Free Smile and be a Villain by Jeanne M. Dams Page B

thought. There’s a belfry. The saying isn’t just a cliché. I once visited a church in northern Indiana that did in fact have bats in its belfry. And on that occasion, also down in the church. I shuddered at the memory and moved a little closer to Alan.
    We found no bats in the churchyard. ‘It is perhaps too early for them, or too open,’ said our guide. ‘We will go to a place that is more wild, more trees and bushes.’
    After a little while I began to enjoy our walk through the lowering twilight. No one in the group was inclined to talk much; there was an intimacy to our quest that I found pleasant. Now and then someone’s little black box would emit a rapid series of clicks and we would all look around to try to spot the bat.
    It wasn’t until we got into a woodsy area, with trees and undergrowth all around, that we actually saw bats. Then it seemed they were everywhere, crossing our path, swooping purposefully to catch food. The area was damp, and I began to wish I had brought some mosquito repellent, until the guide answered someone else’s question on the subject. ‘A bat can eat as many as five thousand mosquitoes in a night,’ she said. ‘That is what they are doing right now, eating the mosquitoes that would rather be eating you. They are very useful animals!’
    I had to agree about that. Mosquitoes love me, and yet I hadn’t had a single bite. Well, hooray for bats!
    Then our French guide turned the excursion over to Suzi, the hedgehog expert. She explained that the blonde hedgehogs were not native to Alderney. Legend had it that someone had bought a pair at Harrods, years ago, and brought them to the island, where they adapted beautifully to their new environment, obeying the biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply. They had no natural enemies and were thus not wary, but could actually be approached and picked up. ‘And you don’t have to worry about doing that, because their quills aren’t especially spiny, they have soft fur on their undersides and they have no fleas!’
    We trudged over a large portion of the island, farming areas, cliff tops, woods. We shone our flashlights into hedges. We turned down tiny lanes and came back again.
    We saw not one hedgehog of any colour.
    â€˜You know,’ I said to another member of the party, ‘I’ve never seen a hedgehog. We don’t have them in America, and for some reason they don’t seem to like my part of England, either. All I know about them is from Beatrix Potter: Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.’
    â€˜And you know,’ said the woman, without a trace of a smile, ‘they really aren’t very good at doing laundry.’
    We ended up in the garden of Suzi’s house. She explained that she regularly put food out for the hedgehogs, but it appeared that this evening her husband had forgotten to do it. No hedgehogs.
    â€˜I’m so sorry,’ she said to the group. ‘They’re wild animals, of course, and not entirely predictable, but …’
    â€˜Another time,’ said one of the party. The trouble was, for some, perhaps most, of the group there might not be another time. Alderney is hard enough to reach that a visit might be a once-in-a-lifetime event.
    I was mildly disappointed, but we would probably still be here next Thursday. At least the evening had given us a break from the vexing problem of the dead American. And all the walking we’d done that day had tired my body. I hope my brain would consent to shut down for the night, too, and let me sleep.
    â€˜Nightmares, darling?’ asked Alan in the morning, as he was shaving.
    â€˜Why, did I disturb you?’
    â€˜Not much, but you were a trifle restless.’
    â€˜I don’t remember anything except waking once with a vague sense of discomfort. Of course that could have been just because I needed to go to the bathroom. Whatever it was, it was gone when I went back to