Megabat and Fancy Cat

by Anna Humphrey

  Text copyright © 2019 by Anna Humphrey

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Kass Reich

  Tundra Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, a Penguin Random House Company

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Humphrey, Anna, 1979–, author

  Megabat and Fancy Cat / Anna Humphrey; illustrated by Kass Reich.

  (Megabat; 2)

  ISBN 9780735262591 (hardcover).—ISBN 9780735262607 (EPUB)

  I. Reich, Kass, illustrator II. Title.

  PS8615.U457M45 2019      jC813′.6      C2018-904081-5

                            C2018-904082-3

  Published simultaneously in the United States of America by Tundra Books of Northern New York, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, a Penguin Random House Company

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937030

  Edited by Samantha Swenson

  Ebook design adapted from printed book design by Andrew Roberts and John Martz

  The artwork in this book was rendered in graphite.

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  v5.3.2

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. The Surprise

  2. Priscilla

  3. A Fancy Splat

  4. The Plan

  5. So-Nice Cat For Sale

  6. Mrs. Cormier

  7. Stink Potion

  8. Lost Cat

  9. Found Cat

  10. Seeds

  A Little Bit about Bats

  Acknowledgments

  For Naomi, Ida and Margot:

  the fierce & fancy

  Tanentzapf girls

  THE SURPRISE

  The day the cat arrived started out special but ended up spoiled.

  It was Christmas morning, and Megabat was dreaming. He was deep in the jungles of Borneo, about to feast on fruit so fresh it was still on the vine. He could smell a heavenly aroma.

  “Mmmmmmm,” the tiny fruit bat said. He began to rock back and forth.

  “Mellllons,” he drooled.

  “Guess again,” he heard his friend Daniel say—as if from a great distance.

  “Lemmmmons.”

  “Not quite.” The dream was drifting away. Daniel sounded closer now.

  The bat squinted one eye open. He was in the backyard shed, hanging upside down from the beam where he always slept. Beneath his snout, his friend was holding a plump, juicy mandarin orange! Quick as a flash, Megabat grabbed it in his wingtips. “Gots it!” he cried triumphantly, and plunged his snout in.

  Daniel laughed. “Good morning. And happy holidays.”

  “Yes, yes,” Megabat said between slurps of juice. “Joyous day of the dead tree.”

  It was Megabat’s first Christmas in Canada. Not so long ago, he’d lived on a papaya farm in Borneo with other fruit bats who’d never heard of Christmas either. The whole thing was strange to him.

  Besides the baffling tradition of dragging a dead tree into the house, it was the idea of Santa that had him most confused.

  “The man is too fatish and oldish to be climbing stairs?” Megabat had asked when Daniel showed him a picture of Santa sliding down the chimney.

  “Well, no. I mean, Santa’s old…with a big, round belly…but that’s not why he comes down the chimney. I guess it’s because he doesn’t have keys to the houses.”

  Megabat gasped. “Santa is being a rotten robber!” He tapped one talon on the picture, which showed a row of stockings hung along a mantel. “His is having large feets.” Megabat studied Santa’s big black boots. “Therefores, his comes for stealing the giant socks.”

  “He doesn’t take the socks,” Daniel had explained with a smile. “He brings presents and puts them inside. The big socks are called stockings.”

  At that, the bat’s eyes lit up. Because even though Megabat was puzzled by Christmas, he understood presents. In fact, he was a huge fan.

  “Presents for Megabat?” he’d said.

  Daniel had promised there would be…and now the big day had finally arrived.

  Daniel produced a rectangle-shaped package from behind his back. It had a shiny silver bow on top.

  Megabat flapped his wings in excitement. “Santa has filled the sock-things!”

  “Stockings,” Daniel corrected. He took a bag from his coat pocket and set it on the beam. “And I bet he brought us lots of presents. But these ones are from me.”

  Megabat examined the tag on the bag. “Birdgirl!” he called down to his beloved, a pretty-pretty pigeon who was still asleep in her nest underneath his beam. She lifted her snowy white head and looked up at him groggily. “There’s being a present for you.” Over the last few weeks, Daniel and his friend Talia had been teaching Megabat and Birdgirl to read. They were getting better every day. Megabat had recognized the B-I-R-D birrrrd sound on the tag straight away.

  “Coo-woo!” The pigeon bobbed her head when she saw that the bag was filled with sunflower seeds.

  It really was a thoughtful gift.

  “The puffer rats will not be getting those, Birdgirl,” Megabat said with a satisfied smile.

  Ever since the autumn, the no-good puffer rats that lurked in Daniel’s yard had been stealing the birdseed Daniel’s mother set out each morning. She used to put it in the old bird feeder in the tree, but now that the feeder had started to come loose and tilt to one side, she just threw the seeds onto the lawn instead. And because the rats were frisky and ferocious, poor Birdgirl rarely got her fair share.

  “They’re actually called squirrels,” Daniel reminded him. But Megabat had seen enough rotten rats to recognize one when he saw it—even if these ones did have strange puffy tails.

  “And this”—Daniel put the big present down—“is for you, Megabat.”

  “Merr-why Ch-rist-mass, Megabat,” he read off the tag. The bat plucked the bow off and stuck it firmly to the top of his head. Then he tore into the paper, scattering bits everywhere.

  “Oooooooooh!” he said. It was a six-pack of juice boxes. Apple-boysenberry. His favorite.

  “Come on. Christmas isn’t over yet.” Daniel held out his hand for Megabat to perch on. “Mom and Dad are making pancakes, and then it’ll be time for more presents.”

  Megabat gasped. “Waiting! Waiting!” He took off toward the back of the shed where Daniel’s parents kept the recycling box. He could hardly believe he’d forgotten to wrap the present he’d made for his very best friend, but thankfully there was still time. He covered the gift in crumpled newspaper, then took the big silver bow Daniel had just given him and stuck it on top.

  “Present!” he declared moments later, dropping his creation on Daniel’s head. Daniel fumbled, trying to catch it, then bent down to pick it up.

  “Is yours loving it?” Megabat asked, flapping his wings eagerly as Daniel unwrapped the gift.

  “Umm…sure?” Daniel examined the thing.

  The present was made of a toilet paper roll with a tinfoil ball shoved into one end.

  “Is R2-D2!” Megabat said. “Looking!”

  Daniel’s face lit up. Watching Star Wars movies was one of their favorite things to do—and the
droid named R2-D2 was the character they liked most.

  “Oh yeah!” he said. “Thanks, Megabat.”

  The two friends left Birdgirl to her seeds and went inside. “Shhhh,” Daniel said, reminding Megabat to keep quiet and out of sight. He slipped the bat into his bathrobe pocket. Daniel’s mother was terrified of bats. If she ever found out there was one in the house, she’d scream.

  “There you are!” Daniel’s mom walked past with a plate of pancakes and ruffled his hair. “Would you grab the maple syrup?”

  As they sat down to breakfast, Megabat could see the stacks of brightly wrapped presents in the living room. Eating took forever, but finally it was time to open gifts.

  There was Lego and a new video game, art supplies, a hat with earflaps and even a paint-your-own model steam engine that would really drive around a track. It was just the right size for Megabat to sit in!

  Megabat gasped quietly inside Daniel’s pocket as each new present was revealed. All in all, it was a great haul, but then…

  “Hang on,” Daniel’s mom announced. “There’s one more surprise.” Daniel’s parents shared a secret smile before his mom waded through the ripped-up wrapping paper and disappeared upstairs.

  PRISCILLA

  A minute later Daniel’s mother was back, carrying a large, beige plastic box with holes in it. It wasn’t wrapped in shiny paper. It didn’t even have a bow. If it was a present, it looked like a boring one to Megabat.

  “This…” she said grandly, “is much more than just a gift. It’s a brand-new family member. Daniel, I’d like you to meet Priscilla: our very own cat!” Daniel’s mom set the box down gently.

  Daniel dropped to his knees on the carpet. “No way!”

  “Now that we’re living in a bigger house,” his dad started, “your mother thought—”

  “It was a good time to get a pet,” his mom finished. “And then, when Mrs. Cormier down the street told me she’d developed allergies to her cat, Priscilla, well…it just seemed like a perfect solution that she come live with us instead! Isn’t she gorgeous?”

  The cat was huddled at the back of the carrier. When Daniel leaned forward, Megabat peeked out of his pocket. All he could see were two shining eyes staring back at him—that is, until Daniel’s dad reached down and opened the cage door.

  The first things to emerge were the whiskers. They were long and silky—and above them was a small brown nose twitching madly.

  “That’s it, little kitty,” Daniel’s mom cooed. “Don’t be scared.”

  The cat stuck her head out and looked both ways. Her eyes were the color of a clear sky; her fur yellowy white, like vanilla ice cream. And she had warm chocolate patches on her face and ears.

  “I’ll get her some kibble,” Daniel’s mom said.

  “And I’ll set up the litter box,”

  Daniel’s dad said. “We’ll let you two get acquainted.”

  Once the coast was clear, Megabat crawled onto Daniel’s shoulder to get a better look. Now that the cat had come all the way out, he could see that she looked bunny-rabbit soft. Her tail was as fluffy as the feather duster Daniel’s dad used on the shelves.

  “She’s the prettiest cat ever!” Daniel said.

  Megabat had seen cats before. They often walked across the top of the fence in the backyard. But he’d never seen one so clean, so silky or so close-up.

  “Oooooh!” Megabat teetered from side to side. “So niiiiice!” She really was wonderful. And when Megabat liked something—like, really, really liked it…

  SLUUUUURP!

  His super-long tongue flew toward the cat like a fishing line. He’d only meant to lick the top of the cat’s head, but she moved, so instead his tongue caught her across the face with a slobbery slap.

  RE-OOOOOOWWWW!

  The cat leapt onto the coffee table and launched herself at the Christmas tree. For a second, she clung to the branches in the middle while a few ornaments clattered to the floor—and it looked like things might turn out mostly okay—but then the tree started to tilt, the cat began paddling at the air with her back feet, and they both went down with a glittery, howling crash.

  “What happened?!” Daniel’s mom ran in from the kitchen just in time to see the cat dash around the toppled tree, leap over a pile of smashed ornaments and disappear under the couch, trailing a sparkly strand of garland from her tail.

  Megabat dropped from Daniel’s shoulder into his bathrobe pocket before he could be spotted.

  “She tried to climb the tree,” Daniel said, leaving out the part about how the cat had been startled by the sudden lick of a talking fruit bat.

  “Here we go,” said Daniel’s dad, who had rushed in as well. “Didn’t I warn you that getting a cat would be trouble?”

  “She hasn’t even been here an hour,” Daniel’s mother said reasonably. “The poor thing must be terrified. She’ll settle in.”

  After that, Daniel was told to go wait in the kitchen while his parents cleaned up the broken glass ornaments.

  “Megabat!” Daniel scolded, as soon as they were safely out of earshot of his parents. “Don’t ever do that again!”

  Megabat huffed. After all, it was the cat who’d knocked over the tree. He’d only just licked her hello.

  “Cats don’t like being licked,” Daniel explained.

  “That’s being not true!” Megabat argued. He’d seen many cats lie in the sun licking themselves. “Licking is a cat’s very favorite!” Although, now that he knew how hairy a cat tasted, he couldn’t understand why. He stuck out his tongue and scraped at it with his wingtips to get the fur off.

  “Here,” Daniel said, taking a cold pancake off a stack of leftovers. “Why don’t you bring this back to the shed and give it to Birdgirl?”

  “But…what’s about playing toys?” Megabat wailed.

  After breakfast, there was supposed to be time to play with the new toys—like the steam engine that Megabat could sit inside—then lunchtime, board games and hot apple cider.

  In response, Daniel held the back door open. “You can come back tomorrow, okay? After Priscilla’s had some time to get settled. We’ll play then.”

  Megabat draped the cold pancake over his shoulders and made big, sad eyes at his friend, but Daniel didn’t seem to notice. He was already looking back toward the living room, where the cat was still hiding.

  A FANCY SPLAT

  All afternoon and well into the evening, Megabat fumed about the cat who’d ruined Christmas.

  “Hers was so rude,” he told Birdgirl. The pigeon—who was working on an art project that involved a big pile of pinecones—looked up.

  “Firsting of all, hers didn’t even say hello or nicely to meet you!” he began, listing the insults on his left wingtip. “Nextly, hers brokened the decorations on the dead tree! And final, hers ruined the whole of Christmas.”

  Birdgirl gave a sympathetic coo, but it didn’t make Megabat feel much better. He stared out the tiny shed window, hunched his wings up and grumbled as he imagined the wonderful Christmas going on inside the house without him.

  Megabat was still mad the next morning when Daniel came out to get him.

  “Priscilla won’t eat her kibble, so Mom went to buy her some organic cat food in case she likes that better,” Daniel said. “Mom’ll be gone at least an hour. We can paint the steam engine now if you want.”

  Megabat had intended to tell Daniel to go play with his cat instead, since he seemed to like her soooo much, but at the sound of the words steam engine, his large ears perked up.

  “Fine, fine,” he said, coming to hang from Daniel’s outstretched finger. “But only for a shortish time. Mine’s gots a very busy day.”

  “Doing what?” Daniel looked around the shed.

  “Helping Birdgirl with hers’s project.” The bat motioned toward Birdgirl’s pinecones.

  “What’s she making?” Daniel asked.

  In truth, Megabat hadn’t bothered to ask yet, but when he flew over to give his beloved a good-bye pe
ck on the cheek, he gasped in fright. Then he grinned. “Aha! Giant pretend puffer rats!”

  Back when Megabat had lived on the papaya farm in Borneo, the farmer had put large dolls between the rows of fruit trees. The job of these saggy people was to scare away the birds—which was how Megabat knew what Birdgirl had in mind.

  “Hers will be putting them in the yard,” he said, showing the fearsome-looking decoys to Daniel. They were made from pinecones, rocks, acorns, twigs and various things from the recycling bin. Birdgirl was always crafty, but this time she’d outdone herself.

  “Theys will scare the real puffer rats away from stealing the seeds. Birdgirl! Yours is a genius.”

  “Coo-woo,” Birdgirl said modestly.

  Daniel, Megabat and Birdgirl worked together to move the scary pinecone statues into the yard. Then Daniel and Megabat went inside. Megabat was glad to see that Daniel had already brought the model steam engine and paints to the table. But instead of sitting down to start, his friend crouched near the buffet.

  “Priscilla’s been under here all morning,” he explained. “Here kitty-kitty,” Daniel called softly. The cat didn’t emerge, so Daniel lay on his stomach to get a better look. “I guess she’s still not too sure about us, but Mom says she’ll probably come around in a day or two.”

  Megabat couldn’t understand why Daniel liked the cat when she was no fun and all she ever did was hide. But he didn’t want to get in trouble again, so he didn’t say so. Instead, he got busy opening the little pots of paint. There were all the colors of the rainbow—plus a tiny pot of shimmering gold.

  “Did you see how blue her eyes are?” Daniel commented, not getting up to help Megabat, even though the lid of the orange paint was stuck. Instead, he opened a bag of cat treats and shook one into his hand. “You don’t get that with just any cat. It’s because she’s so fancy and purebred.”