[Feb. 16: An update from Clear Creek school district spokeswoman Janice Scott: The bats mentioned below are gone.]

Getting bats to move out turns out to be harder than you might think. Just ask the guys who've been trying for two weeks to catch the ones living in the rafters of a gym at Clear Lake's Ninth Grade Center.

The Clear Creek Independent School District's certified bat catcher has been on the case since Jan. 20, when boys practicing basketball noticed a colony of Mexican free-tailed bats overhead.

The school promptly closed off the gym to students, and crews pumped in steam to chase the bats out through a gap between the building and its trim, then sealed up the remaining escape hatches so they couldn't return.

But some bats never left, squeezing their small bodies into dark corners and doing their best to elude their well-intentioned pursuers, who only want to release them into the wild a few miles away. It is, after all, against the law to kill bats.

The gym's been closed as the hunt's dragged on, forcing kids to shoot hoops in the campus's other gyms. A couple dozen bats have been caught just a few at a time, and this Wednesday four more bats were captured and released. No bats were spotted Thursday night, however, and CCISD spokeswoman Janice Scott said school officials are hopeful no bats remain. But they'll check one more time tonight and maybe Monday as a precaution before reopening the gym.

"Sometimes it takes a while before you get them all out," she said.