“Ignore him,” said Danny. “Wendell’s just paranoid ever since he got ly—lycan—werewolfiness a while ago. You must be my cousin Steve!”
Danny’s cousin wasn’t like any dragon Wendell had ever seen, and after several years as Danny’s best friend, he’d seen quite a few. For one thing, Steve wasn’t much taller than the iguana himself. Instead of spikes, he had a mane of colorful feathers around his head, and in a poof at the tip of his tail.
“And you must be Danny.” Steve grinned. “Is that the patient in the pillowcase?”
“Oh! Yes!” Danny held out the pillowcase. Steve held up his hands.
“No, no. You hold on to him, at least until we’re on the boat.”
“We’re going on a boat?” asked Wendell.
“Of course,” said Steve. “My research station’s upriver.”
They set off into the brush, following Steve. Wendell might have argued, but the mosquitoes were attacking in force now, like a flying squadron of hypodermic needles. He was going to get a horrible disease. Possibly more than one.
His limbs were going to fall off. They might be falling off right now!
Wendell wondered briefly which was worse—the notion of his arms falling off or the fact that Steve and Danny apparently had a similar sense of humor.
“I’ve got bug spray at my station,” said Steve, taking pity on him. “If you can keep everything attached until we get there, we should be able to keep the mosquitoes off you.”
“C’mon!” said Danny. Wendell sighed, hugging himself tightly to present the smallest target possible to insects.
They trudged after Steve. The green wall of the jungle closed behind them.
The trip up the river to Steve’s research station was hot, wet, and terrifying.
The boat was low in the water, and occasionally water slopped in over the sides. And it was made of rubber, which seemed horrifyingly flimsy to Wendell—wasn’t the river full of sharp rocks? Couldn’t piranhas bite through it? Why were the nature shows always concerned about how fast a school of piranhas could skeletonize a cow, when obviously it was how fast they could skeletonize a boat that was really important?
And there were creeper vines hanging low over the river that dragged across the back of
your neck, and might have any sort of biting bug on them, or which might actually be snakes. And not people-snakes, like the Gorskys down the road or Ms. Brown the English teacher—but real wild primitive snakes that couldn’t talk or think or wear clothes, and ate their food in one gulp. Animals.
Those were the terrifying bits.
But even Wendell had to admit that the awesome bits were pretty awesome. The jungle pressed in over the river, and there were wonderfully vivid birds leaping across the tree branches, in colors that Wendell had never seen outside a crayon box. Steve knew most of their names, too. A head as big as Danny’s fists broke out of the water, trailing a V-shaped wake, and turned out to be a giant otter, which looked at them with soulful black eyes before diving again.
And best of all was when they came around a bend and Steve cut the engine, said “Look!” and pointed out a family of snouty, grunting animals that had come down to the water to drink.
“What are they?” breathed Danny.
“Tapirs!” said Wendell.
Steve nodded. “Baird’s tapirs. They’re endangered, although there are still a lot of them around here.” He waited until the tapirs had finished drinking and vanished into the forest before firing up the outboard motor again. “Natives call them cash-i-tzimin, the jungle horse. I’m so glad we saw them!”
That was the thing about Steve. Wendell had to admit that Danny’s cousin was . . . well . . . cool. He got excited about things, not like most adults. He was pointing out birds like a little kid with trading cards, and he was just as thrilled by the otter and the tapirs as Danny and Wendell were.
Plus, he’d cut through the undergrowth back to the boat with a machete. And he’d let Danny try it. Wendell wasn’t entirely comfortable with Danny having large sharp objects, but it was still cool.
Danny’s parents were pretty laid-back as parents go, but even they drew the line at sharp objects, particularly after the incident with the homemade guillotine and the trail of headless action figures.2
“Are there lots of endangered animals around here?” asked Danny.
Steve frowned, and looked like a grown-up for the first time since meeting them. “Some days it seems like they’re all endangered. And I’m trying to get more added to the endangered list, but it’s slow going.”
“More added?”
“My bats,” Steve explained. “There’s a big cave full of them that I’m trying to protect. I’m afraid someone will go in, maybe with dynamite, and start blasting, looking for gold or something. There’s lots of mining around here.”
“Well, some of them would, if the blast didn’t get them outright. But this is a great cave! Bats have been roosting there and raising babies for thousands of years! And it doesn’t seem right to blow up their home just to find a little bit of gold or bauxite or whatever the miners are looking for.”
Danny considered this. He wouldn’t want anybody blowing up his bedroom looking for gold. Admittedly, he’d once dug up part of the backyard looking for pirate treasure, but all he’d located was something called a septic tank, and that had ended badly.3
“The poor bats!” he said. “How do we help them?”
Steve stared up at a patch of sky between the trees. “Well, that’s the problem. They’re all common species, so I can’t prove that there’s any reason to save the cave.”
“The jungle’s huge!” Steve waved his arms in the air. “And it’s full of things nobody’s ever seen! There are bugs and birds that science has never even heard of, because nobody’s ever brought one back and described it!”
“That is so cool!” Danny wondered what it would be like to discover a new bug. He could name it after himself. Or Wendell. Or maybe his mother . . . yeah, that was probably a good idea, particularly if it was something like a butterfly. It never hurt to get some credit built up, so the next time he got in a scrape, Mom would think of her very own butterfly, and she’d let him off with a warning instead of grounding him.
It would have to be pretty, though. A hideous chewing parasite, however interesting, probably wouldn’t work. Mom was pretty cool for a mom, but in Danny’s experience, few girls appreciated being given the gift of lice.
“Anyway,” said Steve, “if I can find a new species, the government will have to protect the cave so people can study it. So that’s what I’m looking for out here.”
A bug the size of Wendell’s hand landed on the prow of the boat and looked at Wendell. Wendell looked back.
It didn’t look like it could bite, but Wendell wasn’t taking any chances. Possibly it could sting, or spit, or make unkind personal remarks. “Go away,” he told the bug.
The bug ignored him. Wendell huddled in the bottom of the boat and held his tail firmly to make sure it didn’t fall off.
Fortunately Steve’s research station came into view before the giant bug attacked. Steve pulled the boat up to the dock and cut the motor. “Well, here we are: Whitton Station! Come on in!”
“Are there bats inside?” asked Danny, holding tight to the pillowcase with its single passenger.
“Lots,” said Steve. “All kinds. Come on in, I’ll introduce you to some of my favorites!”
Wendell inched past the menacing bug on the prow and onto the pier. He weighed the possibility of rabies vs. whatever tropical diseases the bugs might carry, gulped, and followed Danny and Steve up the walkway to the house.
MEET THE BATS!
The inside of Steve’s research station was dimly lit and dreadfully cluttered. Paper was stacked up on every available surface, forming columns that fell over and became sliding piles. On top of those piles were Steve’s plastic tubs and trays. (Some of the tubs were labeled MEALWORMS. Wendell gave them a wide berth.)
Big cages of chicken wire crossed the walls, with dark shapes hanging from the tops, and there was a pegboard with several pillowcases hung from it. A couple of the pillowcases were moving.
“Now!” said Steve, clearing a spot on a large plywood table. “Let’s see the patient.”
Danny carefully laid the pillowcase down on the table. Steve pulled on a pair of gloves and folded back the cloth, revealing the bedraggled black bat.
“Well?” asked Danny, peering curiously over his cousin’s shoulder.
“He’s a big brown bat,” Steve said, carefully stretching out one of the bat’s wings. The bat didn’t resist. Inasmuch as its
little scrunched face had any expression, Wendell would have said that the bat was sulking.
“He doesn’t look very big . . .”
“No, no, that’s the name of the species. There are . . . oh . . . evening bats and false vampire bats and Mexican free-tailed bats. This one’s a big brown bat. There are little brown bats that are even smaller.”
“Are his wings okay?” Danny wanted to know. “There’s that hole in them . . .”
Steve nodded. “They look okay. Nothing seems broken. He might have had that hole for a while too—it’ll close up on its own, given time.” He carefully picked the bat up between gloved fingers and turned it over.
The bat, pushed too far, sank tiny fangs into Steve’s glove.
Wendell jumped back. Danny said, “Cool!”
“And this is why I wear gloves . . .” muttered Steve. He carefully checked the bat over, then returned it to the pillowcase. It took a minute to coax the little teeth out of his gloves. “C’mon, little fella, you don’t want to hurt your teeth on me . . .”
The bat let out a furious staticky sound. Steve grinned.
“What’s that mean?” asked Danny.
“He’s very angry,” said Steve. He closed the pillowcase and took it over to the pegboard. “You would be too, if you nearly drowned and then got shoved in a sack for hours, and then had a giant monster poking your wings. All that’s wrong with him is that he’s wet and tired and had a bad day. I’ll give him a good meal tonight, and you can take him home tomorrow and let him go.”
“Hey, what’s this?” Wendell wanted to know.
Steve and Danny turned. The iguana was facing an object that looked like a cross between a musical instrument and something you’d slice cheese with.
“Oh, that!” Steve leaned over and plucked one of the tiny strands. “That’s a harp trap. Bats fly into it and go sideways to try to avoid the first row of strings, and then they run into the second row. They fall into the little catch down here.”
“Does it hurt them?” Wendell wanted to know. The bats might bite, but they were so tiny, it seemed mean to knock them out of the air like that.
“Not at all,” Steve assured him. “I mean, they probably don’t enjoy it, but they don’t get hurt. Then I can count how many and what species they are, and tag them and let them go. I promise, I’m trying to save bats, not scar them for life.” He took down one of the other pillowcases. “Would you like to see some of them?”
“Sure!”
Steve set the pillowcase down and folded it back, revealing a row of tiny white puffballs. “These are Honduran white bats. They actually make little tents out of big leaves, and hang inside them.”
The white bats were absurdly cute. Given how ugly their bat was, Danny had pictured most bats as hideous little gargoyles, but the white bats looked like a cross between a piglet and a powder puff.
“They’re adorable!” said Danny.
“Yeah.” Steve grinned. “This one’s not, though . . .” He opened one of the cages and reached in a gloved hand.
“Does it drink blood?” quavered Wendell from behind Danny.
“Nah,” said Steve, stroking the ugly creature’s head. “Just fruit. They’re actually very nice little bats. And the poor things are endangered, too.”
Wendell normally would have had a hard time feeling sorry for something with a face like the back end of a crab, but Steve seemed to like it.
Actually, Steve was chucking it under the chin and saying, “Who’s a good widdle bat, den? You! Yes, you is!” like Wendell’s elderly aunt with her poodle.
It occurred to Wendell that possibly Steve had been living out in the jungle too long.
“Do you have any vampires?” Danny wanted to know. “Do you feed them blood?”
“No, no vampires.” Steve put the wrinkled bat away, with a last cuddle. “It’s hard to keep blood laying around—you have to mix it with this goop so it doesn’t dry out and turn the inside of the feeder into a giant scab—”
Danny rolled his eyes at this blatant show of vocabulary.
“Anyway, vampires are actually pretty harmless. They mostly feed on cows, and the cows don’t even notice. They’re just like big mosquitoes. Although—this is kinda disgusting and neat—bats have to be really light in order to fly, right?”
“Right,” said Danny, who had noticed that their bat hardly weighed anything. Wendell nodded.
“Well, the vampires are so tiny, and blood is mostly liquid, so the bats have to start peeing within two minutes of feeding, just to get rid of all that excess fluid. In one end, and right out the other. It’s incredibly efficient. Otherwise they’d be too heavy to fly!”
“Gross!” said Danny, delighted.
“I wish I’d known that for my report,” muttered Wendell.
“So I don’t keep any vampires. Cleaning up after them is a pain.” Steve reached into the last cage. “And anyway, these guys are much scarier.”
The bat he brought out was enormous. Its wings were almost as long as Wendell’s arms, and it had a long, slender muzzle with a little plug of flesh on the end.
“What does he eat?” asked Danny, much impressed.
“Other bats,” said Steve with relish.
“He’s a cannibal?” Wendell asked.
Danny knew immediately what he wanted for Christmas.
“Birds too. He’ll drop on them out of the trees and chomp down on their heads. The Zapotec Indians—they used to live around here—worshipped a giant false vampire bat as a god,” said Steve. “They called him Camazotz, the lord of bats.”
The bat contrived to look smug and somewhat evil.
“I can see why,” said Wendell.
“He was the god of night and death and fire,” Steve said. “The Zapotec sacrificed prisoners to him.”
“You mean people?” asked Danny.
“Yup,” said Steve. “Sometimes they staged mock wars just to get prisoners to feed to Camazotz.”
Steve reluctantly put the false vampire bat away. “Some people think there was an actual giant bat that they worshipped. It’s probably extinct, if it ever existed.”
Wendell considered the possibility of giant bats flying around eating other bats—and possibly small iguanas—and thought that extinction might be a positive thing in this case.
“I’d love to find one,” said Steve wistfully. “Then they’d have to protect my cave.”
“Where is your cave?” asked Danny.
“Oh!” Steve glanced at the clock. “It’s getting late—the bats will be waking up soon. You want to see it?”
“Yes!” said Danny.
“Um,” said Wendell.
Steve reached under one of the tables and handed Wendell a can of bug spray. “And you’ll both need rain boots,” he said.
“Rain boots?” asked Wendell faintly.
“The floor of a bat cave is . . . is . . .” Steve waved his hands aimlessly. “Well, you’ll see. Look, I think I’ve got some extras from my last set of interns.”
And so, appropriately shod, and reeking of bug spray, the trio tromped out into the darkening jungle.
CREEPY AND CRAWLY
The jungle was even denser out here, away from the roads, and it was like nothing Danny and Wendell had ever seen.
Danny was used to regular forests, where the trees went up an
d down, and there were some little low plants and bushes. You had to detour around the bushes, but generally it was like walking in a hall full of pillars, with a distant green ceiling.
The jungle was like a green wall. Every square inch was stuffed with leaf and vine and bark and creeper. There were no trails, no gaps, no breaks. It was just solid, endless green.
Steve hacked out a path for them with his machete, slicing back branches and leaves. The frightening thing was how little effect it seemed to have—it was a huge knife, and he swung his arm in big arcs, and yet when Wendell looked behind them, the path seemed to be closing before his eyes.
The iguana could practically see the jungle growing. Never mind the bugs and their diseases—if he stood still long enough, would creepers twist around his ankles and orchids start rooting in his scales?
“How often do you go down this way?” asked Wendell.
“Every . . . night . . .” said Steve, panting.
“And you have to do this every time?”
“Yup.”
It took about twenty minutes to get through the jungle, and then they came out on a rocky hillside. (Even the rocks were threaded with green creepers, but the really big trees couldn’t seem to get a grip.) Across the low valley stood another wall of green, and sticking out of it was a rocky outcropping. Under the outcropping lay darkness, and out of the darkness, in a slow, lazy spiral, came bats.
There were hundreds of bats, maybe thousands, and more were pouring like smoke out of the cave. There were more bats than Danny had ever dreamed existed in the world. Even Wendell, who had written that report on them, had to admit that there was a big difference between reading that a cave might contain over a million bats and actually seeing them, a great cloud of wings scribbled across the sky.
Lair of the Bat Monster Page 2
