My Invisible Sister

by Beatrice Colin

  “I am,” I say. “I am so … interested. Give me a holler when you’d like to do it.”

  I start to back off down the driveway.

  “No time like the present,” he says. “I’ll expect you at five o’clock sharp. Today.”

  Luckily, the woman with all the kids is slow to answer her door. As I’m catching my breath, I can hear the sounds of several babies screaming their heads off. Not my scene. The door flies open. She’s holding a baby, and a toddler is clamped to each leg. Before I manage to open my mouth, however, her phone rings.

  “Just a second,” she says. “Would you mind taking Vincent?”

  To my horror, she hands me the baby. His hands are covered in goo—orange goo. He smiles at me and then turns bright red. A horrible smell wafts up as I feel his diaper get warm. And then I hear what I think is the sound of Charlie’s door getting whacked. This is a nightmare.

  Harassed Mother is still on the phone. “Yes …,” she says. “No! You are kidding!”

  I make a move to deposit Smelly Vincent on the porch, but he screams and grabs on to my shirt. His mother sounds as if she’s going to be awhile yet. “Maybe,” I think to myself, “maybe I can get to Charlie’s and back before she notices.” I run, taking Smelly Vincent with me.

  “Is Charlie home?” His mother is not happy. She looks as if she’s just woken up. Then I remember he told me he was going to play baseball.

  Before I can apologize for waking her up, I hear loud knocking. It must be Gnome Lady’s house. Charlie’s mother, though, is still looking at me suspiciously.

  “Is that Vincent?” she asks.

  “I’m um, um, babysitting. ’Bye for now.”

  Gnome Lady opens her door when I’m only halfway across the street. I can’t run any faster because I don’t want to drop the baby.

  “Did you knock?” she asks when I finally reach her.

  “No!” I yell.

  She glances around the cul-de-sac. There’s no one else around.

  “Yes!” I yell louder. “Because I want to ask your advice.”

  As you probably know, grown-ups love when children ask for their advice. They get all puffed up and serious. But as I’m furiously thinking of gnome-related questions, such as how to start a collection, or what makes the perfect gnome—a wheelbarrow, a hoe, or a humorous hat—Gnome Lady wrinkles her nose.

  “What is that smell?” she asks. “I think that baby needs a diaper change.”

  Thump, thump, thump. Hedge Man’s door again. Elizabeth is really going for it this time.

  “Thanks so much for that,” I say. “Well, I’d better go and get that done right away. Nice to meet you.”

  I’m only halfway to Hedge Man’s when Charlie’s mom answers the knock on her door. It’s no use. I stop dead in my tracks. I’m not going to make it.

  “Elizabeth!” I shout. “I said I was sorry! Please stop.” But does she? Since Harassed Mother’s door is wide open, I hear her bell ring twice for good measure. Gnome Lady swings her door open, and then I hear our front door getting a pounding.

  So there I am, me and the baby, standing stock-still in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Only Smelly Vincent is laughing.

  “What exactly is going on here, young man?” asks Hedge Man.

  “I just came off the night shift,” says Charlie’s mom, “and you woke me up. Twice.”

  Vincent’s mother appears. “What are you doing with my baby?”

  “Frank?” says my mom. “What’s going on?”

  Gnome Lady just shakes her head.

  I can’t tell them that my sister has officially begun her campaign of chaos. So I say the first thing that comes into my head.

  “Friends, neighbors, … cul-de-sac dwellers … thank you for coming to your doors. I’d like to make an announcement. My name is Frank Black, and my family and I have just moved into number 44.” I gesture weakly toward my house. “We’d like to invite you to a housewarming party. Tonight!”

  Hedge Man clears his throat.

  “After my lesson, of course,” I say, “with Mr. Hedge.”

  A voice whispers in my ear. She’s been standing there the whole time.

  “His name’s Smith, you half-wit,” she says.

  “Mr. Half-wit … I mean Mr. Smith.”

  My life is a total disaster.

  And yet, the party is a great success. I’ve got to hand it to my parents. They’re always up for unexpected socializing. All the neighbors come and, as usual, pretend not to be shocked by Elizabeth’s appearance, or lack thereof. And because of my quick thinking and creative problem solving, her Bang and Bolt Routine falls flat. On the downside, I’ve agreed to regular trimming lessons with Hedge Man and occasional babysitting for Harassed Mother. It looks like this plan of mine is going to be a whole lot harder than I first imagined.

  Chapter Three

  It’s my first day at Grovesdale Junior High School. Since I’m the only new kid, I’m standing in front of my class, and they’re all staring up at me. The teacher has just spent the last ten minutes explaining the lunch rotation and the location of every bathroom in the building.

  “So now you know about us,” says my new teacher. “Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself ?”

  I often wonder why people ask you that kind of question. Instantly my mind goes blank.

  “Well, where shall I start?” I reply. “First steps, first words, number of broken bones?” I smile. Not a single person smiles back. Somebody coughs. I have a feeling this is not going too well.

  “Just tell us about your family,” the teacher says. “Brothers? Sisters?”

  This is the one new-school moment I always hate the most. I just wish for once I didn’t have to launch into my big explanation.

  “A sister,” I say. “I have a sister.”

  The homeroom teacher, Mr. Wright (who, judging by the sweat suit and whistle, also teaches gym) waits for more.

  “A sister?” he repeats.

  “Yes, a sister …”

  “Older? Younger?”

  Clearly he’s not going to let the subject go. I take a deep breath and begin.

  “Let’s put it this way,” I start. “Some people are—”

  From the hallway I hear the distant but regular sound of locker doors slamming. I try to ignore it and continue.

  “Some people are born—”

  The banging is getting closer. Kids start shifting in their seats and turning around.

  “It’s a rare, untreatable condition,” I say a little louder. “Called Formus—”

  The door handle suddenly turns and the door flies open. A tuna sandwich wrapped loosely in tinfoil flies through the air and hits me on the shoulder.

  “You took the wrong sandwich, stupid!” my sister yells. “Now give me the cheese.”

  I pull out my lunch box and hold the sandwich in midair. It bobs toward the door.

  “Thank you,” she says before slamming the door behind her.

  There’s a shocked silence followed by an explosion of laughter. I realize that tuna now covers Mr. Wright’s sweat-suit bottoms. He even has a shred of lettuce in his mustache.

  “Formus Disappearus,” I say in a whisper.

  “Was that your sister?” asks Mr. Wright.

  “Her name’s Elizabeth,” I reply. “She’s … well, as you can see, or not see, she’s …”

  I would have been fine if she hadn’t just turned up and hurled a sandwich at me. I’ve given this speech a million times before, but she put me off my stride. All I can think about is how long it will be before Mr. Wright notices the lettuce. He’s going to hate me. And there’s nothing worse than a gym teacher who hates you.

  “Is she invisible?” chimes a kid from the back.

  “Cool,” say several people at the same time.

  And then, just like that, the bell rings. Saved.

  We all file off to Spanish. Even though it’s my first day, so far I like this school. It’s a big, modern building, all bricks and g
lass with an organic vegetable patch behind a baseball diamond. And there’s a Rollerblading team. I’m wearing my Darth Vader T-shirt and my green high-tops. I’m looking pretty good, I think. Tons of people want to sit next to me. At first I think it must be my own personal magnetism, but it soon dawns on me that all they want to know about is Elizabeth. They spend all of recess and most of lunch bugging me. Finally, I give them the low-down: there are no rules to my sister’s condition. Clothes usually become invisible when she puts them on but not always. Sometimes the objects she touches float in space, and sometimes you can’t see them at all. But just when you think you see a pattern, it changes. Even Elizabeth never knows which way it will go.

  That’s enough explanation for some kids, but others simply will not let it go, asking more and more questions that I obviously can’t answer. And so I’m forced to get a little creative just to shut them up.

  “And there I was, standing in the burning building, holding the kitten. And I knew my sister was in there somewhere, probably injured, and it was up to me to find her.”

  Okay, I admit it, occasionally I go too far. But they are hanging on every word.

  “Well, did you find her?” one boy asks.

  “It cost me everything I had, but I did it.” I shrug nonchalantly.

  “You are such a liar,” comes a voice out of nowhere.

  “Elizabeth,” I say. “Hey there … we were just talking about you.”

  “You couldn’t find me if I were standing right next to you,” she says. “Which, incidentally, I am.”

  “Well I … I …,” I start. “You owe me a sandwich!”

  “Have you told your new friends any true stories, like the time you chained yourself to the banister and had to be rescued by the firemen?”

  “That was your fault.”

  “Yeah right,” she says. “See you later.”

  The crowd around me suddenly disperses. Everyone has a question for her, but no one knows which way she went. Several kids just start talking to the air.

  “What’s it like to be invisible?”

  “Are you wearing any clothes?”

  “Have you ever robbed a bank?”

  “Can you fly, too?”

  “She’s gone, guys,” I say again. But nobody’s listening anymore.

  I turn and slink off to the playground. I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have changed the subject.

  “Hey, Frank.” It’s Charlie. “You want to play baseball? We’re one man short.”

  As you know, I hate baseball and everything about it, but I need to do something to take my mind off the humiliation. Thankfully I’m put out in left field, which is great because I don’t actually have to do anything, just stand around and do the occasional monkey lope. And then, freakishly, I make two great catches. By the time the bell rings, I’m a hero and no one’s talking about Elizabeth anymore.

  After school, Elizabeth finds me and we walk home together, just as we’d promised Mom. Of course, my sister is her usual uncommunicative self.

  “So,” I ask Elizabeth, breaking the silence, “how was your day?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “I had an awesome time. My new friend Charlie is in my English class. And my math teacher played classical guitar for us…. So, did you make any friends?”

  Still nothing.

  “Are you even there? If you’re not, I’m telling. You know what Mom said.”

  “I’m here,” she replies softly.

  We’re not even halfway home. And so I try another tack.

  “Charlie said the school had an invisible history teacher years and years ago. He fell in love with an invisible tour guide from a museum during a field trip. Neither of them was ever heard from again.”

  “You have no idea, do you?”

  “I’ve done my fair share of new schools too, you know. It’s a nightmare.”

  “They keep asking me if I’m wearing any clothes,” she says. “Like, duh? Do they think I want to freeze to death? Do they think I’m some sort of nudist?”

  “Maybe you just have to explain.”

  “Why? It’s just so obvious.”

  “Not really,” I say. “Not to everyone—”

  “And the teachers are all idiots,” Elizabeth interrupts. “One even introduced me as a new face. Everyone laughed. I’m not going to that school.”

  This conversation is heading in the wrong direction. I try to pull her back.

  “The first few days at a new school are always the hardest. Everyone knows that. So … any cute boys?”

  No reply.

  “I don’t know,” I continue. “I think this might be a good school. The principal seems all right. He came into our room this morning asking students for suggestions. Plus, they have a debate team … you like arguing, Elizabeth. Are you listening or am I talking to myself ?”

  An old man walks past us and looks at me as if I’m insane.

  “I’ll say,” he mutters.

  “Excuse me, I was talking to my sister,” I point out.

  He shakes his head and mumbles something under his breath. I let it go.

  “Elizabeth, you still with me?”

  “Where else would I be,” she says, “China?”

  “Please, just stick it out till the end of the semester.”

  “Keep your hair on,” she says, giving me a push. “It’s not as if I spent the whole day crying in the bathroom.”

  We don’t talk for the rest of the way home. Whenever there’s a pile of leaves on the sidewalk, they explode violently into the air, each one kicked by an invisible foot. I’m thinking it’s pretty likely that she did spend part of her day crying in the bathroom.

  It might not seem like a crisis, but let me tell you this: if Elizabeth doesn’t like a school, then very soon everyone’s going to know about it. In the school before last, food trays floated, clocks were all set to different times, and the chess tournament was ruined when the pieces started dancing. It was pandemonium.

  If my plan is going to work, Elizabeth has to like this place as much as I do. All I have to do is make her the most popular girl in school. “It could happen,” I tell myself over and over, “but what are the chances?”

  “Can’t you just try?” I beg her. “Just try to like it.”

  “I’ll give it a week,” she says as we turn the corner onto Morningvale Circle. “No more, no less.”

  Chapter Four

  In the following days, I figure out where all my classrooms are, I am voted class rep on the student council, and I am even picked for the baseball team. After school, Charlie comes over and we work on the tree house. Though the fate of the tree still has to be decided, we don’t let that stop us. The floor is down and we’re working on the walls. It’s not exactly rainproof, but when it’s finished it will have two windows, a door, and a tree stump for a table. Elizabeth shuts herself in her room every night and listens to her crummy boy bands. Of course, Mom and Dad are too busy working to notice. I try to persuade her to sign up for something, anything. Basketball, I suggest. Unfair advantage, she replies. Chess club? Boring. Badminton? Nerd sport.

  “Well, how about drama?” I suggest. “I hear they’re casting for My Fair Lady.”

  She doesn’t even bother to respond to that one.

  “Maybe you could do something backstage … or special effects?” I mutter. But, of course, it’s the Wrong Thing to Say.

  “You just don’t understand,” she says. Her hair-brush slams down on the table so hard I jump. “Nobody notices me, sees me, talks to me. I’m invisible, don’t you get it? Can you imagine living like this?”

  I try to imagine what it must be like. Really, I try. But I can’t imagine looking into the bathroom mirror every day and seeing only a corner of shower curtain and a square of wall.

  “Now can you get out of my room?” she says. “Or do you have any more stupid suggestions? By the way, the week’s almost up.”

  And then she slams the door behind me so hard that the
paint nearly falls off.

  …

  That night, I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see moving vans and moving boxes and mountains of mail that’s never for us. Suddenly I know what I have to do. I have to achieve the impossible. I have to make my invisible sister visible. “Wait a minute,” I tell myself. “That’s impossible.”

  “You look tired, Frank,” Mom says at breakfast. “You sleep okay?”

  I nod and eat my toast. She wouldn’t understand. Believe me. I’ve already tried.

  “He always looks like that,” says my sister. “Didn’t you know you gave birth to one of the living dead?”

  “You’re so funny,” I reply. “But for some reason nobody’s laughing …”

  “Stop it, both of you,” says Mom. “I have good news. I’ve been hired to cater the postconcert party for none other than, wait for it, wait for it … Boys-R-Us! And I got you both free tickets. But since I’m working and Dad’s working, I can’t leave either of you at home by yourselves. If one goes, you both go. Okay?”

  “Are you kidding?” shrieks Elizabeth. “They are my all-time favorite band! We’re going.”

  The toast crumbs cascade from my open mouth like styrofoam rocks in a cheap sci-fi movie. This has got to be the worst day of my life so far.

  “Frank?” says Mom. “Aren’t you a little bit happy?”

  “Mom … you know I wouldn’t be seen dead at a Boys-R-Us concert!”

  Even though I’m wearing dark glasses, a baseball cap, and my dad’s long black coat, I’ve still been spotted by some of the girls in my class. So here I am, the only boy surrounded by thousands of screaming girls, with the invisible one screaming the loudest.

  Live, this band is even worse than on their recordings. The sound they make is more painful than going to the dentist. The lead singer is a joke. His jeans are the baggiest, his teeth are the whitest, his hair is the blondest. His name, if you can believe it, is Brucy Bruce.

  “He’s looking at me, he’s looking at me!” screams a girl in front.

  “No, he’s looking at me!” shouts Elizabeth.

  The girl turns and sees no one there but me.

  “Loser,” she says. “Hey, aren’t you the new kid in math?”