by H. Y. Hanna
“I’m so sorry,” said Biscuit’s Missus, looking up in embarrassment. “I’ll clean it up. You know Biscuit’s a greedy pig—”
“Am not a pig!” squealed Biscuit indignantly as he wriggled in his human’s grasp.
“—and he can’t keep his nose out of anything. But it’s just some spilled jelly. Nothing else was lost.”
“No, no,” moaned Cook, wringing her hands. “It’s not just jelly. It’s awful bad luck. It’s an omen—them evil spirits are comin’! They’re comin’ to haunt this house!”
“Now, now, Cook,” said Lord Higginbottom, coming forwards through the crowd. “Let’s not get worked up. It’s just the antics of a naughty pup, eh? I know it’s Halloween and you’re a bit nervous, but this is all just for fun. A chance for the kiddies to get some sweets and wear a silly costume, eh? Nobody really believes that there are ghosts and demons about—”
WHUMP!
A black blur exploded against the outside of the window, making everyone jump and jerk their heads around.
Cook shrieked.
Something flapped madly against the glass and there was the sound of scratching, then suddenly the black blur was in the room. People screamed and ducked as it swooped around the crowd.
“Aaaaah!” Cook hopped around, smacking her own head. “It’s in me hair! It’s in me hair!”
The black shape turned and zoomed towards the dogs. Ruffster yelped and dived out of the way. Tyson flattened himself to the floor while Suka flung herself across the room to stand in front of her Boy.
Honey looked up in horror as the blur of black wings came hurtling straight towards her.
THREE
“HONEY! DUCK!”
At the last moment, Honey jerked her head out of the way and dropped into a crouch. The black blur flew past her head and she felt the rush of air from its silent wings. She stood up straight again and followed the black shape with her eyes. It circled the room once more, causing more shrieks and yells of alarm, and then it flew into the wall above the chimney place.
Smack.
The black shape fluttered in the air for a moment, then plummeted to the ground. The humans gathered around and leaned forwards cautiously. Honey craned her neck to look through the crowd. She saw a furry little brown blob with a mouse-like head, dark pointy ears, and a two webbed, leathery wings stretching out from the tiny body.
“It’s a bat,” said Suka, coming to stand next to her.
“It’s a bat!” gasped Cook. “Oh no! Now we really are doomed! Aye, if you see a bat on Halloween and it flies into your house, ’tis a sure sign that ghosts or evil spirits are near. If the bat flies ’round three times, that there’s a death omen!”
Several people in the crowd began murmuring uneasily. Honey saw Suka’s Boy look scared. Biscuit’s Missus went up to him and put her arms around him, giving him a comforting hug.
“Is it dead?” somebody in the crowd asked.
“How did it get in?”
“Oh my God, do you think it’s a vampire bat? Will it try to suck our blood?”
“Calm down, calm down, everyone,” said Lord Higginbottom in his booming voice. “It’s just a little pipistrelle bat. Most common bat in Britain. Only eats insects. Nothing dangerous. Cook must have opened the window slightly and it slipped in. Hmm, looks like it’s still alive...” He leaned over the little form on the floor. The bat was starting to move weakly now, fluttering its wings, but it didn’t seem able to get up. “Ah, yes, definitely alive. Might be a bit stunned from when it hit the wall. Won’t be able to fly for a while.”
“That there’s a bad omen!” cried Cook, staring at the bat wild-eyed. “You need to destroy it, you do! Look at its evil little face!”
Honey thought the bat actually looked quite cute, with its slightly squashed nose and little, pointy ears. It was making tiny, squeaking sounds of distress as it flapped about, but the humans didn’t seem able to hear it. Honey’s heart squeezed clenched in pity. The poor little thing looked so weak and scared. She wanted to go over and lick it better. But she didn’t think the bat would appreciate the slobber.
“We’d best catch it and keep it somewhere safe. Can you give me that box, please?” Lord Higginbottom said, pointing to an empty cardboard box by the fireplace. Olivia picked up the box and handed it to him. He grabbed a large linen napkin from the buffet table and scooped the bat up. It was so tiny, it fit easily into the palm of his hand. Gently, he deposited it inside the cardboard box. He looked down at it in the box. “By Jove, it’s a fine specimen. Look at those perfect interfemoral membranes and phalanges on the wings.” Something passed in his face and his eyes gleamed. “Would be the perfect addition to complete my collection...” he muttered.
Honey looked at him in alarm. Was he thinking of turning the little bat into a stuffed pet?
She looked around at the other humans but no one else seemed to have heard Lord Higginbottom’s comment. Olivia was busy helping to reassure Suka’s Boy and inviting him to come closer to the box to see the bat. Most other people were crowded around the box, talking excitedly.
Cook was not, though. Instead, she marched up to Lord Higginbottom and grabbed his arm. She dragged him away from the box and the crowd of people, taking him off to one side. Honey hesitated, then drifted after them. She hovered beside them, pretending to sniff a sofa cushion, while pricking her ears to listen to their conversation.
“You got to destroy that bat, Lord Higginbottom!” Cook cried.
“Now, Cook, you know that bats are protected and can’t be harmed.”
“I don’t care! Them’s different! This one’s evil! You mark me words, it’ll bring bad luck to this house, it will!” She twisted her apron fretfully. “Anyway, looks like it hurt its wing already—so mebbe ’twould be kinder to put it to sleep.”
Lord Higginbottom rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s hurt its wing. I think it was just stunned and should recover. Still...” He got that gleam in his eyes again. “It would make a beautiful addition to my collection...” He patted her arm. “Don’t worry, Cook, I’ll just put it in my study for now and we can decide when the party is over.”
They drifted back to the crowd around the box and Honey watched worriedly as Lord Higginbottom picked up the box and left the room, obviously heading for his study. A few minutes later, he returned and everybody went back to enjoying the party. But Honey couldn’t quite forget that greedy gleam in his eyes.
“What’s the matter, mate?” Ruffster came up to her. “You’ve got so many wrinkles on your forehead, you’re lookin’ like a giant Sharpei!”
“I’m worried about the little bat,” said Honey. “I think... I think it might be in danger. Listen, can you get the others?”
When her friends had collected around her, Honey quickly repeated the conversation she had overheard between Cook and Lord Higginbottom.
“Howling Hyenas, do you think they’re going to kill the little bat and stuff it?” cried Suka.
“I don’t know,” said Honey miserably. “But I think we need to do something.”
“Where’s the bat now?” growled Tyson.
“In Lord Higginbottom’s study, though I’m not sure where that is,” said Honey.
“That’s easy,” said Biscuit. “I can track the little bat’s scent.” He raised his nose into the air and sniffed deeply, then he turned excitedly towards the double doors leading back into the great hall. “This way!”
They followed Biscuit out of the drawing room and across the great hall, moving warily around the frozen, stuffed figures. The Beagle rushed ahead, circled around, stopped, sniffed, circled back, then rushed ahead again. Finally, they reached the other side of the great hall and found themselves at a door which was slightly ajar.
Honey gave the door a nudge with her nose and it swung open on creaking hinges. They peered into the darkened room inside. It was a study, with deep leather armchairs and walls filled with bookcases. On the far side of the room was an antique writin
g desk and sitting on the floor, beside the desk, was the cardboard box.
“There!” said Suka, bounding over to the box.
They gathered around it. Honey nosed the napkin draped across the top, pushing it gently aside so that they could all look inside. The bat cowered in a corner of the box, looking up at them fearfully. Its little chest was rising and falling rapidly, and its eyes were big and scared. It was making faint squeaking noises and flapping its wings weakly.
“It looks like a baby,” said Suka, cocking her head to one side. “Well, not a baby-baby, but sort of like my Boy’s age, for bats.”
“Yeah, a young bat,” said Ruffster, leaning in for a closer look. “Wonder where its home is?”
“Forest,” growled Tyson.
Suka nodded. “I’ve seen lots of bats flying out of the forest at night—especially at twilight. One of my Boy’s books has a section on bats and it says they sleep hanging upside down in trees or old buildings or caves.”
“Hangin’ upside down?” said Ruffster with a laugh. “Mate, you’ve gotta be jokin’.”
“No, all bats hang upside down,” said Suka. “Didn’t you know?”
“Why would they want to do that?” asked Ruffster.
Suka shrugged. “Why do dogs sniff bums and leave Peemail?”
“The poor thing looks so scared,” said Biscuit, sniffing the bat gently. “Maybe it was just learning to fly and it got lost?”
Honey hadn’t said anything for a while, but now she raised her head decisively. “We can’t leave it here.”
Ruffster looked at her in surprise. “What d’you mean, mate?”
“We’ve got to make sure that the little bat is safe from Lord Higginbottom,” said Honey. “I don’t want it to end up like one of those stuffed creatures in that hall outside.”
“I know!” said Biscuit, wagging his tail. “Maybe we can get our humans to bring us back tomorrow and they can take the bat to a wildlife rescue place—”
Honey shook her head. “No, I heard Lord Higginbottom tell Cook that they would deal with the bat after the party is over. There’s no time—we can’t wait until tomorrow.” She took a deep breath. “We’ve got to find its home in the forest and take it back. Tonight.”
FOUR
“TONIGHT?” BISCUIT WHINED and tucked his tail under his stomach. “But it’s Halloween!”
“Yeah, it’s a bad idea going into the forest tonight,” said Suka, shuffling her paws, her blue eyes uneasy “You heard Cook—all sorts of ghosts and monsters could be out there!”
“For the love of bacon, you’re not tellin’ me you believe all that rubbish?” groaned Ruffster.
“Silly stories to scare human pups,” growled Tyson.
“Tyson’s right,” said Honey. “We can’t let some silly superstitions stop us.”
“But the forest is enormous!” protested Suka. “We don’t know where the little bat’s colony is. We could be wandering around all night and still not find it.”
“Maybe Biscuit can track the bat’s scent back to its colony...?” Honey looked at the Beagle hopefully. They had relied on his tracking abilities more than once when solving past mysteries.
Biscuit looked doubtful. “I could try. But tracking something in a huge outdoor space is really different to tracking it indoors in a house, especially if it was flying and not walking on the ground.”
“Besides, you don’t even know if the bat came straight from its colony,” argued Ruffster. “What if it’d been doin’ loops around town and other places before comin’ here? We could end up followin’ its trail backwards, all over the place, and gettin’ totally lost!”
“Well, how about—”
“Why don’t ya ask the bat?” growled Tyson.
Everybody stopped and looked at the Jack Russell. Honey wagged her tail. Of course, Tyson was right! He was a dog of few words, but the few that he spoke usually made a lot of sense. They were being silly, guessing by themselves, when they could just ask the bat.
She turned back to the box, then stiffened as she heard a noise outside. They all froze, ears pricked, straining to hear. Was someone there? Lord Higginbottom coming back to the study?
“I’ll go out and check,” offered Suka. With a flick of her fluffy tail, the Husky slipped back out into the great hall.
The others turned back to the little bat again. It seemed to have calmed down a bit now, but it was still making high-pitched sounds of distress. Wait... were those just squeaks of fear or something else? Honey tilted her head and furrowed her brow, listening carefully. Dogs could hear high enough frequencies to distinguish bat calls, but hearing it and understanding it were two different things.
“Does anyone speak Bat?” asked Honey.
“I know a bit of Mouse,” growled Tyson. “I think that’s similar—just a different accent. Bat is higher-pitched.”
“Can you tell what the little bat’s saying?”
“Isn’t it just cryin’ for its mummy?” asked Ruffster.
“No, I think it’s saying something,” insisted Honey. “The same thing. Over and over.”
“Yer right,” growled Tyson. “Sounds like he’s saying... some numbers over and over.”
“Numbers?”
Tyson nodded. He cocked his head again to listen, then growled slowly, “Fifty-one point six degrees north one point eight degrees west.”
“But... that’s just a load o’ gibberish,” complained Ruffster. “Maybe the bat hit its head too hard when it flew into the wall.”
“Degrees is for telling how hot or cold something is,” suggested Biscuit.
“Yes, that’s right!” said Honey excitedly. “I remember seeing something in the TV box with Olivia—it was about the North Pole, where it’s really cold... Six degrees is really cold, isn’t it? Maybe that’s what ‘six degrees north’ means?”
“You mean... the little bat is sayin’ that he’s really cold?” asked Ruffster, scratching his ear sceptically.
“What about the fifty-one points?” growled Tyson.
“Maybe he’s talking about how many naughty foods he ate,” said Biscuit.
The other dogs all looked at him in bewilderment.
“My Missus says foods have points,” explained Biscuit. “And naughty foods—the really yummy stuff—has more points. She’s always counting the points of what she eats every day and writing them inside a book.”
“What’s the point of writin’ them in a book?” asked Ruffster.
“Well, then she waits and watches them,” said Biscuit.
“She what?”
Biscuit nodded. “It’s called Wait Watchers. You wait and watch the points—and after a while, you get thinner.”
“Maybe you should watch those points too, mate,” said Ruffster, eyeing Biscuit’s podgy belly.
“I’m not fat!” cried Biscuit indignantly. “Us Beagles are supposed to be a nice, solid kind of dog.”
“The bat doesn’t look fat either,” growled Tyson, glancing back in the box. “Don’t know why it’s watching those points.”
“I think we’re on the wrong track,” said Honey with a sigh. She sank to the ground next to the box and rested her chin on her paws. “Maybe the numbers mean something else entirely. Or maybe Ruffster’s right and they’re just nonsense...”
“What have I missed?” asked Suka as she came back into the room.
Tyson told the Husky about the strange numbers and words that the little bat kept repeating.
“Oh, I know exactly what those numbers mean!” cried Suka.
“You do?” Honey raised her head.
Suka nodded eagerly. “They’re coordinates! Latitude and longitude!”
“Huh?” Ruffster looked completely lost.
Suka glanced around the study, her gaze coming to rest on the far wall where two large maps were pinned onto the wall, side by side. “C’mon, I’ll show you what I mean.”
The other dogs followed her across to the wall with the maps. One of the maps showed the who
le world, with all the countries sprawled across it. The other map showed the local countryside, with a river snaking along the top right-hand corner and their town in the centre. Honey could see the little winding roads, the local park, the town square, the cemetery... and the forest spreading like a green stain around one side of the town. That square on the edge of the forest must be where they were now: Lord Higginbottom’s estate.
Suka jumped up, putting her front paws on the wall, and nosed the big world map. “See these lines criss-crossing over the map?”
“Yeah, what about them?” asked Ruffster, tilting his head.
“They’ve got little numbers next to them, with a tiny bubble and then the letters N, E, W, or S,” said Suka. “See? This line here has the number fifty with a tiny bubble next to it. That tiny bubble is a sign for ‘degrees’. So it’s 50º. And the letters stand for North, East, West, and South.”
“Oh, so the little bat wasn’t talking about fifty-one points and six degrees north,” said Honey slowly. “It was fifty-one point six degrees, north! That’s 51.6º N.”
“Exactly!” Suka said. “It’s called a line of latitude. Those are the lines running across, from left to right. It tells you whether some place is at the top or the bottom of the map—north and south—and how far it is from the line running around the middle of the earth—the equator.”
“OK, what about the other number, then?” asked Ruffster. “One point eight degrees west.”
“That’s for the other kind of line,” said Suka. “These lines here—see? Running up and down the map? They’re called lines of longitude and they tell you whether a place is on the left side or the right side of the map. What did you say the number was again?”
“One point eight degrees west.”
“OK, that’s 1.8º W. There’s a special line in the middle called the meridian—which is zero—so 1.8º must be really near that middle line.”
“Festerin’ fleas, my head is spinnin’ with all these new words,” grumbled Ruffster.
“Yeah. I still think my way of finding things is easier,” said Biscuit, wriggling his nose. “I just go by how many degrees stinky it is.”
