One night, before the sun rose and most creatures were still asleep in their dens, a star fell over Willowyck Island. As it streaked over the fruit grove that overlooked Crescent Bay, some of its magic stardust sprinkled over the fruits like sugar crystals.

The very next day, as the sun warmed the fruits, everyone on the island agreed that it was the best bunch of fruit they had ever seen in the grove. In fact, the colors were so bright and brilliant that nobody wanted to pick any of them because they were afraid they would spoil. This was a good decision, because something very strange was about to happen; just as the sun began to roll over the horizon for the night, the fruit began to tremble, then to down-right shake!

Suddenly, they started popping! On the grape vine, a bunch of grapes grew a pair of purple wings. A moment later, a purple face with big ears and beady black eyes appeared as grapes went dropping to the ground below. Nearby, on the lemon tree…

…a yellow face emerged from a lemon as the rind peeled back, likewise a green face came out a few inches away from a lime on the lime tree next door.

Next came Apple Bat and her brother Pear. Climbing out of their fruit they begin flapping their wings, which had seeds in them, and shaking off their juice. On the orange tree, the biggest, plumpest orange wiggled and wiggled, and all of a sudden Mandarin Orange came out. He shook off the orange juice and proclaimed that he was hungry, so he ate the rest of the orange!

From the little kiwi tree, one of the fuzzy brown fruits unfolded and it turned out not to be a fruit at all, but Kiwi Bat! Awkward on her new wings, she wobbled over to the banana tree, where a small bunch of ripe yellow bananas swung back and forth. Out of the bottom, a little yellow bottom popped out. It gave a brief wriggle, then went back in and a moment later, Batnana’s head emerged instead. Kiwi helped her get out the rest of the way and they went tumbling down into the strawberry patch.

When they landed, they were beside the biggest Strawberry ever to grow on the island! And as they watched, Strawbatty pushed her way out, and sat licking yummy juice from her wings.

Over in the watermelon patch there came a thumping. All the bats heard it. In the center of the patch lay a watermelon that bounced with every thump. They flew over to investigate. With one last BANG, the top of the watermelon cracked, and a second later, it cracked more. Then, a head peeked out: a green head, with bright pink in its ears.
Watermelon Bat looked around at his fellow FRUITBATS. All were colored like their fruit of origin, and they had seeds on their wings. They looked on him with their new eyes, curious and surprised at their own existence and the giant bouncing fruit. It is an awfully strange thing to wake up one day and be a bat, when just the day before you were a fruit!

Watermelon looked at is fellow fruits-become-bats and thought: “This is going to be one big adventure, we better stick together!”