Hello again, Story Club members. I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest,

spookiest tales on earth. Today is another Ivy's chilling tale. This flighty tale story club

members might make you wonder if it's a nightmare or reality.

It's one I call Shadow of the Bat.

I couldn't remember it getting dark so early.

It was after five in the evening and all the blue had already disappeared from the sky.

It was late October and as I was walking home through my neighborhood of Homewood,

parents' cars were pulling up in driveways coming home from work. Because I lived less than a

mile from school, I often walked home after football practice. Coach Seward really drilled us

this afternoon, and I was exhausted. I play left tackle on the offensive line. Hit it harder, Jonathan.

I could still hear the coach's words slice into my brain from when we'd been hitting the blocking dummies.

The memory made my headache pound even worse. And Deacon Morris, the big, beefy linebacker, all 230 pounds of him, broke the line during a scrimmage and struck me with

his boulder of a head. A big white light flashed in front of my eyes, and the next thing I remembered

was coach Seward and some of the team members standing over me telling me to wake up. And then

the coach threw some water on my face. I don't know why Deacon Morris had it in for me.

He was the biggest fifth grader at my school, a huge bully who always wore a stupid red

ball cap.

I just wanted to go home, lay down, and go to sleep.

But I had an American lit test to study for.

My grades were slipping.

And if I failed the test, I would be suspended from

playing football. I started to think about my classwork as I walked, you know, to get a jump on my

...