Going Batty (6 page)

The magic wind picked up speed then, swirling and whirling around Katie so hard that she thought her little bat body might be blown away. She gripped the branch hard with her claws and held on tight.

And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone, and Katie was back.

Thud!
Katie fell to the ground and landed on her rear end. Red sneakers could not grip tree branches the way bat claws did. But that was okay. She was just glad to be back to herself again.

Quickly, she ran her hands along the walls of the cave until she found the doorknob. As soon as she did, she opened the door and raced outside.

“Bye!” she called back to the bats, hoping they understood.

Katie wasn’t afraid of the bats anymore. But she was worried about what was going to happen when her teacher realized she’d wandered off. Mr. G wasn’t going to like that. Not one bit.

Uh-oh.
Just then she saw Mr. G coming toward her.

“Katie, there you are!” Mr. G exclaimed. Luckily, he sounded more relieved than mad. “I was wondering what had happened to you.”

“I . . . um . . . I went back to get my map, and I got all lost and wound up here,” Katie told him.

That was the truth,
sort of
. She’d just left out the whole part about the magic wind and turning into a bat.

“Oh,” Mr. G replied. “Well, I’m glad we found you. I’m just sorry you missed the Hall of Lizards. I know you would have liked the chameleons.”

“I’m really sorry,” Katie apologized. “I didn’t mean to end up at the bat cave.”

Now
that
was definitely the truth.

“Well, we found you just in time,” Mr. G told her. “I’m glad you won’t miss this exhibit. After all, you’re one of our fourth-grade bat experts.”

Katie grinned. She was a bat expert all right. More than Mr. G would ever know!

 

A little while later, Katie was sitting on the bus heading back to school with her friends. She was really tired from all the flying. But it had also been fun. And it had helped her make an important decision.

“Hey, you guys, I think I know what animal we should adopt,” Katie told Suzanne and Becky.

“Which one?” Suzanne asked.

Katie took a deep breath. She had a feeling her friends weren’t going to like this. “A bat. A little brown bat.”

“Oooh, gross!” Becky shouted. “I hate bats.”

“I don’t like them, either,” Suzanne said.

Katie sighed. Finally her friends were agreeing on something. But it didn’t make Katie happy.

“Ouch!” Suzanne exclaimed. She started scratching the red bumps on both her arms. “I’m like a mosquito magnet. Look how many bites I got last night.”

“Bats eat mosquitoes. Did you know that?” Katie asked Suzanne. “So you should be grateful to bats.”

“Um . . . I guess so,” Suzanne murmured.

“A bat would be a great animal to adopt,” Jeremy told the girls. “There are bat heroes, like Batman.”

Becky turned to Jeremy. “Do you really think we should adopt a bat?” she asked him as she batted her eyes and smiled.

Jeremy blushed red and shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

“Then I think we should adopt a bat,” Becky said.

Suzanne rolled her eyes. But a moment later she said, “Okay, a bat it is. This whole adoption thing was Katie’s idea anyway. She should get to pick. And bats are kind of graceful when they fly.”

Katie laughed and sat back in her seat. She was happy that they had all finally agreed on a zoo animal to adopt. Everything was peaceful again.

But not for long.

“I think we should name our brown bat Batly,” Becky said.

“That’s a dumb name,” Suzanne told her. “In fact, it’s not even a name.”

“Well what name were you thinking of?” Becky asked Suzanne.

“Aurora,” Suzanne answered. “Like the princess in
Sleeping Beauty
. Because bats sleep in the daytime.”

“But they’re awake at night,” Becky said. “And who ever heard of naming a bat after a princess, anyway?”

“Here we go again,” Katie said to Jeremy.

“Those two will never change,” Jeremy agreed.

Katie smiled. She was actually glad about that. With all the changes and switcheroos she kept going through, it was good to know that some things would always be the same.

 

 

Being switcherooed into a bat taught Katie a whole lot about what bats are really like. Luckily, you don’t have to wait for a magic wind to turn you into a bat to become a bat expert. There are plenty of cool bat facts right here!