Living in an extended family is never going to be easy, even less so when everything you do is en massé. When all you ever do is hang out together both day and night. During the day hanging in the trees, then every evening at dusk when you all take off together in the hunt for food. Flying over a darkening land away from the setting sun in a long, twisting, black, furry line of friends and relatives. As a group, the colony of bats drift off together into the descending night. Then every morning they returned home to the inevitable family squabbles before everybody finally settled down to sleep and digest the food they’d foraged during the night.

Such a life was always going to have difficulties. However, for the most part, Cyril was happy to be part of his gang; except for one, small, inconsequential fact. Cyril would have blended right in with the rest of his dark grey, taupe and orange coloured, furry-chested relatives other than the fact he was born pink.

Not precisely an albino, he had a strange piece of DNA that gave him no colour. Most of the time, his lack of colour never bothered him. His mother only gave a singular gasp when he was born, but after that, she suckled him as though nothing was any different from her other children. That said when he finally left the shelter of his mother’s wings, he needed to hang out in the shadier parts of the canopy during the intense, midday sun. His brothers and sisters, like all children, would at times teased Cyril for being a bit different. Then as quickly as the teasing started, it ended. They would forget the quips and settle back down to rest, they were after all family. Such is the nature of children to be easily forgiving, though not always the way of adults. His brothers and sister and cousins all accepted him for who he was, however not everyone in the colony did.

In time the rest of the bats in the colony got used to Cyril’s strange pink colour but no matter what he did, he always stood out from the crowd. If he ever chanced to meet some of the other bats who lived on the far side of the colony, he would notice their large eyes widen for a moment in surprise.

Cyril never really blended in, which was all he ever really wanted to do. It was impossible as his clan would never let him do what he desired most.

His family excepted him although they never wanted to hang out with him. He made everyone he was near be noticed, and they too would come in for a ragging. He once tried changing the colour of his skin with mud. When the mud dried, it itched like crazy. For a little while, he was able to blend in with his brothers. However, the change only lasted until the first torrential downpour of rain. On another occasion, he came across a pile of old, fallen mangoes. He spent quite some time that night rolling around in their dark, rotting flesh until he was a similar grey-brown colour as the rest of the fruit bats.

He proudly flew back to roost but all the other that’s moved even further down the branch. The stench was unbearable even for his family to suffer, and his sister, with whom he was closest, said he’d gone too far this time. She made Cyril go off and splash in the nearby pond to wash the horrible mess off his skin. The colony and his family liked him for who he was not his colour. That didn’t pacify Cyril’s dream to blend in with the pack.

Where this colony hung out was in the city botanical gardens. It was an excellent place to live; it was close to the water, there were plenty of trees to sleep in during the day and plenty of local gardens with fruit trees on which to feed every night. The only problem was that as the colony grew with ever more bats joining their numbers. The growing colony started to defoliate the trees in which the roosted. This drew the attention of the Park Rangers, and with advice from the local zoo, the powers that be decided to relocate the entire colony. The rangers set up a series of fine mesh nets during the night which were designed to trap the bats on their return from foraging.

The process worked well for a while and each day, the colony grew smaller. Once caught the rangers tagged the fruit bats and they were taken away in a truck. Where the other bats went they never knew. This soon meant the colony was living in fear of disappearing and being taken away by the khaki monsters. Then one morning Cyril’s brother fell afoul of the nets. Then even though he saw what was happening, he was too late to warn his sister and she flew into the net. Squealing in fear, she called out to Cyril. Alerted by her screams, he narrowly missed being caught in the net as well. Flapping backwards out of the way he was noticed by a ranger. He did stand out from the pack after all.

Using the attention, he now received Cyril was able to distract the park rangers long enough for his sister, some of his family and a few of his cousins to escape. Cyril flew around in circles being chased by an ever-growing number of Park Rangers. Cyril was finally caught in a small butterfly net. Cyril was stared at in disbelief by the zoo authorities who were helping supervise the controlled catch and relocation of the fruit bats. They were in awe of Cyril’s colouring. Even though he was scared of what might happen to him; just before he was stuffed into a bag, he was relieved to see his sister and his cousins had escaped. They were flying north crossing the harbour quickly becoming small silhouettes against the brightening sky.

Eventually, Cyril was taken across the harbour to the zoo. There he became a celebrated exhibit. A star of sorts with the resulting media attention crowds of people came to ogle at him from behind a glass wall. He also became the focus of several scientific studies into genetics. All of this attention made him even more depressed. Not only was he separated from his family, but he was also even less able to blend in. He tried talking to the other fruit bats in the exhibit, but they were annoyed that their previously quiet existence had been disrupted by the new interloper.

There was nothing he could do about it until one evening his sister landed in a tree near where he was brooding. She told him he was a hero of sorts among the colony. The act of distracting the Park Rangers had been a selfless one, something none of the rest of the colony had ever done. Cyril and his sister were able to converse through the wire fence around his enclosure. His family had been searching for him ever since he’d been caught. Now that he had been discovered, together the two fruit bats hatched a plan for him to escape.

The next new moon, when all was dark, his sister, two of his brothers plus a few of his cousins arrived. Between them all they were able to break Cyril out of his cage. A couple of the other zoo fruit bats took the opportunity to join the escape and they all flew north away from the city. Their flight took them over the suburbs and up the coast to a hidden river. There the rest of the new colony was well away from any rangers. Cyril was welcomed as a returning hero.

Having saved the colony he was the centre of attention. Now that he was seen in a different light. Those bats who had previously given Cyril the cold shoulder wanted to hang out within his pink glow. As much as he did not enjoy the attention, Cyril finally had to accept that he would never blend in no matter how he tried. He was always going to be different whether he liked it or not.