A Creepy Case of Vampires Read Free Page B

attracting them!”
    “I’d better take a look,” said Tina.
    Kevin and Giles followed her to the doors. They carefully pushed them open and poked their heads inside the church. Giles couldn’t believe what he saw. It sent an icy tingle through his whole body. The entire church was teeming with bats—they swarmed excitedly like a thick cloud of giant bees. You could barely see to the altar, thebats were so thick. The air throbbed with their chorus of high-pitched squeaks and squeals.
    They stepped back outside and quickly slammed the door shut.
    “I don’t understand,” said Tina. “All my calculations…those bats should not be here!”
    “Well, they are!” shouted Father Peter. “And how am I supposed to conduct mass now? My own fault for hiring three children, I suppose.”
    “At least he still doesn’t know about the dishwasher disaster,” Kevin whispered to Giles.
    “I do know about the dishwasher disaster!” Father Peter roared. “Mr Wallace told me all about it today! You’ve made a complete mess of things! You’re fired!”
    “Maybe I can be of some help,” came a strange, squeaky voice behind them.
    Giles turned and gasped. Standing among the tombstones in the misty graveyard was the mysterious man in the black cape.
    “It’s…it’s…” stammered Kevin.
    “I know,” said Giles. “It’s the vamp—”
    “I’m Morley Fleder,” said the man, walking towardthem with a jerky, light-footed gait. “I’m a bat expert from the university. I’ve been studying these bats of yours.”
    “You’re studying them?” said Giles in relief.
    “We saw you that night on the tower!” said Kevin.
    “Yes, I remember seeing you, too. I hope you don’t mind,” he said to Father Peter. “When I spotted the bats, I simply had to take a closer look, so I went up the tower by myself.”
    “We thought you were a vampire!” said Kevin.
    Tina rolled her eyes wearily, but Professor Fleder laughed—a high, squeaky laugh.
    “A vampire, oh, that’s funny,” he said. “Oh, I’ll have to tell my friends. They’ll think that’s wonderful!”
    He was very tall and pointy, with thick curly black hair, big ears, and a bristly beard and moustache that spread out over most of his pale face. Giles could understand how, from a distance, he’d thought the man was wearing a black mask. There wasn’t much of his skin showing. Even his eyes looked black, but that was probably just the fading light. And Giles could see that he wasn’t really wearing a cape, just a long, flappy, black raincoat.
    “Well, since you’re an expert,” said Father Peter,“maybe you could tell me why all these bats came here in the first place.”
    “Simple,” said Professor Fleder. “They need a new home. These bats used to live in a very nice, cozy cave down the river, but it just got bulldozed for a new office building. So now they’re looking for a new place to roost.”
    Giles gasped in surprise. A small brown bat was crawling up the professor’s arm onto his shoulder. “You’ve got one on you!” Giles said, pointing.
    “Oh, him,” said Professor Fleder, picking up the bat. “That’s one of my bats from the lab. I take him out every once in a while for some fresh air. He’s quite friendly. He likes being stroked, very gently, just like a mouse. See? But you mustn’t ever handle a wild bat. It might bite.”
    Giles cautiously took a step closer and looked at the bat in Professor Fleder’s hand. He had to admit that it did look a little like a mouse if you could picture it without wings. He was surprised at how small it was, really, once it was all folded up. They looked much bigger when they were flying—scarier, too. Tina was right all along. They were just animals, and here he’d been, worrying about vampires! He felt a little ashamed of himself.
    From his pocket, Professor Fleder took a little cloth bag, no bigger than a handkerchief, and slid the bat inside. Then he popped the bag back into the pocket of