Bat and the Waiting Game

  Dedication

  For Davis, our Star

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Skunk Kits

  2. Dinner Conversation

  3. Parts

  4. A Stinky Joke

  5. Almost Late

  6. Carrot Division

  7. Good News and Bad News

  8. Kitchens

  9. Bowls

  10. Missing Connections

  11. Bananafish

  12. A Perfect Night

  13. Seventh-Inning Stretch

  14. Yarrow and Sloke

  15. Thor’s Garden

  16. Sleepover

  17. Party Games

  18. Best Friends

  19. Social Animals

  20. Pot Throwing

  21. Scene Stealer

  22. No Tomato Juice

  23. Company

  24. Take Two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Elana K. Arnold

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  Skunk Kits

  Maybe, Bat thought, there was something better in the world than cradling a sleepy, just-fed baby skunk in your arms. But at this moment, it didn’t seem likely.

  Bat was sitting in his beanbag chair, having just put down the tiny, nearly empty bottle of formula. In Bat’s hand, licking his fine soft whiskers with a tiny pink tongue and then yawning widely to reveal two rows of new white teeth, was a six-week-old skunk kit named Thor.

  After licking his whiskers clean, Thor curled up into a ball in Bat’s hand, and Bat held the tiny creature close to his chest, carefully settling into his beanbag, watching as Thor fell into contented sleep.

  It had been one week since Bat’s mother had agreed that the family could continue caring for the skunk kit until he was old enough to be released into the wild, and Bat could still barely believe his good luck.

  With the soft, warm weight of Thor in his hands, Bat looked around his room. He sat across from his window, the bamboo shade rolled all the way up. The window was half open, and a pleasant breeze blew in. It was springtime, and the air was beginning to feel warm.

  Bat’s bed was neatly made just the way he liked it, with the blue sheet and red-and-blue-plaid quilt tucked in tight so that when he climbed in at night he would feel like he was slipping into a cocoon. A matching red-and-blue-plaid quilt peeked out from the trundle underneath Bat’s bed.

  There was the honey-brown dresser where Bat kept his clothes neatly sorted just how he liked them, and beside it was Bat’s bookshelf, where he kept all his important things, including his favorite possession, his animal encyclopedia. And there, right next to the animal encyclopedia, was something new.

  From where Bat sat, the new thing looked like an oddly shaped lump of clay, but Bat had spent enough time holding it and examining it from all angles to know that it was actually art.

  It was a sculpture of a skunk kit, molded out of gray clay, with eyes and a nose and a mouth carved into it and, on the bottom, the words “From Israel” carved in, too.

  When Israel had first handed it to Bat last Monday at school, it had taken Bat a moment to figure out what exactly he was holding.

  “It’s a skunk kit!” Israel said. “I made it in my mom’s studio. She fired it in her kiln and everything. So this way, when you’re not at home with Thor, you can still have a skunk with you. You know, you can carry it around! Like, in your pocket or something.”

  Bat had rubbed his thumb down the smooth shiny back of the clay lump. It didn’t look much like a skunk kit, but its pleasant weight felt good in his hand. And when he had flipped it over to find the words “From Israel” on the bottom, a warm good feeling spread through his chest and up his neck.

  A friend had given him a gift. And even if it didn’t look much like the real baby skunk now nestled in his hands, it definitely deserved a place on his bookshelf, along with his other important things.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dinner Conversation

  Setting the table for dinner was one of Bat’s jobs, but that evening, placing three plates, three cups, and three forks on three placemats, he felt very certain that his sister, Janie, should have this job instead.

  For one thing, she refused to let Bat carry Thor while he set the table.

  “He’s tucked into his sling, Janie,” Bat argued. Laurence, the veterinary technician who worked with Mom, had made the sling so that Bat could safely carry Thor around. “He’s not anywhere near your plate and fork and cup!”

  Janie just shook her head and crossed her arms. “It’s not sanitary,” she said. “You’d be violating like three different health code regulations.”

  Her logic wasn’t logical, but Bat screwed his mouth up tight and breathed in deeply through his nose. One of Mom’s conditions for raising the skunk kit was “No family disharmony.” Which meant that Bat wasn’t supposed to be stubborn about skunk stuff like setting the table with the skunk in his sling. So he turned around and headed back to his room, where he lifted the sling from where it hung around his neck and tucked it, sleeping Thor still inside, into the enclosure, a repurposed dog crate. At least Mom had finally agreed to let Thor sleep in Bat’s room. That was something.

  He didn’t mean to slam the dishes down on the table. Not really. And probably Janie wouldn’t even notice that he put her fork upside down instead of right side up.

  But she did notice, a few minutes later, when Bat filled Mom’s cup and his own cup with lemonade and Janie’s cup with plain water.

  “Thank you, Bat,” she said with a big smile. “Sugar isn’t good for my voice before an important audition.” And then she took a big gulp of the water like it was the best thing she had ever tasted.

  “Are you nervous?” Mom asked, spooning enchiladas onto each of the three plates. The hot melted cheese stretched into long strings as the enchiladas traveled from the serving dish to the plates.

  “No,” said Janie. “Well, maybe a little.”

  Bat waited for Mom to cut his enchilada into pieces. He liked the taste of enchiladas, but the texture of the cheese sometimes grossed him out a little. It was better if Mom cut it into little cubes for him.

  “Bat, aren’t you old enough to cut your own food?” Janie asked.

  “Yes,” Bat answered. “But Mom does it better.”

  “Well, you’ll never get good at it unless you practice,” Janie said. Bat didn’t like the tone of her voice—kind of like a know-it-all.

  “Sometimes even practicing at something doesn’t mean you’ll ever get good at it,” he said. “Like you and singing.”

  “Bat,” Mom said, in her low warning voice.

  Bat shrugged. If Janie was going to be mean, he could be mean, too, even though he secretly thought that Janie had a beautiful singing voice.

  They were quiet for a few minutes, just their forks scraping plates and the clink of their cups being set back down.

  “So you’re set on auditioning for the queen?” Mom asked.

  Janie nodded. “It’s the best part,” she said. “There’s the most room for artistic creativity.”

  Janie had been talking about auditioning for her school’s spring play for weeks now. They were going to perform Alice in Wonderland during the last week of school, and the audition was in just a few days.

  “I’m glad the audition is on Monday,” Bat said, stabbing an enchilada cube with his fork.

  Mom smiled. “That’s nice of you, Bat.”

  “Then Janie can stop talking about it all the time.” Bat popped the enchilada cube into his mouth. Delicious.

  “I don’t talk about the audition
nearly as much as you talk about Thor,” Janie said.

  “How much can anyone say about an audition?” Bat said.

  “How much can anyone say about a skunk?” Janie said.

  “Well,” said Bat, “did you know that skunks sometimes attack beehives because they like to eat honeybees? And that a wild skunk usually only lives about three years, but pet skunks can live up to ten? Or how about this—skunks can survive a snakebite! And skunks aren’t fast. And they have bad eyesight. And—”

  Bat had a lot more he could have said, but Mom interrupted. “How about this,” she said. “What do the two of you have to say about dessert?”

  Dessert was something that was easy to agree on, Bat thought happily as Mom served him one of the still-warm brownies that Janie had made that afternoon.

  CHAPTER 3

  Parts

  The next day was Saturday, and since it wasn’t an Every-Other Weekend, Bat got to spend the whole day with Thor.

  On Every-Other Weekends, Dad picked Bat and Janie up when school was finished on Friday and took them home to his apartment. There were good things about Every-Other Weekends: Dad liked to go on bike rides; Dad had a small garage, which he kept neatly organized, and it was a good place to build things; there was a workout room at Dad’s apartment complex that Bat wasn’t old enough to use yet, but would be, one day.

  But especially since Thor had joined the family, Bat wasn’t really a fan of Every-Other Weekends, because Dad wasn’t a fan of animals. Mom, on the other hand, was almost as crazy about animals as Bat was.

  In lots of ways, Mom and Dad were opposites: Mom liked animals; Dad didn’t. Mom worked as a veterinarian; Dad worked as a computer engineer. Mom liked to stay at home on the weekends, reading books and gardening; Dad liked to go out into the world on weekends, bike riding and playing catch at the park.

  Bat liked animals, and he liked computers, too. He liked to stay home, and he liked to go out into the world. And his name was even made up of parts of both of his parents’ names: Bat was short for Bixby Alexander Tam—“Bixby” from his mom’s last name when she was a kid, “Alexander” because that was his dad’s middle name.

  Bat liked that he had parts of both of his parents’ names in his name. It made sense, since he had parts of both of his parents in the rest of him, too. He had his dad’s straight black hair, which came from his dad’s Chinese ancestry, and he had his mom’s long fingers. He had his mom’s love of chocolate and his dad’s aversion to touching yucky things.

  When Bat woke up on Saturday, the first thing he did after going to the bathroom and washing his hands was scoop Thor out of his enclosure and tuck him into the sling. Thor was getting bigger, Bat thought with satisfaction. His little belly had started to round out from all the formula Bat had been feeding him. Bat was a good skunk caretaker.

  The kitchen was quiet; Mom and Janie were still asleep. Carefully, Bat poured a kit-sized serving of formula into Thor’s tiny bottle. He screwed the lid on tightly and then held the bottle under warm running water so the formula wouldn’t be cold.

  It was a beautiful day, Bat saw through the window above the kitchen sink. The leaves on the tree were quiet—no wind—and the sky was a clear bright blue, with just a little bit of violet still from sunrise.

  “Would you like to dine al fresco?” Bat said to Thor. Al fresco was Italian for “outside,” Bat knew, because on sunny days at school, his teacher, Mr. Grayson, sometimes said, “Hey, gang, let’s do reading time al fresco.”

  Bat took the bottle and went out through the back door, sitting on the brick steps that led down into the yard. Thor must have smelled breakfast, because he was rustling around in the sling. Gently, Bat scooped him out and settled him on his lap.

  Six weeks ago, when Thor had just been born, his nose had been pink, but now it was darkening to a nice shiny black. It twitched up at the bottle, and Bat aimed the bottle down. Thor’s tongue darted out and soon he was happily lapping up the formula, drop by drop.

  Bat liked it when he could concentrate on just one thing, and he liked it even better when the one thing he was concentrating on was something he loved, like taking care of Thor.

  With his thumb, Bat gently stroked the white strip of fur that ran up Thor’s snout and over his head. Thor closed his shiny black eyes and it looked to Bat like he grinned, short milky whisker hairs curving upward.

  The back door opened and Bat turned to see Janie standing in the doorway. Her hair, which was not quite as dark as Bat’s, was wrapped around a bunch of spongy pink curlers.

  “Hey,” said Janie.

  “Hey,” said Bat.

  Janie came the rest of the way outside and sat down on the step next to Bat, peering down at Thor. “He’s getting cuter,” she said.

  “He’s getting furrier,” said Bat, “but I think he’s always been all the way cute.”

  Janie made a noise halfway between a grunt and a snort. Then she said, “When is he going to start spraying?”

  “That depends,” Bat said. He set down the empty bottle and tucked Thor back into the sling. “Skunks only spray if they feel threatened. If Thor never feels threatened, maybe he’ll never spray.”

  “I guess you’ll have to try really hard to stay calm, huh?” said Janie. “Even if I tease you or tickle you?” She lifted up her hands and wiggled her fingers.

  Bat hated to be tickled. “Don’t,” he said, but he tried to say it in a really calm voice because he didn’t want to make Thor nervous.

  Janie laughed. “Just kidding, Bat,” she said. “Hey, do you want to help me take the curlers out of my hair?”

  Bat liked to help Janie with hair stuff, and she barely ever let him. “Okay,” he answered. “Just let me put Thor away first.”

  CHAPTER 4

  A Stinky Joke

  After breakfast, Ezra came over to help Janie practice for her big audition. Janie thought Ezra was hilarious, but usually Bat did not agree.

  “Hey, Batty,” Ezra said when he arrived. “I’ve got a joke for you. Okay. What do you call a flying skunk?”

  “Actually,” Bat said, “skunks can’t fly. They’re mammals, and the only flying mammal is the—”

  “A smellicopter!” Ezra interrupted. Then he laughed, loudly, at his own joke.

  There were so many things wrong with the whole situation that Bat felt himself starting to rise up on his toes the way he sometimes did, and pulling his arms close to his sides the way he sometimes did, hands preparing to flap.

  Ezra laughed even louder. “Hey!” he said. “You’re the flying mammal, right? Because you’re Bat! Good one, Batty.”

  “Come on, Ezra,” Janie said, and Ezra followed her out of the entry hall and toward the kitchen, still laughing.

  When the hallway was quiet, Bat remembered to take deep breaths and he let himself bounce on the balls of his feet ten more times before putting his heels on the floor. He wiggled his shoulders around the way that helped him relax, and his arms dropped slowly to his sides.

  “Little Bat,” crooned Mom from behind him. “Are you all right?”

  Bat nodded. He didn’t feel like talking. Mom came around to his front and held out her arms. She knew that Bat sometimes didn’t feel like being touched when he was upset, and this was her way of letting him know that she was there if he wanted a hug. All he had to do was take one step forward, which, after a moment’s hesitation, he did.

  Mom pulled him close, and Bat closed his eyes as he let his face mush into the softness of her stomach. He felt the snug tightness of her arms around his shoulders and back, the gentle firm pressure of her embrace. He felt safe and warm and let himself take a long, deep breath.

  Mom smelled of rosemary, like sunshine and peppermint and pine. Bat took another deep breath before he tapped his hand against Mom’s leg, their sign that he was ready for the hug to be over.

  She loosened her arms and stepped back.

  “Are you gardening?” Bat asked.

  “Yes,” Mom said. “Do you want
to help?”

  “Yes,” said Bat, and then he had a really good idea. “Mom,” he said. “Do you think we could research what kind of vegetables skunks like to eat and plant them in the garden box in the backyard?” He looked up at Mom’s face, excited.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Mom said. “A research project! And maybe you could ask Israel if he’d like to help.”

  And then Bat had another idea. “We have to do a spring project for school,” he said. “And we’re supposed to have a partner. Maybe Israel’s and my project could be researching and growing a skunk garden!”

  “You’d better not plant any roses,” said Ezra. He and Janie had just walked back into the hallway on their way to the front yard. “Get it? Because roses smell good!”

  “Oh, Ezra,” Mom said. “That joke really stinks.”

  That time, everyone, even Bat, laughed.

  CHAPTER 5

  Almost Late

  On Monday, Bat waited outside of the school for Israel to arrive. Mom waited with him.

  “You know,” she said, “you could just ask him in class.”

  “Someone else might ask him first,” Bat said.

  “The chances of one of your classmates asking Israel to be partners for the class project between the parking lot and the classroom door are relatively low,” Mom said.

  “Low isn’t zero,” Bat answered.

  Mom couldn’t argue with this. They waited together, standing in front of the main entrance to the Saw Whet School, as the sea of arriving students and teachers parted around them. Bat counted six kids from his class—Jenny, Lucca, Ramon, Mei, Henry, and Starla. But none of them was Israel.

  “Let’s play a waiting game,” Mom suggested. Waiting was one of the things that was very, very hard for Bat. Sometimes playing a game made time pass more quickly. But Bat was too excited about his good idea to play a game. He wanted to focus all his energy on waiting for Israel to arrive. He rubbed his thumb across the rough lump of clay skunk in his pocket.