It’s 3:00 a.m. and I wake up when Todd says, “There’s a critter in your closet.” Silence… “Rose is in there.”
Good, I think, go back to sleep.
“…now it’s behind the bed.”
“Sweetie, I don’t need an update. Shh!”
“Whoa!”
“What?”
“It just flew past me!”
I pull the blanket over my head as he jumps out of bed.
“There’s two of them!”
I look out just as one whips past my head. “That was big.”
“They’re bats! Rose isn’t going to mess with them.”
Sam leaves the room.
“Open the window,” I say from under the blanket. “Get a sheet and a broom.” (I’ve heard that’s what Mom and Dad did on their honeymoon.)
Under the blanket they sound like they’re on a race track over my head. I look out and Todd looks like an out of uniform flagman with a towel.
“Stop laughing. I got one.”
Amazing.
“Here’s the other one if you want to see it. It’s on the ceiling.”
I consider it. (No thanks. I only like Belfry, the bat on Washington Island.)
“I don’t want to hurt him…Come on little guy, go on with your friend.”
A few more towel flaps and the bat’s inside it and out the window on the porch roof.
“Listen,” I say. Squeak, squeak, squeak. “It’s crying. Do you think it’s okay?”
“It’s scared.”
He’s not the only one.
