The Nocturnals. Tracey Hecht

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СКАЧАТЬ is mystifying! Stupefying! Absolutely flabbergastefying!” exclaimed Bismark, searching under a stone. “Where could your brother have gone?”

      The animals were retracing their path up the river, looking for clues—footprints, torn branches, scratch marks on bark. Anything that might help them find Cora’s brother.

      “If only I had been there when you were being chased,” said Bismark, stretching his flaps at full length. “I would’ve…I would’ve…” He paused, racking his brain. “Well,” he continued, “I would’ve done something courageous, something grand, something très magnifique!”

      “Cora,” said Dawn, ignoring her friend, “do you think you would recognize the exact place where you jumped into the water? Or the last place you saw Joe?”

      Cora was about to reply when suddenly, out of the midnight shadows, four rumpled bats barreled onto the scene, zigzagging out of control through the air.

      “Look out!”

      “Aye!”

      “Ouch!”

      “Oy vey!”

      Wham! Splat! Smush! Crunch!

      One after the other, the bats pummeled headfirst into the trunk of a tree, then landed in a mangled heap at its base.

      “Oh goodness!” exclaimed Tobin. The pangolin cocked his head in concern at the mound of sinewy limbs and black wings.

      “Excuse us!” said a bat, making his way to his feet.

      “Just a small glitch in the biosonar,” said another. “Perfectly normal.”

      Tobin stared with wide eyes. “Perfectly normal?” he asked.

      The Brigade and the wombat eyed the bats as they rose to their feet, dusted their wings, and teetered into an unsteady line.

      “Bats,” muttered the sugar glider. “Absolutely disgusting.”

      The fox glared at Bismark. But upon inspecting the creatures before her, she understood what he meant. The fur on their chests was matted and mangy, and their rickety wings were covered in scrapes.

      “Hmmm,” Tobin mused. Squinting, he examined the bats then turned to Bismark. At a glance, the animals looked nearly identical. They were similar in size, with furless wings and fuzzy torsos. The pangolin blinked—his vision was always a little fuzzy. “Are you all related?”

      The sugar glider gasped in horror. “No!” he exclaimed. “Absolument pas!” Bismark puffed out his chest. “I am a proud marsupial, not some cave-dwelling, ceiling-hanging rodent.” The sugar glider spun on his toes, showcasing the black stripe on his back.

      “Definitely a marsupial,” muttered a bat.

      “No ability to fly,” said another.

      Bismark’s face flamed with rage. “Of course I can fly!” he yelled, flailing his flaps through the air. “I glide through the tallest of trees. Soar through the windiest of winds. Sail through the stormiest of skies!”

      “Glide? Yes.”

      “Soar? Maybe.”

      “Fly? No.”

      The bats huddled and snickered.

      Dawn quickly stepped in to ease the tension. “Maybe you can help us,” she said.

      The creatures wobbled back into line.

      “This is Cora,” continued the fox, “and her brother is missing. Did you see any wombats as you flew past?”

      “Can’t much see,” said a bat.

      “Terrible eyes,” said another.

      “That’s why we use echolocation,” explained a third. “We send out a sound, it hits something, then it echoes back. That’s how we locate the object.”

      “Though that’s on the fritz, too,” said the fourth. He rubbed his throat. “Larynx trouble.”

      Dawn paused, a bit confused now herself. “So…you don’t know of any strange occurrences?”

      “Strange occurrences?”

      “We know all about those.”

      “Terrible mess in the valley these days!”

      “Animals disappearing faster than tsetse flies on the tongue!”

      The bats all answered in turn.

      “You mean, you know of others who have recently vanished?” The fur on Dawn’s back stood on end.

      “Svor! Never seen these parts so empty.”

      “Nor so quiet.”

      “Except for the screams….”

      The fox’s breath caught in her throat. The bats had confirmed her fear that Cora’s brother had not disappeared just by chance. He was one victim of many. And there would be many more if the Brigade did not intervene.

       Chapter Five

       THE CREATURE

      “I must face the truth, feel the blow, suffer the pain!” Bismark wailed as he paced amidst the tall grass. Bismark was still agitated as he rose from his bed in time to see the first evening star. After the encounter with those four irksome creatures, he had slept terribly.

      “You do not look like a bat!” insisted Tobin.

      The pangolin tumbled out from the hollow eucalyptus where he had slept. He felt terrible. He had not meant to offend the small sugar glider the previous evening—not at all. But Bismark ignored the pangolin and turned instead to the fox.

      “Dawn, I beg of you. The truth. I must have it!” Dramatically, the sugar glider fell to his knees, clasping his fingers as if in prayer.

      “Bismark.” Dawn sighed. “You do not look like a bat.”

      “Really? Do you mean it?” Bismark glanced up at the fox, his eyes full of hope.

      “Goodness, no!” Tobin quickly chimed in. “Not at all!”

      “Dawn, can you gaze upon my face without the image of a blood-sucking rodent entering your mind?”

      “Bismark, enough,” said the fox. “You are very handsome. And you do not look like a bat.”

      “Of course I don’t!” he exclaimed, bounding back to his feet. “Do you see СКАЧАТЬ