Chapter 1

该页暂无翻译

CHAPTER 1 Abigail "Abbi" Wallace held the walkie-talkie to her face. "Check, check. Come in, Lydia. Do you read me?" The walkie-talkie buzzed to life. "Loud and clear, Captain. Copy," Lydia said. "We're all set up here. Over." Abbi was sitting on the front porch of Moose Manor—the old castle where she lived with her mom, mystery writer Wallis Wallace, and their dog, Barkley. The sun was setting, and the air was chilly. Not bad for early October in Maine.

该页暂无翻译

Normally, Abbi and her two best friends, Lydia and Daniel Herrera, would be up on the third-floor balcony. They all liked to watch the local bats come out for their nightly flight. Both the view and the sound quality were much better from up there. But tonight, the elevator Abbi used to go upstairs was broken! It was old, just like the rest of the castle, and it didn't always work right. Temperamental, Abbi's mom liked to call it. The repair people were coming to fix it soon. In the meantime, Abbi was stuck on the first floor. Again. A few years ago, she would have been able to walk up the stairs with some help. But the disease she was born with, called spinal muscular atrophy, caused her muscles to weaken over time, and now she always used her power wheelchair. So the elevator was the only way she could go upstairs. "Okay, you opened the app on my phone? And plugged the mic in?" Abbi said into the walkie-talkie. "Nothing's red or blinking? There shouldn't be any blinking!"

"Looks good to me," Lydia said. "Hey, don't grab th—" Daniel's voice came through. "Do you want us to take a picture so you can check we did it right?" Abbi smiled. "That's okay. I trust you both!" "Roger that. Be down soon," Daniel said. Since Abbi couldn't be there herself, her friends were checking to make sure her recording equipment was ready for the night's action.

She had been recording animal sounds for as long as she could remember. First on a tape recorder. Later on her cell phone. But humans can't hear most bat sounds on their own. So for her birthday a few months ago, her mom had bought her a special bat detection microphone to record the sounds bats made and transform them into something audible. It could even track the bats' flight paths based on their calls! This was the first weekend she wouldn't be on the balcony to record things herself. But her