Who Ate It? <xi>

Kina was so excited. School was finally over, and she had been waiting all day. Today was the day that she was going to take her brother Kale to pick guavas. 'We will find the juiciest, ripest guavas to ever exist!' she said, and led him by the hand to the fruit trees. 'Slow down sis, I can't run that fast!' complained Kale.

As soon as they got close to the guava trees, Kale noticed something. 'Oh no, sis, look at this!' he said, and pointed up. The branches of the tree were long and flexible, and hanging from one of them was a big, round guava. But there was something wrong. Something had taken a big bite out of it!

'What kind of thing could do that?' asked Kina. 'Maybe it was that caterpillar!' Kale shouted. Down on a lower branch Kina saw a caterpillar nibbling on a leaf. 'Of course not, Kale, how could it be?' she said. 'Caterpillar mouths are very tiny, and that bite is too big to be made by one of them!'

'Maybe it was a magic pixie?' said Kale. 'Don't be silly, it has to be a real creature, and pixies aren't real,' replied Kina. Kale looked around some more, and found a grasshopper. 'There! Look, that grasshopper seems guilty, he took a big bite out of that guava!' he said proudly. 'Again, the bite is too big to be from a bug!' said Kina, and rolled her eyes.

Kale looked around some more, and found something else to blame. 'Maybe it was that chicken! It looks kind of like a peck!' he said. 'Impossible!' replied Kina. 'How do you know?' asked Kale. 'Because chickens can't reach that high, at maximum it would have trouble pecking your knee!'

The sun began to set. All of a sudden, it started to get dark. 'We should probably head home,' said Kale. Then, Kina had an idea. 'Maybe what bit the guava could only come out at night, and that's why we haven't seen it yet?'

Kale and Kina went home and told their parents they wanted to find the guava biter. 'Well, you can take the tent and torches, but be careful!' said their mother. 'We will, and after we find it, we will sleep under the stars!' said Kina. 'I hope we find it soon, I'm getting sleepy already,' yawned Kale. Kina hoped she wouldn't feel too anxious sleeping outside of the house, but she wanted to catch the biter!

The two children wandered out into the dark. They had their torches, and made sure to look where they were going. 'What if pixies are real, and they come out at night to eat kids?' asked Kale nervously. 'Don't be silly, Kale, I told you they don't exist!' Kina said, a little frustrated. They looked around the tree but could not find any sign of the biter.

They decided to wait for a bit in the tent. 'The biter will come out soon, I'm sure of it,' said Kina. 'I hope so, I want to go to sleep!' said Kale. Just then, they heard a flapping sound from outside the exit of the tent. 'What's that?' whispered Kina.

Kale and Kina poked their heads out of the tent exit and looked up. 'See there, in the leaves!' whispered Kina, pointing and trying not to make too much noise. Kale moved the torch to where she was pointing, and got a bit of a shock. 'Whoa, it's biting another guava!' he said. 'We've found our biter, but what is it?'

'It's small, black and furry, and has wings,' said Kale. 'There's only one animal that exists that looks like that,' said Kina. She pointed at it again, proudly. 'Well, what's it called?' Kale asked. 'It's a bat, of course!' said Kina.

The guava biter was a fruit bat! Happy that they finally got an answer to their question, Kale and Kina fell asleep. Up in the tree, the bat was happy too. Its belly was full of the guava it had just bitten!