Bat and the Waiting Game

by Elana K. Arnold

  “Great,” said Tom. “Now slam it down hard. Just throw it down, right there, on the wheel.”

  Bat did. Thwack went the clay against the wheel, flattening out in a satisfying way.

  “Again,” Cora said, so Bat picked up the clay and re-formed it into a ball. After he threw it a second time, Tom took a turn throwing and shaping it, and then Cora pronounced it ready.

  “Okay,” said Cora. “Throw it one more time, and this time try to aim right for the center of the wheel.”

  Bat threw the clay.

  “Perfect,” Cora said. “Now, Tom will keep the wheel spinning so you don’t have to worry about that. I’ll help you keep the clay wet. You just cup your hands around the clay, gently but firmly, like you’re holding on to something precious. Okay?”

  “I’ll pretend I’m holding Thor,” Bat said. “My skunk kit.”

  “Great idea,” Cora said. “Ready?”

  Bat nodded. He cupped his hands around the clay lump. Beside him, Tom stepped gently on the foot pedal, and the wheel began to spin. Cora took a cup of water and poured it in a slow, steady stream over Bat’s hands and onto the clay.

  “Good,” Cora said. “Push the clay down and in. Down and in. Don’t worry if it squishes through your fingers! That’s fine.”

  Wet clay oozed out between each of Bat’s fingers, and it was a gooey feeling, but not bad. Kind of interesting, actually. Bat watched the clay spinning, spinning, in fast little circles. He watched the clay pushing out between his fingers. He felt almost hypnotized by the sensation of the slippery-wet clay in his hands, spinning, spinning, the challenge of holding it just right in between his fingers and thumbs, not too loosely or it would wobble out of control, not too tightly or the emerging bowl would smoosh in on the side.

  But then he could feel the clay beginning to shift off center. It was falling to the side, and he tried to push it back into the center of the wheel, but it seemed like the harder he pushed the worse it got, and then the clay wasn’t a ball anymore, it was a weird floppy tube and it was twisting and falling, and then he yelled, “It’s breaking!” and flicks of clay splattered his face.

  Tom took his foot off the pedal, and the wheel slowed and then stopped. “You did it!” he said, grinning.

  “No I didn’t,” Bat said. “I made a mess.”

  “Mess is the beginning of art,” Cora said. She was smiling, too. “Do you want to try again?”

  “Yes,” said Bat. “Yes, please.”

  Before Bat went home, he peeked his head into Israel’s room, hoping to tell Israel about how he had learned to make a bowl, about how it wasn’t perfectly symmetrical but it was still recognizable as a bowl, and how Cora had called it “creatively catawampus.” Maybe he could even say something to let Israel know that he felt bad about their fight.

  But Israel was in his bed, his covers pulled up over his chin, his eyes closed. Working with the potter’s wheel had made Bat feel so good, and he really wanted to tell Israel all about it. He almost went over to Israel’s bed to see if he was really asleep or just resting.

  But then Tom called, “Bat! Your mom is here!”

  Bat hesitated, looking at the sweaty curls on Israel’s forehead. Then, quietly, he backed out of Israel’s room, feeling sort of lonely and disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to say good-bye.

  CHAPTER 21

  Scene Stealer

  At last, Janie’s opening night arrived. Bat felt that it arrived “at last” because it seemed like he’d been hearing Janie talk about it forever. In just a few hours, he wouldn’t have to hear about how excited Janie was and how nervous Janie was anymore.

  “We’re leaving in five minutes, Bat!” Mom called from the kitchen. She had already dropped Janie off at the school so that she could get ready. “I get to wear a hoop skirt and makeup and fake eyelashes,” Janie had boasted before she’d left for the show.

  That all sounded perfectly terrible to Bat. Clothes should be easy to wear and comfortable, like T-shirts and pants with elastic waists. And the thought of anyone gluing anything to his eyelids made Bat positively twitchy.

  Bat looked around his room. He didn’t want to go to Janie’s play. In the last few weeks, he’d spent so much more time away from home than he was used to that another night out sounded just awful.

  And there was little Thor, in his playpen, finished with his dinner and looking up at Bat expectantly. Every night after dinner, Bat had been taking Thor out and working on training him to Come and Stay. They were still working on Stay.

  “Oh, little Thor,” Bat said to the kit. “You look lonely in there.”

  Bat felt lonely, too, even though he was about to go to a theater filled with people. Sometimes that was when Bat felt the loneliest of all—in a crowd.

  Without really thinking about it, Bat slung Thor’s sling around his neck and scooped up the kit, nesting him in place. This time, it was a really tight fit to get Thor into the sling. Bat would have to ask Laurence to make him a bigger one. He grabbed his jacket and put it on over the sling, zipping it up all the way to the top.

  “Just settle down and take a nap,” Bat whispered, “and you can come with me to the show.”

  When Bat came into the kitchen, Mom said, “Are you sure you want to wear your jacket? It’s a lovely night.”

  “I am sure I want to wear my jacket,” Bat answered.

  Outside of the theater, Bat saw lots of people who had come to see Janie in her play. There was Dad—“Hey, sport! Hi, Valerie,” he said to Bat and Bat’s mom. There was Laurence—“Bat Boy! Dr. Tam!” he said.

  Bat had never seen Laurence wearing regular clothes. He always saw Laurence at the clinic, where Laurence wore blue scrubs. Tonight Laurence was wearing a shirt with buttons and a collar under a sport coat. And his shoes looked like they were made of leather instead of rubber.

  “You look . . . different,” Bat told Laurence.

  Laurence laughed his same laugh, even from inside the different clothes, and that made him seem more like Laurence again.

  There was Ezra and his parents, and there was Israel with his mom and dad.

  Israel waved at Bat, and Bat waved back, but he felt kind of shy about it. On Thursday, Israel had been all better from his cold, but things still weren’t the same between them. They’d shared an awkward snack at Israel’s kitchen table before Tom had taken them over to Bat’s house to water the skunk garden, and Mom had gotten home early from the clinic.

  Finally, it was time to go into Janie’s school auditorium, where folding chairs were arranged in rows facing the stage. Bat, his mom, Laurence, and his dad all scooted down a row, not too close to the front but not way in the back, either, and waited for the show to start.

  “Bat, baby, do you want to take off your jacket?” Mom whispered as the lights were going dark.

  Bat slid the zipper down a little, but then shook his head no. He felt Thor rustle around and then settle back down.

  And then the music started and the curtains opened, and the kids started singing and dancing. It took a minute, but then Bat recognized Maggie. She looked different in her Alice costume, a blue dress with a white apron, white tights, and flat black shoes. She looked older than she’d looked at the sleepover, when she’d been wearing those tiger footie pajamas.

  But when Janie came on stage dressed as the queen, with a red hoop dress, a giant red crown, and eyelashes that Bat could see from the audience, he didn’t recognize her at all until Mom leaned over and whispered, “Look! It’s your sister!”

  Even then, Bat didn’t totally believe that it could be Janie; she looked taller than she looked in regular life, and she moved across the stage like she really was the queen of something.

  When she opened her mouth to sing her solo, Bat’s mouth opened, too, in surprise.

  It was Janie! That was the same song she’d been practicing all month, amplified by the microphone she wore taped to her cheek, supported by the music that played along with her, backed up by all the other pe
rformers as they danced behind her.

  “She’s amazing,” Bat whispered. Janie’s song was so strong and loud and wonderful that Bat leaned forward in his seat.

  He had no idea that Janie could be so wonderful. He had no idea that she was so talented and brave.

  He had no idea that—

  “Skunk!” yelled a voice in the dark, high-pitched and loud.

  “Skunk!” yelled another voice, and then another, until the auditorium rattled with yells.

  And then it was filled with something worse—the sharp, acrid stink of a skunk’s first spray.

  Chairs turned over as the audience rushed toward the exits. Bat, panicked, eyes stinging from the odor, dropped to the ground and felt around desperately for Thor.

  Oh! What a mistake it had been to bring the kit!

  “Thor!” he cried into the dark. Beside him, his mom called, “Thor!”

  And then Bat heard Dad’s voice: “Thor!”

  And Laurence: “Thor!”

  Someone turned the lights on and Bat spied a black-and-white tail two rows up, sticking out from behind an overturned chair. Quick as he could, Bat scuttled over on his hands and knees and scooped the kit into his arms, cradling him close.

  Bat blinked against the sudden light. He looked up. And there, on the stage, arms crossed, crown listing to one side, stood Janie.

  CHAPTER 22

  No Tomato Juice

  “Bat!” It was Israel, in the parking lot. “Is Thor okay?”

  Bat nodded, which made the tears brimming in his eyes spill down his cheeks. “Thor is fine,” he said. “He’s right here.” He patted the sling.

  “Bat, buddy, I really don’t think it was a good idea to bring that thing to your sister’s play,” Dad said.

  “Thor isn’t a thing.” Only the thought of the frightened kit tucked back into his sling kept Bat from yelling the words.

  “Okay, Bat,” said Mom in her soothing voice. “Let’s go home.” She opened the rear door of their station wagon and ushered Bat inside. Janie was already sitting in the car, in the seat next to Bat.

  She had changed out of the hoop skirt and crown and back into her regular clothes, but she still had her makeup on, and her arms were still crossed.

  She didn’t say anything to Bat when he got into the car. She didn’t say anything when Mom got into the front seat and started the engine, and she didn’t say anything the whole ride home. Not one word about how Thor had sprayed in the middle of her solo, clearing out the auditorium. Not one word about how Bat had ruined the whole play. Nothing.

  Bat had wished in the past that Janie would stop talking so much. Right now, though, Bat wished his sister would say something. Anything.

  “Keeping that skunk kit was the worst idea ever,” Janie said when they got home, before she got out of the car. “I wish Mom had never brought him home.”

  Anything, Bat thought, except that.

  Bat had a terrible night’s sleep. It was partially because he still smelled a little bit like skunk spray. Mom had washed his clothes and had given him a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap to scrub with in the shower, and Bat had washed with it from head to toe, even though Thor hadn’t sprayed directly on him. She’d also called everyone she could think of who was at the show and might have gotten sprayed to tell them about the recipe. “It’s the only thing that works,” she said, over and over again into the phone. “No, tomato juice doesn’t really work,” she said. And, again and again, Bat heard her say, “I am so sorry this happened. So, so sorry.”

  But it wasn’t really the skunky smell that kept Bat from sleeping.

  At the breakfast table, it was obvious that Bat wasn’t the only one who had had a poor night’s sleep. Janie’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and Mom, too, looked tired, yawing over her steaming mug of coffee.

  Janie refused to eat anything at all. “I have no appetite,” she insisted, even when Mom offered to make her chocolate chip pancakes.

  “At least have a piece of fruit,” Mom insisted.

  “Half the school was there last night, you know,” Janie said to Bat. “Everyone is going to be making jokes all day. Probably for the rest of the year. About my performance stinking.”

  “Your performance didn’t stink,” Bat started to say. He wanted to tell Janie that her performance had been wonderful. That because she was so very wonderful, he’d forgotten to keep Thor tightly tucked in. Because she’d been so great, he’d practically forgotten that he was in a theater at all. But before he could say any of this, she shoved back her chair and stood up.

  “I might as well go to school and get it over with,” she said. She took an apple from the bowl on the table and grabbed her lunch bag from the counter. “See you later, Mom,” she said.

  She didn’t say good-bye to Bat. She didn’t even look at him.

  Janie and Bat didn’t always get along. Bat knew that sometimes Janie thought he was annoying, and that she didn’t always love taking care of him. Sometimes she got mad, and sometimes he got mad. But this felt different. This felt huge.

  CHAPTER 23

  Company

  Bat found that he didn’t have much of an appetite, either, so after he’d pushed his eggs around his plate for a while, Mom drove him to school. It turned out that everyone there had heard about what had happened at the play, too. From the moment Bat got out of the car, questions followed him:

  “Bat, did you really take your skunk to the play?”

  “Bat, is it true that the auditorium has to be shut down for a whole week?”

  “Bat, can you really train a skunk to spray on purpose?”

  “Everybody calm down,” Mr. Grayson said from the front of the class.

  Bat wished he could disappear. He wished he didn’t have skin for people to look at or ears for people to talk into.

  Mr. Grayson must have assigned something for the class to do because all around the room kids were rifling through their desks and flipping open books.

  “Bat,” Mr. Grayson said, kneeling beside Bat’s desk, “what can I do to help you?”

  Bat shook his head. He didn’t have any words. He shook his head more and then he shook it harder and harder, and he kept shaking it.

  “Bat,” said Mr. Grayson, but Bat shook his head on and on, like the pendulum of a clock, back and forth, left right, left right, left right.

  And Mr. Grayson stayed, right there, kneeling next to Bat’s desk, his hand on Bat’s shoulder.

  Finally, Bat felt better. His throat felt normal again, and it didn’t bother him so much that he had skin and ears. Mr. Grayson squeezed his shoulder one more time, then stood up. “I think,” he said to Bat, “that Babycakes could use some cuddles. Are you the man for the job?”

  There in her enclosure was Babycakes, ears flopping, nose twitching. Bat sat cross-legged and held out one of the apple slices Mr. Grayson had given him. He had watched Mr. Grayson take the apple out of his own lunch sack, which he kept in his orange satchel next to his big desk at the front of the room, and cut it up with a pocketknife.

  Babycakes hopped over to Bat and sniffed the apple slice before accepting it. Once she was happily chewing, Bat lifted her up and tucked her into the space between his crossed legs.

  Behind him, class went on—they were talking about a book they’d been reading, about a girl with magical powers that allowed her to pause time and fix past mistakes, which at this moment sounded wonderful to Bat, even though he had read the book, too, and knew that every time the girl fixed one mistake, three more popped up in its place.

  Bat wondered if new, different mistakes would be better than the mistakes he had made—taking Thor to the play, ruining Janie’s big night, and not knowing how to be a better friend to Israel, maybe not being his friend anymore at all.

  “Do you want some company?”

  Bat looked up. It was Israel.

  “I have company,” Bat said, petting Babycakes.

  Israel sighed. “I know,” he said. “
I meant human company.”

  “Oh,” said Bat. “Yes. Actually, I would like your company.”

  This made Israel smile. He climbed into the enclosure and sat down next to Bat. He leaned over and scratched Babycakes between the ears, just the way she liked.

  They sat quietly together for a while. Then Bat said, all at once, “Are you still mad at me?”

  “A little,” said Israel. “Not really.”

  “If you’re still mad at me,” Bat asked, “even a little, then why are you being my company?”

  “Because,” said Israel, “you’re my best friend, right?”

  Bat’s eyes began to sting like little needle pricks. “Yes,” he said, but he looked down at Babycakes’s fluffy angora fur and her sideways ears, not up at Israel.

  “Best friends need to stick together,” Israel said. He reached over and pet Babycakes, his fingers disappearing into her soft white fur.

  Then he said, “Bat, I have an idea for how you can apologize to Janie.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Take Two

  Apologizing was not something that Bat was very good at. Also, it was something he didn’t have very much practice doing. Usually, apologies didn’t do anything, and that was the problem with them: an apology was just words.

  Bat especially hated it when people tried to force you to apologize for something. Because no one can make someone sorry, and no one believes an apology that is forced.

  Mr. Grayson didn’t believe in making people apologize. “I can’t make you sorry,” he was fond of saying. “Words are cheap.” That’s something else he was fond of saying. “What we do is more important than what we say.” That was another “Mr. Grayson Special,” as he liked to call his favorite sayings.

  And Bat agreed with Mr. Grayson. Doing something meant more than saying something. So if Bat was going to apologize to Janie, it was going to be an active apology.