The Bat Sprites

by Linda Chapman

  Anthony stomped out of the kitchen.

  “Oh, great. Just kill me now!” Sophie muttered.

  Sophie and Sam walked slowly upstairs. “I can’t believe we’ve got to share with Anthony,” said Sophie.

  “Maybe your grandpa will say we don’t have to,” said Sam hopefully. “Mrs B goes home after supper, doesn’t she? Well, why don’t we ask your grandpa if we can sleep in the lounge or on the landing or…”

  “In the bath?” suggested Sophie. Anywhere would be better than sharing with Anthony! “You’re right. We’ll ask Grandpa later.” She lowered her voice. “Should we look for the gem now? The spare room has got floorboards instead of carpet. I know Mrs B said we mustn’t go up there, but we have to check!”

  Sam nodded, and they crept up the second flight of stairs to the spare room in the attic. There was a walk-in cupboard built into the far side of the room, and the double bed was covered with boxes saying FRAGILE.

  “Is there a creaky floorboard in here?” wondered Sophie. She walked around the wooden floor, listening hard. “No, nothing,” she sighed.

  “Maybe it isn’t in here after all,” said Sam. “There’ll be floorboards under the carpet in the other rooms.”

  “Great, I can just imagine Mrs B’s face if I start ripping up the carpet!” giggled Sophie as they left the room.

  They reached the bottom of the staircase just as Mrs B appeared with an armload of towels. She frowned as she put them in the bathroom. “Have you two been in the spare room?”

  “No,” Sophie lied. “We… we were just playing on the staircase.”

  “Good. You know I don’t want to see any of you going up there.”

  As Mrs B went downstairs again, Sam and Sophie headed for Sophie’s room. Suddenly two balls of paper flew out of Anthony’s doorway. One hit Sophie on the head and one hit Sam.

  “Ten points for the geek. Ten points for the freak!” Anthony crowed as he jumped out.

  Sophie leaped at him, but he immediately pulled out a can from behind his back.

  “Come any closer and I’ll fire!”

  Sophie saw that it was a can of foam filler that the decorator had been using. She’d watched him that morning as he’d squirted it into the cracks in the walls – the foam had frozen almost instantly into a stiff pale-green mass, which he’d then filed away and smoothed down.

  Anthony advanced with the can held out in front of him. “I’m going to sleep with this in my hand tonight, and if you come anywhere near me I’ll get you with it.”

  “Yeah, like we’d want to come near you!” Sam retorted. Sophie watched her brother warily. She knew he wouldn’t hesitate to squirt her with the green foam, and he had a very accurate aim.

  Anthony smirked and ran down the stairs.

  “There’s absolutely no way I can cope with him all night!” grumbled Sophie. They went into her room, and she gritted her teeth as she saw Anthony’s clothes dumped on her bed.

  Sam nodded. “Maybe we can ask your grandpa if we can camp in the garden?”

  Seeing that her window was open, Sophie went to close it. It was almost dark outside now.

  As she reached for the handle, she paused. A tingling had started in her toes and power was surging up through her body.

  “Sam, my Guardian powers!” she said in alarm. “There must be a shadow creature nearby!” Whenever Sophie was near a shadow creature, the Guardian magic made her super-strong and super-fast.

  “Maybe there’s one in the garden,” said Sam, joining her at the window.

  Suddenly they both yelled and ducked as a black bat flew straight at them.

  It was as big as a squirrel with wide, outstretched wings, and it was making strange squeaking, clicking noises. It swooped over their heads, and Sophie swung round just in time to see it change into a figure as tall as she was, with grey, furry skin and red eyes gleaming in its evil-looking face. It smelt horrible, like rotting food and bad eggs.

  Sophie jumped into a fighting stance: hands up, one leg slightly in front of the other. She didn’t feel scared – not with the Guardian powers flowing through her. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I want the gem. The key has shown us that it’s here,” the bat creature snarled. “And I’m going to get it!”

  Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Oh, you are, are you?”

  “Don’t toy with me!” The creature showed its pointed fangs. “Where is it, little girl?”

  Sam winced. “That’s so not a good thing to call her.”

  Before he’d finished speaking, Sophie was attacking the bat with a front snap kick, lifting her right leg up and lashing out with her foot. It caught the creature square in the chest. “Ooh, sorry, the little girl must have tripped,” snapped Sophie.

  The bat shrieked and grabbed at Sophie’s foot with its long fingers, catching her ankle. Sophie saw its fangs flash down and managed to turn her fall into a back flip, yanking her foot free. She landed nimbly, dodging as the creature swung at her, and then kicked her leg out in a circle, her shin thwacking into the back of its legs. It fell forwards with a hiss.

  “Oopsy, tripped again!” she grinned.

  “Yeah, and take that!” Sam grabbed the bin and threw it over the creature’s head. Balls of paper and apple cores rained out.

  “Argh! Get this thing off me! Get it off!” The bat’s voice was muffled as it staggered around, bumping into the bed and bookshelves. Its screeches and squeals echoed back until finally it toppled over and the bin fell off its head.

  “You’ll pay for that!” it screeched as it leapt at Sophie, yellow fangs bared. She snatched up a metal trophy she’d won for tae kwon do and thwacked it hard on its head.

  The creature keeled over and lay still.

  For a moment, there was silence. Sophie and Sam both stared at the bat’s grey, furry body lying on the floor.

  “Is it… is it… dead?” breathed Sam.

  Sophie swallowed and bent over the creature. Its chest still seemed to be moving. She poked it with her foot, but it didn’t stir. “I think I just knocked it out.”

  “Sophie!” Mrs B called up the stairs. “It sounds like there’s a herd of elephants in your bedroom. What are you doing?”

  Sophie ran to the door. “Nothing!” she called. She turned to Sam. “Quick! We’ve got to get rid of it!”

  “Great idea! How? It’s as big as we are!”

  “You must be doing something,” Mrs B shouted. They heard her footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Sophie looked wildly at Sam. “Oh, no! What do we do now?”

  Sam’s eyes were wide. “Panic!”

  Sam grabbed the creature. Sophie ran to help. But Mrs B was already outside her bedroom door. The handle was turning…

  Using her superspeed, Sophie leaped to the open door, jumped through it and slammed it after her. Mrs B blinked in surprise.

  “Whatever’s going on?”

  “Nothing!” Sophie smiled brightly.

  “So what was all that screaming about then?” Mrs B reached for the door handle.

  “No! You can’t go in!” Sophie exclaimed, as she heard a thump from inside. “There’s… there’s a bat in there.”

  “A bat?” Mrs B stared. “Did it come in through the window? Well, let me in. I don’t mind bats. I’ll catch it and—”

  “I didn’t mean a bat!” gabbled Sophie. “I meant you can’t go in because Sam’s… Sam’s… making a rat! Yes, he’s sitting behind the door making a rat.”

  Mrs B’s eyes narrowed. “Sam’s making a rat,” she repeated disbelievingly.

  “For school,” Sophie went on. “We’re doing the Middle Ages, and there were lots of rats then, spreading the plague. We had to make one for homework, and we were pretending it was real – that’s what all the crashing was about. Right, Sam?” She shouted through the door. “You’re making a rat for your school project!”

  “Sophie.” Mrs B’s voice grew strict. “Let me past, please. There is something going
on in your room and I want to see what it is.”

  “Sam!” Sophie called desperately. “Mrs B wants to see that rat you’ve been making!”

  “Er… OK,” Sam replied. “Just a second!” There was another thump, a few seconds of silence and then Sam opened the door.

  “Hi, Mrs B.” He held up a piece of rolled-up paper from Sophie’s bin. He’d hastily drawn on two eyes, two ears and some whiskers. “This… this is my rat. Eek eek!” He waggled it around.

  Mrs B frowned, sniffed the air suspiciously and walked into the room. Sophie looked around frantically. Whatever had Sam done with the creature?

  A dark foot fell out from under her bed.

  Sophie gave a squeak of alarm. Leaping across the room, she pushed the foot back under the bed before Mrs B could see. The housekeeper turned round.

  “Sophie? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Fine! Absolutely, wonderfully fine!” gulped Sophie.

  “Well, everything seems OK in here,” said Mrs B, looking like she couldn’t quite believe it.

  Sam held the rat up. “It’s like Sophie said. I’m just doing my school project.”

  Mrs B shook her head. “I’d better go and finish off supper then,” she said.

  Sophie felt the creature’s foot flop against her own foot again and quickly kicked it under the bed as Mrs B went out. Sam shut the door and they both collapsed on the floor.

  “That was close!” Sophie said.

  “I almost died when its foot flopped out!” agreed Sam. “Imagine if she’d seen it.”

  Sophie didn’t want to imagine it! “What are we going to do now?” She peered under the bed. The creature lay there, its red eyes shut, but its long fangs and wings making it looking eerily like a vampire. “We’ve got to get rid of it!”

  “But how?” said Sam.

  “Push it out of the window?” suggested Sophie.

  “What if Mrs B sees it in the garden?” pointed out Sam. “And what if it wakes up and tries to get back in?”

  Sophie groaned. “We need Grandpa. Look, let’s put it somewhere safe and ring Grandpa on his mobile. He’ll help us work out what to do.”

  “But where do we put it?” protested Sam. “We can’t leave it in here! Anthony could come in at any second.”

  Sophie had an idea. “The spare room! It’s the only place no one will go. It can go in the big cupboard up there and I can lock it in. It’ll only take me a few seconds to stick it in the cupboard and come back down. You can keep guard. Yell if Mrs B or Anthony starts to come up the stairs and I’ll whizz down super-fast.”

  Sam looked doubtful, but he nodded. “OK.”

  Sophie pulled the creature out from under the bed. The foul smell coming off it was like toilets and old milk mixed together, and seemed to be growing stronger by the second. “Ew! It really stinks!”

  Sam made a face. “Yuck, I can really smell it now too.” He went to the door. “Looks like the coast’s clear.”

  “Operation Dracula begins!” said Sophie, wrinkling her nose and throwing the bat over her shoulders. Its fur felt greasy to the touch, and its fangs were dangerously close to her skin.

  She raced up the stairs to the spare room at superspeed. Opening the big, built-in cupboard she pushed the creature inside, propping it against the wall. She tried to shut the door, but its body slumped sideways, forcing it open. Argh! Sophie tried to shove it back inside again, but without success. Then to her horror she heard Sam’s warning yell. Someone was coming! What now?

  Looking around, she saw a chest at the end of the bed. Grabbing the creature again, she quickly lifted the lid and dumped it inside.

  “Just practising my singing, Mrs B!” she heard Sam say in a very loud voice. “No, I don’t know what that smell is either.”

  Mrs B said something Sophie couldn’t catch.

  “You think it’s coming from the SPARE ROOM?” bellowed Sam. “No way!”

  Eek! Mrs B was on her way up! Sophie had no time to do anything other than pull the lid of the chest shut and then jump back into the wardrobe herself. She closed the door and sat in the dark, her heart pounding as she heard Mrs B come into the room.

  “Yes, it definitely seems to be coming from up here,” she heard the housekeeper say.

  Sophie edged into one corner of the wardrobe in case Mrs B opened the door. There was a creak and she felt something move under her legs. She reached down and pressed. The floorboard wobbled! A creaking floorboard! Could it be… could it be…?

  Moving as silently as she could, Sophie gently prised up the loose floorboard. There was a space underneath. She reached into it and felt her fingers close on a hard, round gem. She pulled it out and saw it glittering with a turquoise glow. The final shadow gem! She’d found it!

  “Well, there’s nothing that’s obviously causing a smell up here,” said Mrs B’s voice. “But I think I’ll open the window.” Sophie heard her unlatching the sloping attic windows. “Now, I must get back to that bolognese sauce before it burns. Come downstairs please, Sam. I don’t want anyone up here.”

  There were sounds of footsteps leaving. Sophie listened hard. Had Mrs B definitely gone?

  “Sophie?” she heard Sam’s whisper. He’d crept back up the stairs. “Where are you?”

  “In here!” Sophie opened the door and scrambled out. “And look!” She held up the glittering turquoise gem, grinning in delight.

  Sam gave a whoop. “You found the final gem! So now we’ve got them all! We—”

  “Ssh!” Sophie said quickly, as she heard a suspicious thump from inside the trunk – but it was too late.

  BANG! The lid of the chest fell open and the creature sprang out. “You have the gem!” it screeched, flying at her.

  Sophie threw herself to one side, the gem tight in her hand. She leapt up as the bat rushed at her again. “Give me that gem!” Its voice rose. Just then a piercing noise split the air as the smoke alarm went off in the kitchen. Mrs B had obviously not reached her bolognese in time.

  The high-pitched sound screamed through the whole house. Sophie jumped into the air, kicking out with her left foot. But to her astonishment the bat had blundered away, shrieking and covering its ears with its hands. It began to crash about from side to side, smashing blindly into things.

  Sophie landed and stared. “What’s happening to it?”

  “I don’t know!” Sam jumped out of the way as the creature almost bumped into him. It saw the open window and with a last desperate squeal dived out, wings flapping.

  It had gone.

  Sophie and Sam looked at each other. The smoke detector stopped. “Quick, we’d better get downstairs!” Sophie could feel her powers fading now the shadow creature had gone. She grabbed Sam’s hand and they raced back into her room.

  “Well, that was weird,” said Sophie. “But at least it went away.”

  Sam’s face was anxious. “But now it knows you’ve got the gems – it heard me say we’ve got all of them! It’s bound to come back.”

  “Maybe with some friends,” worried Sophie.

  “That wouldn’t be good,” said Sam.

  Sophie gulped as icy fingers trickled down her spine. “No, not good at all!”

  Bat Sprite!” Grandpa exclaimed. It was soon after he’d got back, and he, Sophie and Sam were all in his bedroom.

  “Yes, we looked it up in the

  Shadow Files. It was definitely a Bat Sprite, and now it knows we have all the gems,” said Sophie. “What should we do?”

  Grandpa paced around. “We need to hide the gems somewhere they won’t be found. I don’t know where yet – I need to think this through. For the moment, let’s keep all the windows closed and get ready to fend off an attack if one comes. Did the Shadow Files say anything about how to defeat Bat Sprites?”

  “Not really.” Sam handed him the book opened to the right page. “All it says is they live in a big group, and like to sleep in the day and are awake at night.”

  Sophie looked over Grandpa’s shoulder a
t the hand-drawn picture of the Bat Sprite. As well as the note about the bats’ sleeping habits, the word ECHOLOCATION was written in capitals and underlined.

  “Hmmm,” said Grandpa, seeing it too. He stroked his chin. “Echolocation.”

  “Echo-what?” asked Sophie, puzzled.

  “Echo-location,’ replied Grandpa. “Normal bats use it to help them fly in the dark. Their eyesight isn’t great, so they send out sounds and then work out what’s around them by listening to the echoes that come back. Maybe Bat Sprites do the same.” Grandpa sighed and closed the book. “Which is interesting, but it would be more helpful to have notes on how to defeat the creatures! Right, go and check all the windows are closed and then get anything ready that you think might be useful in a fight. If the word spreads through the woods that we have all the gems here, we may have other visitors – not just the Bat Sprites. I’m going to go tell Mrs B she can go home for the night. I’ll walk her home to make sure she’s safe from the shadow creatures – you two will be OK for a few minutes, won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Sophie, hoping she sounded more brave than she felt. “And what about Anthony?”

  “I’ll say he can play on the PlayStation all evening; that’ll keep him out of the way and occupied,” said Grandpa. He fixed them with a worried look. “Get moving!”

  Sophie and Sam quickly checked all the windows and drew the curtains shut. Downstairs they could hear Grandpa seeing Mrs B out of the house and offering to walk her to her cottage. The PlayStation was on in the lounge and nothing made Anthony happier than being allowed to play on it for hours, so hopefully he was out of the way for the night.

  Sophie got her rucksack out from under her bed and then she and Sam started going around the house filling it with all the things they’d used to fight shadow creatures in the past – the torch they’d shone on the Fog Boggarts who hated bright light; a bag of salt because salt had melted the Icicle Imps; a can of starch they’d used to harden the skins of the Swamp Boggles, so that Sophie’s kicks would hurt them. As she took the starch from the cupboard she also took a tin of lemon furniture polish, because Spider Gnomes hated the smell of lemon. She grabbed a can of bug spray too, just in case.