Oswald had always been a strange child.  When other toddlers were outside, running around in the sunshine, building sand castles or pushing each other off the swings, Oswald slept the day away in his shadowy room with the blinds down and the curtains pulled.  His mother had tried, it must be said, to tempt her boy out of doors with a shiny new Tonka truck or a promise of ice cream in the park, but Oswald cried until she tucked him in and let him sleep.

But when the sun went down and the street lights came on, Oswald was ready to play!

“I just don’t know what to do with him,” his mother sighed.

“He’ll grow out of it, just wait and see,” his father replied and tossed a rubber ball to his son who was playing in the corner with his back turned to the room.  The ball bounced unheeded across the floor.

“Woooo-ooo, wooo-oo-oo,” said Oswald, and he knocked his tower of blocks to the floor.

When time had passed and Oswald was older, he was sent, like most boys and girls, off to school each morning.  His mother was pleased to see that he was a reliable student, if not an enthusiastic one, and she thought perhaps her husband had been right after all: Oswald had grown out of his unusual habits.

But then, one evening just as his parents were preparing for bed, they heard the front door slam and footsteps on the stair. 

“Oswald!  Where have you been?” they cried.

“Out,” said Oswald.

“But what have you been doing?” they asked.

“Nothing,” said Oswald, and with a little smile, he drifted off to bed.

And now, every evening when his parents settled down with the television, Oswald crept down the stairs and out into the night air.  Sometimes he wandered through the neighbors’ yards and peered into their windows to watch them living their everyday lives, sometimes he followed a cat just to see where it would go.  And sometimes he hid behind a tree, then jumped out with a fearful “Woooo-ooo, wooo-oo-oo!” to frighten an innocent passer-by.

“Oh!  Oswald, please stay at home in bed.  If you roam about at night, surely you are going to turn into a bat!” said his parents, shaking their heads.  But still Oswald would go out each night.

It was a moonlit night in October, when the breeze was tossing the branches until the autumn leaves gave up their hold and fell skittering across the sidewalks, that Oswald spied old Mrs. Grenwich coming home from the shops.  Quickly, he hopped into the bushes, and as she passed, out he jumped with a cry of “Woooo-ooo, wooo-oo-oo!”  The poor woman gathered up her skirt and hobbled away as fast as her tired legs would carry her.  And from her grocery bag, a bright red apple fell and rolled across the sidewalk.

As soon as the coast was clear, Oswald crossed the pavement and bent to pick up the apple, glowing in the moonlight like ruby.  But what was this? Not his hand at all, but just a single claw protruding from a leathery wing.   

“Where is my hand?” Oswald tried to cry, but all he heard was a squeaky, chitter-y sort of sound. Pondering this, he turned to see his reflection in a nearby store window, and as he watched, his ears grew tall and pointed, his nose turned up, and soft brown fur climbed up his neck and onto his cheeks.

“Uh-oh,” thought Oswald.

His parents searched night and day, but they never saw their child again.  They kept his picture on the mantel and his bedroom just as it had been the night he disappeared.  Every night, his mother visited his room to turn down the covers, and his father left the porch light burning all night.  But time closes slowly over even the largest holes, and eventually they began to settle down together again to watch television in the evenings.  And on some October evenings, when the moon made shadows in the garden, Oswald’s mother thought she could hear the soft sound of leather wings pattering against the window, and his father could have sworn he saw a brown bat with eyes just like his boy’s swoop through the branches of their old oak tree.

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