by Adam Frost
‘Five more minutes,’ said Sophie.
But still the mother bat didn’t come.
‘OK, we’re taking him with us,’ said Sophie.
‘Hang on,’ said Tom, grabbing her arm. ‘Don’t you remember the keeper in the fruit bat enclosure. She had special gloves on.’
‘What are you saying?’ Sophie said.
‘I don’t think just anyone can pick up a bat,’ said Tom.
‘I’m not just anyone,’ said Sophie, her hands on her hips. ‘I know more about animals than anyone else in my year.’
‘Go on then,’ said Tom, ‘pick it up. Get bitten. Accidentally squeeze it to death.’
Sophie hesitated.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Tom asked, ‘Miss “I know more about animals than anyone else ever . . .”’
‘OK,’ Sophie said, ‘give me your phone. I’ll ring Grandad.’
‘I didn’t bring my phone’, said Tom. ‘I thought you brought your phone.’
Sophie sighed. ‘Great, so we both forgot our phones. OK, I’ll wait here. You go and fetch Grandad.’
‘But I’m not supposed to go anywhere on my own,’ Tom said.
‘All right,’ Sophie said, ‘you stay here and I’ll go and get Grandad.’
‘I’m not supposed to be left anywhere on my own either,’ Tom said.
‘Argh,’ Sophie growled. ‘OK, we’ll both have to go and get Grandad. Run faster than you’ve ever run in your life.’
They sped along the towpath and reached Grandad’s barge in thirty seconds flat.
Breathlessly they explained what they’d found and that there was no time to lose. Grandad rummaged around in the cupboard under his sink until he found a special pair of gloves and a small cardboard box.
‘You did well to come and get me,’ Grandad said. ‘Bats need special handling. They’re a protected species, after all.’
After what felt like ages to Tom and Sophie, Grandad stood up and said, ‘I’m ready. Let’s go.’
‘He’ll still be alive, won’t he?’ Tom whispered to Sophie.
Then both of them heard a sound: the strange, coughing, growling noise that they’d made last week when they were rescuing the baby fox.
‘You don’t think that fox we saved would . . . eat . . .’ Tom stammered.
‘Faster!’ gasped Sophie.
They reached the spot where the bat had been found. Tom and Sophie realised that, in their rush to get Grandad, they’d left their torches on his barge.
‘How could I be so stupid?’ Sophie exclaimed.
‘You were just born that way, Soph, don’t worry about it,’ Tom said.
Sophie narrowed her eyes at her brother. Then they heard the fox growling again.
‘Is it nearby?’ Sophie whispered.
Tom closed his eyes. ‘I think it’s keeping its distance. Because of us,’ he said.
‘Can you hear the baby bat?’ Sophie said, closing her eyes too.
‘I can’t tell,’ said Tom.
‘Are you sure it was here?’ Grandad asked. ‘I can’t see anything.’
Then Tom pointed at a bush about a metre away from the towpath.
‘In there,’ he said.
As he stepped towards it, there was a scuffling noise and they saw a dark fox-like shape disappearing down the towpath.
Grandad bent down. ‘I can see the bush all right, but I can’t make out a bat,’ he said.
‘I’ll guide you,’ Tom said, and he moved his grandad’s gloved hands towards the tiny form of the baby bat.
‘Gosh!’ Grandad exclaimed. ‘How did you know where it was?’
‘I could hear it,’ said Tom.
‘Tom has got quite good at hearing in the dark,’ Sophie admitted begrudgingly.
‘Of course!’ exclaimed Grandad. ‘Younger children can hear high-pitched noises. Us old people lose that ability. It’s very lucky you were here when this one dropped off its mother’s back. An adult wouldn’t have heard a thing.’
Grandad placed the bat very gently in the cardboard box.
‘Right, let’s give my old friend Terry a ring,’ said Grandad, ‘and we can get this fellow sorted out.’
‘You know Terry too?’ Tom said.
‘Of course!’ Grandad said. ‘I was Chief Vet at London Zoo for thirty years, remember. I gave little Terence his first job – mucking out the hippos.’
As they walked back to Grandad’s houseboat, Tom asked, ‘How old do you think the bat is?’
‘No more than three weeks,’ said Grandad.
‘So do you think that fox we heard would have eaten it?’ Sophie asked.
‘Heavens, yes!’ Grandad exclaimed. ‘And if he hadn’t, then an owl would have spotted it. There’s no doubt about it, you saved the poor creature’s life!’
Tom and Sophie both felt a rush of satisfaction. They smiled at each other as they followed their grandad along the canal.
When they reached his boat, Grandad said, ‘Right, I’ll leave you two on babysitting duty while I tell everyone what’s happened.’
Tom and Sophie heard their grandad talking on the phone to Terry and then to their parents. They peered over the edge of the cardboard box and stared at the bat as it explored its temporary home. It used its wings to drag itself from one corner of the box to another.
‘Your mum and dad say you have to be home in half an hour,’ said Grandad.
Tom and Sophie didn’t hear him. They were still staring at the bat.
‘What shall we call it?’ Sophie asked.
‘How about Zoltan, the Dark Lord of the Skies,’ Tom suggested.
‘No way,’ said Sophie. ‘What about Madeleine? Or Eloise?’
‘But he might be a boy!’ protested Tom.
‘Or she might be a girl,’ Sophie said. ‘So it has to be a name that works for both girls and boys.’
‘Hmm’, said Tom, thinking for a moment. Then he said, ‘What about Pat?’ Pat the bat. That works either way.’
‘I say, I like that!’ Grandad said.
Sophie looked down at the bat and then up at Grandad. ‘Do you think Pat’s hurt? I mean, he or she must have fallen a long way.’
‘Well, your mother can tell us for sure,’ said Grandad, ‘but I wouldn’t have thought so. The grass would have been quite a soft landing.’
‘But why was Pat on his mother’s back in the first place?’ Tom asked.
‘We saw loads of bats flying off together at the same time,’ Sophie said. ‘Were they moving house?’
Grandad thought about this and then nodded. ‘That does make sense. Bats often move from one roost to another. Especially if weather conditions change. And it has been cold and rainy down on the canal this week. You see, those mother bats will want to keep their babies safe and warm.’
‘It’s hardly safe and warm being dropped on to a towpath, is it?’ Tom said.
‘Well, most of them manage to cling on,’ said Grandad. ‘This young fellow was just unlucky, that’s all.’
‘How come bats are so good at clinging on to stuff?’ Tom asked. ‘I mean, they sleep upside down, without ever letting go, right?’
‘They do,’ Grandad said. ‘And that, Tom, is another incredible thing about bats. You see, when you fall asleep, all your muscles relax. You go limp. But bats do the opposite. When they go to sleep, they clench their muscles. And then they stay like that all night. Extraordinary.’
The door thumped open behind them and Terry walked in.
‘Hello, everyone,’ he said. ‘I hear my two favourite assistants have been out saving bats.’
He was holding a set of portable scales, a white bag, a plastic bottle, a pair of black gloves and a small yellow plastic box.
He went directly to the cardboard box and looked inside.
‘Cute, no?’
Tom and Sophie nodded.
After putting on his gloves, Terry lifted the bat gently out of the box and placed it inside the white bag. Then he took out his scales. Unlike scales that you stood o
n, these were designed to be held in your hand. They had a large hook on the bottom. Terry put the handles of the bag on to the hook and then read the weight on the scales.
‘Normal for her age,’ said Terry.
‘So she’s a girl then,’ Sophie asked.
Terry nodded.
‘So Pat’s short for Patricia,’ Tom said.
‘Is she OK in there?’ Sophie asked, staring at the bag.
Terry nodded. ‘Bats are used to living in holes and crevices. She couldn’t be happier.’
Terry returned the bat to the box. Then he held out the bottle. ‘Who wants a go?’
Tom and Sophie took turns wearing the gloves and feeding the bat milk from the tiny bottle.
‘Now she needs dinner,’ Terry said.
He opened the plastic box and tilted it towards Tom and Sophie. There were hundreds of squirming maggots inside.
‘Mealworms,’ said Terry, ‘yum.’
Sophie and Tom took turns holding a mealworm with a pair of tweezers and dangling it in front of Pat’s face. She would tilt her head back, sniff the worm and then crunch it up in her tiny jaws.
‘Right, that’s the basics done,’ said Terry. ‘We’ll get your mum to look over her in the morning. Just in case she damaged anything in the fall. Give her milk every couple of hours. Mealworms every three or four. Remember, she’s used to feeding at night.’
‘Hang on,’ Grandad said. ‘I’m seventy-nine years old. I need my beauty sleep.’
‘We’ll do it!’ Tom and Sophie exclaimed at the same time.
‘Hmm,’ Grandad said. ‘You might be OK the first night. But after a few nights, you’ll be exhausted. You won’t be able to stay awake at school.’
He glanced over his shoulder and then looked back. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’
He had a glint in his eye.
‘You remember my darkroom?’ he said.
Tom and Sophie nodded.
‘How about we make our own little Nightzone here?’ Grandad suggested. ‘We’ll reverse day and night for Pat the bat. We’ll keep her in the darkroom during the day. And I’ll leave her in the kitchen with the light on at night. That way, she’ll sleep at night-time. And wake up during the day. Just like us. And we’ll be able to look after her.’
‘Blimey, that’s ingenious,’ said Terry. ‘I might bring a couple of my bats over too!’
‘Really?’ Tom said. ‘Are they huge? Are they vampire bats? Will they fly around the barge?’
‘Just joking, Tom, sorry,’ Terry said.
He put the scales, the mealworms and the milk bottle down on the table.
‘I’ll leave these with you,’ he said. ‘Well done for finding her.’
He peered into the box again.
‘Sweet dreams, Pat.’
Chapter 7
The next day was a Saturday. Tom and Sophie leapt out of bed and rushed across to their grandad’s barge. Grandad was already up, whistling a Beatles song and frying eggs.
‘She’s in the darkroom,’ he said, ‘ready for her breakfast.’
Tom and Sophie went into the darkroom and turned on the red safe light that Grandad used when he was developing his pictures. This meant that they could see what they were doing, but Pat wouldn’t be disturbed by the brightness. The children took turns feeding Pat milk and mealworms.
Half an hour later, Mrs Nightingale arrived. She put on a pair of black gloves and inspected Pat’s fur, wings and claws.
‘She damaged her left wing very slightly in the fall,’ she said. ‘We’ll rub this cream on it for the next couple of days to speed up the healing.’
Mrs Nightingale placed a blob of cream on the end of her right glove and then rubbed it into Pat’s wing.
‘Is she in pain?’ Sophie asked.
‘No, not really. But best to be on the safe side. Those mealworms are building her strength up too,’ Mrs Nightingale said.
For the rest of the day, Tom and Sophie continued to sit in the darkroom with Pat, feeding her and changing her bedding.
In the middle of the afternoon, Terry’s head appeared around the darkroom door.
‘How’s she doing?’ Terry asked.
‘Fine,’ Tom and Sophie both said.
Terry looked from Tom to Sophie and said, ‘You know, we WILL have to return her to the wild at some point.’
‘All right. We know,’ Tom said.
‘But in a way, that is almost as cool as looking after her,’ said Terry.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Sophie.
‘Well, we’ve got a mission now,’ Terry said. ‘We’ve got to try to find Pat’s mum.’
‘What? So she can just drop Pat on her head again!’ huffed Tom, folding his arms.
‘Pat’s mum didn’t mean to drop her,’ said Terry. ‘She’ll be worried.’
‘But HOW can we find her mum?’ said Sophie. ‘I read yesterday that there are over a million bats in the UK.’
‘And didn’t you say she was on her way to a new roost,’ said Tom. ‘She could be in Scotland by now.’
‘Not likely,’ said Terry. ‘My bet is they flew off to a temporary roost because of the bad weather last week. It got too damp for them. But they won’t be far away. And what’s more, they might go back to their original roost now it’s drying off.’
‘So that narrows it down to a few thousand bats then,’ said Sophie.
‘It wouldn’t be a mission if it was easy,’ said Terry.
He beckoned them into the kitchen. Lying open on the kitchen table was a large bag containing a black rectangular box with a digital display, a net, a rolled-up sheet of canvas, a small laptop, three torches, a thermos flask, a plastic stick and a gigantic bar of chocolate.
‘My bat-finding bag,’ announced Terry.
‘Do bats like chocolate then?’ Tom asked.
‘No, the chocolate is for me,’ Terry said. ‘Finding bats is hungry work. So – are you up for it?’
Sophie glanced back at the darkroom and hesitated.
Tom took the black box out of Terry’s bag and said, ‘What’s this?’
‘A bat detector,’ said Terry.
‘Then I’m definitely up for it!’ Tom said, turning the box over in his hands.
Sophie was still looking back at the darkroom. Terry noticed this and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting we return Pat to her mother right away. Her wing needs to heal first. But it’ll help if we know roughly where her home is.’
Sophie nodded firmly. ‘OK. When do we set off?’
‘Tonight at seven,’ Terry said. ‘I’ve cleared it with your mum and dad. We’ll start off where you found Pat and work from there.’
So that evening at seven, Tom and Sophie said goodnight to Pat. They moved her on to the kitchen table and switched all the lights on, then watched her close her eyes and snuggle into a corner of the box.
Terry arrived shortly afterwards. A few minutes later, Tom and Sophie found themselves crouching down by the side of the canal, at the exact same spot where they had found Pat.
Terry was standing over them, with his bat-finding kit slung over his shoulder.
‘Pat’s mum probably flew from that bridge right over there,’ explained Sophie, ‘then headed towards those trees behind the canal.’
‘Hmm,’ said Terry, looking at the sky overhead. It was dusk and a few families of bats had started to gather. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here.’
He took out his bat detector and pointed it at the sky.
‘What’s that actually doing?’ Tom whispered.
‘Well, the human ear isn’t great at picking up bat squeaks,’ said Terry, ‘so this is going to help us. Let’s all be nice and quiet.’
Terry twiddled a knob on the front of his bat detector. Within a few seconds, Tom and Sophie heard a strange squelching noise.
‘Gotcha,’ said Terry. He turned the knob very slightly to the right and the squelching noise got louder.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Sophie.
‘I
started by setting the detector at about 45 kilohertz, because I know that the bats around here make noises at about that frequency,’ said Terry. ‘Then when I picked up a noise, I adjusted the frequency to make the sound clearer. It’s like when you tune a radio.’
‘It doesn’t sound very much like a bat,’ said Tom, pointing at the detector.
They listened again to the squelching noise.
Terry smiled. ‘The bat detector slows the noise down so we can actually hear it.’
‘So do you know which type of bat is making that noise?’ Sophie asked.
Terry nodded and sighed. ‘Pipistrelles. Not Daubenton’s, I’m afraid. Pat’s mum ain’t here.’
He switched off the bat detector.
‘I was hoping for first time lucky,’ he said, ‘but never mind. OK, let’s go and find some more bats. Where do you suggest we try next?’
‘Erm, well there are so many around here . . .’ Sophie said.
‘I’ve been . . . I, er . . . well, I’ve started drawing a map . . .’ Tom said. He pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it to show Terry a map with a cross wherever he and Sophie had already spotted bats.
‘This. Is. Brilliant,’ Terry said. ‘We’ll find Pat’s mum before you can say Small Asian Sheath-Tailed Bat.’
They jogged along the towpath to the first cross on Tom’s map. Terry held up his bat detector and turned the knob on the front until he had picked up a bat’s call. It made a very faint crackling noise.
‘Wow, brown long-eared bats,’ said Terry, ‘one of my favourite species. Didn’t realise there were any around here.’
‘I couldn’t hear anything,’ Tom said, looking up.
‘That’s cos they’re the quietest bats in the UK,’ said Terry. ‘Their shrieks are almost silent. They don’t have to be loud because their ears are so huge. Like – three times the size of their head. With such big ears, they can hear everything – for example, beetles crawling on leaves. And when a brown long-eared bat is resting, his ears are so big that he’ll actually put them away. Either he’ll roll them up behind his head or tuck them under his wings.’
‘That’s so cool,’ said Sophie, chuckling.