I’m a bat handler. I handle the bats. My home town is teeming with bats, and we had teams to handle the bats. My bat team was best in the league for 3 years straight, and we were the best bat handlers in the business.

I’ll bet Psyhigh’s got bats. Lots of bats.

Oh there's bats here alright. I can barely get my brain around them. Bats in the belfry, bats in the basement, bats in the well. More bats than they can handle, which is why they need me, Becky the Bat Handler.

But you know what they’ve got here too? Slugs. Every morning in the bright sunshine, I see the slug trails shining in the light. Silvery lines that shimmer and snake across the pavement and the dorms and over the teacher’s faces.

Bats don’t eat slugs. But frogs do. What this place needs is a Frog Farmer.

I'll admit I'm not a cat handler. That'd be my friend, Katherine the Cat Wrangler. She's from cactus country, and has plenty of experience herding those cuties cross country. She's dropping by to see me, with her feline friends in tow. I'll need to sweep up the guano and set down new newspaper, but my belfry will be beautiful when my beloved Kat arrives. Looking forward to the week!

Katherine the Cat Wrangler arrived last night, with all her cats and kittens in tow. She flies coach with her kitties, cramped in carry-ons or stuffed in her clutch. They're all big fans of the Sky Mall Kitties (Kitties of the Air), and the flight attendants give them special treats.

They tumbled out the taxi, tearing up the stairs to the top of the tower which serves as my bat handling roost, bat wings and fur exploding when they reached the top. Oh how they love to play!

Can't wait to show Katherine an awesome time at my new school. Watch for us walking our bats and cats!

We took the bats and the cats on a catwalk batwalk across campus late last night, traipsing over telephone lines and tethers, rolling over walls and roofs in a cloud of claw and wing. The remnant of the Popcorn Moon was enough to light our way, the cats with their low light lenses and the bats with their ultrasound ears. They like to tussle just above the ground, teasing and testing each other's toughness till somebody gets hurt. So it's safer if we walk at night.

My pal Katherine the Cat Wrangler had a great stay. She and her cats completed cleaning the campus of rats and mice and took a red-eye back to Reno. So I'm back to handling the bats on my own, making my rounds of the roosts and making sure the bats are bountiful.

Another old friend, Debbie the Doll Manager, caught wind of Kat's vacation and now she wants to come too. My bats don't react in a pleasant way around those haunted dolls, but I feel obliged to open up my belfry when they call. Looks like I'll be picking up the papers and preparing for another partner soon!

Debbie the Doll Manager arrived today, Debbie dragging the doll manger behind her up to my door. But I heard those paranormal puppets sniffling and sneezing and snorting up their haunted doll snot and knew immediately there was no way I could let them near my bats. Bats have such trouble as it is with Pseudogymnoascus destructans, I have an obligation to minimize the risk of reverse zoonosis no matter what the possibility. And who knows what it's called when there's dolls involved.

So I'm afraid I sent Debbie the Doll Manager on her way, perhaps to stay at a Super 8.

Since I became Psyhigh's bat handler, the bats in Psyhigh's belfies have gotten to know me better and better. I whistle and they flock to me, nuzzling me with their noses, looking for mosquitoes, midges, and mayflies in the nooks and crannies of my coat. I bring a big bucket of beetles and toss up handfuls in the air and watch the bats gobble 'em down.

I have a notion to start a bat delivery service--delivery by bat. But how big a sack can a flock of bats carry? And what do campus kids want delivered? Smoothies from the Spoonbender? Books from the library? We'll swoop in and snag your sack, once I train these bats up right.

Darn it! That ding dong Debbie the Doll Manager dribbles trouble wherever she goes. Turns out she drug her contagious crew of demented dolls right into a dorm and spread their dirty disease directly into the heart of Psyhigh! I can’t help but feel partly responsible.

But it turns out I may be able to mitigate this madness, at least a smidgen. Apparently, the cure lies with the Batfolk--the Fâhrèé as they are officially called. Every bat handler has heard of them, but they don't open their wings to just any crazy kook that comes calling. They're a very private people, especially with the demand for their dust so high.

There's a map to their land in the back of every bat handler's bat manual, and the complicated catacombs underneath Psyhigh provide a path to get there. I've packed my provisions and am heading out tonight.

I’m not the first to find my way through these cavernous catacombs beneath the school. There’s junk in the tunnels from journeys dating way way back: cavelights and compasses, carabiners and climbing cord, old tin cans and fossils. It’d be easy for a soul to get lost—if it weren’t for my flock of bats to lead the way. Guide bats! Just give them a sonic signature and they won’t stop searching till they find it.

In this case, that sonic signature is of the Fâhrèé, the bat people of bat lore. Yes, it’s true their distinct self defense techniques have been stolen by certain superheroes, but there’s plenty more to respect about this ancient race. It’s a pilgrimage every bat handler longs to take—I only hope I can leave with the medicine I require to fix the flu problem back on campus.

I hope I shall arrive soon.