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hideous thought came to me. “Is it on me?” I said through my teeth, “just tell me once, is it on me, on the blanket? Ninki, is it? Is it?”
    â€œNow you just stay perfectly still,” my husband said reassuringly. “These things never stay in one place for very long. Why, only the other day I was reading in the paper about a woman who—”
    â€œIs it on the blanket?” I insisted hysterically, “on me?”
    â€œListen,” my husband said crossly, “if you keep on shaking like that, I’ll never be able to hit it. Hold still, and I’m sure to miss you.”
    I do not know what the official world’s record might be for getting out from under a blanket, flying across a room, opening a door and a screen door, and getting outside onto a porch with both doors closed behind you, but if it is more than about four seconds I broke it. I thought the bat was chasing me, for one thing. And I knew that, if the bat were chasing me, my husband was aiming that gun at it, wherever it was. Outside on the porch, I leaned my head against the middle pillar and breathed hard.
    Inside, there was a series of crashes. I recognized the first as the report of the air gun. The second sounded irresistibly like a lamp going over, which is what it turned out to be. The third I could not identify from the porch, but my husband said later that it was Ninki trying to get out of the way of the air gun and knocking over the andirons. Then my husband spoke angrily to Ninki, and Ninki snarled. Each of them, it seemed, thought the other one had frightened the bat, which had left the blanket when I did, although not half so fast, and was now circling gaily around the chandelier.
    â€œCome on in,” my husband said through the door; he tried to open it but I was hanging on from the outside; “Come on in, it won’t hurt you. I promise it won’t.”
    â€œI’ll stay out here,” I said.
    â€œIt’s just as frightened as you are,” he said.
    â€œIt is not,” I said.
    Then he apparently spoke to Ninki again, because he said excitedly, “It’s landing; keep away now, you’ll be hurt.”
    There was a great noise of rushing and snarling and shooting, then a long silence. Finally I asked softly, “Are you all right?”
    Another silence. “Are you all right?” I said.
    Another silence. I opened the door a crack and peered in cautiously. My husband was sitting on the couch, beating his hands on his knees. The air gun was on the floor. Ninki and the bat were gone.
    â€œIs it all right to come in?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” my husband said, looking at me bitterly, “have you got a ticket?”
    â€œI mean,” I said, “where’s the bat?”
    â€œShe’s taken it into the dining room,” my husband said.
    There was a nick in the wallpaper over the couch. In the dining room Ninki was growling pleasurably, deep in her throat. “She went faster than the pellet, is all,” my husband said reasonably. “I was just getting ready to aim and she passed me and passed the pellet and hit the bat just as the pellet hit the wall.”
    â€œHadn’t you better get it out of the dining room?” I asked.
    He began to beat his knees again. I went back to the couch, shook the blanket thoroughly to make sure there had been only one bat on it and that one was gone, and settled down in my chair with my mystery story. After a while Ninki came out of the dining room, nodded contemptuously at my husband, glanced at me and, with a grin at the air gun, got onto my husband’s chair and went to sleep on his paper.
    I took the air gun and put it on the top shelf of the pantry, where I believe it still is. Now and then it occurs to me that in case of burglars I can take it down to protect the house, but I really think one of the kitchen knives would be safer, if Ninki is not around to take care of