fables folktales · Ages 9-12

The Bat Who Changed Sides Until Both Sides Remembered

A bat avoids danger by claiming every identity, but when peace returns he has no place because loyalty cannot be invented afterward.

The whole story

1. At sunset, Bramble hung from a willow branch and watched the valley prepare for trouble. On one bank lived the Hillfolk. On the other lived the Riverfolk. Neither side trusted the bridge between them.

2. The Hillfolk spotted him first. Bramble folded his wings and said, “I have always been one of you.” The badger at the gate nodded, pleased to hear it.

3. Then the Riverfolk called him over. Bramble loosened his scarf and said, “I have always been one of you.” The otter smiled and opened the river gate.

4. After that, Bramble served both sides. To the Hillfolk, he carried river news. To the Riverfolk, he carried hill news. Whenever voices rose, he agreed with the loudest one.

5. One stormy night, a plank broke loose. “The Riverfolk did it!” cried the Hillfolk. “The Hillfolk did it!” cried the Riverfolk. Bramble held the plank and answered both cries with a hurried, “Exactly.”

6. By morning, the bridge stood firm again. Bramble told the Hillfolk he had saved it for them. He told the Riverfolk the same thing. Both sides thanked him, but each kept one eye on the other.

7. Then the valley grew tired of suspicion. The Hillfolk and Riverfolk met on the bridge, compared their stories, and discovered that most of their fears had been borrowed.

8. When peace returned, the two sides asked Bramble to choose a place among them. “You know us best,” said the badger. “You belong with us,” said the otter.

9. Bramble opened his mouth, but every answer sounded borrowed. He had called himself Hillfolk when the hills were safest, Riverfolk when the river was safest, and both when neither was.

10. The badger and the otter remembered every promise Bramble had made, and every promise he had made twice. They did not chase him away. They simply could not place him inside a promise now.

11. So Bramble stayed near the bridge, where neither side claimed him. He carried messages only when asked, and he stopped changing his answer to match the listener.

12. The valley learned to cross the bridge without him. Bramble watched from the willow and told the truth at last: he had belonged wherever danger was not, and now he belonged nowhere that loyalty had already built.

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