Bats in Between

By Jandy Branch

In her final year of high school in the small "Mormon town" of Upton, Heather MacLean seems to have everything going for her. Even though she's still considered the new-girl, she's feeling more comfortable. She's dating her dream boy, Ben Jones, and she's on track to become the town's first female valedictorian. But when Ben leaves town to go to university in the capital city, Heather is left to make friends with Aaron, the town's resident gloomy vampire-boy. Will she make it out of high school unscathed? Follow Heather through the sequel to "Parakeet Princess" as she navigates the perils of mandatory gym class, a long distance relationship, and finding out the hard way what love is not. This is a clean, uplifting story about growth and girl-power. Set in the 1990s, it has something to offer older readers looking to see reflections of their own experiences. Look for the sequel, "Swans in Sight" and Jandy's new series, "Hurricane Hana."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jandy Branch
• Release date: Aug 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476155937

Jandy Branch

Jandy Branch's writing is based on real, every day life, especially the ups and downs of growing up LDS in the early 1990s.

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Bats In Between

Book 2 of the Parakeet Princess Series

By Jandy Branch

Copyright Jandy Branch 2012

Smashwords License Notes

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For Rachel

***

I heard the loud, high shriek before I realized it was my own throat that had made the sound. Only then did I notice I had grabbed Ben Jones’ arm with all of my fingers and stopped us from moving any further down the dark path.

What is it? Ben gasped at me.

Over there, in the sage brush, I said. I didn’t point. That would have meant letting go of his arm.

What is it? he asked again. A bear? Rattlesnake? Zombies?

And I knew all at once that I was a fool. I thought I saw a skunk, I admitted. Sorry.

Ben sighed and pried my fingertips out of what flesh there was on his bone-thin arm. Once he’d loosed my hands, he gathered them between both of his own. Heather, I believe screaming at a nervous mustelid usually just escalates the situation.

I hung my head. I’m acting out some stupid girlie cliché, aren’t I?

Ben laughed. Girlie-ness is one of my favourite things about you. But that doesn’t mean I want the campus security goons to come running down here to see what horrible crimes I’ve committed against you. He glanced up at the brown, Brutalist hulk of the small university built into the coulee above us.

I looked up out of the valley too. No one’s coming. I accidentally scream in public places all the time and the police have only showed up to ask about it once. I tugged on his hand, leading him further down the trail of broken red shale toward the mostly desiccated river below.

He nearly laughed, not sure if I was joking about being hassled by the police for being noisy -- which I wasn’t. I hope you’re right. I won’t get very far with my mission application papers if there’s an active assault charge involving a girl I’m dating.

Sorry, I said again. You know I would never do anything to keep you away from your mission.

Even though he’d just admitted we were dating, sometimes Ben felt a little fatherly to me. There was a sweetness about it but there was also something faintly patronizing to it. As always, I pushed the feeling aside.

You know, I said, threading my arm through his, some guys actually like to hear girls scream.

Ben scoffed. Nice. I’d hate to imagine what they like about it.

I shrugged. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a little invigorating -- makes them feel like they might get a chance to be heroic or something. I don’t know. That’s just what I’ve heard.

Maybe you’re not talking to the right people. Ben’s suggestion was just a little bit hostile.

I sighed. Yup. That’s probably true.

Heather, Ben stopped on the path and turned to face me. The lights of the university glinted off his glasses in the darkness. I applied to this school too – just in case something happened to keep me from going to university in the capital. And they didn’t just accept me here. They offered me an awesome scholarship.

I smiled. Of course they did. You’re the reigning valedictorian of the illustrious Upton High School. I rose onto my tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

I heard him swallow. I– I’ve been thinking about taking the scholarship. I might call all of this ‘good enough’ and consider going to school here instead. It does make a little sense. I could live at home, in Upton -- four blocks away from your house.

There was a pause as I bowed my head. Everyone knows this school is in a different league than the one in the capital city. And a downgrade like that would be awful for us. You’d just come to resent it. And everyone would be whispering about how you let yourself get held back in life because of some dumb high school girl.

Ben shook his head. You wouldn’t be the only factor. Staying here would be a lot less expensive for my family and I’d get to spend one more year living with all of them. That really would be nice.

I smirked. Nice, but not nearly as fun for people to gossip about as some stifling girl.

He sighed. I’m having a hard time thinking straight right now – and it’s not like me. I’m not used to it.

I laughed. Yeah, I can see why you’d turn to me right now. I’m an expert on irrational thought processes.

Ben smiled. That’s not what I meant, Parakeet.

Well, I began again, the university in the capital city is such a good university, I’ll be going there too after I break out of Upton High School.

And two years after that, Ben continued, closing an arm around my shoulders, my mission will be finished and we’ll both be students there -- together.

He meant it to sound cheerful but at age seventeen, the idea of enduring a three year wait before we could live in the same neighbourhood again was painfully sobering. I looked up at Ben but couldn’t discern the features of his face anymore in the dimness.

We’d better head back up the valley, I said. It’s getting too dark. There’s no way we’ll make it all the way to the river tonight.

Ben sighed into the top of my head. You’re right.

I made the steep walk out of the coulee without having to do anymore screaming. At the top of the hill, we found Ben’s dingy blue car parked in the lot under clouds of tiny moths lit up by the orange streetlights. Once again, I stomached his need to open the car door for me like I had some kind of debilitating injury, or whatever.

We drove east, crossing the low, concrete bridge, rising into the centre of the city, moving down a busy avenue. The road intersected the little street where my best friend, Crystal, and her twin brother, Wayne, lived in a small rented house that wasn’t quite old enough or well-kept enough to be designated a heritage building.

It still felt strange to come into the city from the small town where I lived and not stop to see Crystal. All summer long, something had driven me to keep Ben separate from the friends I’d made at the fast food restaurant where I worked. None of the parties involved seemed to mind. After all, the only thing they appeared to have in common was affection for me. I looked out the car window as the street sign for Crystal’s address came into and then passed back out of my field of vision. Wayne, Crystal, Darren, and the guy I had everyone calling Bert -- what would happen if Ben was ever to meet them? It was like my identity was an unstable chemical compound swirling with opposing, unsympathetic ions that needed to be held apart from each other in order to keep me from imploding.

I reached for Ben’s hand as he drove and was able to hold it for a few minutes before he needed to gear the car down to stop at a traffic light.

Just because something’s doomed doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile, right? I said. But I’d spoken too softly.

What was that? Ben asked.

I cleared my throat. Oh. It was nothing.

***

On the first day of my final year at Upton High School, I discovered Ben Jones had made me famous.

Maybe that’s an overstatement. Still, people who hadn’t spoken to me at all during eleventh grade were suddenly nodding and smiling and asking me how Ben was getting along at university as I passed them in the hallways. Everyone seemed to know he had left for capital city just a few days before Upton High School had opened for the year.

When Tawny Reynolds and her best friend, Melanie, sat down in the desks front of me in my first period history class, I couldn’t sense any more of that awkward pity that used to lace every bit of contact I had with the girls.

Ready to go again? Tawny grinned at me as she pulled a pristine, new notebook out of her backpack.

I laughed, relieved to see my chief rival in the race for this year’s valedictorian award was willing to be collegial about the whole thing. Sure, why not? I chirped.

So did you spend your summer toning up your academic powers? Even though the question was spoken as if it was a joke, I could tell Tawny was earnestly curious – and a bit worried.

Well, I folded a lot of burritos working at TacoTown over the summer, if that’s what you mean, I answered.

Melanie shook her head. Tawny went down to Idaho to a college prep summer camp. She stayed right in the dorms while she was there and everything.

Tawny blushed. It wasn’t a huge deal.

What are you talking about? Melanie huffed. It was really demanding. You had to read all those ancient Greek books and everything.

Tawny sighed. Thanks, Mel. But it’s not like they weren’t already translated into English for me.

Sounds cool, I said. What did they have you read? Lots of Sophocles?

Virgil, actually, Tawny answered. I know, I know. It’s Roman, not Greek at all.

Melanie rolled her eyes. Same difference.

By some miracle, I actually happened to have a passage of Virgil’s Aeneid stashed in my memory. I neglected to stop to worry whether it was showing off or not as I began to speak.

’Here the ferryman alone poles his craft – old now, but old age in the gods is green,’ I quoted.

Tawny’s blush deepened. That’s the same book, all right.

Ben says it was just written as imperial Roman propaganda – a revisionist history. But who cares? It doesn’t mean Virgil wasn’t a literary genius, right? I offered.

Melanie’s posture straightened at the sound of me pronouncing Ben Jones’ name in that particularly possessive way only mothers and people who are dating will dare to use. How is Ben, anyway? she hurried to ask.

I shrugged. Good, last I heard. We were in the final moments of human history before email was commonly used. Long distance phone calls were really expensive in those days too. It meant I would have to wait nearly a week before any word from Ben could reach me through the traditional postal service. Until that week passed, his new life in the capital city was still a complete mystery to me.

Even though I had nothing to report, both the girls were now smiling at me in a dreamy, almost awed sort of way. I was fairly sure it was not in deference to my knowledge of ancient, Classical literature. No. It was because I was now known to be dating the hitherto un-dateable Ben Jones. All over Upton, everyone’s grandmother was insanely jealous.

Class hadn’t quite started yet but the teacher was already beckoning me toward the doorway where the principal stood, waiting for me.

Welcome back, Heather, the principal greeted me without looking up from the sheets of paper in his hands. We need to have a talk about your transcript.

I frowned. Is something wrong with it?

Uh, let’s head down to the office so we can take a look. He led me away from the classroom, leaving Tawny and Melanie gawking after me. We walked in quiet and I could hear my history teacher’s voice beginning to ring down the hallway – droning something about the Soviet Union. Everyone knew history lessons were just a necessary evil in the teacher’s real career as the head coach of the Upton Rockets football team. He’d already been up calling out push-up counts since 6:30 that morning.

When you first arrived at our school, last year, the principal began as he pulled the door to his office closed behind us, and we transferred your credits from your old school and selected the courses you’d need to graduate here – well, there was an oversight.

Uh-oh, I said. A mistake?

Yes, he confirmed. Don’t worry. We can still fix it in time for you to graduate with the rest of your class. We just need to add one more course to your schedule—a certain course in particular. He looked uncomfortable as he pulled his wheeled chair closer to his desk. We need you to take a semester of gym.

I felt instantly sick. What? Why?

It’s the government curriculum, straight from the legislature. And it’s not negotiable. No one gets out of high school in this district anymore without at least one credit in physical education – you know, because of the war on childhood obesity and whatnot, he explained.

By now, the principal had both condemned me to gym and called me fat. Whatnot, I repeated, lamely.

He cleared his throat. You see, we assumed you would have taken gym class in tenth grade. That’s when students usually take it here. But I guess in your old school--

It wasn’t required there, I finished.

The principal nodded at his desktop. I didn’t have to say anything else. He knew as well as I did that assigning me to take a gym class was the same thing as banning me from being the school’s valedictorian. Inevitably, my grade in gym class would be somewhere in the range between mediocre and bad. It certainly wouldn’t be good enough to keep my grade point average in the running for the top mark in this year’s graduating class, no matter how many passages of Virgil I could spontaneously recite.

If I hadn’t seen for myself how uneasy the whole thing seemed to be making the poor man, I would have been sure it was all part of a conspiracy – some kind of plot to keep an Upton outsider like me from running away with the town’s highest academic honour. But sitting across the desk from me, the principal looked genuinely sorry.

We’ve already looked at your schedule, he began again, and talked to Mr. Rodney. He says he can fit you into his fourth period gym class, starting tomorrow.

It’s like a nightmare, was all I said.

Heather, everyone has to submit to the physical education requirement—Ben Jones, Tawny Reynolds—everybody, he assured me.

Yeah, but they got to do it back in tenth grade when their grade point averages weren’t as important, I said. There’s nothing at stake in tenth grade.

The principal pursed his lips and nodded at his desktop again. I do realize that. And I am sorry. It’s out of our hands.

In the vestibule of the office, Mrs. Sharpton printed out a copy of my revised schedule, complete with three hours of gym every week. The sheet of paper still hung limply from my hand as I took my seat in history class. Everything had faded away as I’d paced back down the length of the school hallway: the valedictorian title, my name engraved on a plaque, my own page in the yearbook, the five hundred dollar award, the speech in front of the entire town, and lifetime membership in Ben Jones’ exclusive club for the smartest of the smart kids. It was all gone.

Melanie turned around in her chair as I took my seat. Is everything okay? she whispered. You seem kind of—

No, I answered. They enrolled me in gym.

She raised her eyebrows. You mean, you didn’t do your gym requirement yet?

Apparently not, I answered in the same dazed voice I’d been using ever since I stepped out of the principal’s office. Poke Tawny in the back for me, will ya? And when she turns around tell her, the valedictorian award – it’s hers.

***

Naturally, Crystal was furious when I told her about the gym class fiasco. She almost blamed herself for not making sure to mention the physical education requirement to me back in the eleventh grade.

If only I’d known you didn’t take high school gym before you moved here, she moaned, I could have tipped you off early enough to stop them from sabotaging our valedictorian plans.

It’s all right. It wasn’t your problem, I soothed her. And it really doesn’t seem like sabotage. It’s just rotten luck. We were standing at a counter in TacoTown, collating tortillas between sheets of wax paper.

Well, we’re not just going to stand by and take this without a fight, she declared. I have my own jock powers and I’m going to use them for our greater good.

What are you going to do? Try to pose as me in Upton High School gym classes? I teased, joylessly.

Nope. I’m putting you in training.

My dad loved sports and he’d shown me enough inspirational movies about boxers and runners and football players for me to recognize when we’d stumbled into an unlikely cliché. I was about to begin arguing with Crystal when Darren rounded the corner.

Just fake some kind of injury instead, he suggested. Then you can sit on the sidelines reading rulebooks while the rest of them run around. It happened to a guy in my school. He passed gym class from a wheelchair.

Great. And all I’d have to do would be fake an x-ray, fool a doctor, and wear a bogus cast for half a year. Not going to happen, Darren.

Not if you won’t even try, it’s not, he answered.

Nah, training with Crystal is definitely your best bet. This woman is an awesome specimen, Bert