Another coloring page for you! Since I was so busy and took sooo long to post part 5 of the Bakery Surprise, I thought I should.add more to this month!
The FruitBats are going to have a busy 2017. In January, they will be visiting Anime Impulse in Los Angeles! They will also be in St. Louis, Kansas City, and maybe Indianapolis (cross your fingers, it could be a big deal if we get in)!
“I’ll go help her!” DragonFruit Bat said, as he seemed to have an inkling as to what she would do. The egg continued to shake, but it look like could be getting tired.
Apple and Pear flew up to it and latched on.
“You can do it!” Apple said.
“Don’t give up!” cheered Pear
A minute later Batnana emerged back through the roof hole with a chisel gripped in her toes. DragonFruit followed a second later with the heavier hammer.
Watermelon did a loop. “Batnana is going to be a sculptor!” he announced.
Everybat gathered around the egg and held it still. Since it was weak from all its bouncing, it wasn’t too hard. They watched in silence as Batnana expertly placed with a squinted eye and her tongue stuck out in concentration. Strawberry Bat flew up to help DragonFruit with the heavy hammer. After all, she wouldn’t want him to miss and hit Batnana by mistake!
“Flip, pop, blip!” Batnana said. She looked back at them when the hammer didn’t strike the back of the chisel.
Strawberry poked DragonFruit.“That means 1,2,3,” she whispered. “She wants us to strike on ‘blip.’”
“Oooh.”
Batnana turned back to the stone egg “Flip, pop, BLIP!”
They swung the hammer. WHACK!
The crack she had targeted split a little wider!
“Go! Release it, Batnana!”
They struck it again WHACK!
Another crack deepened.
Batnana worked for several minutes, and everybat cheered when the first big chunk fell off. Soon, several pieces of stone sat on the roof around them. Batnana flew off the rock. It gave a bounce, as if testing that it was once again free. Then, it began to wiggle, then bounce, then as if releasing that the big chunkes were gone and it was time for the fine work, it started to vibrate! The tiny chips flew as it bounced faster and faster, and all the Bushel took off to watch from a safe distance.
It didn’t take more than ten minutes for the rock to completely turn into a puppy. It gave a final bounce and spin and yipped with joy!
The stars were out now and the big yellow moon lit everything as it hung huge above the horizon. The other puppies came to wiggle their tails and sniff and lick each other. They were all different shades of grey. Some had moss spots and some had no moss. The one they had helped was a little smaller than the others and had a chip on his left ear so he was easy to pick out in the crowd.
Suddenly, a strong breeze began to blow. Some of the puppies lifted their little pug noses to sniff. Pretty soon, they had all walked to the edge of the wall and climbed onto the crenulations where the castle guard used to look out over the island.
The puppies began to flap their wings and yip and yap, bouncing with their faces in the wind and their ears flipping about. Then, all at ounce they rushed off the side! The FruitBats gasped and flew to the edge in fright!
WHOOSH! The puppies rose from their dive, paws stretched ahead and behind, wings spread wide!
“WOW!” the Bushel cheered! They spun in the air, reminded of the joy of first flight!
Then a sound distracted them from their glee. A whimper. Their little pugoyle friend had not jumped with his brothers, sisters and cousins. His litter mates had taken to the air, be he still sat watching them, all alone on the wall.
They flew to him.
“What’s wrong?” Apple Bat asked.
The puppy flapped his little wings hard and rapidly, but his tail stayed on the stone below it.
“His wings are too small yet,” Pear pointed out. “He doesn’t know if he can fly like the others.”
Lemon stepped forward to pet the whining pup on the head despite how much taller the puppy was compared to him. “He’s scared.”
“We can help! I know we can!” Apple said, looking to the others.
“First, I propose we name him,” Watermelon said. “I think we should call him Chip for his distinctive chipped ear. All in favor?”
“YAY” the Bushel responded unanimously.
“Ok, Chip, we’re gonna help you use your wings!”
“That’s right!” insisted Apple. She started to sing:
“Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Up! Up ! Up!
“Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Little Pup!”
All the bats hovered over the pugoyle’s back, gently grabbing his wrinkles with their toes and lifted him just a little off the wall. Chip began to flap his wings with determination.
Pear sang:
“When the world seems
big and scary
that’s just cause it’s
extraordinary!
Lift your wings and
learn to fly
You’ll see it better
from the sky!”
All the bats joined in:
“Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Up! Up ! Up!
“Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Little Pup!”
One by one the bats let go of Chip while Apple continued:
“If you’re feeling
down and lonely,
call your friends
and call your family!
When your sick
or if you’re hurting,
they’ll lift you up
with all their loving!”
Everyone!”
“Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Up! Up ! Up!”
“Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Just keep flying,
Little Pup!”
Soon only DragonFruit and Strawberry were still holding him up, the rest was all him!
Then, as happened before in the sculptor’s room, a big shadow passed over them. It was time to meet Mama!
“I donno if it was such a great idea to release THAT from the stone!” Mandarin Orange said after recovering from the fright.
“That shadow!” Lime Bat spouted, turning to the window. “What was it?”
Lemon peeked out from behind him. “It was HUGE, that’s what it was.”
“It must have been one of the things flying around the top of the castle.” Kiwi guessed.
Grape nodded. “Indeed. We better proceed with caution.”
“DragonFruit, can you show us a covered rout to the roof?” asked Watermelon.
“Sure! Follow me!”
They did just that, back out through the cracked door into the narrow hallway then through another door to the room across from the sculptor’s workshop. A section of the roof had collapsed long ago. The hole let in the pink light of the evening sky and the warm summer breeze. The sun was close to setting. The Bushel flapped up to the hole and peered out; a rainbow of little bat faces with twitching ears.
High above, soaring in and out of the clouds were big, dark creatures! Grape glanced down at the walkways on the walls between the towers. There were rocks in clusters here and there all over the walls.
“How incredibly odd,” he said to nobat in particular. Taking another glance up to make sure the dark animals were happily flying high above and not interested in them, he climbed onto the roof, scampered to the ledge, then fluttered over to the wall.
Watermelon noticed a moment later. “Come on everyone, lets stay together!” he said, following suit. They reassembled on the wall of the castle by a pile of the rocks. The rocks were bigger than them, and the same color as the flying creatures.
Grape climbed on of the rocks. “Wow, you know, these kinda look like-”
“Eggs!” Blueberry finished.
Just then, the sun began to fall over the edge of the world and the sky grew darker. The moon, which had barely been noticeable in the full daylight, began to glow yellow as it rose over the opposite horizon. When its light hit the castle, the rocks began to bounce! Grape flew off the rock he was on and eveybat retreated in surprise.
“What’s happening!” Lemon yelled over the noise of fifty bouncing rock-eggs.
“I donno, just don’t get bounced on!” DragonFruit told them. They took to the air just over the eggs to watch. As the eggs bounced, little pieces of them were chipping off! At first they bounced hard, bigger pieces breaking and crumbling away. Then, when the big pieces were gone, they started bouncing softer, almost vibrating against the stone walkway on the top of the wall. This caused smaller chips to come loose. As parts fell away, it became more obvious that they weren’t just breaking off at random. The eggs were becoming something! DragonFruit suddenly looked up at the flying animals above them.
“I think I know what they are!” he called to the rest. “There were stone creatures like the one we saw in the sculptor’s room on the turrets of the wall before! Maybe they became alive! Maybe they were just hibernating or something! I think they are Gargoyles!”
Sure enough, one of the eggs had bounced and chipped until it resembled a grey puppy with horns and bat wings, but also wrinkles and a little pug nose!
“Gargoyle?” Blueberry Bat said, “He looks more like a Pugoyle!” Blueberry noticed one of the eggs was far behind the others. She watched it, and it wasn’t bouncing quite as fast. “What’s wrong with this one? It looks like this one isn’t going to make it!”
The Bushel flew to it, the egg beside it had already become a puppy, and it was jumping and trying to play with it’s sibling. They could see where the little curl of a tail would be, and where its nose was, but it couldn’t bounce hard enough to break off some of the bigger pieces it needed to before working on the details. The Bushel held their breath then cheered it on, but nothing was happening.
“I don’t think it can free itself on its own!” Blueberry said with a frown. “The poor little guy is stuck!” Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes, “What do we do!”
“Released. It needs to be released!” Grape Bat announced. “Batnana!”
Batnana flew up. “Skibbity do dwop!” she said with a little salute, then shot off in the most linear flight any of them had ever seen her achieve (usually he liked to do loops) back through the hole in the roof.
“Where did you send her?” Pear asked.
“She’s an artist. She’ll know what to do.” Was all he would say.
For several weeks the FruitBats stayed in their grove and played together under the protective leaves of their trees, bushes and vines. Watermelon led them in many games. Kiwi invented fun gadgets. Grape learned from other animals about the island. Mandarin created tasty treats. Pear and Apple sang songs. Batnana made art. Strawberry always lended a hand with building and Blueberry was sure to help if anyone got hurt. Lemon and Lime gathered the whole Bushel together to host fun parties whenever they found an excuse.
One late afternoon (for that is morning to a bat) Watermelon woke up and swooped out of his hollow watermelon house. Everyone was getting up, but Grape Bat, sitting in his favorite clump of grape vine leaves, looked awfully contemplative for having just awoke. Watermelon decided to go over and find out what’s up.
“Sure is early for thinkin’ so hard,” he said, landing on a leaf and having to scramble up to where his tiny toes could grab the vine. Grape didn’t appear to hear him, so Watermelon poked his ear. “Hello?”
Finally paying attention, Grape wiggled his ear. “Oh, hi, I’ve been thinking!”
“I can tell,” Watermelon replied, “But about what?”
“Well,” Grape looked out across the fruit grove, “About all of us.”
Watermelon tilted his head like a confused puppy.
“You see,” Grape explained, “When the shooting star spread it’s magic over the grove, every fruit plant grew one fruit that became a bat.”
“So we’ve come to learn, yup.”
“So, logically, there should be a BlackBerry Bat!”
Watermelon looked to where Grape was staring, and sure enough, on the edge of the cliff that overlooked the bay, there grew a blackberry bush.
Grape leapt into the air and started flapping his way toward the bush, so Watermelon came along. The other bats, now alert and following their conversation, began to stretch their wings and join them.
“Maybe the magic just missed it,” Lemon suggested shyly as they all gathered in front of the bush. It’s dark, plump berries looked juicy in the low afternoon sun.
“But what if it didn’t? What if BlackBerry is out there somewhere all alone?” Blueberry chimed in. “That would just be awful!”
“Yes, I don’t think we should take the risk. If there is a BlackBerry Bat out there, then they should be a part of the Bushel!” Watermelon declared.
“Flippidy-piboppidy-wop,” Batnana said as she did a loop-de-loop and landed smack in the blackberry bush with her wings open for a hug. A second later she fell out, hopping around with her eyes crossed in pain. “Owowowowow!” Sticker thorns were all over her. Blueberry and Strawberry came to the rescue: Strawberry holding her still while Blueberry gently and expertly plucked the thorns form Batnana’s belly. Strawberry told them that Batnana was agreeing they needed to find their lost Bushelmate.
“Well that’s one exciting way to start an adventure,” Mandarin Orange Bat said as he joined the circle of on-lookers. “Haven’t even left the grove yet and we have our first accident. I’ve heard of a prickly pear, but a prickly banana is new to me!”
“What adventure?” Apple asked, checking Pear Bat for thorns. The Bushel turned expectantly toward Watermelon.
“We,” he said, lifting one wing into the air dramatically, “are going to find BlackBerry Bat!
“We are?” Grape asked, looking a little worried. “Oh my.”
Lemon and Lime are always together and will not be separated! They complement each other perfectly. Lemon is shy and sweet, easy to startle but always optimistic. He loves making lemonade for the Bushel on warm evenings, and at the parties that Lime is so fond of throwing. Lime loves to plan and host parties for the whole Bushel. When he plans a party in his Lime tree, the whole orchard lights up and it’s the best event on Willowyk Island. He’s loud and hyper, and always up for fun. When Lemon gets skittish if an adventure gets scary, Lime is always there to cheer him up and promises to protect him. He always finds ways to get Lemon to come out of his shell.
FruitBats & Company 