Tom Bites Back

by Steven Banks

  “Let us proceed,” she said. “Hold your wings straight out, shoulder height, and flap them.”

  I moved my arms—I mean my wings—up and down. “Like this?”

  “No! Nothing like that. I shall show you.” She crossed her arms and said, “Turn to bat. Bat, I shall be.”

  She transformed. We stood on the floor, bat face to bat face.

  “Flap your wings together, in a quick, steady rhythm. Like this.” She moved her wings up and down, and slowly lifted up off the ground.

  I flapped my wings.

  “Nothing’s happening,” I said. “It’s not working. I can’t fly.”

  “Beat your wings faster, lad.”

  I did.

  I slowly lifted up off the floor and rose into the air, higher and higher.

  I was flying!

  It was incredible! I started beating my wings faster. It was the most unbelievable, amazing, awesome feeling ever!

  It was better than Christmas, my birthday, Halloween, and a trip to Disney World combined.

  “I’m flying!” I yelled as I kept going upward.

  “Indeed you are,” said Martha. “You are also about to crash into the ceiling.”

  BAM!

  I crashed my head on the ceiling. I grabbed my head with both my wings, which isn’t the smartest thing to do when you’re supposed to be flapping them to fly. I fell straight down and crashed on the floor. I looked up to see Martha hovering over me, with a smirk on her face.

  “As Dr. Franklin said, ‘Pride cometh before a fall.’ ”

  I rubbed the top of my head with my wing. “That really hurt.”

  “May I suggest you always look in the direction in which you are flying?”

  I got up, flapped my wings, and rose back up in the air, toward Martha. I beat my wings just fast enough so I hovered next to her.

  “Now what do I do?”

  “To propel yourself forward, tilt your wings down, ever so slightly.”

  I did it and it worked. It was amazing, until I realized I was headed straight toward the wall.

  “How do I turn?!”

  “Tilt slightly to the left!” she shouted.

  I did, but I turned upside down and started spinning.

  “I said slightly, Thomas!”

  I kept flapping my wings and righted myself. I was a little dizzy, but I started to fly in a circle around the room.

  “Okay…I got it…. Let’s go outside!” I said as I flew toward the open window.

  “No!” Martha followed me to the window and blocked me from going out.

  “Why not?” I said as I turned to avoid her, slammed into the wall, and crash-landed on the floor.

  Martha looked down and grinned. “That is one reason. You are not ready.” She landed next to me. “Flying in a room is quite different from flying outside, where you must deal with winds, air currents, temperature, and…predators.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Predators?”

  “Hawks and owls that love to eat tasty little bats. Watch for owls—they make no noise when they fly.”

  I hadn’t thought about getting eaten.

  “And when you are on the ground, or in a tree or a cave, watch out for snakes, weasels, and raccoons. Small birds may fly into a bat cave when you are sleeping and peck you to death.”

  I decided I was NEVER going to go to sleep when I was a bat.

  “Also, take care when flying over rivers and lakes, as fish have been known to leap up and take down a bat.”

  Why is everything not as great as you imagine it’s going to be? There’s always something that wrecks it.

  “What happens if something eats me when I’m a bat?” I asked.

  “Then the story of Thomas Marks, the Vam-Wolf-Zom, comes to an abrupt end.”

  We flew up into the air again and Martha tried to show me how to land.

  “Stop flapping your wings, but keep them extended, then glide in, tilting your wings up to reduce speed.”

  Martha landed perfectly.

  My feet hit the floor and I tripped, tumbled over, did five summersaults and banged into the wall.

  “Not what I would call a good landing,” said Martha. “But a very good crash.”

  I stood up on my little bat feet. “I suck at this.”

  “As the wise Dr. Franklin said, ‘Energy and persistence conquer all things.’ Practice an hour a day and you shall achieve proficiency. And now I cannot delay any longer, I truly must depart.”

  “Why?”

  “I must feed.”

  “Oh…okay…. Thanks for the flying lesson.”

  “You are most welcome. Anything else?”

  “Um…I don’t think so?”

  “You do not wish to know how to transform back to human?”

  HOW DID I FORGET TO ASK HER THAT?!

  “Oh! Yeah! Right! What do I say?”

  “ ‘Turn to human. Human, I shall be.’ ” She flew up to the windowsill. “Farewell and good luck, Thomas Marks. Perhaps our paths will cross again.”

  “Wait—Martha. One more question.”

  “What?”

  “Do you ever wish you…weren’t a vampire?”

  She got serious again. “I did at one time…at first…. But no longer. I am what I am. Worry not, Thomas. It gets better.”

  She turned and looked out the window. I think she was checking for owls and hawks. Then, she flew straight out. I watched her soar up over the treetops, past the moon, and off into the night.

  I wondered if I was ever going to see her again.

  * * *

  I took a deep breath and said, “Turn to human. Human, I will be.”

  Nothing happened.

  I was still a bat.

  “Turn to human. Human, I will be.”

  Why was I still a bat?

  “Turn to human. Human, I will be!”

  I didn’t change!

  “TURN TO HUMAN. HUMAN, I WILL BE!”

  It wasn’t working. I was going to be a bat forever.

  Emma would put me in a cage! Or sell me to a zoo! I’d have to sleep hanging upside down! I couldn’t be in Annie’s band! I’d have to be a bat for Halloween for the rest of my life! How was I going to live as a bat?!

  “Turn to human! Human, I will be!”

  I shouted it.

  I whispered it.

  I said it fast, slow, backward and forward, over and over.

  I was still a tiny little pop-eyed, big-eared, claw-footed bat.

  I had a terrible thought. Did Martha go around changing people into vampires, teaching them how to turn into a bat, and then leaving them like that forever? Was Martha Livingston the most evil person in the world?

  Maybe I was saying it wrong. What exactly did she say? I closed my eyes and pictured her saying it.

  “Turn to human…. Human, I will— NO! It’s not ‘will be,’ you idiot! It’s shall be!”

  I took a deep breath. “Turn to human…. Human, I shall be.”

  My body felt like it was stretching and all of a sudden I was human again. I double-checked to make sure I didn’t still have wings or big ears or bat feet.

  I didn’t.

  I went back upstairs and wrote the wording down on a piece of paper, in case I ever forgot again. Then I got into bed and went to sleep.

  I was so glad that I was regular, normal, Vam-Wolf-Zom me.

  6.

  Showing Zeke

  When we drove home, Emma texted her new boyfriend, Carrot Boy, the whole time. He really does look like a carrot. He used to mow our lawn, and Emma made fun of him and gave him the nickname Carrot Boy. Now she’s in love with him. She is so bizarre.

  I decided not to tell my family or Annie or anybody at school that I could fly until I got better
at it. I did want to show Zeke, even though he is not the greatest person in the world at keeping secrets. When I got home, I ran up to my room and called him. He made it to my house in four minutes, which I think is a record. After he came into my room, I locked the door and made him sit on the bed.

  I spoke calmly and quietly. “Zeke, do not scream or yell or dance or do jumping jacks when I show you…. Okay?”

  “Okay, T-Man!” he said, giving a salute. He loves to salute.

  I crossed my arms, closed my eyes, and took a breath.

  “Turn to bat. Bat, I shall be.”

  I turned into a bat.

  Zeke screamed, yelled, danced, and did jumping jacks all at the same time.

  “STOP!” I yelled, looking up at him from the floor. I thought he was going to accidentally stomp on me. He crouched down on the floor, with his chin on the rug.

  “You’re a bat!” shouted Zeke. “It is so cool to talk to a bat, T-Man…. Wait…I mean…Bat-Tom!”

  “Don’t call me Bat-Tom.”

  “But I have to!” said Zeke.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I’d let you call me Bat-Zeke if I was a bat.”

  “I know you would, but—”

  “Let’s go outside and you can show me how you fly!”

  “No, Martha said I shouldn’t.”

  “Who’s Martha?”

  “Uh…nobody. I haven’t flown outside yet. I need to practice more.”

  I made him sit back on the bed. I flapped my wings, rose up in the air, and flew around the room in a circle. Zeke went crazy again. But I have to admit, if I saw my best friend turn into a bat and fly around his room, I’d get pretty excited too.

  “Bat-Tom, this is the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of the world!”

  Zeke is The King of Exaggerators. Emma is The Queen.

  He sat back down on the bed and watched me fly around in circles for a while.

  “I could watch you do this all night!”

  He really would. I crash-landed on the floor and turned back into me. Zeke applauded.

  “I’m not very good at landing yet,” I said.

  “You’ll get better, Bat-Tom.”

  “Zeke, you can’t tell anybody that I can fly. I want to get good at it, and then I’ll show people.”

  “Okay. Was it hard to learn?”

  “Transforming isn’t hard, but flying is. Martha showed me—”

  “Who’s Martha?”

  “Nobody.”

  “But you said she showed you.”

  I couldn’t tell Zeke about Martha. I had to make something up.

  “Oh, uh, yeah, I was, uh, thinking about a movie called Martha the…Bird Girl.”

  “I’ve never heard of that. What’s it about?”

  “Uh…. It’s…It’s about a girl named Martha, who’s a bird, it’s not very good— Hey, do you want to play Rabbit Attack!?”

  Zeke’s favorite video game in the whole world is Rabbit Attack! It is the most boring video game in the whole world. He knows that I hate to play it. He looked at me, suspicious. Then his eyes got wider and wider.

  “Wait…. Is Martha the person who taught you how to fly?…Is Martha a vampire?…Is Martha the vampire bat that bit you— She is! She is! She is!”

  He started doing jumping jacks again. I let him do them for a while, so he’d wear himself out. I couldn’t believe that Zeke figured it out. He surprises me sometimes.

  Technically I hadn’t told Zeke about Martha. He had guessed on his own, so I hadn’t broken the blood oath. That must be why I didn’t burst into flames.

  I started to tell Zeke about Martha, what she looked like and what we talked about.

  “She’s two hundred and forty-four years old?!” he said. “Does she look super crusty, wrinkly old?”

  “No. She looks about thirteen or fourteen.”

  “Is Martha gonna be your vampire girlfriend?”

  “No!”

  Saying “no” never stops Zeke.

  “If she was your vampire girlfriend, would you marry her when you got older?”

  “Zeke, she’s not going to be my—”

  “If you got married, would you have vampire babies? Or would they be two-thirds vampire and one-third werewolf and zombie?”

  “I’m not going to marry—”

  “Would you name one of your kids Zeke?”

  “I’m not going to marry Martha! I’ll probably never see her again.”

  “When’d she become a vampire?”

  “In 1776 in Philadelphia. She knew Benjamin Franklin.”

  Zeke’s eyes got huge and his jaw dropped. “BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WAS A VAMPIRE?!”

  I explained that he wasn’t, and Zeke was disappointed, like I knew he would be.

  “Aw man,” he said. “I wish he was a vampire. History would be so much more interesting.”

  “I know. So, anyway, Martha loves music. She plays eleven different instruments and—”

  “Hey! She can be in our band!”

  “Zeke, I promised I wouldn’t tell anybody about her. So you can’t tell anybody. Okay?”

  He saluted again.

  “Okay, Bat-Tom!”

  “Don’t call me Bat-Tom!”

  7.

  Band of Five

  The next day, just before Zeke and I got on the bus to go to school, I said, “Remember, don’t tell anybody I can turn into a bat and fly.”

  He gave me a thumbs-up, but I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t.

  Some of the kids on the bus gave me weird looks. I’d figured it would take a while until they got used to me being a Vam-Wolf-Zom. I was hoping that eventually some other kid would get abducted by aliens or turn into a robot or get superpowers and nobody would pay any attention to me anymore. Unfortunately, that probably wasn’t going to happen.

  Zeke and I walked down the aisle toward Annie. She was sitting with Capri Ishibashi, a girl in my Art class who is an amazing artist.

  “Hey, guys,” said Annie. “Don’t forget about band practice next week.”

  “We won’t,” I said as we sat down in the seat across from them.

  For some reason, when Annie had asked me to sing in her band, she had also asked about half the other kids in our class to be in it too: Abel Sherrill on guitar; Capri on piano; and a tall, skinny kid, with long hair, named Landon, who we used to call Dog Hots, but he told us not to call him that anymore, on drums. Zeke, who didn’t play anything, was going to be our roadie.

  “Hey, Tom, did you turn into a werewolf on Friday night?” asked Capri.

  Annie gave her a dirty look. “Not. Cool. Capri.”

  “What?” said Capri. “There was a full moon. I was just asking.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Yeah, I turned into a werewolf.”

  “Can I see you do that sometime?” said Capri. “Or is that a weird thing to ask?”

  “Yes, Capri,” said Annie. “That is a weird thing to ask.”

  “I want to see it too!” said Zeke. “Is it as excellent as when you turn into a—”

  I quickly cut Zeke off before he said “bat.” “I don’t know when the next full moon is.”

  “It’s in three weeks,” said Capri. “On Tuesday, October 17, at 6:27 pm.”

  “You looked that up?” said Annie.

  “Maybe,” said Capri.

  I guess she really wanted to see me turn. I really wanted to change the subject. “What time will practice be, Annie?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “Our band is going to be so awesome!” said Zeke. I thought he might start doing jumping jacks, so I stepped on his foot so he couldn’t.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry, Zeke.”

  * * *

  “I don’t want any trouble to
day!” yelled Bus Lady as someone got on the bus.

  I knew it was Tanner Gantt. I bet he had a new nickname for me.

  “Good morning, Freak Face!”

  I was right.

  He walked down the aisle toward us, pretending to be afraid.

  “Ooo! I better not sit next to Freak Face! He might bite me! Or suck my blood!”

  He yanked a little kid out of the seat in front us.

  “Hey! I was sitting there!” complained the kid.

  “Not anymore,” said Tanner Gantt. He sat down, turned around to face us, and hung his big arms over the back of the seat. “How’d it feel to get suspended, Freak Face?”

  I ignored him.

  Zeke didn’t.

  “You should know,” he said. “You’ve been suspended a zillion times.”

  “Shut up, Zimmer-Moron, before I shut you up with my fist.” Tanner Gantt turned to me. “So, Freak Face? Eat anybody this weekend?”

  “When are you going to grow up, Tanner?” said Annie.

  Tanner spun around to face her. “When are you gonna…”

  He tried to think of something clever to say.

  “…gonna…”

  He couldn’t think of anything, so he gave up.

  “Is there a problem back there?” said Bus Lady, looking in her rearview mirror.

  “No, ma’am!” said Tanner Gantt, using his fake nice voice. “We’re just talking about the fun stuff we did this weekend!” He turned back to me. “Did you learn how to turn into a bat and fly yet, Freak Face?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “Ha! I knew you’d be a lame vampire.”

  I wanted to turn into a bat right there and fly around the bus. Zeke started nudging me with his elbow and whispered, “Do it, do it, do it, do it.”