Throwback Thursday: The Bat At Waterman Street School

Throwback Thursday.  Back again at Waterman Street School.

When I was in the 7th Grade one warm spring evening, after dark, I saw  a bat dive for bugs under the street light in front of house.

I heard that bats were blind and rely on their built-in-radar to sense bugs and attack them.  I threw up a pebble and sure enough, a bat shot out of dark and zoomed right by the pebble.  I suppose at the last moment it realized it wasn't a morsel of food and darted sideways.  After throwing other pebbles up and watching the bat each time go after it, I developed a plan:

When a car came down the street I would throw a pebble directly in front of it but low.

When I did that, I did exactly that and the car hit my little bat  friend.

The bat was dead, or so I thought.

I went back to the house and found a the kind of netted sacks oranges came in and put the bat in it.  I forgot where I stored it overnight.

The next morning I carried it to school.  I think my intention was to impress Mrs. King, my grades were borderline.

I always have had the habit of arriving early.  School was no exception.   In the hallway at school that morning I was standing  outside our 7th grade talking to others waiting on the bell to ring.  I had already showed my classmates standing there the dead bat in the netted sack.

Then, one, a little girl, said, "Look!  Your bat is alive!"

I looked down and the little varmint was prying away the net and suddenly jumped out and became airborne.

It flew up and down the hallway outside the classrooms bumping into the wall, search for a way out.

When the kids realized what has going on the begin to panic and scream and run away from the area it was bumping into the ceiling and walls, but their running caused the bat to follow the movement, which they screamed even louder.

The principal, Miss. Whitehead, and the janitor, Cliff, came rushing to the scene with brooms.

Miss Whitehead ordered all the children into their classrooms.  They ran into their rooms screaming.

I walked in with my head down, on thinking, I was going to get it.

And I did.

Not long after we were in our rooms Miss Whitehead came in, red faced, and told Mrs. King she wanted to have a word with me.

Out in the hall, red face and teary eyed, she wagged her finger at me and gave me a good chewing out.  She told me she taught my father, and his brothers, and they were always pulling something, but nothing as bad as this.  People could have been killed, stomped to death.

"DON'T  YOU EVER, I MEAN EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS AGAIN!!"  Her snarling red face shouted  at my frightened face, about 4 inches apart.

Oops!