.
“I do, too.”
“Like what? What do you believe in?”
I think hard. What do I believe? I never really thought about it before. I believe that there are gaps in the world that someone should get around to filling in. I believe it’s not cool to pretend to be anything you aren’t, except…don’t I like Lucy and isn’t Lucy pretending she’s a bat? The way she’s looking at me with those laser eyes of hers, it seems important that I believe in something.
“I believe in believing,” is what I end up saying. It is all I can think of that is true, and if there’s one person in the world I couldn’t ever say one false thing to, it’s Lucy.
“Good,” she says. “I believe in bats, and I believe in kites. If you believe in believing, then you should believe in me.” And with that she opens up the Swiss army knife and starts whittling at one of the branches. “Bats are a really important part of the ecosystem, Terence. Seals? Seals are practically useless. They eat all the fish and don’t do anything. Just because they’re all cute and white when they’re little — that’s the only reason people want to save them. You shouldn’t be picked on just because you’re ugly. People just don’t understand bats. They kill them because they aren’t beautiful like cats or seals.” She whittles away.
Why shouldn’t I believe in Lucy? Why not bats? My whole summer’s been turned upside-down since I became a bat. I don’t know about anything anymore.
I watch Lucy whittle the branch. She’s good with the knife. She has this concentrated look on her face, like nothing’s going to stop her, and I guess that includes me.
“I think bats are beautiful,” I say.
Lucy keeps on whittling like she didn’t hear me say anything.
I should go to Wells Hill Park and show my face, see if anyone can tell me what the police have been up to.
“I gotta go soon. What did you say you needed again?” She doesn’t even look up.
“Tape measure, a big piece of plastic sheeting, string, glue, tape —”
“Hold on, hold on. How about I come back later with a pen and paper and we figure it out?”
“Fine,” she looks up again. It’ll be hard working in the dark. “Thanks a lot, Terence. You’re good.” I slip out of the cave — careful not to hit my head this time — and make my way toward the park.
She said I’m good. It must be true. Lucy never says anything that isn’t true. She may be a thief, but she’s not a liar.
12
I get to the park and, for the first time ever, Russell isn’t there. The picnic table looks naked without him.
I go to get a drink at the water fountain and see Rico and Daphne sitting on a bench down the hill. Daphne has long dark-brown hair that falls down her back like a horse’s tail. She’s not exactly pretty, except in that way that older girls seem to be prettier. They look better-cooked or something, like those pictures of steaks you see with the grill marks on them.
I look at the birthmark on the side of Daphne’s face. It looks like someone threw grape juice at her. I wonder what she thinks of Lucy putting tattoos on her face on purpose when she’s never going to be able to get rid of that thing. It looks like she has a permanent black eye. She wears all these bracelets on both her arms that make her look like a prisoner. She always hunches her shoulders forward, too, as if she had a knapsack on even though she doesn’t.
I go down the hill toward them. Rico looks at me and juts out his chin. I try to look like I don’t know anything.
“Hey, Terence, seen Lucy?”
I shrug. I’m not a good liar.
“She hasn’t come home yet?” I ask. Daphne shakes her head.
“My parents are freaking out. It’s worse than last time. Way, way worse. I can’t even work now because my hands are shaking so bad I keep flipping the Fatso burgers on the ground.”
“Have the police found anything?”
“No…and they say they can’t do anything because she’s a runaway. It would be different if she didn’t leave the note. I should have never said anything about the note. Rico said the two of you were good friends. Did she say anything to you about going any place?”
I want to spill my guts, but I promised Lucy. Or did I? It feels like I did.
“She didn’t say she was going anywhere. I saw her at Loblaws on Friday.” Daphne gets this hopeful look on her face. She would be perfectly pretty if it weren’t for that birthmark. Only the birthmark makes me want to look at her longer.
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know. Three-thirty maybe. Something like that.” She looks over at Loblaws as if looking there is going to make Lucy come out.
I want to tell her so bad. I can’t. I’m here to gather information.
“Did you tell the cops that?” Rico asks. He seems way more concerned than he was yesterday. “I sent the cops to your house.”
“Yeah. My mom talked to them. I wasn’t there. Thanks a lot, Rico. Now my mom thinks there’s some psychotic killer on the loose and I have to be home by five.”
“Oh, my God,” says Daphne. She puts a hand over her mouth. I can see tears forming in her eyes.
What a stupid thing to say. I always say the wrong thing.
“I know she’s all right,” I say. “I mean, I have a feeling she’s fine. I mean, Lucy’s really smart. She knows how to play chess and everything. She can take care of herself.” And she can steal, and she can find caves, and she’s got my knife which I hope she doesn’t use to take out any snooping cops while I’m gone.
My words aren’t working to calm Daphne down. Her face is all pale and tense.
“I should have come home when she called. Oh, my God. I can’t believe we left her alone so long. She called me and I didn’t come. She must have been so angry. And all I could think about was that my stunned boss would be mad about me taking a personal call. If I knew she…I just know I could have stopped her going. We should know better by now.”
“That wasn’t why she left,” I say.
Daphne whips her head up. Rico stands up and creeps closer to me.
“What?” he says. It’s like he’s suddenly Daphne’s boyfriend or something. But she’s seventeen so there’s no way. Still, he’s so big. I have to think fast.
“I mean, she didn’t say anything to me about calling you,” I tell Daphne. “I think she would have said something to me.”
“Are you her boyfriend?” Daphne asks. I want to say yes and I want to say no. Rico’s looking at me like my answer could change his life.
“I’m a bat. Like Lucy. We’re bats together. That’s all.” Rico rolls his eyes and sits back down. Daphne’s face lights up through her tears. She grabs my hand and squeezes it. I said something right for once. And I do feel like a bat. I’m flying through these gaps like I know exactly where to go. I feel myself relax a little inside. On the inside it feels kind of like I’m being unfolded.
“Did she run away before?” I ask. Daphne shakes her head.
“Not exactly. It’s a really long story.” It must be the one Rico was telling me — about Lucy’s friend who fell off the cliff.
“What happened? I mean, I might be able to remember something if you told me what happened.”
Daphne falls back against the bench.
“When we lived in Hamilton, there was this girl who lived near us who was a really good friend of Lucy’s. Her name was Timber. Actually, her name was Tammy, but she liked to be called Timber. And one day, we were out on the Escarpment and we were just playing, right? Then Timber went off the edge and there was nothing we could do and she died.” Daphne stops to take a couple of deep breaths. “It happened so fast. I don’t know. I think Timber thought she was a tree. Her father was this conservationist. You know, a save-the-trees guy.”
Daphne is talking almost like she is in
some trance. She’s staring at Loblaws the whole time.
“We were looking for robins’ eggs. She was there when I looked down, and when I looked up she was gone. I just knew right away that she had gone over the edge. She fell like timber.” Daphne chokes a bit. “I don’t think it was deliberate. Not exactly. At least, I don’t think it was planned… it was a long drop. She hit her head on a rock. I sent Lucy to call 911, but I knew she was dead.
“That’s when Lucy started being a bat. She was never a bat before Timber died. And Mom and Dad were working hard then. Working all the time, just like now.”
She stops to take a breath. Rico hands her a napkin. Looks like he picked it up at the 7-11.
“We couldn’t find Lucy for dinner one time. It was really weird. We were hardly ever all together for dinner and Mom had made this whole big deal about how we were all going to be together for dinner and everything. And it wasn’t even until we were sitting around the table that we realize she’s not there. We just thought she’d show up because it was this whole big deal. So, of course, Mom freaks out and then Dad yells at Mom for freaking out and I go out looking for her. I go up the Escarpment looking for her…” Daphne starts sobbing again.
What would I do if Tom died? I don’t know how to be that sad.
“Mom calls Timber’s father to see if she’s over there. And we’re all thinking she’s gone off the edge, just like Timber.”
Daphne looks down at her hands and wipes her eyes with the 7-11 napkin. “And then, Mom is in Lucy’s room looking around, and she hears something up in the attic.” This is the part I know already. “There’s this hole in Lucy’s closet up to the attic. Mom goes up there and it’s dark and all she can see is something swinging. She nearly has a heart attack. Dad gets home and hears Mom screaming upstairs. He races up and she points up into the attic, so he has a look and when I come in he’s running down the stairs with this look on his face…I’ll never forget it as long as I live. And I start screaming just from looking at him. He gets the flashlight and goes back up to the attic and there she is. Lucy’s hanging from the rafters, but she’s hanging from her feet. And you know what she says to my dad?”
“What?” me and Rico say at once.
“She says, ‘Turn off the light.’”
Neither me or Rico can speak. Daphne’s looking far off into outer space. It seems more quiet than it can be with the traffic rushing by the park like this.
Then I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her that Lucy is fine and that she’ll be home soon. Only I don’t know that for sure.
13
When I get home, Elys is there.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her. “I thought you had a job.”
“I don’t know. What are you doing here?” She’s on the couch with her feet up on the coffee table reading some flyers. She likes to keep up on the good deals even though she never buys anything.
“I live here, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Aunt Paulie said I might see some short stringy kid with hair in his face and an attitude problem wandering around. You must be him.” I flop down beside her on the couch.
“I thought you got a job. Mom’s making me come home by five. It’s like in her head I’m still eight years old.” I grab a Zellers flyer and try to find the toy section.
“Oooh. Bummer, man. I am, like, soooo sorry that I got a great job that pays decent money and is just up the street and the boss lets me go home for lunch or between making deliveries and there’s a tape deck in the delivery van and it’s all thanks to your friend Russell.”
“Did your new boss tell you about Lucy?”
“What about her?” she says.
“She ran away.”
She quits poking me.
“What?”
“Yeah. She ran away after we saw her at Loblaws and they can’t find her. The cops were here and they were talking to Russell, too.”
“What were they talking to him for?”
“I don’t know. She plays chess with him sometimes.”
“Do they think he took her or something?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I was wondering if your boss said anything to you. Because Russell wasn’t at the park today.”
Elys looks at her watch. I haven’t seen her look at her watch in months. I forgot she even had a watch.
“I gotta get back. Lunch is almost over. David’s pretty cool, but he’s still a boss and it is my first day on the job.” She gets up and checks her hair in the mirror. She’s wearing it back today. It makes her look more like a grown-up. “What did you say your friend’s name was?”
“Lucy.” She looks at her watch again, and then makes for the door.
“I’ll ask my boss about your friend. I hope Russell isn’t in any kind of trouble.”
I have myself a hot dog and cheese sandwich and make out a list of the things Lucy wants me to get her: a tape measure, plastic…
I did see some plastic somewhere. It was in that lady’s garage, the one where Rico hid the magazines. It was stuck in the rafters there.
It’s not like she’s using it. It’s only plastic. I could take the magazines back there and get the plastic at the same time.
I look up at the clock. It’s gone 2:30 already. I’d better get a move on. I get the magazines and stuff them, bag and all, down the back of my pants, just like I saw Lucy do with the spaghetti. I wouldn’t want to fall down and have them all spill out of the bag. Man, oh, man. What a nightmare.
I run up Bathurst and cut through to the alley behind Rico’s street. At first I’m not sure if I’m in the right alley. They all look the same, with the garages backing off bushy backyards with laundry lines, and totally deserted except for cats.
I like alleys. They’re like secret streets, like visible gaps. No one ever talks about them, but there they are just the same — places between places.
Now that I’m here, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea to go into the lady’s garage. It was one thing when I was following Rico. I felt like if we got caught it would be Rico’s fault, or maybe I felt like we wouldn’t get caught because Rico was with me.
I look up and down the alley. Then I pull on the bottom of the door. It’s locked, all right. I get on my knees and peek under the crack under the door.
It’s empty, so at least I know she’s not home. But it’s not as dark as it should be. I see a crack of light coming from the far end. It’s hard to see, but I think the door to the backyard is open. I can get in through the lady’s backyard.
Just as I’m walking down the lane between the two houses, I hear, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, batboy?” I grab the back of my pants and turn around to face Rico.
“Hey, Rico.” I try to act casual.
“What are you doing here? Are you looking for me?”
“Any news about Lucy?” I say. He shakes his head and looks at my arm resting behind my back. I whip it back at my side.
“What have you got there?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s bull, bathead. Pass it over. Come on…I know you’re hiding something and I’m gonna get it out of you one way or another.”
I pull out the bag and hand it over. I feel so much lighter once he has the magazines in his hands.
“What am I supposed to do with these?” he says.
“That’s your problem.” It is his problem and it feels good to say it. He looks at me and looks down at the bag and looks up at his house.
“Why’d you bring these back here?”
“I didn’t want them around. You saw my cousin. She knows I have them, I don’t want her thinking I’m looking at them all the time. Every time she looks at me now, it’s like all she sees is me reading titty magazines.”
I spit this all out really fast. I didn’t even know that’s what I was thinking until I spit it out like that.
He puts his hand to his mouth to show me to be quiet.
“Well…what were you going to do with them?�
�
“I was going to put them back in that lady’s garage. The front door is open.”
Rico raises his eyebrows. It’s like he hadn’t even thought of the front door before. I mean, duh.
“All right, then, batbrain. Go ahead.” He tries to hand me the bag. I put my hands behind my back and clench my fists.
“No way, Rico. You got me into this mess. You put them back.”
Rico lets out a deep breath, walks to the end of his house and looks into his neighbor’s yard. He walks back.
“I’ll only come on one condition,” I say.
“What?”
“You help me get some plastic from up in the rafters.”
“What?” He looks at me like I’m speaking Martian.
“Listen, you get me in trouble and then you piss off and leave me holding the bag. I went down for you, man. You owe me.” They talk this way on television. On television, it’s the good guy who is owed the favor and he always gets it. It’s the television rule, but I don’t know if it’s the life rule.
My heart’s bubbling like hot spaghetti sauce. I need the plastic for Lucy. I guess I don’t technically owe her anything, but I feel like I do.
“Fine,” he says. The rule works.
I follow him down to the end of the houses and watch him make sure the coast is clear. Now I really feel like I’m on television.
We go through his neighbor’s gate and race to the garage door and inside. We stop and hold our breaths to see if there’s any fallout. Nothing. Rico hides the magazines back in the pipe. I feel way better now. I point up to the rafters at the plastic and Rico jumps for it, but can’t quite reach it. He motions for me to come over. It’s like we’ve agreed not to say anything. He lifts me up and I grab onto the rafter and pull myself up. The plastic is jammed under a piece of wood.
I’m shimmying over when I hear Rico say, “Shit,” in a loud whisper.
A car. We hear a car door slam. I’m looking straight at Rico. He mouths the word, “Sorry,” and takes off out of the garage.
Bat Summer Page 9