Chapter 9

Chapter 9 THE GIANT BULLDOZERS IN THE PARK ARE LOVELY THIS TIME OF YEAR. Ash removed her goggles. They'd been in the game for a whole day and night, but very little real time had passed. Ms. Minerva was in the nearby office. Ash could just make out her curly hair on the other side of the windows. Knowing the teacher, she was probably absorbed in a book. Ms. Minerva was a creature of habit. So were bats. Weren't they? Ash had been giving the school's strange infestation some thought. "There must be a reason the bats are here," she said. "Don't you think?" Po replaced his pair of goggles on their peg. "Taco Tuesday?" he suggested. "I don't think they're here for the cafeteria

food," Harper said. "Although you might be onto something. Maybe there are a lot of tasty mosquitoes in the area?" Ash looked at the clock. She had an hour before she had to be home for dinner. "Are you all free for a little longer?" she asked. "I want to do some investigating. Maybe see this park that Morgan mentioned." She tapped her Supersleuth Scout badge. "I'm in," said Jodi. "But first I need a snack that isn't a digital apple." "Tacos!" said Po. Ash hadn't been to the park yet since moving to town, but she'd heard it was a great place to spend a weekend afternoon. She was expecting endless fields of grass, flowers of every color, and a pond where ducklings swam in little rows.

She was not expecting a giant bulldozer and a crane. The construction vehicles stood at the edge of the park, right beside a densely wooded area. A large section of trees had already been cleared. "How long has that been going on?" she asked. "It must be new," said Morgan. "I was here a few weeks ago. That area was nothing but trees." "Let's check it out," suggested Harper. "Can someone push me, though?" asked Po. "This grass is killer to wheel over." "I gotcha," said Jodi. They made their way over to the construction vehicles. There was a long chain-link fence blocking off the area. The trees were gone, and the ground was a mess of dirt and broken roots.

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"Wow, just look at this section of the park," said Morgan. "They made a real mess." "It's a shame," said an old man. He was seated on a park bench with a newspaper in his lap and a sleeping pug at his feet. "I come here every night to watch the bats, but now they're gone." Ash's heart sped up. "Did you say bats?" "That's right." The man nodded. "You wouldn't even know they were here during the day, but they filled the trees. At dusk, they'd all wake up and fly off to find dinner. Sometimes a

hundred of them took flight all at once. It was a spectacular sight." He sighed. "I'm sure the condominiums they're building will be just as beautiful. Not!" Then he returned to his newspaper. "So that's what happened," said Harper. She grew more excited as her mind raced. "That's why the bats are in our school. Their habitat was destroyed."