Page 14 of Batty About You
Chapter Six: Bogdan and Kelly
Ican see the clock on the wall from my cage. Almost 9:30. Soon it’ll be ten. How long will she wait for me before she hates me? Or starts calling hospitals?
I try again to undo the fiddly little locks on the cage, but they’re immovable when you only have two thumbs attached to leathery wings to work with. Pedro the parrot was a clever fiend, and apparently, he required extra security, curse his brainy little beak, deceased or not.
Just when I think I’ve got the top latch ready to slide free, Kelly comes bursting in, phone up to her ear. “No, I didn’t see him, but I’m going out on foot once I get out of this dress.”
I flap, squeak, and carry on like my feet are on fire, throwing the late Pedro’s seed dish around, ringing his stupid jangly bells, and making enough ruckus that Kelly hangs up and turns towards me.
Her eyes are streaked with mascara and tears, pink and puffy. I let out a miserable chirp. It’s all my fault.
“Oh, little guy, you can get out now. If you’re well enough to make a disaster, you’re well enough to fly home, I hope. I...” Kelly looks around like she’s trying to decide what to do, and I keep making a racket, hoping she hurries and lets me out. She can just open a window and stick the cage out of it. I’ve got it from there.
But instead, she chucks off her beautiful heels, tall and chunky, almost iridescent, and slips her bare feet into thin canvas tennis shoes. Then she grabs a windbreaker from the closet, a flashlight from under the kitchen sink, and my cage.
As she carries me outside, her phone rings again, and she answers it at once. “Hi. Did they find him?” she demands.
I can hear the voice on the other end of the phone. “No, a bunch of people are searching the house, and some men went off to search the grounds and the hedge maze. Since his car is here, they thought maybe he wandered around the grounds before coming in. Maybe he got lost in the maze. I mean, it’s a very simple maze, but it could happen if you panic.”
“Thank everyone for me. I’m heading out on foot now.”
“Ardy Walsh said you should wait at your apartment. He’s coming to walk with you. He doesn’t want anyone walking alone across campus or over the footbridges in the dark. At least not tonight.”
“This is the safest place I’ve ever seen,” Kelly huffs. “Two years here, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single police siren.”
“Well, they keep it safe by being proactive. Just wait for him there.”
“Okay. Boggie would want me to be safe.”
Oh, thank God. She’s not cursing my name. She still thinks I care about her.
When we get outside, Kelly beelines for her car and rests the cage atop of it with a grunt. She’s so strong, despite being on the petite side. “There you go, batty,” she says with a wet sniff as she opens the cage door. “I hope you have a nice little bat girlfriend who’ll be relieved you’re safe. Maybe you’re a wishing bat, like the fish the man saved in the old fairytale? If I free you, can you make my wish come true and give me back my boyfriend?”
I don’t know if it’s desperation to help her, to stop her from crying, to hug her and wipe away her tears as they start to fall again, or the fact that I’ve been trying to force myself into my humanoid form for hours, but the second both wings touch free air—I shift.
I can’t even prepare Kelly for the shock, all I can do is hold in the painful yowl that tries to rip from my throat as I go from six inches (wing to wing) to six feet in two seconds, ending up in a panting heap at my girlfriend’s feet as she screams—and then hits me on the head with a flashlight.
Thank God this form is pretty strong. “Kelly! It’s me!” I shout as the second blow catches me on the arm.
The flashlight stops in mid-upswing. “Boggie?” she lets out a terrified whisper.
“It’s me. It’s me, sweetheart.” I say, straightening up and stepping several feet away.
“But... But you were a little bat. In a little cage,” she whimpers, flashlight still held like a cudgel, ready to strike.
“I know. I know, and that’s the secret I never wanted to tell you. I just wanted you to think I was in a costume,” I plead, still backing away. “I didn’t want you to know I was this monster. This ugly thing. I can go, Kelly, but I didn’t want you to waste any more time looking for me.”
