I hugged the wall of the chapel as I crept stealthily round to the other side. Frankie was right behind me – I could hear her breathing down my neck. And Lyndz was behind her.
When we got to the corner I turned and whispered, “Get your stakes ready. On a count of three, let’s get slaying. One, two, THREE!”
We rushed out like mad things, yelling and screaming at the tops of our voices. I executed a few high kicks, although at first I couldn’t really see what I was aiming for, it was too dark.
Then I saw the figures again. There were lots more than I’d expected. I ran towards them with my cross raised, brandishing my garlic. I tried to do a flying drop kick just like Buffy, but it wasn’t that easy. I seemed to get my legs all wrong and landed awkwardly. I tried to recover myself, but as I staggered to my feet something grabbed me from behind and dragged me into some bushes.
“Help! Frankie! Lyndz!” I yelled. But it was no good – they’d got them too!
“Leggoofme!” I yelled, thrashing about with my arms and legs. All I could see were these dark shapes surrounding me.
“Ouch!” I made contact with something, it felt like a shin. Whatever I’d kicked was obviously reeling in pain, so I tried more of the same.
“Och, you little wild beastie!” a man’s voice snarled crossly. “Put the torch on her, Andrew!”
Now I’ll admit that up until then, I was convinced that I was fighting for my life. We’d been captured by vampires who were going to kill us for sure. But that voice didn’t sound as though it belonged to a vampire – and I’d certainly never heard of a vampire calling itself Andrew!
A bright light suddenly flashed on to my face. I blinked and tried to turn away from it. The first thing I saw was Frankie struggling furiously against two men who were holding her by the shoulders. Next to her a woman was grappling with Lyndz. They were all wearing jeans and anoraks. Now I know that vampires are masters of disguise – but anoraks? Per-lease!
“Just what on earth do you think you are doing?” asked the man behind me furiously. “Your silly games could easily disturb the bats and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid.”
“Bats?” We all spoke together.
“Yes, we’re here observing the bat colony in the chapel,” said the woman. She was quite young and fortunately she didn’t seem as cross as the other man. In fact she looked as though she was desperately trying to stop laughing.
“We’ve been here all week trying to establish approximately how many bats there are,” she continued. “Whether they’re in good health and how far advanced they are in their preparations for hibernation.”
“Bats!” I repeated like an idiot. “We thought you were vampires!”
Everyone just cracked up. Talk about us disturbing the bat population! They made so much noise they probably disturbed every bat from Scotland to the South of France!
“Now, now. Don’t mock the girls. I thought they showed great spirit!” Uncle Bob had appeared with Fliss and Rosie. They were all grinning from ear to ear.
“That was so funny!” Rosie was laughing so much she was almost choking. “You ought to have seen yourself, Kenny!”
“Can it, Rosie!” I snarled. “You knew about this all the time didn’t you, Uncle Bob? Why didn’t you tell us that there were bat-watchers here?”
“And spoil all your fun?” Uncle Bob grinned. “Now I couldn’ae do that, Kenny. Look, no harm’s done and now you’re here you can watch the bats too.”
He pointed overhead. The air was filled with black shapes sweeping out into the sky from the chapel. Once they’d soared higher, they seemed to swoop down suddenly.
“Eek, my hair! They’ll get stuck in my hair!” squealed Fliss and put her hands protectively over her head.
“The last thing bats would do is land in your hair.” The older man still sounded really annoyed with us.
“It’s true,” the woman told us gently. “They’re swooping like that to feed on insects. They have to eat as many as possible at the moment because soon they’ll be hibernating for winter so they’re in the process of fattening up. Even these tiny bats can eat up to 3,000 insects at one feeding.”
“Really?” I was totally stunned. “That’s awesome!”
“But how can they see in the dark?” asked Lyndz.
“Well actually they don’t,” Andrew, the guy who’d flashed the torch in my face, explained. “They use a system of echolocation. That just means that as they fly, they make high-pitched sounds. They find out what obstacles are in their way by the echoes they get back. Clever, huh?”
“Wicked!”
“You know when I said I’d seen something flying past our window on the day we got here?” I told the others excitedly. “It must have been a bat! But I always thought bats were a lot bigger than these ones?”
“Oh they can be,” the woman explained. “These are pipistrelles. They’re the smallest and most common bats in Britain. They only weigh about seven grammes, tops.”
“Wow!” breathed Frankie. “That’s tiny!”
When we were sure that all the bats had left the chapel we crept to the doorway to take a peek inside. There was a faint high-pitched noise, coming for somewhere.
“Careful everyone,” the man told us. “It sounds like there’s a bat in trouble.”
We shone our torches on to the beams and over the ground.
“Look!” Fliss suddenly whispered. She shone her torch over to the far corner of the building.
There on the ground was a tiny bat. The man went over and very gently picked it up. You ought to have seen it. It was so tiny, and its wings looked far too big for it somehow.
“I think it’s probably just hungry,” the man said. “We’ll take it back with us and have it checked over. My guess is that it’ll just need feeding up. Then we can release it back here in a day or two. Would you like to hold it?”
Oh, man! I don’t know why people think bats are so scary, they’re just gorgeous, all soft and cute. It looked a weeny bit like my rat Merlin, only it was a lot smaller – and it had wings of course!
I thought that Fliss would rather have her hair chopped off than hold a bat, but I was wrong. After a little persuasion she held her hand out – and was totally smitten.
“Isn’t it just so cute!” she kept squeaking. “You’re just adorable aren’t you, little batty!”
The poor guy had to virtually prise it off her so that he could put it in his special bat box.
“Ah, here you are!” Dad suddenly appeared. “Seeing all the bats really takes me back to my childhood, Bob. I remember coming here for the holidays and being absolutely fascinated by them.”
“Dad! You knew about the bats and you didn’t say anything?” I accused him.
“Sorry Kenny, I didn’t think,” he shrugged. “Anyway you lot, it’s supper time. Come on then, look lively!”
I don’t think any of us really wanted to tear ourselves away from the bats, but it was getting kind of chilly.
“How will we find out if the bat’s all right?” I asked.
“Well, you can ask Gordon here tomorrow night.” Uncle Bob slapped the chief bat-watching guy on the shoulder. “All my batty friends will be coming to the party!”
“Excellent!”
As we were saying our goodbyes, the woman asked, “How come you thought we were vampires?”
Hmm, good question.
“Well, we’d seen shapes when we explored round the chapel earlier in the week,” I began.
“And saw the torches and heard noises,” Rosie continued.
“Then when we came back there were all these footprints,” Frankie added.
“And we found this cross.” Lyndz rummaged in her pocket. “So we thought, you know, someone was trying to fend off a vampire or something.”
“My cross!” The woman’s face lit up. “I knew I’d lost it here the other night but I never thought I’d find it again! This is brilliant!”
Lyndz handed the cross over.
“I’m Shelley by the way,” she said. “It’s been great meeting you guys. I’ll bring some information on bats to the party if you like. There are probably some roosting near where you live. You could form a bat group of your own!”
“Cool!”
“Excellent idea!”
“Well, that was an unexpected way to spend the evening!” Frankie mused as we walked back to the house. “I’m kind of glad we didn’t have to fight off any vampires though, aren’t you Kenz?”
“Nah, I was well up for it. Ha-yah!” I launched into a manic kickboxing frenzy.
“That’s not what it looked like to us,” spluttered Fliss. “It looked like you were peeing your pants when that guy grabbed you!”
“Oh yeah!” I stopped and stood in front of them menacingly. “We’ll see who pees their pants when we’ve got to eat that haggis at the party tomorrow!”
And with that rather gruesome thought we all ran screaming into the house!
Now, as you know, I am Kenny ‘Party Animal’ McKenzie, so I was well up for Uncle Bob’s little shindig – especially as the house was trimmed up like you wouldn’t believe. Besides the balloons and stuff we’d put up, Lyndz’s parents had really gone to town with the decorations. They’re both dead artistic. In fact Lyndz’s dad is the Head of Art and Design at the Comprehensive back in Cuddington.
Uncle Bob produced tons of spare tartan material (don’t ask why he had it, I don’t know). As soon as Lyndz’s mum saw it, her eyes lit up.
“This is marvellous, Bob!” she squealed. “We could decorate your home like it’s never been decorated before. Hey Keith!” she called out to Lyndz’s dad. “Come here and take a look at this!”
We all looked at each other and shrugged. I mean, maybe it’s an adult thing, but I couldn’t see what was so exciting about a bit of checked cloth! Anyway, Mr and Mrs Collins sat huddled over the table for ages, making loads of drawings. Then they set to work on the dining room and the lounge. They swathed tartan around the walls and draped it over the tables. It looked just amazing. And all the time they were doing it they were giggling like teenagers and sneaking the occasional kiss when they thought we weren’t looking – gross! Poor Lyndz was so embarrassed she couldn’t watch.
“Well, I think it’s cool!” Fliss told her. “I mean, it’s much better than your mum being miserable like she was before, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess!” Lyndz admitted.
The Sleepover Club did our bit with the decorations for the party too. We made all these bat shapes and hung them up in the hall so they looked as though they were flying about.
“Great bats, girls!” Uncle Bob looked at them admiringly. “Or should that be ‘vampires’, eh Kenny?”
He started chuckling in that throaty way of his.
“Now girls,” he continued. “I hope you won’t be too tired by this evening. The dancing gets pretty wild in these parts, you know.”
“That’s just what we like!” I grinned, and we showed him just how wildly we can dance. Uncle Bob just stared at us with his mouth open. I guess it was a pretty scary sight.
“Do you want to borrow some of our tapes?” asked Frankie. “We’ve got all the top tunes: S Club 7, Hear’ Say…”
“Well, that’s very kind of you,” he smiled, “but I have a band lined up. In fact I was just coming to welcome them. I saw their van coming up the driveway a minute ago.”
“Excellent!”
“Who do you think it’ll be?” asked Fliss excitedly. “What about Travis, they’re Scottish aren’t they? Or Texas?”
A real band! This was going to be amazing.
“Who are they? It can’t be…” Frankie’s voice trailed away as a group of elderly men were greeted warmly by Uncle Bob. They had various instruments with them – a couple of violins, an accordion, a flute, a huge drum kit and…
“Bagpipes?” we all gasped in horror.
“How can you possibly dance to bagpipes?” groaned Fliss.
And I have to admit that just at that moment, Uncle Bob’s party sounded about as exciting as an evening of back-to-back news programmes on the telly.
“Look, we’ll just have to make the best of it!” Lyndz said brightly when we were back in our room getting changed. “Everybody’s gone to a lot of trouble for this party. And besides, it was great of your Uncle Bob to invite us up here in the first place. What would he think if we turned out to be a right load of moaning minnies, just because he’s not having the music we like to dance to?”
Trust Lyndz to make us all see sense. And actually, we were way off-beam about the party anyway.
As soon as we got downstairs and mingled with the other guests, we started having a great time. Although we were just the teensiest bit under-dressed. All the men (including my dad and Lyndz’s dad) were wearing kilts, and the women were wearing posh swirly tartan skirts.
“I told you we should have brought our best party clothes,” Fliss hissed.
But Lyndz’s mum came to the rescue when she provided us all with tartan sashes. At least when we put them on we didn’t feel so left out (even though mine did clash with my football shirt!).
We’d been downstairs for a while when Shelley rushed up to us.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she smiled. “I thought you might like these.”
She gave each of us a bat badge and a great big information pack from the Bat Conservation Trust. It looked really great, with special sections for people our age and everything.
“We’ll definitely contact them,” I promised.
“How’s that little bat you took away?” Fliss asked her anxiously.
“Oh just fine!” Shelley reassured us. “Gordon was right, the poor wee mite needed feeding up. We’ll probably bring him back tomorrow.”
“Great!”
Suddenly a loud gong rang out from the hall.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Uncle Bob announced very grandly. “Supper is served!”
Excitedly we followed everyone else through to the dining room and found our places. We were sitting with the bat watchers, which was pretty cool. Gordon, who had seemed such a misery-guts the previous evening, actually turned out to be a real laugh. He never stopped teasing us about being a vampire. He’d even brought some of those fangs you get from joke shops, and kept swooping over us pretending to bite our necks! In fact he was just pretending to ravage Fliss when the most appalling racket filled the air.
“Sounds like Headless Eric has met with another victim!” I whispered to Frankie.
“Don’t be daft!” she chided. “It’s the bagpipes!”
You’ll never believe what happened next. It was awesome. First the piper came into the room playing his pipes, followed by Mrs Barber who was carrying – the haggis! Bizarre or what? Then it got even stranger when Uncle Bob started reciting “Ode to a Haggis” by some guy called Robbie Burns.
“Do they normally talk to their food like that?” Fliss asked, looking bewildered.
Actually we didn’t understand a word of the poem, but everyone else seemed to know it by heart. But the absolute best bit was at the end when Uncle Bob got out this silver dagger and stabbed the haggis so that the steam burst out of it and its smell filled the dining room. It didn’t smell too bad actually, but Frankie went quite green just thinking about what was in it. Now you know me, I usually try anything once, but I was with Frankie on this one. We just looked on politely as everyone else tucked in and washed it all down with ‘wee drams’ of whisky. (If you ask me, the whisky smelt worse than the haggis!)
“Now I didn’ae want to confuse anyone,” Uncle Bob stood up, grinning. “This isn’ae January the twenty-fifth, so we’re not celebrating Burns Night again. I just thought no-one would object to sharing all the pageant of one of our greatest celebrations with our wee Sassenach friends.”
A loud cheer went up.
“But don’t you bairns fret,” he continued. “You’re not going to go hungry. Bring out the feast, Mrs Barber!”
After we’d finished eating, one of Uncle Bob’s cronies, Angus, stood up and recited another poem.
“Crikey! Are they going to go on like this all night?” Rosie wondered.
I know it sounds dead boring listening to poetry, but it wasn’t at all. At least Angus’s one was easier to understand. It was about this guy, Lochinvar, who ran off with someone else’s bride or something. It was a bit gushy but Fliss loved it.
“Right everyone!” Uncle Bob announced at the end of the recitation. “Let the dancing commence!”
Cheering, everyone made their way into the lounge where the band was warming up.
Now, I don’t know if you remember my efforts at line dancing when we had our Fun Day at Mrs McAllister’s stables? Well, my attempts at Scottish country dancing were even worse than that! It was just so confusing! There were Scottish reels and jigs and dancing in squares. We ‘Stripped the Willow’, performed ‘A Highland Welcome’ and danced something called, believe it or not, ‘The Elephant Walk’! It was great fun and nobody bothered at all when we messed up. Poor Gordon though, I trod on his toes so many times he eventually announced that he was “retiring injured”.
We danced for so long that I thought my legs were going to drop off.
“This is more exhausting than a soccer match!” I gasped, collapsing into a chair.
“You’re not kidding!” agreed Frankie, flopping next to me. “I’m completely wrecked.”
“Hey girls, have you any idea what time it is?” Mum was being swung wildly around the dance floor by Uncle Bob. She was kind of pink in the cheeks, but she looked as though she was enjoying herself.
“Yeah guys, it’s almost midnight!” Dad came over to us. “We’ve a long drive ahead of us tomorrow and I want to make an early start. I’ll be calling it a night myself soon.”
Sleepover Club Vampires Page 6