Bat Summer (9 page)

Rico shows up.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey, what'd you do this weekend?”

“I don't know…” he says. “We went to my Nonie's up at the lake on Saturday and there was this girl there who wanted to swim with me, but my mom wouldn't let me. She said I'd get a cramp from swimming too soon after eating. She said it right in front of the girl. Unbelievable.” Rico has girls on the brain.

“You have to take those magazines back,” I say.

“Who needs them? I'm talking about a real, live
girl, Terence.” He doesn't get what I said. “Forget it, all right? You're too young.” Rico looks fed up. He goes to the Parks and Rec office to get the tetherball. He just assumes I'm going to hang out with him. Tom does that, too, except Tom's usually right.

Just then, Russell arrives in the park with his chess board under one arm and the paper under the other. I go over to the picnic table and sit down.

“Are you waiting for someone to play chess with?” I ask.

“Not if you'll play me,” he says. We sit down and he starts setting up the board. I see Rico bouncing the tetherball off the side of the office up the hill. He's watching us but pretending not to. He comes down the hill and makes a big production about tying the tetherball to the pole.

I get the first move. I swear chess doesn't get interesting until at least the fourth move. Rico is being very distracting. He keeps dropping the ball and saying, “Whoops,” but he's doing it on purpose.

I'm going to become a chess pro so that I don't have to deal with Rico anymore.

It gets easier to ignore him as the game goes on. Russell wins again, but I manage to get most of his best men, and I don't think he's the kind of person who lets you win, so that feels pretty good.

I go to get a drink of water from the fountain beside the wading pool. Rico comes up to me and
squirts the water in my face with his thumb. He thinks he's so funny.

“That is so juvenile,” I say.

“So?” he says. “What are you doing playing with the perv?”

“He's not a perv. He's got a son, you know. Just because he hangs out in the park doesn't mean he's a perv. Maybe you're the perv. You hang out in the park all the time.”

“Oh, yeah? If he's not a perv, why did I see the police talking to him yesterday?”

“What?”

“They were asking him if he'd seen the Loser.”

My heart falls about twenty inches into my stomach and then disappears altogether.

“What?”

“Yeah, she ran away or something. Left this big note on a piece of toilet paper. They thought maybe she was at the perv's house. They were asking all these questions.” I can't believe Russell didn't say anything to me during a whole game of chess. “She's really thirteen, you know. She lied about her age because she had to stay back a year in school. She's thirteen and she still thinks she's a bat. Ha!”

“Shut up, Rico.”

“What? Is she hiding out at your house? You have her hanging upside-down in your closet or something?”

“Shut up.” I need time to think. Where could she be? Why didn't I come to the park yesterday? Why didn't I try to find her after going to Loblaws?

“She your girlfriend, or what?” Rico socks me one in the arm.

“Who told you?” I ask. Rico shrugs, bends over for a drink from the fountain.

“The cops were asking around about who had seen her. Don't worry. I didn't say anything about you. She's just trying to freak her parents out. Did you know she had a friend who died?”

“What?” Nobody tells me anything.

“Yeah, man. Her sister Daphne was here talking to the perv. And she was saying how Lucy had this friend in Hamilton who fell off a cliff, or maybe she jumped. I'm not sure. The kid was only nine years old. That's why Lucy's family had to leave. Lucy started acting weird all the time after her friend died. That's why she's so strange. Anyway, there's some shrink here she was seeing. Daphne felt bad because she was supposed to bring her to the shrink but didn't because she has that job at Fatso's, you know? You should have seen how hard she was bawling. The police lady had to drive her home. Like, one block.”

“Did the police say anything else?” I'm thinking now about the shoplifting on Saturday. I wonder what that note said.

“Nah. They said they couldn't really do anything because she left the note. If she hadn't left a note, this place would be crawling with cops, man… that's strange about her friend, eh? From the way Daphne was talking, it's sounds like her friend was more mental than Lucy even. I wonder if she thought she could fly? Do you think that's why Lucy wears that stupid cape?”

Maybe. Maybe they were trying to fly like bats. Good thing there aren't any cliffs in this neighborhood.

“You want to play ball, or what?” Rico asks.

“Or what,” I say. I run out of the park. I have an idea.

I'm searching through the backyard to find what I need. Two sticks. All I need are two sticks. And some paper. And some string.

Elys comes outside.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm looking,” I say. I find one decent stick over by the fence.

“What are you looking for?” I bend the stick to test its give, and it breaks. I throw the pieces back on the ground.

I should have told Elys about Lucy's house last week. I should have said something at Loblaws. I thought I was being a good bat. It's my fault. Now I have to get her back.

“Terence? Can I help you look?” I look up at Elys, I don't know what to tell her, so I keep looking. I poke the ground with my shoes. “I got an interview at the flower shop.”

“What?” I say. I stop looking.

“I talked to that guy. Russell's son. You know, the florist? He seems really nice. Very casual. He wants me to go up there this afternoon to talk about a job. He says Russell told him all about me. So I say to the guy, ‘I only met him for ten minutes,' and he says, ‘Well, he liked you and my dad is a hard guy to impress. And this is wedding season, and I need someone.' I think I have a real chance this time. A flower shop, too. Isn't that great?” She looks so happy.

There's no way I can tell her about Lucy now. I don't want her to be all freaked out for the first job interview she's had in weeks.

“Now, what can I help you with?”

“I need a kite,” I tell her. She looks at me kind of strangely.

“I think there's an old one of mine down in the basement.” We go down there and Elys pulls out this old handmade kite with sparkles all over it. “I made it in grade four. Don't you remember me bringing it over a couple of years ago? You said it was pathetic.”

“Did I? Well, I was wrong, Elys. It's perfect.” It's made out of plain brown paper. “Do we have any markers?”

“You're going to ruin my kite?”

“I'm going to improve it. I swear. I'll never say anything you do is pathetic ever again if you give me this kite.”

“Is this the new craze up at the park?”

“Something like that.”

“You're going to fly a kite?” Rico asks as I'm crossing through the park. “You sure have turned strange the last couple of weeks. First I find you playing chess with the perv…”

I have a plan, but I don't want to say anything to Rico. Not with the way his brain works. I can't do anything without that guy laughing at me. I wish Tom were here, to put him in his place. Then again, I don't. Probably if Tom were here he and Rico would go off to smoke and read dirty magazines, which is what I should be doing anyway. But I'm not cool. I like bats, and I like chess, and I like Lucy. I'm not cool and that's just too bad for the rest of the world.

Rico starts to follow me across the park. I stop. The last thing I need is for him to come along.

“I swear, all I want to do is fly the damn kite,” I tell him.

I run away from him with the stupid sparkly paper kite trailing behind me. By the lights near Loblaws I look back and see him watching me. I slow down crossing the street and try to look casual.
Before the light changes, I see a police car coming around the other side of the park.

Man, I got out of there just in time. I don't know how to talk to the police, and, after the peanutbutter incident the other day, I'm in no mood for an on-the-spot lesson.

By the time I get to the ravine it's pretty cloudy. It isn't a good day to be flying a kite. I've got to contact Lucy, though. I hope she didn't run away because I got caught at Loblaws.

In the middle of the field, I take the marker out. It doesn't work as well as I'd hoped. I have to keep licking the end to get the marker stuff out of it. I draw an outline of a bat on the kite. I have to be careful not to poke through the paper.

The kite is going to be the bat signal. If she sees it, she'll know it's me. Who else flies a dorky paper kite in the middle of a rainstorm? It hasn't started to rain yet, but I can tell it's going to soon.

I can't tell which way the wind is going. It seems to be all over the place. I can't get the thing to fly at all. I run around the hill, just like Rico did the other day. If Lucy were here, we'd be able to get this thing up in the air. But if Lucy were here, I wouldn't need to.

It's raining now. Not very hard. But it's raining. I could get electrocuted through this kite. Lucy would see it for sure if it got struck by lightning and burst into flames in the sky.

I have to stop and catch my breath. I flop down on my back and watch the storm clouds gather over my head. It rains on my face so that I can't tell what's sweat and what's not. It's more like mist than rain. It's like when Steel, Tom's dog, breathes on you. Steel won't let me near Tom when I go over there to play. What kind of dog guards a kid from his best friend? I used to think I wanted a dog, but then I met Steel. He also farts a lot and nobody says anything about it. Tom's whole living room can be full of dog farts and everyone still pretends the air tastes like ice cream. It's how I know every house has its own gaps. Some houses have bigger gaps than others.

You could fly a blimp through the gaps in Lucy's house.

I hold the kite above my face to keep from getting so wet. I feel the wind lift it from my hands. I scramble to my feet. The wind is all over the place but the bat is hanging on, going up in jigs and jags. It's still raining. The clouds are low and heavy. They look like the bottoms of ships floating slowly through the sky. If I were a kite I would ride one.

I'm all over the hill again trying to keep up with the thing. I can't take my eyes off it. The rain is running down my face. The drops fall right in my eyes. I blink a few times to get them out, and when I look back up again, the kite has disappeared into the clouds. I wind the line up a bit. I can feel it stretching.
It's too sharp to hang onto without gloves. I run around the hill trying to see the kite. I hear thunder. I could seriously get electrocuted. I should get the kite down and try again later, only I can't even see it anymore. I feel the wind pick up.

The rain starts to fall like thousands of hard pins, so that I feel like I'm being grated like cheese. I take my shirt off and wrap it around my hands. The rain stabs me all over. I pull hard on the line, putting one hand over the other and jerking it down. A huge peal of thunder rolls across the sky and through me. I almost let go right then. I want to put my hands over my head to keep the sky from falling on me, but I've got to get the kite down.

Finally, it comes back into view. It must be soaking. It's amazing it's still up there. I give three more huge pulls and the thing starts into a nose dive. I drop the line and the whole sky lights up like Christmas. I fall flat on my stomach and hug the ground for all I'm worth.

I'm face down forever before the rain calms down. I can't see my shirt. It must have drowned. There are puddles all over the ravine.

Everyone at Wells Hill Park is probably hanging out under the tree. I bet Russell didn't even stop playing chess. I can't believe he didn't say anything to me about Lucy. He must live in chess world. No wonder he looks all put out when I take his big guys off the board. I could be some sort of young chess genius. I could be a prodigy.

It's hard knowing you are a completely ordinary guy. When Tom's around, I feel like somebody because I know I'm Tom's friend. He always seems to know what to do. When I'm with Tom, it's easy to fill the gaps in the day because I just do whatever Tom does. Even that day with Rico, at least I didn't have to think about what to do with myself.

I never used to think I had any interests apart from gin rummy and tetherball. Now I know I like chess, bats and kites. Actually, I think liking bats is a separate thing from being one.

I go out to the field to find my shirt. My shoes are soaked and squishing with bubbles with every step.
I can feel kind of a slime build-up between my toes. Totally gross.

I don't find my shirt until I have already stepped on it. It looks like one of those shirts you sometimes see run over on the highway.

I can't put the shirt on, so I tie it around my waist. My hair is all wet, too, so I slick it back off my face. It feels good.

I find the end of the kite line and start pulling it in. I reel it in about ten feet and then it snags. I can't see the kite. I have no idea where it landed.

I follow the line to the edge of a hill. I look down into the ravine, but there's no sign of the kite. There's a steep hill down to the next level of the ravine. It's almost a cliff. I mean, I'm walking down sideways and the drop is like a wall beside me. I have to grab hold of the grass a few times to keep myself from slipping in the muck.

I follow the kite line to just under the bridge where Spadina Road goes over the ravine. I remember Lucy saying how bats lived under bridges. I can't see any up in the iron work there. I don't know where they would roost.