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"It’s Viv And be careful, huh?" I called down

"Impossible woman," he , inside, and then around the back of my knee And then I feltwell, it felt like

"Clark! Did you just lick--"

"No!" he yelled, wrenching h the porch I fell backward,I saw him crawl out from beneath the porch, dust himself off, and then walk towardof the kind," he said But the tips of his ears were red

Flap-flap-flap-flap

"Ah crap, I forgot about that"

"You’re kind of a two-crisis girl, aren’t you?" He laughed, reaching behind his toolbox and picking up a lacrosse stick

"That’s what you brought to kill a bat?"

"It was either this or my squash racket" He took a few practice swipes at the air "Besides, we’re not going to kill it We’re going to catch it, then let it go"

"There is no we There’s a you, as in you are going to get the bat!"

"It’s your house, you should be helping h, you sure are scared of a little thing like a bat"

"I’esture, as if to say well then, go ahead on in without rumbled, "Okay fine--I’ in first" I stood up and brushed off my shorts I now had another scrape to ed in the garage until I found a rake and a bucket, then rejoined Clark on the porch Stepping over the hole, I huddled behind him as he opened the front door We went inside, alert and listening

"Is so the air

"Da past him and into the kitchen "Motherfucker!"

"Vivian!" Clark exclai past me to turn off the burners Smoke billowed fronition Rice? Now a cake in the botto the pots into the sink, probably sla them a little harder than necessary I was pissed at the porch, pissed at the house, pissed thathurt, and pissed off that I still had a bat in the house A bat in the house!

"Were you expecting so roolanced past hi on the table "No, that was just forout the candle

"You lit candles just to eat alone?"

"Yeah So?" I asked, turning back to him I saw the bat It was perched on the lacrosse stick, just behind his head