Poppy and Ereth (4 page)

P
OPPY WAS STILL FALLING
when she suddenly felt her skin pricked and then grabbed. Not only did she stop dropping, she was actually rising in short, jerky movements.

Bewildered, she opened her eyes. She was being
held
higher than she had been before. The forest below was moving by very quickly.
I'm not going to die by falling,
she decided.
I'm going to be eaten by some bird.

She twisted her head around and looked up. To her complete surprise, the creature carrying her was
not
a bird. At first glance it appeared to be a
mouse
! Not much bigger than she, it had brown fur and bright black eyes. But the creature's nose was large for its pushed-in face, had flaring nostrils, and was not sharp like a mouse's. Its ears were very large and pointy.

Most astonishing of all were the great leathery wings
extending from the creature's body, wings that whipped the air with such rapidity they were hard to see.

A bat had grabbed her.

Poppy quickly recalled the things she had heard about bats—that they were strange, perhaps even magical creatures given to violent and erratic mischief; that they guided themselves through the air in a mystifying fashion; that bats, for no good reason at all, constantly attacked other creatures—even ate them!—and that they entangled themselves in animals' fur, biting, scratching, and spreading all kinds of ghastly diseases. In short, bats were to be absolutely avoided.

What to do? Clearly, she could not get away, not unless she wanted to fall. Perhaps speaking to the frightful thing would help.

Poppy took a deep breath and called up, “Hello, there! Can you hear me?”

“Oh hi!” the bat squeaked. “Were you talking to me?”

“I was,” said Poppy. “Are you a bat?”

“Oh sure.”

“What's your name?”

“My full name is Myotis Lucifugus. But my friends call me Luci.”

“
Luci?
”

“I think it's nicer than Fugus,” the bat went on. “Or My. And Otis is a boy's name and I'm a girl. Oh, what's your name?”

“Poppy.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Well…girl.”

“
Miss
Poppy! I like that.”

“I suppose I should thank you for catching me,”
said Poppy. “Otherwise I'd have fallen. Probably been killed.”

“That would have been awful,” agreed Luci.

Poppy hesitated for a moment and then said, “Luci, why did you grab me?”

“What a question,” said Luci, her voice full of surprise. “What do you think? Because I'm going to eat you.”

“
Eat me?
” cried Poppy, her worst fears confirmed. “Why would you want to do that?”

“I think everyone eats something,” said Luci, only to add, “Don't they?”

“I suppose,” admitted Poppy, “but I don't think you'd get much pleasure in eating an old mouse.”

“
Mouse!
” cried Luci. “No way! Are you a
mouse
?
Really
?”

“From the tip of my nose to the tip of my tail!” Poppy hastened to say.

“Miss Poppy,” squeaked the bat. “I am
so
embarrassed! This is my first solo flight and I thought you were a…a moth.”

“How could you possibly mistake me for a moth!” Poppy sputtered.

“Well, there you were, right up in the air over the forest,” said Luci. “That's where moths are, right? They are really tasty.” The bat giggled. “See, I've never met a mouse before!
But now I know that mice fly, too. I'd be happy to let you go.” Luci started to loosen her grip.

“No, don't!” cried Poppy. “I can't fly!”

“Can't you?” said the bat. “Then…then how did you get up in the air?”

“It's…it's too hard to explain,” said Poppy, looking down at the darkening earth. “Do you think you could just put me on the ground, gently?”

“Sorry,” said Luci. “I can't. I'm late.”

“Late for what?”

“Mom told me to take my first flight, grab a snack if I could, and then get back home. I know. Hard to believe that at my age I actually have a curfew—but I do.”

“How old are you?” Poppy asked.

“Three weeks.”

“And did you say this was your first flight?”

“Really exciting, isn't it?” said the bat as she made a sudden sharp turn, abrupt enough to startle Poppy.

Poppy, resigned to being carried along, caught her breath and looked down and about. The last rays of the setting sun were cutting across Dimwood's treetops so that the whole forest seemed edged with gold. The sky had been transformed into a panoramic, multihued rainbow of blue, orange, and pink.
How huge the sky is!
thought
Poppy.
How beautiful. This is certainly a lovely way to see the world!

As always, seeing something lovely made Poppy think of Rye, who would have written a poem about such an extraordinary sight. But these pleasant thoughts were cut short when Luci abruptly plunged to a lower altitude. They were now just skimming over the treetops.

“Oh my!” exclaimed Poppy, almost breathless.

“Am I flying poorly?” Luci asked.

“Just fine,” Poppy managed. She tried to determine where she was, telling herself she would need to return home on her own. Luci, however, was going so fast it was hard to pick out landmarks. Besides, the sun was all but down. The only light was coming from the far west.

Luci dipped deeper among the tall, dark trees, darting around them with such sharp turns and shifts, Poppy became giddy. “Do you live in a tree?” she asked.

“Oh no, we live in a cave.”

Even as she spoke, the young bat broke away from the trees. Flying swiftly if somewhat erratically, Luci was now heading right toward a high cliff. As far as Poppy could see, it was a wall of solid stone.

“Luci!” cried Poppy. “There's a rock cliff straight ahead! Shouldn't you turn?”

“I don't think so,” said Luci, continuing to fly straight toward the face of the rock.

Poppy had no doubt the young bat was about to crash. She closed her eyes and said, “Good-bye, world!”

“I
'
M SAFE
!” Ereth shouted when he plumped down from the branch and landed on the creek bank. With a quick shake of his head, body, and tail, he flung off the mud that coated him. Only then did he look around for Poppy. He was actually going to thank her.

Poppy, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Puzzled, Ereth peered up at the branch that Poppy had managed to pull down. That was when he saw his friend streaking straight up into the twilight sky.

“
Poppy?
” he gasped, watching with disbelief as the mouse soared upward. “Is that…
you
?”

Ereth stared into the sky until the mouse appeared to stop rising and then began to fall.

The porcupine held his breath.

The very next moment
something
—Ereth wasn't sure
what it was or even if it
was
something—appeared out of the sky, snatched Poppy away, and then—
vanished
.

Astonished, Ereth could not move. Instead, he continued to study the darkening sky where Poppy had been.
Was that truly Poppy? If it was Poppy, how did she get up there? And if she did get up there, what happened to her?

Baffled, Ereth continued to stare at the sky, not sure he could—or should—believe what he had seen.
Did I imagine everything?
Ereth asked himself.
Was I missing Poppy so much I just dreamed she saved me?
No! He had seen Poppy rising into the sky, only to disappear!

No! That was impossible. But then, where was she?

Utterly mystified, the porcupine searched about the creek bank. He studied the mud. He scrutinized the sky again. Not a single sign of Poppy did he find.

I must,
he decided,
have imagined it all. A mouse in the sky…flying…disappearing…that's just not…possible…. Unless I'm crazy.

Determined to convince himself that he had only imagined what had happened, Ereth galloped home, taking pains to follow the exact route he had used when coming to Glitter Creek.

It was dark and Ereth was quite worn-out when he reached the foot of Poppy's snag.

“Poppy!” he cried. “Come out! It's me, Ereth!”

There was no reply.

“Poppy!” he shouted with a mix of agony and rage. “Answer me!”

Still no answer.

“Poppy!” Ereth pleaded. “
Please
! All I ask is that you tell me you're here! That you're safe! Then I promise, I'll go away. Forever!”

He waited, all the while watching the snag intently. “Maybe she's just playing a trick on me,” he muttered, hardly knowing whether to be frightened or furious but desperately wanting
some
explanation.

“Yes, that's it. She's playing a practical joke on me. As if it's funny to disappear like that. Leaving no trace. No note. Or words. No respect. No caring. No friendship. No love. No nothing! Well, I'll do the same. I'll ignore her. Forget her. Pluck her out of my
memory. Out of my heart. Act as if she never existed. As if we never did anything together. As if I never cared for her.
Ever!
”

Sighing deeply, Ereth remained silent for a moment, only to lift his head and wail, “Poppy,
please
tell me what happened to you!

“But I do know what happened!” Ereth reminded himself. “She saved me and then went up in the air and…disappeared.

“But—how could that be?”

A new explanation formed in his mind. Perhaps Poppy had fallen into the creek and had sunk the way he did. In the twilight gloom he just hadn't noticed.

Ereth's heart gave a lurch.
I must still try to save her.

He raced back to Glitter Creek. As he scurried along, his mind was a muddle of self-reproach:
I should have checked more. I should have searched harder. What a dunce I am! What an idiot! How cruel and unthinking! There I was, only thinking about myself. How selfish! How vain! How stupid! How like me!

Panting and exhausted, Ereth reached the bank of the creek. Pale yellow moonlight filled the heavy, warm air and lay upon the empty creek bed like a golden carpet softening the rough edges of the drought-parched landscape. Crickets endlessly, mindlessly rubbed their legs together. Mosquitoes droned.

“Poppy!” Ereth cried into the darkness. “Are you here? Are you drowning? Please, please,
please
tell me you are drowning—so I can save you!”

The last words were spoken in the feeblest of voices, a voice tinged with complete despair.

Bleary-eyed and quite frightened, Ereth attempted yet again to make sense of what had happened. He closed his eyes. It was too extraordinary. Too awful. Too dreadful. Even so, there were a couple of things about which he was now quite convinced: he had seen Poppy fly into the sky, and then she had disappeared.

Poppy, in order to save her best friend—
him
—had sacrificed herself.

The painful fact made him groan. But since he was now convinced of what had happened, Ereth made himself say aloud the awful words he was thinking: “While saving me, Poppy…
died
!”

As he spoke, he began to fully understand what he had witnessed.
Could it have been? Might it have been possible? There's no other explanation! What I saw rising into the sky must have been…was…Poppy's…
ghost!