by Adam Frost
To Erin and Alice,
whose dad knows a lot about bats
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Zoological Society of London
Also by Adam Frost
Chapter 1
Tom and Sophie Nightingale were on their way back from the cinema with their grandad. They had all been to see AstroKid v The Man-Eating Martians in 3D and were talking about the amazing special effects. They had just stepped on to the towpath that led down to the marina where they all lived, when every light in the area went out.
The lamp posts along the canal flickered and died, the houseboats in the marina were thrown into darkness and the houses along the edge of Regent’s Park were suddenly swallowed up by the night.
‘It’s the man-eating Martians!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘They must be here!’
‘Don’t be daft, Tom,’ replied his big sister, Sophie. ‘It’s just a power cut.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Tom wailed. ‘How are we going to fight the Martians when we can’t even see them?’
‘It’ll be OK, Tom,’ Grandad replied, clapping Tom on the back and making him jump. ‘We just have to use our other senses, that’s all.’
‘What do you mean, “our other senses”?’ Tom asked.
‘Our sense of hearing, our sense of touch,’ said Grandad. ‘Millions of creatures wake up at night. Bats, owls, hedgehogs, badgers . . . and they get around just fine.’
‘How’s hearing going to help?’ Tom asked. ‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘Course you can,’ said Grandad. ‘Just listen.’ He tapped on the path with his walking stick. ‘Hear that?’
‘It sounds like concrete,’ said Tom.
‘Exactly. So we know we’re on the path. You try.’
He reached for Tom’s arm in the darkness and placed his walking stick in his grandson’s hand.
Tom began to tap the path and move slowly forward.
After a few seconds, he exclaimed, ‘I can do it!’
At the same time, Sophie said, ‘My eyes are beginning to adjust. I think I can see our barge.’ She reached out with one arm. ‘Yes, I can feel the railings by our section of the towpath.’
‘That’s the idea,’ Grandad said. He took a deep breath. ‘And I can smell the ivy that grows along the bank.’
They all moved towards the side of the marina where the houseboats were moored.
Tom and Sophie lived with their parents on a barge called the Jessica Rose but generally known as The Ark. If it hadn’t been for the power cut, it would have been possible to see all the animals painted on the sides of the boat. The surrounding water had been worked into the design too, so there were hippos wallowing in it, penguins diving into it, elephants drinking from it and flamingos wading in it.
A few metres further along from The Ark, the next dark shape was Grandad’s houseboat, the Molly Magee.
Tom gave Grandad his walking stick back and said, ‘I think I can do this last bit.’ Then he felt for the edge of The Ark with his foot and launched himself into the air.
‘Tom!’ Sophie exclaimed.
‘What?’ replied the voice of Tom in the darkness. ‘It’s fine. I’m totally used to the dark now. Come on – the door’s down here.’
At that moment, the edge of the houseboat door glowed and opened. Mrs Nightingale was standing there, holding a candle.
‘Hello, you three,’ she said.
Tom and Sophie walked carefully down the steps.
‘I’m going to check on my place,’ said Grandad. ‘See you in a bit.’
‘Bye, Grandad,’ said Tom.
‘Thanks for taking us to the cinema,’ added Sophie.
As Tom and Sophie entered the living room, Rex, the family terrier, ran up to greet them, sniffing and snuffling at Tom’s shoes and trousers.
Sophie gave Rex a quick pat and then hurried to check on her ferret and her rats. She returned after a few seconds with a rat on her shoulder. ‘They’re all fine, especially Eric. I think rats must quite like the dark.’
In the meantime, Mrs Nightingale was rummaging in the cupboard under the sink, looking for more candles.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Tom asked.
‘Your father is out on the bank, trying to get our emergency generator to work.’ She emerged from the cupboard with a pair of candles and a box of matches. ‘Last time he went near it, it caught fire twice and burnt off one of his eyebrows.’
‘Oh, OK,’ said Tom. ‘What are those?’
He was pointing at a helmet with a pair of binoculars strapped to it.
‘They’re night vision goggles,’ Mrs Nightingale said. ‘I found them at the back of our wardrobe. I thought they might help your father fix the generator but naturally he left them behind.’
‘Brilliant!’ exclaimed Tom. He grabbed the helmet and slid it on to his head, fiddling with the chinstrap.
‘You’d better not break them before I’ve had a go,’ Sophie said.
Tom was squinting through the binoculars.
‘You can see everything!’ he exclaimed. ‘And it turns everyone into a Martian. Rex and Eric have gone bright green. But, you know, that’s kind of cool as well.’
He swung around, narrowly avoiding whacking Sophie with the binoculars.
‘Mum, Grandad was talking about animals that wake up at night,’ Tom said. ‘Is this how they see?’
‘In some cases,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘What happens is, those goggles magnify all the available light. There’s infrared light coming from the other side of the canal out there, but it’s too dim for us to see just with our eyes. But when you put those goggles on, they take all those tiny points of light and make them much, much brighter.’
‘So that’s what nocturnal animals do?’ Tom asked.
‘Some of them,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘Take owls, for instance. Their eyes are huge – they take up most of their skull. In fact, their eyes are so big that they can’t even move them. That’s why they have to twist their heads around.’
‘Wow,’ said Tom.
‘In those huge eyes,’ Mrs Nightingale went on, ‘they have these amazing cells that can pick up the tiniest dots of light. We have them too, but they have ten times as many – which means they can see a hundred times better than us at night.’
‘Wow,’ said Tom again. ‘And is everything green for them as well?’
‘No, that’s just those goggles,’ said his mum with a smile.
‘It must be my turn now,’ complained Sophie.
Mrs Nightingale nodded. ‘Give them to your sister, Tom.’
Tom groaned and took the helmet off.
Sophie handed Eric to her mother and fastened the helmet chinstrap. Mrs Nightingale returned the rat to his cage and then came back to the living room.
Tom had been thinking.
‘I wish I was a nocturnal animal,’ he said.
‘Hang on,’ Mrs Nightingale said. ‘Not all nocturnal animals have adapted like owls. Think about bats or moles. Their vision has got worse, not better. Mind you, their other senses have developed to compensate.’
‘Oh yeah, Grandad said that,’ Tom said.
‘Moles are my favourite,’ Mrs Nightingale said. ‘They have an amazing sense of touch. They can sense the tiniest vibration in the soil around them.’
‘Cool,’ said Tom. ‘Being a human is rubbish at night-time, that’s for sure.’
‘Mum, look, over there!’ Sophie said, pointing at the window and squinting through the goggles at the other side of the canal.
‘W
e can’t see anything, can we?’ Tom said, rolling his eyes.
Sophie pulled off the helmet and handed it to her mother.
‘Something’s fallen in the canal and it can’t get out,’ Sophie said. ‘It looks like a puppy.’
Mrs Nightingale looked through the binoculars. She saw a small mammal, scrabbling at the sides of the canal, desperate to find a foothold in the brickwork.
‘It’s a young fox,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘It must have misjudged a jump. Foxes are good swimmers, but it looks like this one’s struggling.’
‘We’ve got to help it,’ said Sophie.
‘Sometimes it’s best not to interfere with nature, Sophie,’ said Mrs Nightingale.
‘But that’s your job, isn’t it?’ Sophie protested. ‘Vets interfere with nature all the time.’
‘Hmm,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘You do have a point.’
‘Cool, let’s go,’ said Tom. ‘It’s got to be better than staying here in the pitch black waiting for the telly to work. Besides, we practised moving around in the dark with Grandad and I was brilliant at it.’
Sophie had already put her coat on and was standing by the door. Mrs Nightingale blew out the candles on the table. She took a pair of torches out of a kitchen drawer and put one in her pocket. She gave the other to Sophie.
Tom had picked up the night vision goggles and was strapping them on.
‘What are you doing, Tom?’ Mrs Nightingale asked.
‘They’ll help us to see the fox,’ said Tom.
Mrs Nightingale thought for a moment. ‘Well, those goggles belong to the zoo, so you have to be very careful.’
‘Course,’ said Tom, and walked out of the door, banging the top of the helmet on the frame and knocking a pot plant off a window ledge with the binoculars.
Mrs Nightingale picked up the pieces with a sigh and ordered Rex into his basket.
Then the three of them stepped on to the towpath.
Chapter 2
Tom, Sophie and Mrs Nightingale stood next to their houseboat getting their bearings. There was no light coming from anywhere except the torches that Sophie and Mrs Nightingale were holding.
‘Let’s tell your father what we’re doing,’ Mrs Nightingale said.
Tom squinted through the night vision goggles and peered along the bank.
‘I can’t see him,’ he said. ‘I thought you said he was fiddling with the generator.’
Then they heard someone humming. The sound was coming from further along the towpath. They found their father next to one of the marina’s power points, slotting a plug into one of the spare sockets.
There was a small explosion and a puff of black smoke floated past Mr Nightingale’s face.
‘That’s the third time it’s done that,’ he said.
Mrs Nightingale told him what they were doing.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘It should all be fixed when you get back.’
Sophie was tugging at her mum’s sleeve. ‘Come on, we don’t have much time.’
Tom, Sophie and Mrs Nightingale crossed over the bridge to the other side of the canal. Mrs Nightingale and Sophie were flashing their torches on the water.
Tom adjusted the lenses on the night vision goggles and saw the fox’s head through the binoculars, bobbing up and down in the water.
‘It’s still alive,’ he said.
Mrs Nightingale shone her torch into the undergrowth. ‘Let’s look for a branch or plank. Then it can climb up on to the bank.’
Sophie and Mrs Nightingale walked up the verge of the towpath, crunching through the grass and twigs.
‘It’s swimming the other way,’ Tom whispered, ‘I think it’s scared.’
Mrs Nightingale and Sophie tried to search more quietly, but it was no use – they kept making snapping and cracking noises.
‘It’s heading down the canal,’ said Tom, twisting the end of the binoculars to zoom in on the fox’s location.
The three of them began to walk quickly and quietly along the towpath, following the fox as it swam towards Camden.
‘It’s going to end up at the lock,’ Sophie whispered, ‘and then what will it do?’
They crossed back over the bridge.
‘I’ve lost it,’ Tom said.
‘Give me that helmet,’ Sophie hissed.
‘No, there it is,’ Tom said, pointing at a fork in the canal.
Sophie shone her torch on to the water and picked out a small sleek head.
‘It doesn’t know what it’s doing any more,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘It’s exhausted.’
‘Mum, can it see us? Does it have eyesight like an owl?’ Tom asked.
‘No, no,’ Mrs Nightingale said. ‘A fox’s vision is pretty average. It’s all about hearing.’
‘Then we’ve got to stop chasing it,’ said Tom. ‘It probably thinks we’re trying to eat it. All it can hear is Sophie clumping around in the dark.’
‘I do NOT clump!’ Sophie said.
‘We should imagine we’re the fox,’ Tom said, ‘If you were him, what would it take to get you out of the water?’
Sophie thought for a moment. ‘It needs to hear something reassuring,’ she said.
‘Hey,’ said Tom, ‘remember when we were walking down the towpath and we heard Dad humming?’
‘Yes,’ said Sophie, nodding slowly. ‘It told us it was him.’
‘Hmm, yes,’ Mrs Nightingale chipped in. ‘People often sing in the dark to let others know that they are there. They sometimes don’t even know they’re doing it.’
‘So we need to make fox noises,’ said Tom, ‘so he knows we’re friendly.’
‘OK, but what do foxes sound like?’ Sophie asked.
‘That’s easy,’ said Mrs Nightingale, and she started making a sound like a dog barking.
Then she thought for a moment. ‘Actually, that probably sounds like an older fox warning him off. A mother greeting her kit would be more like this.’ She made a low huffing noise, like an old lady getting out of breath.
Tom and Sophie copied her.
After a minute or so, they stopped to get their breath back.
Mrs Nightingale shone her torch on the canal. Tom looked through his goggles.
‘It’s sort of treading water,’ said Tom.
They starting huffing and grunting again.
‘It’s no use,’ said Tom. ‘It’s not moving any closer. And it looks like it’s getting tired.’
‘Let’s try appealing to its sense of smell,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘That’s pretty powerful too.’
‘Well, what do foxes eat, Mum?’ Sophie asked. ‘I thought it was anything and everything.’
‘It is,’ said Mrs Nightingale, ‘but they do have favourite things.’
‘Like what?’ asked Tom.
‘Small rodents,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘Mice and rats.’
‘Rats!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘Well, we’re all right then.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mrs Nightingale.
‘Well, Sophie’s got rats, hasn’t she,’ Tom said.
‘Hang on, what are you saying?’ Sophie asked.
‘Yes, I suppose their smell would attract him,’ Mrs Nightingale agreed.
‘Wait a minute!’ Sophie exclaimed. ‘We are NOT using Eric and Ernie as BAIT.’
‘I’m not suggesting the fox actually scoffs them,’ Tom said.
‘Well, what are you saying then?’ Sophie said, with her hands on her hips.
‘I dunno,’ said Tom. ‘Maybe you could put them in the cat’s travel bag. They’d be safe and have lots of space.’
‘They’d probably quite like being out at night-time,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘Rats are nocturnal too. But it’s up to you, Sophie.’
Tom was looking at the water. ‘It’s hardly moving now. Look, you’d better decide fast. Come on, it was you that wanted to rescue it in the first place.’
‘Give me those,’ Sophie said.
She clipped on the goggles and watched the fox paddling weakly. She
tried making the gruff barking noise again. The fox didn’t seem to notice.
‘OK, fine,’ said Sophie.
She ran off along the towpath.
‘Bring other food too,’ her mother called out. ‘Jam, Marmite, anything you find in the cupboard.’
‘OK!’ Sophie shouted back.
‘Is the Marmite for us?’ Tom asked. ‘All this saving animals is making me hungry.’
Mrs Nightingale kept her torch trained on Sophie’s outline on the opposite bank. She knew that Sophie would be perfectly safe in the marina, but still felt better when she could see her.
A couple of minutes later, Sophie was back. In her left hand, she held Eric and Ernie in a large carry case with a metal grille at the front. In her right, she was carrying a plastic bag full of chinking glass jars, tins and plastic tubs.
‘OK,’ said Mrs Nightingale, ‘let’s stand at the top of that slope over there. If the fox gets to that point, it should be able to climb out.’
They positioned themselves next to a dip in the towpath that kayakers used to drop their boats into the canal.
Sophie put the rats down at her feet. Mrs Nightingale opened a jam jar and a tub of Marmite.
‘OK, he should find those smells pretty interesting,’ she said.
Tom was peering through the goggles.
‘It’s definitely sniffing the air,’ he said.
Eric and Ernie were making excited squeaking noises.
Tom fiddled with the goggles and zoomed right in on the fox’s face.
‘It looks curious,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think it’s moving.’
Mrs Nightingale started making the gruff mother-fox noise. Sophie and Tom joined in.
The fox continued to sniff the air and look interested.
‘It must be able to smell us too,’ said Mrs Nightingale.
‘Do we need to hide?’ Tom asked.
‘I’m not leaving Eric and Ernie out here on their own,’ said Sophie.
‘I saw this film about gamekeepers in Africa,’ said Tom. ‘They can get really close to the lions and zebras by removing their human smell.’