by Amanda Ashby
“And that’s another thing,” said Malik, still in his petulant mood. “I don’t think you should be gallivanting off to a movie when you’re meant to be practicing your carpet flying. Not to mention the fact that I’m starving, and I need you to conjure me up some food since I’m guessing your mom’s cooking hasn’t improved since I’ve been away.”
“Sorry, but we’ll have to practice this afternoon. Kara’s been completely frantic about this movie all week. There’s no way I can bail on her,” Sophie said, moving toward the door. “But I’ll get you some food as long as you absolutely promise not to cause any trouble. Especially since my mom’s probably still feeling a bit weird about the whole Mr. Rivers thing.”
“Me? Cause trouble?” Malik blinked, and Sophie rolled her eyes before she wished for two Big Macs and fries. A second later Malik launched himself at them like he hadn’t eaten for a month—or even like he was an actual person who needed food instead of being a dead djinn.
“Just promise me,” Sophie said.
“I promise,” he assured her with a mouthful of fries. Then he looked at her with interest. “Don’t you think you should make yourself un-invisible before you go to Kara’s house? In my experience humans tend to get a bit freaked out when they open the door and no one’s there. Of course, sometimes it’s funny, but if Kara’s still wound up about this movie business, then maybe it’s best not to spook her?”
“What?” Sophie paused for a moment and stared at him. “Is this some kind of weird trick to make me stay in and practice?”
“Er, no. I mean, if I was going to do a trick on you, I can assure you it would be a little bit more sophisticated than the old ‘Wait, you’re invisible’ line.” He gave a disdainful snort as he stuffed some more fries into his mouth.
“Yes, but I’m not invisible,” Sophie retorted as she looked at her arm for proof.
“Have you looked in the mirror recently?” Malik demanded as he nodded toward the large wall mirror that was hanging next to her prized Neanderthal Joe poster. “Because I think you’ll find that you are most definitely—”
“What?” Sophie stared in the mirror at her complete lack of reflection. She spun back around and looked at Malik in alarm. “How can I be invisible? I mean, I haven’t so much as snapped my fingers all morning. In fact, the last time I was invisible was when I put the tonic on Mr. Rivers.”
“You mean that completely harmless tonic that Rufus-the-least-trustworthy-djinn in the whole entire world gave to you?” Malik asked. “At least tell me that you didn’t touch any of it.”
“Of course not,” Sophie assured him. Then an unpleasant memory of when several drops landed on her hand snaked into her mind. “Okay, so I touched it a little bit. B-but it was hardly anything. You can’t possibly be telling me that I’ve been invisible since last night and no one’s noticed.”
“How should I know? Did you speak to your mom or sister last night? Or look in a mirror?”
“No to looking in a mirror, but yes to talking to my mom and Meg,” Sophie said, and rubbed her chin. “Well, I think I...actually, maybe I didn’t. After the whole ‘dumping Mr. Rivers’ thing, Mom just knocked on the door and said she wasn’t going out but was going to have a hot bath and an early night. As for Meg, she didn’t come near me,” Sophie said, and a small sliver of panic started to churn in the pit of her stomach.
She quickly snapped her fingers and muttered the word visible. Then she stared at herself in the mirror, but there was still no reflection. Sophie took a deep breath and tried to ignore the fact that her hands were shaking. The important thing was that she didn’t panic. She needed to stay calm and think positive thoughts.
“So”—she turned to Malik—“we just need to talk to Rufus and get him to fix this, right?”
“Have we learned nothing from what has just happened?” Malik stared at her. “Trusting Rufus is a bad, bad idea. Asking Rufus to help you fix the problem that he caused in the first place is an even worse idea. In a nutshell, Rufus and tonics do not go together. Ever. I’m not saying that he did this on purpose, nor am I saying that he doesn’t have the ability to make things even more disastrous.”
“Fine, so Rufus can’t help us,” Sophie reluctantly agreed as she shot him a hopeful look. “But there must be something we can do. How long will this last?”
“Well...” He paused for a moment as if to consider the question fully before he finally looked up and shot her an apologetic look. “The worst-case scenario is probably a thousand years.”
“A thousand years?” Sophie yelped in disbelief as her idea of not panicking went flying out the window. She used her hands to fan her hot, invisible face before she turned back to Malik. “I can’t be invisible for a thousand years. I can’t be invisible for even a day. I’m eleven years old. My mom will kill me. Plus, as a positive thinker, I’ve got lots of life plans already prepared, and none of them include being invisible. This is crazy.”
“Hey, don’t look at me. I’m not the one who used a dubious potion. Plus, I was only giving you the worst-case scenario. It’s more likely that it will only last five or six hours.”
“W-hat?” Sophie felt her jaw drop as she stared at him in disbelief. “And you didn’t think to mention this alternative first?”
“I just thought it would make you appreciate how serious it could’ve been,” Malik said, not looking remotely guilty. Though she couldn’t help but notice that he put his arms protectively around his Big Macs. “And see, it worked. I bet you won’t be taking any more strange tonics from Rufus again. So now that you’re not going to see that movie, we should really get to work.”
“Kara,” Sophie yelped as she looked at her watch. “I’m late. I’ve got to go. I know it’s not ideal that I’m invisible, but at least I can still talk to her and hold her hand. And actually, it might be better at the movies. Unless of course someone tries to sit in my seat. Hmmm, that could be a problem.”
“Yes, why do you think that I hover so often?” Malik asked. “Of course, your other problem is that Kara won’t be able to hear you,” he added as an afterthought. “I might’ve forgotten to mention that.”
Sophie stared at him in alarm. “Are you serious? No one can hear me? How can you tell?”
“You live long enough, you pick these things up. Plus, that revolting cat has been standing at the door for the last five minutes glaring at me, but it hasn’t so much as blinked in your direction.”
Sophie spun around and discovered it was true. Mr. Jaws was sitting low to the ground, his dark eyes fixed firmly on Malik. She hurried over and knelt down beside him, something that normally would’ve made the cat go all Exorcist, but instead he didn’t even blink.
She hurried out into the hallway. “Mom? Meg?” she yelled at the top of her voice, but there was no answer, and she reluctantly went back into her bedroom and took a deep breath. “Okay, so this is not good. Kara is going to kill me.”
“Sorry.” Malik shot her an apologetic look. “Though if it’s any consolation, you definitely get used to it. Plus, it’s only for a few hours.”
“You don’t understand.” Sophie shook her head in despair. “I promised her that I’d be there for her. Okay, there’s only one thing to do. You’re going to have to go in my place.”
“What? You want me to go to the movies with a bunch of kids? Er, no thanks.” He shuddered.
“You have to. You need to explain to Kara what’s happened and just keep an eye on her. I know she’ll be fine, but still, a promise is a promise. Besides,” she added in a cajoling voice, “remember that it’s The Wizard of Oz, and—”
However the rest of her words were lost as Malik suddenly snapped his fingers and disappeared from sight. Well, that was Kara sorted out. Now all Sophie needed to do was hurry downstairs and leave a note to remind her mom that she was going to Kara’s for the day and then pretend to leav
e the house, before really heading back up to her bedroom and waiting for the whole invisible thing to wear off. Why did she get the feeling it was going to be a long day?
SOPHIE HADN’T BEEN KIDDING WHEN SHE HAD thought it was going to be the longest day ever. The good news was that her mom hadn’t seemed remotely bothered when she’d seen Sophie’s note reminding her that she was going to be at the movies with Kara. The even better news was that she had totally busted Meg sneaking into her bedroom and snooping through her stuff. Sophie had no idea what she was looking for, but she was still going to pay for it later. Just because her sister was only six didn’t mean she shouldn’t respect personal space— especially when that personal space was full of magic books and overpriced ingredients from Rufus’s Bazaar.
However, now it was almost three in the afternoon, and despite checking the mirror approximately every thirty seconds, she was still completely invisible. She let out a sigh and turned her attention back to the flying-carpet book she had been studying.
Not that she was a fan of homework, but if they were going to go to Sheterum’s mansion next week, Sophie wanted to make sure she was prepared. She was just going over the best way to avoid turbulence when she heard a scraping noise from over by her window.
She stiffened. She was sure it wasn’t Malik because he wasn’t a fan of nature. Ditto for Mr. Jaws, who preferred to save all of his climbing for the furniture. Which—
There it was again. Sophie grabbed the silver box that her dad had given her (which, as well as containing the recipe for Solomon’s Elixir, was actually pretty heavy and therefore perfect for hitting someone on the head with). Then she clutched it to her chest and cautiously made her way toward the window.
Her heart pounded in anticipation. What if it was an intruder? She lifted the box high above her head just as the window sash eased open, but before she could bring it down, she recognized a familiar-looking sneaker. It belonged to Harvey. So did the leg that was attached to the shoe. Sophie immediately lowered the box as she watched her friend climb in through the window.
“Harvey Trenton. Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she yelped as she tried to recover her poise.
“Sophie?” Harvey looked around the room in confusion as he awkwardly untangled his long legs. “Why can I hear you but not see you?”
“You can hear me?” Sophie blinked in excitement as she dropped the box onto the bed and rushed over to the mirror. Unfortunately, there was still no sign of her reflection, but, still, the fact that he could hear her was a definite improvement of things.
“Well, yeah. Why? What’s going on?” He pushed his long bangs back off his forehead and looked even more worried than normal.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Sophie said as she still tried to get over the shock of seeing him at the window. “Since when do you climb into second-story windows?”
“Since I called your mom and she told me that you were at Kara’s,” Harvey retorted. “Besides, just because I don’t always do guy things doesn’t mean that I can’t do guy things. It was actually pretty easy. Your mom might want to think about moving the trellis. It’s almost like a stepladder. Anyway, the reason I’m here is to find out what the heck’s going on.”
Sophie let out a long groan as she nodded for him to sit down, then remembered that he couldn’t see her. “You’ve got no idea how crazy things have been. The good news is that my plan to put that tonic on Mr. Rivers to stop him from dating my mom totally worked. Unfortunately, the bad news is that—”
“Let me guess. It made you invisible.”
“That’s right,” Sophie said in surprise. “Have you seen Malik? Did he tell you?”
“Er, no. I’m just guessing from the fact that I can hear you but I can’t see you. Plus, this isn’t the first time that your djinn magic has backfired,” he said, looking at her in concern. Well, he was actually looking at the dresser, but Sophie didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was sitting cross-legged on her bed. “So what happened? How long are you going to be stuck like this?”
“Malik thought it would wear off—oh, about two hours ago—but the fact you can hear me means that it hopefully won’t be too much longer. Oh, and we need to be quiet because my mom thinks that I’m over at Kara’s house. I said that we were going to hang out after the movie. That’s why she told you I wasn’t here.”
“I know, but it doesn’t tell me why Kara’s mom totally refused to let me in the house just then. My mom decided that Camp Just Kill Me Now was full of loonies and crazy people, and so we stayed there for only half a day before turning right back around and coming home. Anyway, I thought I’d surprise you guys and see how the movies went, but instead Kara’s mom gave me the total ‘not on my watch’ treatment. It was weird. So then I tried to text K, but she didn’t reply, which was when I called you. By then my worry meter was on full alert, and I decided to climb up to see what I could find out. I was actually expecting Malik to be here, not you.”
“And that’s what you would’ve found if only I hadn’t managed to turn myself invisible.” Sophie let out a long groan. “I mean, at least you can hear me now, but this morning it was nothing. That’s why I sent Malik along to explain what had happened and to make sure she was okay.”
“And have you seen him?” Harvey wanted to know as he walked over to the bed and sat down. Sophie just managed to scramble out of the way before he squished her. Did she mention that she was totally over this whole invisible thing?
“No—” she started to say. Before she could finish there was a rustling noise in the corner, and Malik suddenly appeared. “You’re back,” she squealed as she shot him a hopeful look. “So how did it go? Was Kara okay?”
“Okay, so the good news is that I love that movie. I mean, did Judy have some great shoes or did she have some great sh—?” Malik asked before Harvey cut him off.
“What about Kara? She didn’t lose the power of speech or anything when she was with Patrick, did she?”
Malik winced. “Okay, as it goes, there is some bad news, but before I tell you, can I please just remind you that I’m a two-thousand-year-old djinn. A dead djinn. I’m really not equipped to handle these sorts of situations.”
“W-what sorts of situations?” Harvey asked in a cautious voice. “What happened?”
“Remember how she had problems speaking around Patrick?” he asked, and when Sophie and Harvey both nodded their heads, he let out a sigh. “Well, this time she had problems shutting up. It was like a river, and I swear I heard words like bedazzle and Barbie dolls, not to mention her telling him about the time she had forgotten to wear underpants in first grade.”
“Oh, no.” Sophie let out a strangled groan, but Malik held up his hand to silence her.
“Trust me, it gets worse.”
“Worse than the no-underpants story?” Harvey shuddered.
“I’m afraid so. You see there was also a Fanta/popcorn incident, and honestly I’m not even sure how it was physically possible, but somehow Kara managed to tar and feather her date with her snack bar items. In front of the entire drama club.”
“So what happened then? What did she do?” Harvey asked in a hoarse voice, and Malik shrugged.
“She did the only thing she could do. She ran out of the movie theater and went home. I tried to stop her by telling the story of how I embarrassed myself in front of Cleopatra, who then refused ever to set eyes on me again, but for some reason that just made her more upset.”
A sickening sensation burned in Sophie’s stomach. Poor Kara. She had been so worried about this date, and, as it turned out, she had good reason to worry. A cold chill rushed through her as she got to her feet.
“I have to speak to her.”
“She’s not answering her phone, and her mom won’t let anyone in,” Harvey reminded her, but Sophie just shook her head as she raced over to where
the carpet was rolled up. For a moment Harvey blinked, probably because to him it was invisible. However, Malik could see it perfectly well, and he narrowed his eyes.
“Sophie, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to Kara’s,” she said in a determined voice. “I need to tell her how sorry I am. Besides, you know as well as I do that I need the practice. I can visualize Kara’s bedroom almost as well as my own. Please, Malik, don’t try to stop me.”
For a moment Malik looked torn, then finally nodded. “Fine. But I want you to come straight back here afterward. No joyriding.”
“What about me? Can I go?” Harvey asked eagerly as he realized what was happening. But Malik shook his head. “Not this time, big guy. When Sophie’s moved off the stabilizers and can do a three-point turn without falling off, then you’ll get your chance.”
“Thanks, Malik,” Sophie said as she quickly spread out the carpet onto her bedroom floor. Once it was smoothed down, she crossed her legs and went through everything that Malik had taught her. First she cleared her mind, and then she created a bubble around herself before visualizing Kara’s bedroom and blinking three times.
Next thing she knew, there was a tug in her stomach, and when she opened her eyes she was sitting on Kara’s floor, looking up at where her friend was sitting cross-legged on her bed. Kara’s long hair was hanging like a curtain over her face, and there was a sketch pad in her lap, but it was her red-rimmed eyes that made Sophie feel the worst. Without saying a word, Kara dropped her head and began to sketch.
“Kara, I’m so sorry. I feel terrible that I wasn’t there,” Sophie said in a rush, but instead of looking up, Kara just kept on sketching. “Please, K,” Sophie tried again. “Could you stop drawing for just a moment so I could talk to you? I know how bad you must be feeling, but you’ve got to try to let it go. It wasn’t your fault.”
Kara suddenly looked up, her normally pale green eyes seeming somehow much darker. Almost like wood. “I know it wasn’t my fault.”
