“Children,” said Mother Brown Bat, hanging neatly upside down from her favourite beam, “it will soon be time to sleep.”
Around her, the young bats rustled their wings and settled.
“We shall sleep very well this winter,” she continued. “Especially if it turns out to be a cold one — bats do their best sleeping in the cold. What a summer we have had, though! Do you remember the beetle pudding?”
“We remember, Mother,” said the young bats. “Though we are no longer babies.”
“So I’ve been told,” said Mother Brown Bat, with dignity. “But it is difficult for a mother to accept that her children have grown up when they do it so quickly. You were babies just last spring.”
She stretched a wing thoughtfully. “The one sad thing about our summers is that people don’t seem to like us. We keep out of their way, and we go about in the early hours when no one is stirring. But even so — people have a curious habit of not liking bats.”
“That is very hard to believe,” said the young bats.
“I think so too,” said their mother. “We are small and clever and altogether excellent company. We require no housekeeping — no beds to make, no floors to sweep. We simply hang where we are, which is both practical and elegant. Mr. Brown Bat never complains about the housekeeping because there is none to complain about.”
“Perfectly sensible,” said the young bats.
“Perfectly,” said their mother. And she closed her eyes, and the whole Brown Bat family went peacefully to sleep for the winter.
