Bat and the Waiting Game

by Elana K. Arnold

  CHAPTER 17

  Party Games

  “Hey, do you want to play a game with us?” Janie had opened the door without knocking, which she knew wasn’t allowed.

  “You forgot to knock,” Bat said.

  Janie rolled her eyes. “Okay, then I guess you don’t want to play with us,” she said, and began to close the door.

  “Wait, wait!” Israel said, jumping to his feet. “I want to play!” He followed Janie into the hallway, turning to say, “Come on, Bat!”

  Bat checked on Thor before he followed. Inside the playpen, inside the kitty carrier, the tip of the skunk’s tail poked out from the flannel blanket that Thor liked to sleep inside. Bat closed the bedroom door behind him and followed Israel and Janie down the hall.

  The living room was a mess. Janie’s three friends sat on a nest they’d made of all the couch cushions; the coffee table was shoved to one side, paper plates of half-eaten pizza and paper cups full of juice littered all over it.

  “So this is my brother, Bat, and his friend Israel,” Janie said. “And these are my friends Corinna, Maggie, and Frida.” She pointed at each of the three girls as she said their names.

  “Um, hi,” said Israel, with a little wave. Then he elbowed Bat.

  “Ouch,” Bat said.

  “Say hello,” Israel whispered loudly.

  “Hello,” Bat said.

  “Oh, your brother is adorable, Janie,” said one of the girls—Maggie—from the pillow pile.

  Bat’s face felt hot and prickly, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  “Are you guys going to play with us?” said Frida.

  “What’s the game?” said Israel. His voice sounded unusually squeaky to Bat.

  “It’s called Two Truths and a Lie. Have you ever played?” Janie asked.

  Bat shook his head no. So did Israel.

  “It’s fun,” said Frida. “You just think of two things that are true about you and one lie. Then you say all three of them and try to hide which one is a lie. Then everyone guesses which one the lie is, and if you fool everyone, you get a prize.”

  “What’s the prize?” asked Bat.

  “A bag of gummies,” Janie said, holding up a clear plastic bag full of gummies.

  “Okay,” said Israel. “We’ll play.” He flopped down on one of the cushions. Bat sat next to him.

  “I’ll go first,” said Maggie. Like the other girls, she was dressed in pajamas. Maggie’s were the kind with built-in feet and a hood, and she wore the hood up on her head. They were tiger-striped, and the hood had tiger ears sewn onto it.

  “Let’s see,” said Maggie. “I don’t know how to ride a bicycle. I am allergic to shellfish. And I have thirteen pets.”

  “You have thirteen pets?” Bat said excitedly. “What kinds of pets?”

  “Bat,” said Janie. “You can’t ask questions! That’s not how the game works. We have to guess which of the three things is a lie.”

  “I hope it’s true that you have thirteen pets,” Bat said to Maggie. She smiled.

  “Okay,” said Frida. “I think it’s true that she’s allergic to shellfish. Because that’s a weird thing to make up.”

  Janie nodded, but Israel said, “I think she’s lying about not knowing how to ride a bike. Who doesn’t know how to ride a bike?”

  Then Corinna said, “Well, actually, my mom never learned to ride a bike until she was a grown-up! She just never wanted to when she was a kid.”

  “That’s crazy,” Israel said. “I love riding my bike. It’s the best! Especially down hills. Up hills, not so much.”

  Then he and Frida started talking about the really big hill over by the high school, and how hard it was to ride up, and how much fun it was to ride down, until Bat interrupted.

  “I think the shellfish thing is the lie,” he said, mostly because he really wanted the thirteen-animal thing to be true.

  “Okay, who votes shellfish?” Janie asked, and Bat, Israel, Janie, Corinna, and Frida all raised their hand.

  “We think the lie is about being allergic to shellfish,” Janie said to Maggie.

  She shook her head and grinned. “Nope!” she said. “I really am allergic to shellfish. They make the inside of my mouth feel all itchy and I break into hives.”

  Janie tossed a bag of gummies to Maggie, who caught it.

  “So what’s the lie?” Israel asked.

  “It’s the animal thing,” Maggie admitted. “I don’t have thirteen pets . . . I have fourteen!”

  “You have fourteen pets?” Bat said. “What kind?”

  “We have five chickens,” Maggie began, “and two dogs, and seven fish. My brother Jasper has a saltwater tank.”

  “I want to go next,” Bat said.

  “Okay,” said Janie.

  Bat thought for a minute. He didn’t like to lie—he really didn’t; it made him feel uncomfortable and sort of itchy—but since this was for a game, he wanted to make it a really good lie. When he was ready, he said, “My favorite fruit is grapes, the green ones. When I grow up I’m going to be a firefighter. And I have a baby skunk in my room.” Then he pointed at Janie and Israel and said, “You guys can’t play. Because you know the truths already.”

  “Okay, Bat,” said Janie, rolling her eyes again.

  “It’s the skunk one,” said Maggie. “He just said that because of my pet lie. No one has a skunk for a pet.”

  Bat tried really hard not to smile.

  Corinna said, “Lots of kids want to be a firefighter, and everyone likes grapes. I think the skunk thing is the lie, too.”

  “Skunks are gross,” said Frida.

  So they all voted that the lie was about having a baby skunk in his room, and Bat, practically bursting with excitement, said, “No! That’s the true thing. I really do have a baby skunk in my room. His name is Thor.”

  Then no one cared about which thing was the lie (being a firefighter, of course, because Bat was definitely going to be a veterinarian like his mom when he grew up), and Janie’s friends begged him to show them the skunk—even Frida, who had just said that she thought skunks were gross.

  “Okay,” Bat said. “I’ll go get him.”

  So he went back to his room and scooped up the sleeping kit, blanket and all, and went back into the living room. “You have to be quiet and slow with him,” Bat said sternly, “or else he’ll be scared. I’ll hold him, and you can pet his head.”

  And then he walked around the circle of kids, showing Thor to each of them. Thor widened his mouth in an adorable yawn, and Janie’s friends said, “Oh!” and “Ah!” and told Bat how cute Thor was.

  Even Janie took a turn petting Thor’s head, and then, because it is what a good friend would do, Bat let Israel carry Thor back to his enclosure.

  CHAPTER 18

  Best Friends

  After Bat put Thor away, Janie got all bossy and told the boys that she and her friends were going to watch a movie that the boys definitely wouldn’t like, but when Bat asked “What movie?” she wouldn’t even say.

  “How can you know we won’t like it if you won’t even let us watch?” Bat said. “What about the time I said I didn’t like pigs in a blanket before I’d tried it, and you made me have a bite of yours, and it turned out I really liked it a lot? Do you remember that time?”

  “I remember, Bat,” Janie said, her mouth in a flat line, “but this is different.”

  “You boys can watch a movie in my room if you want,” Mom offered. Her bedroom was the only one in the house with a TV in it.

  But Bat wanted to stay in the living room and ask Maggie more about her pets. What kinds of dogs did she have? How did her brother make sure that the salt water in his fish tank had just the right amount of salt? Did his fish ever try to eat each other? Bat had heard that sometimes fish-tank fish ate each other.

  “Come on, Bat,” said Israel. “Let’s go hang out in your room.”

  Bat followed, reluctantly.

  When they got back to Bat’s room, Israel sai
d, “I think your sister was ready to have her friends back to herself.”

  “What?” said Bat. “But she invited us out there to play a game with them!”

  “That’s because you need more people for a game to be fun,” Israel said. “She doesn’t need us to make watching a movie more fun.”

  Bat thought about that. “Then why didn’t she just tell us she was done with us?”

  Israel laughed. “Because that’s rude!” he said. “Watch.” And then he pretended to be Janie: he put his hands on his hips the way Janie sometimes did and rolled his eyes like Janie and said, “Bat, I am sick of you and your friend. We don’t need you anymore now that the game is over, so please go away!” Then he dropped his arms and grinned. He said, “See? Rude.”

  “That’s a terrible Janie impression,” Bat said. Israel hadn’t changed his voice at all, and Janie always said “Bat” in a long, drawn-out way when she was annoyed with him, which was often.

  Bat looked at Israel. He liked the way Israel’s hair was sort of fluffy, and sort of curly, and sort of long, but not all the way fluffy or curly or long. He liked how Israel wore his shirts—loose and never tucked in—and he liked how Israel almost always kept his voice low and gentle. There was a lot to like about Israel.

  “You are my best friend,” Bat said.

  Israel grinned. “Really?” he said. “I didn’t think you liked me that much.”

  “Why would you think that?” Bat asked, bewildered.

  “Well,” said Israel, “when you are at my house you seem more interested in my dad’s truck or my mom’s art studio than you are in playing with me.”

  It was true that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Bat went over to Israel’s house after school, he used the chance to ask Israel’s parents the questions he had. Like, how did a pottery wheel work? (Answer: centrifugal force caused by the spinning of the wheel made the clay move outward from the center.) And, what was the heaviest thing Tom had ever towed with his big black truck? (Answer: a broken-down RV that belonged to one of Tom’s friends.)

  But those questions didn’t mean that Bat didn’t think Israel was his best friend. “You have interesting parents,” Bat said.

  “Thanks, I guess,” Israel said.

  “You’re interesting, too,” Bat said. “Even if you’re not a professional potter and even though you don’t own a big black truck.”

  This made Israel laugh. “Thanks, Bat,” Israel said. “I think you’re interesting, too. Even if you didn’t have a skunk kit, I’d like you anyway.”

  “Really?” said Bat. He felt kind of shy and happy at the same time.

  “Really,” Israel answered.

  Bat smiled. Then he said, “Speaking of Thor, do you want to see if we can teach him some tricks?”

  “Yes,” said Israel. “Yes, I do.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Social Animals

  It is not easy to teach a baby skunk to stay, or to sit, or to roll over. But Bat and Israel discovered that Thor could learn one trick: Come.

  When Israel pointed Thor in Bat’s direction, and Bat said in his sweetest voice, “Thor, baby Thor, come here, baby Thor!” the skunk kit’s nose quivered and his feet scuttled clumsily along the ground and his growing black-and-white tail followed behind him as he made his way across the distance between the two boys.

  “You’re the smartest skunk kit in the whole wide world,” Bat cooed to Thor, scooping him up and kissing his nose, the top of his head, his fuzzy little paws.

  When Thor was too tired to play Come any more, Bat and Israel fed him a snack of soft bread and wet dog food and watched as he ate it and licked his whiskers. Then he retreated to his nest in the kitty carrier, scratched around for a few minutes, and disappeared into silence.

  Bat and Israel sat on Bat’s railroad rug just outside of Thor’s playpen, eating the last snack before bedtime, a bowl of popcorn Mom had brought them. She’d made it in the air popper and had poured melted butter over it and sprinkled salt on top. “It’s great how big Thor is getting,” Israel said, crunching a mouthful of popcorn. “How long until he’ll be ready to release?”

  The question made Bat’s stomach feel queasy. He dropped his handful of popcorn back into the bowl. “Not for a long time,” he said. “He’s still barely a toddler. You wouldn’t send a toddler out into the cold night all alone, would you?”

  “Right,” Israel said, “I know not now, but, just, how long, do you think? A month? A year? How long do you get to keep him?”

  “That’s a stupid question,” Bat said. He stood up and brushed the popcorn crumbs off his pajamas.

  “Why’s it stupid?” Israel asked. He was still sitting on the rug, still eating popcorn.

  “Because it’s stupid!” Bat yelled. Actually, he knew it wasn’t a stupid question. It was the same question Bat asked himself over and over, every day. He asked it over and over because he didn’t like the answer and kept hoping for a different one. The real answer was that Thor could stay with them until the end of summer, when he would be nearly full-grown and able to forage for food on his own. Then they would have to release him into the wild.

  “You know, Bat,” Israel said, “sometimes you could be nicer.”

  How could it be that just a few minutes ago, Bat had been telling Israel that he was Bat’s best friend, and now Israel was telling Bat that he wasn’t nice? Everything had felt great and now everything felt terrible.

  There was a knock on the door and Mom poked her head in. “Boys,” she said, “it’s time to brush teeth and climb into bed.”

  “Okay, Dr. Tam,” said Israel, and he got up and headed toward the bathroom.

  From the living room, Bat heard the happy laughter of Janie and her friends. It wasn’t fair, he thought.

  “Mom,” Bat said, “Janie is a social butterfly. And I am a social frog.”

  “Oh, baby.” Mom didn’t ask what had happened. She just stood next to Bat and put her arms around him, letting him take a step into her hug before she squeezed him tight. “It’s late and you’re tired,” she said. “Things will look better in the morning. Things are always brighter when the sun comes up. For butterflies and for frogs.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Pot Throwing

  The sleepover ended at noon the next day, when the last of Janie’s friends was picked up by her mother. “See you, Bat,” said Frida. “Thank you, Janie. Thank you, Dr. Tam.”

  The first kid to leave had been Israel. His parents had to pick him up early because they were taking a load of Cora’s pottery to the farmer’s market to sell, which they did every few months, and Israel had to help.

  “It was fun,” he had said to Bat before he left, but Bat couldn’t tell if that was the truth or not. Bat was still embarrassed about how he had yelled at Israel the night before, but he didn’t like to apologize, and anyway Israel shouldn’t have kept pushing him about when they would have to release Thor into the wild.

  And the next day, a dreary, drizzly sort of day, Israel didn’t come to school.

  “Maybe he is sick,” Mom said. “There’s a cold going around.” She called Israel’s house to find out, and sure enough, she found out that Israel had been under the weather.

  “That’s a funny expression,” Bat said. His voice felt sort of high and tight. “Because you can’t really be under the weather. Or over the weather. You can only be in the weather or out of the weather. Don’t you think?”

  “I think,” Mom said, resting one gentle hand on Bat’s shoulder, “that maybe you’re still upset about fighting with Israel this weekend. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I want to know what the weather will be like for the rest of the week,” Bat said, rolling up onto the balls of his feet.

  “You want to know whether the weather will be warm?” Mom said, squeezing Bat’s shoulder.

  “Yes,” said Bat, glad that Mom wasn’t going to make him talk about Israel.

  Israel was back in school the next day, but he told Bat he didn’t feel we
ll enough to do anything together when they got back to his house. He disappeared into his bedroom, leaving Bat in the kitchen with Tom.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Tom said. “How about we get our hands dirty?”

  Bat was not a big fan of dirty hands. But he didn’t feel like saying no to Tom, so he followed him out the back door, across the yard, under a sky dappled with gray clouds, and into Cora’s shed.

  Cora was there, wrapping a vase in a thick swaddle of newspaper. “This one is on its way to Vermont,” she told them. “I just sold it!”

  “Great,” said Tom. Then, “Want to introduce Bat to the joys of pot throwing?”

  For a minute, Bat imagined the three of them picking up the pots from their shelves and throwing them against the walls, hearing them shatter in his imagination.

  Cora must have seen the concern on his face, because she quickly said, “Throwing a pot is just another way of saying making a pot, on the wheel. It’s fun, even if it is sort of sticky and slimy. Do you want to try?”

  Actually, Bat would have preferred to go home, or to go to Mom’s vet clinic, or even to go back to Mr. Grayson’s classroom. But he couldn’t go any of those places, not right now. He had to wait.

  So he sat down at the potter’s wheel. “Okay,” he said.

  “Outstanding,” said Tom. “First, the clay.”

  “First, the clay,” Cora repeated, and she brought out a large plastic-wrapped cube of clay from under the counter. She peeled back the plastic and picked up a piece of wire with a wooden handle attached to each end. She held the wire against the cube and pulled it through, shaving off a layer of clay. She set it aside and rewrapped the cube in plastic. Then she held out the clay to Bat.

  “Squish it into a ball,” she said. “Squeeze it hard to get out all the air bubbles.”

  Bat hesitated, but finally he held out his hand and let Cora place the clay into it. It was cool, almost cold, and damp.

  He folded it in his hands and squeezed, forming a rough ball. His hands turned a dusty gray that dried to white. He squeezed and squeezed.