Special Bulletin
Q: What should I do if I find a bat flying about my room?
(This is not from a real questioner; I’ve waited a whole year for someone to ask it, but since they haven’t—I will. Because this is something that I have dealt with, not once, but twice. And it’s tricky, especially for a vampire fan. There’s always that wild impulse to wonder if it could be supernatural . . . but bats often have rabies and should not be approached. As you’ll see in my story.)
First I must set the scene. It is the most beautiful bedroom in the world. At least I, who designed it, think it is the most beautiful. It is octagonal in shape and nearly everything that isn’t doors or corners is wide open windows. The windows are shut now, because the nights are still a bit nippy. Eggshell-colored walls make the perfect, low-key setting for cream-colored, gold-embossed, slightly distressed furniture that cost a fortune but that I can’t regret. The bed is a queen-sized four poster, and it is matte gold metal, with filmy, diaphanous draperies floating from post to post and trailing away like smoke. On one wall is a picture of the Madonna, done in pastel ecru and blue and gold, given to me by my sister, “because it reminds me of you.”
And where I am I? In bed, of course; it’s around the witching hour of midnight, and naturally I am reading, because rather than going to bed without reading I would as soon puzzle out the directions for hair care on a Czechoslovakian shampoo bottle. (Provided that Czechoslovakian hotels provide such amenities for their guests. [By the way, I am both Czech and Slovak and can therefore make fun of my own.]) Anyway, I am wearing an old-fashioned floor-length nightgown, toying with a necklace that falls between my collarbones in an idly provocative way while reading . . . Okay, I’m just reading all right? From here on the facts and only the facts.
I’m just lying there reading when—
—-vooomph—
—something is flashing around the octagonal, ornamented top of my bedroom, periodically blocking out the cream-colored distressed chandelier that hangs in the middle of it. The flying thing is black and it is FAST and it has no place in this recluse of meditation and peace that is my silken quiet place.
And I am terrified. I am shut up in a beautiful octagonal room with a MONSTER and the worst part of the monster is that it makes no noise; it just circles at something near the speed of light—soundlessly—round and round and round my ceiling.
Maybe it is a starling or a sparrow. I know nothing at all about these birds but they’re always pictured on Valentine’s cards and things like that—aren’t they? And I desperately want the whateveritis in my room to be a cute and harmless thing.
But how has it gotten in? All of the scenic windows are locked. The doors to the lovely gold fireplace are shut tight. The double doors to the rest of the house are shut even tighter, and the door to my bathroom is firmly closed.
How did it get in?
I know it hasn’t been sitting on the ceiling like a huge . . . huge . . . moth for half an hour before being catapulted into this super-fast motion, round and round. I’ve been idly scanning my room with sleepy approval in between reading pages and I couldn’t have missed this any more than I would have missed a huge black moustache on Britney Spears.
For the moment, though, presents like this don’t matter. Only one thing matters, escape for both of us . . . into our proper elements. For if I somehow manage to open the door to the rest of the house—well I can’t even imagine it. Eating a bowl of granola when suddenly being swooped down upon by a black . . . a pitch-black shapeless monster. No, it must go OUT, and I must stay IN, and please God we will never meet any more.
Meanwhile, while my mind dashes frantically back and forth, my body has already taken some survival measures on its own. For one thing it has thrown my downy soft ecru and blue and green Florentine-design coverlet completely over my head. Now, just like any child, I can’t see the monster. But every time I peep out from under the coverlet I can still see the flashing shadows on the wall, and—most horrific—the little black body zipping by just above my head.
And I think it is my body that takes me by the shoulders, gives me a couple of hard shakes and tells me that it is not a moth or a UFO or a sweet little sparrow continuously making the rounds of my room.
No.
It is a BAT.
And in a room like this—for all practical purposes round; its echolocation will keep it going in a curve like this—which seems straight to it—forever.
So I can sit here like a three-year-old and wail; I can attempt to introduce myself and explain that I wrote a number of its relatives, or I can use the spurt of adrenaline I got when I admitted what I knew it was.
LISA’S RULE #1: DO NOT ASSUME THAT ALL BATS ARE VAMPIRES. THERE ARE—I DON’T KNOW—HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF BATS IN THE WORLD—AND ONLY A FEW THOUSAND VAMPIRES. NOT EVEN ALL VAMPIRES CHOOSE TO CHANGE INTO BATS. Therefore, unless you want a sample of What’s It Like To Get Rabies Shots, DO NOT MEDDLE IN ANY WAY WITH REAL LIVE BATS. Unless of course you’re a certified bat-wrangler.
Anyway, my instincts had gotten me under the coverlet. If I squooshed down to the middle and pulled it in on all sides, the coverlet, which was silken, thick, and heavy, would form a sort of M1 Abrams American bat-proof tank all around me. Even if (shudder) THE BAT landed on me, I couldn’t possibly feel it.
So now I am a turtle. I can go anywhere (on hands and knees, blind) and not have to worry about the bat. I can get out of this hellish room, which seems to get worse each time I peek and get fresh reassurance of the bat’s reality.
So—get off the bed! That is my first and only thought: to get out of the room. Still keeping my M1 Abrams bat-repellent tank tucked around me I slither to the floor. Sssliide. Ouch! But now I am down on hands and knees, a sort of pill bug that can crawl to the door. The only thing I am afraid of is: what if I open the door just as the bat is approaching it and its little batt-ly radar can tell that there is an opening and zzzzzzzzoooooooooooooommm the bat is off and into my house, which is many many square feet of roomy rooms and not any place for a bat to be pouncing on a unsuspecting fruit salad or. . . oh, horrors. . . person.
So I start taking peeks from under the coverlet, hoping to time my move with the bats swing away from the door. But I must be crazy. This bat is around my room in the time it takes me to reach for the doorknob. I must just trust to dumb luck.
I don’t know how I nerve myself to do it. It’s a one-two-no, one-two-nope, one-two-not yet—and then out of the nowhere a sudden lunge accompanied by me screaming blue-and-green-and-cream colored murder. I yank the tail of my tank through the gap and hurtle out, slamming the door behind me. Even then, my eyes are everywhere, looking to see if THE BAT has somehow made it out with me and is even now streaking toward my family room and kitchen.
At last, I am convinced that the bat is still inside my bedroom. And once convinced, I feel strong enough to take a look.
One look is all it takes. I wouldn’t have believed an animal could swoop so fast around a room. Now I feel silly for having ever thought it could be bird.
Now, I have come to the next question: How do I get the bat out of my house? I can’t leave it circling in there. I need my clothes! I need my books! I need my room!
* * *
When I calm down a little I know, without hesitation or question what I need to do. I need to call Ann. Ann has a magical ability with animals; maybe she can do something to magic my bat. I know that what I am doing is pitiless and cruel but I also know that Annie and I are good enough friends to survive even this crisis. !
A one’ o’ clock in the morning bat-alert call.
Annie is a night owl like me, I think. Maybe she won’t even have gotten in bed yet, I told myself cheerfully. Maybe she’s still hard at work, or maybe—maybe—she’s up even now reading the latest edition of Bat Eliminators Illustrated.
Optimism can take you a long way from reality.
Instead, of course, the phone rings—and rings —and rings until my heart is pounding in my throat.
What will I do? Just the thought of the bat endlessly circling my room is enough to drive me out of my mind. And if it should run out of—this is funny—battery energy and flop onto the floor and just lie there helpless flopping . . . and I come upon it the next day . . .
Wait! The phone has stopped ringing and I hear a sleepy:
“H’lo?”
“Hello,” I gasp, on the verge of hysterics. “Oh, thank God! Oh, thank God!”
“Lisa?”
“Annie!” Suddenly I have a sympathetic ear and the entire story gushes out of me on what seems like a single breath. Oh, pity me, pity me, for there is a bat going round and round my ceiling!
There is a pause, and then, always the soul of discretion, Annie murmurs, “Lisa, you haven’t been—um, out at a bar or anything, have you?”
She thinks I have bats in my belfry. Well, I’d think the same if anyone called me up at one a.m. with such an insane story.
“Annie,” I say, “I swear by all that is holy that everything I have told you is true.”
“So you left the window open and a bat flew in—”
“No! No! All the windows were shut. All the doors were shut! It couldn’t have gotten in but it did. Oh, please, Annie, come over and save me from the bat!”
I realize then I have really lost it. But Ann is a true friend and rises to the occasion.
“I’ll be right there.” Yes! Yes! Velocricaptor Sisterhood wins again!
* * *
By the time Annie has had a squint into my room to verify that the little black thing is still rocketing around my bedroom, I have realized that there is only way to get rid of it.
Presumably, it either can’t or out of sheer perversity won’t just go back out the way it came in. This means that we are going to have to lure it out of one of the doors or windows. The problem is that all the windows are triple-locked from the inside (where the bat is), the doors to the outside lock with a key, and the brightest place around, glowing like some fairy jewel in the darkness of the night, all in creams and emeralds and sapphires, is my very own octagonal bedroom. If bats are attracted to light, like moths, which Annie and I desperately hope they are, they are probably lined up for miles, just to get into this bubble of illumination.
While Annie is bundling into yet another sweatshirt with a hood that—ha-ha—isn’t necessary to protect her from the it’s-just-a-myth of the bat going for her ruffled shoulder-length brown hair.
Meanwhile I am struck by a cunning plan.
I tell Annie my plan. She listens to it seriously, then nods. “It might work,” she says. “Even if it’s not attracted to light, its echolocation might spot the gap and send it outside.”
See? I think to myself. I knew Annie would do it.
“And,” Ann continues, “we already have two flashlights. All we need is a key to that little door that lets from your room onto the driveway—”
I dangle a key in front of her.
“And to decide who stays here and who goes out.”
Out. Out where, if there is one bat that magically transported itself into my bedroom, there must be dozens and hundreds and thousands of others, all waiting for an entire door to be opened inviting them to flood inside. I don’t want to go out. I am a coward.
I make my biggest Bambi eyes at Annie. I make them bigger. I let my eyes flood with tears.
Ann has known me a long time. She knows what the Bambi eyes mean.
“But the other part is going to be hard, too,” she says. “Somebody has to open this door”—we are standing outside the door that leads from the rest of the house into my room—the one I crawled out of what seems like endless centuries ago. My coverlet is bundled on the floor. “Whoever does that has to reach up for the light switch and turn it off or else opening the little door outside may be meaningless. We need to have my room dark and the outside lit up.
I gulp. “I guess turning off the light is my job.”
“Okay,” Annie says, never one to procrastinate. I’ll unlock the little door and shine the flashlight into the darkness. Then I’ll yell. If you don’t turn the light off I’ll call your cellphone—where’s your cell?”
My mobile phone, of course, is charging in the room with the bat.
“Okay, I’ll call your home phone,” Annie says. Nothing is going to stop her now; she is in animal rescue mode. When you hear a ring, turn off the lights.”
She goes outside through the washer-dryer room.
And now, once more, I’m alone. I have no idea what’s going on with the bat—or with Annie, for that matter. I have wild superstitious thoughts. This is what I get for writing books about vampires. I mean, honestly, how many other people look up to see a bat cruising about their room?
I pull the coverlet back over myself, wrapping it around my head (to make sure the bat doesn’t land on my hair—which of course is just a myth anyway.)
And then I do the bravest thing I’ve ever done in cold blood.
Slooooowly, flinching, I put my ear up against the door and quiet myself down . . . and over the pounding of my heart I listen.
And far away I hear Annie shouting, “NOW, NOW!”
Now! I duck down, make myself as much like a turtle as possible. Then I wrench open one of the double doors and plunge into the room . . . on my hands and knees. I scuttle the single foot toward the light switch and I flip it.
And now it’s dark, except for a tiny lamp by my bedside and Annie’s waving flashlight. I can see it out the little door to the driveway.
And then a shadow sweeps over me.
The bat!
It sweeps around the octagon to the open door—and by the light of Ann’s flashlight it sweeps out into the darkness.
“Close the door! Close the door!” I shout, not sure whether I should shriek with triumph or yell something after the bat, which has disappeared. Yell what? I don’t know, but some superstition makes me want to shout, “Next time try it in human form!”
But that’s just whimsy. Ann has slipped in and locked the door behind her.
“Did you see it go out?” I demand.
“Yes! Did you see it go out?”
“Oh, yes!”
And then we are doing a wild, improvised dance of jubilation, because I no longer have a bat in my bedroom.
Naturally, it takes a while for the adrenaline to pass. So we sit with mugs of herbal tea, grinning like maniacs and we each tell the story to each other all over again.
“Annie,” I say solemnly, over my lemon and chamomile tea, “I owe you my life.”
Ann doesn’t look impressed. “That’s what you said when I got the skunk out of your basement.”
“I meant it then, too.”
“And what about that puppy that was running around the freeway and we had to be the ones to pick it up.”
“Annie,” I say, “You would have done it anyway. You know how you are about animals. . . .”
“And the baby duckling that had got lost from its mother. . . ”
“Yes, yes. . . ”
“And the kitten that seemed feral at the cabin—”
I force another cup of Celestial Seasonings on her.
“I’ll write a story someday,” I promise, giving her Bambi eyes.
And now I have.
Post script: If anyone wants to guess how the bat got in, I will give a genuine lapis lazuli ring, guaranteed to keep vampires from melting in sunlight to the first person who guesses correctly. Just email me: info@ljanesmith.net or send a message to myspace. Put “Bat Solution” in the header.
Just to make it explicitly fair, here is what was in my room (significant or not): a queen-sized, four-poster bed with ivory hangings (sheer). A large set of doors overlooking the redwood deck, closed and double locked. Four more windows, all high triple locked looking out on either the deck or the driveway. A built-in TV cabinet left over from the previous owners, which I used for storing books. A door to the bathroom, closed at the time, and never opened during this episode. A corner fireplace (gas logs, but it also burned real cords of wood), unlit but with glass doors closed. A door opening onto the driveway, kept locked. A ceiling fan and overhead light (this is the light I turned out when Ann opened the door from the driveway). Double doors that opened inward and led into the rest of the house. Plus the normal furnishings of any room, which I promise play no part in the story.
Again just email me: info@ljanesmith.net or send a message to myspace. Put “Bat Solution” in the header.
On the next HarperTeen blog, I’ll tell briefly about my second experience with a bat, and what the solution turned out to be.