The Unseen

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  One reason that telling Belinda was incredibly unlikely was that she and Xandra had never before talked to each other about anything. Not even once. And another reason was that Belinda was probably the weirdest person in Mr. Fernandez's seventh-grade language arts class.

  There was, for instance, her general appearance. Belinda's long dark hair hung down her back in ugly, unwashed strands, and in cold weather she often wore the jacket of a man's business suit over her dingy and obviously secondhand school uniform. The ratty old suit jacket that seemed to be her cold-weather coat had a dangling fringe of ragged lining and was so much too big for her that the long sleeves had to be rolled up into fat doughnuts to allow the tips of her fingers to be seen. The gossip was that she was a Scholie, a scholarship student, one of the few kids who were allowed to attend Carter Academy even though their parents couldn't afford to pay the fees.

  She acted weird too. Most of the time she was completely silent, not trying to talk to anyone, but sometimes she suddenly had a lot to say in class about things no one else knew or cared about. Things like ancient civilizations and extinct animals.

  There had been times, when Belinda had first joined the class, that Xandra had been tempted to stand up for the new girl, to yell at her tormentors and let them know what she thought of people who picked on helpless things. She'd even started to yell once when a mean little fifth grader was jumping around Belinda on the playground calling her stupid names. But she'd changed her mind when she'd noticed that some of the girls who called themselves Marcie's Mob were watching. When she'd noticed that the Mob girls seemed to think the fifth grader was pretty amusing, Xandra had shut her mouth and kept it shut.

  Marcie's Mob was a bunch of girls who were the best friends of an especially popular girl named Marcie. They could be a lot of fun, sitting together at lunch and hanging out between classes, laughing and talking about who was cool and who wasn't. Sometimes Marcie and her special friends let Xandra hang out with them, and sometimes they didn't. And when they didn't want you, they let you know it by the things they said and did. Things like glancing at Xandra and giggling, and mentioning crooked teeth or klutzy haircuts.

  Not long after Belinda turned up in Mr. Fernandez's class, he sent her out of the room on a supposed errand so he could give a lecture about how a person shouldn't be judged on his or her appearance. And how he didn't want to see anyone teasing the new girl. After that Xandra lost interest in being on Belinda's side and began to join in the teasing when Mr. Fernandez wasn't looking. Not starting anything, but just going along with what other people were doing.

  So it was really weird when Xandra found herself not only talking to Belinda, but telling her a little about the mysterious bird. It happened just before school started on the day the bird disappeared. Xandra, who had gotten to school early, was sitting on a bench in the outdoor lunch area, an unpopular spot on such a chilly morning. She was all alone and that was just the way she wanted it. She retrieved the white feather from its hiding place, hanging around her neck on a necklace of strong twine. She was running it back and forth across the palm of her hand when a voice said, “Oh, let me touch it. May I?” It was Belinda.

  Dressed as usual in a ragged skirt and the incredibly awful jacket, Belinda reached out, not to touch the feather but only to hold her hand just above it, as if it could be felt without making contact. All Xandra could do was stare in shocked silence, but as she did she began to see some things she'd not noticed before. Belinda's eyes, for instance. Large eyes with strangely shaped irises, like the eyes of a cat on a dark night. And the rest of her face was unusual too. Not exceptionally beautiful or ugly, but with something strange about it that suddenly reminded Xandra of faces in some of the pictures that covered the walls of her room. Pictures of exotic-looking people in fantastical places. Shivering, Xandra turned away, covering the feather with her left hand.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why should I let you touch it? It's mine. I found it.”

  Belinda nodded enthusiastically. “I know it's yours,” she said. “But how did you get it? Did it just appear? Did it choose you somehow?”

  Of course Xandra already knew that was how it had happened. The feather, and the bird it had come from, had chosen her in some mysterious way. But she was surprised and shocked to find that Belinda knew it too. Only a few minutes later she began to tell Belinda all about the beautiful wounded bird and how she had rescued it, fed it with brine shrimp and left it shut away in the safe and secure basement. And how in the morning it was gone, leaving behind the feather.

  As Belinda listened, her strange eyes narrowed, widened and then narrowed again. “Could someone else have taken it, or scared it away?” she asked.

  “No.” Xandra spoke quickly and confidently. “No one else ever goes there.”

  “Oh? Are you sure? Maybe one of your brothers or sisters?”

  Xandra shook her head, smiling grimly. “One of my siblings? Not a chance.”

  “Oh. But you do have … siblings?”

  “Oh, sure.” Xandra sighed and shrugged. “Dozens of them. But if they'd found the bird I would have known. They would have bragged about it.”

  Belinda looked slightly suspicious. “You have dozens of brothers and sisters? Really?”

  Xandra shrugged again. “Who knows. I don't. I stopped counting a long time ago.”

  “Oh, I see.” This time Belinda's nod was slow and thoughtful. “I guess it's for sure, then. There's no other way to explain it.”

  “To explain what?” Xandra asked.

  “The feather.” Belinda pointed to where Xandra was still holding the feather in one hand and covering it with the other. There was an excited whispery sound to her voice as she said, “It really must be a …” She paused.

  “A what?” Xandra urged.

  Belinda breathed deeply before she went on. “Well, different people call them different things but my …” She paused again. “Some people call them Keys.” The word keys came out in a long and drawn-out whisper, so that Xandra wasn't sure just what she'd heard.

  “Keys?” she asked.

  Belinda nodded.

  “Ke-e-e-ys to what?” Xandra asked, trying to draw out the word the way Belinda had done.

  Belinda paused again before she whispered, “To another place. Well, not to another place, actually, but to where you can see things that most people can't see.” Her voice trailed away into a quivering silence.

  “Things other people can't see?” Xandra repeated under her breath as she opened her hands to stare at the feather. Stared at what, after all, was only a bunch of weightless white filaments attached to a long hollow stem. After a while she shrugged, and bouncing the feather on her open hands, she asked, “But how can a feather be a key?” Making a gesture as if she were turning a key in a lock, and trying for a sarcastic drawl, she said, “Let's see. How would that work?” But somehow the sarcasm she was trying for just didn't happen. Instead, her question sounded embarrassingly sincere.

  Belinda's answer was, “I don't know, at least not for sure. I'm just beginning to learn about things like that. Other things besides feathers can be Keys, like old amulets and certain kinds of stones, but I have heard of a feather being a Key.”

  “But how?” Xandra asked. “I don't get it. It's such an ordinary little thing.” She tossed the feather on her palm again, demonstrating how little it weighed. “I mean, there's nothing to it.”

  “Oh no,” Belinda said. “There's nothing that's so strong for its size and weight. Just think how important they are to birds. I mean, for birds they're the key to a whole different element—a whole different dimension.”

  “Okay, okay,” Xandra said, and now her tilted sarcastic smile was working again. “So, okay, having feathers is important for birds. But what can they—I mean what can this one do for me?” She made the key-in-the-lock motion again. “How is it going to open anything for me?”

  Belinda didn't return the smile. She sounded serious—deadly serious—as she began to a
nswer. “I don't know; at least I don't know yet. I'm just beginning to find out more about things like that. I've only started to learn …”

  Xandra frowned suspiciously. “How? How will you find out?” she asked.

  “Well, I'll just ask my …” Belinda slowly shook her head and whispered, “There are lots of ways to learn things like that.”

  Before Xandra could ask what ways there were, the first bell rang and Belinda turned and walked quickly away. Xandra didn't try to follow her.

  ALL THE REST of that day while she did ordinary things, Xandra's mind was full of the extraordinary. As she attended classes, rode home on the bus, changed out of her school uniform, her thoughts kept returning to the white feather and to what the girl named Belinda had said about it. And they went on returning there all the way through dinner, even though the scene at the Hobsons' dinner table on that night was also a bit out of the ordinary, if only because everybody was there for once. Everybody, including both parents, all the siblings, and even Clara, the baby-sitter, who often ate early with her five-year-old “baby,” the youngest member of the Hobson family.

  The dining room at the Hobson Habitat was very large. To Xandra's way of thinking, much too enormous to make any sense. She'd heard the parents excuse its size by saying that when they'd planned the house, they'd been thinking they would have time to give lots of large dinner parties. “Before we realized just how much time we'd have to spend on the increasing demands of career and family,” Henry, the Hobson father, would say. Or Helen, the mother, would gesture to whatever family members happened to be present and raise one of her beautiful eyebrows as she said, “Or the demands of an increasing family.”

  So that night after Xandra arrived, late as usual, they were all there. Nine in all, counting Clara, spread out around a dining table that could easily have seated twenty, while Geraldine, the cook, brought in the food, thumped it down on the table and stomped out grumpily. Geraldine was always grumpy, but as Helen liked to tell people, “Good cooks are so hard to find, so we've chosen to put up with a certain amount of temperament.”

  Seated around such a long table, you needed to raise your voice quite a bit if you wanted to be heard. To shout almost. The first topic everyone was shouting about that evening was report cards. The first quarter of the school year was almost over and the Hobson siblings would soon find out how they were going to be graded in their new classes by new teachers. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to the experience. Everyone, that is, except Xandra.

  Xandra wasn't looking forward to receiving her report card and she definitely had nothing to say on the subject. There was nothing unusual about that. The thing that was unusual that night was how easy it was for her to keep her mind on other things and not even notice what was being said around the table—to keep her mind on an enchanted white bird and a possibly miraculous feather, not to mention all the weird things the girl named Belinda had told her. So even when Quincy, the high school senior and owner of the fancy aquarium, practically shouted, “I'm pretty sure my grade point average is going to be the best yet,” Xandra hardly bothered to notice how disgustingly smug and conceited he sounded. But then the little one shrieked in her high babyish voice, “You always get the best grades in the whole world, don't you, Quincy?” and the whole family laughed, even the adults.

  Everybody laughed their heads off, including both the parents and even Clara, who, as a child-care expert, definitely should have known better. You'd think they'd realize that it was pretty stupid to encourage a five-year-old, who already was sure she was the cutest thing in the whole universe, to think she was also some kind of world-class comedian.

  Even Clara. Xandra squinted as she concentrated on the chubby, smile-creased face of the woman who had been her own baby-sitter for almost seven years. The one who had held Xandra on her big soft lap every night while she read or made up stories, and who told everyone about the smart things Xandra said and did. And who then, seven years later, forgot all about everybody else when the beautiful new baby was born.

  Not that it bothered Xandra anymore. Particularly not tonight when there were other thoughts and feelings that were so much more important. Thoughts about the strange things the girl named Belinda had said, and feelings like the mysteriously warm spot on her chest where the feather still hung around her neck.

  Back in her room Xandra went directly toward her bed, passing quickly by the long bookshelves and all the posters and paintings. And passing even more quickly the glass-topped dressing table with its frilly skirt and three-way mirror.

  The dressing table had not been Xandra's idea and she rarely looked at it. It was even rarer for her to look into its fancy gold-framed mirror. But now she suddenly turned back and sat down on the dressing table's bench as she slowly pulled the feather out from its hiding place under her blouse. Holding it in both hands, she stroked it gently, looking into the mirror to admire the downy fringe at the base of its blade. A fringe made up of such fine filaments that they seemed to be constantly quivering, even when she held her breath to keep from creating the slightest breeze. A continuous silent shiver that made the feather seem, in some mysterious way, a living thing. She was smiling as she held it up to her face, feeling the soft quiver of the filaments against her chin.

  A kind of magical Key, Belinda had said, but she hadn't said what kind of magic it had or what it could do. As she thought about magical objects she had read or heard about, genies came to mind, and the granting of wishes. Usually it was three wishes. That was an interesting idea. Clutching the feather tightly in both hands, she closed her eyes and wished. Wished at first in an offhand, game-playing way, which turned into an almost serious plea for some very important differences. But when she opened her eyes, nothing had changed. The face in the mirror was still fat-cheeked, snaggletoothed and surrounded by dark brown hair that stuck out stubbornly in stiff ugly-looking chunks. Shoving the feather back under her blouse, she hurried to her bed and curled up among her animals.

  Xandra's collection of animals was fairly large—forty-seven at last count. Stuffed toy animals, of course, although she never thought of them as toys. But clean and quiet as they obviously were, there were way too many of them, according to the rest of the family. Not to mention the opinion of every cleaning-service person who ever tried to do something about Xandra's room. But stuffed animals were one of the collections that had been growing throughout Xandra's life, along with books and pictures of enchanted places, and she wasn't about to part with a single picture or book or animal. Particularly not a single animal.

  With her head resting on a hippo and her arms full of cats, dogs, tigers and teddy bears, she went on wondering and planning. Wondering about Belinda—who she was, and how much of what she said could be believed. And what she had meant when she'd called the feather a Key. Very soon, Xandra told herself, she would get the answers to all her questions. Like tomorrow morning, when she would be waiting for Belinda in the outdoor eating area.

  But it didn't happen quite that way. When Xandra awoke the next morning it was raining, and by the time she arrived at school the rain had turned into a downpour. So the outdoor lunch area was out of the question. And of course starting a conversation with Belinda in the hall, possibly in front of Marcie and her Mob, and a lot of other people, was more or less out of the question too.

  Xandra was in the crowded hall putting some books in her locker and trying to decide what to do when someone brushed against her and she thought she felt a hand in her raincoat pocket. Slamming the locker door, she whirled around quickly enough to get a glimpse of a head of straggly dark hair and the back of a decrepit suit jacket disappearing into the crowd. She opened her mouth to call, “Belinda, come back,” and shut it again. She started to follow Belinda down the hall and then, noticing that some of Marcie's close friends were watching, quickly came to a stop. She wasn't about to let the Mob see her running after the class weirdo. At last all she could do was reach into her pocket, where she found a tightly fol
ded scrap of paper.

  The note, written in a slanted script, was difficult to read but after careful study it was possible to make out,

  Instead of a signature there was a tiny picture of a bee. Obviously Bee for Belinda.

  That seemed to be it. Xandra felt angry and frustrated. She didn't know if she wanted to sit with Belinda on the bus. What she had to consider was whether the risk was worthwhile. The risk that someone she knew would see her sitting with such a freakish person. She still hadn't decided whether she was going to do it or not when a few minutes later, in the classroom, she happened to catch Belinda's eye and found herself nodding. Nodding to say yes, she would be there. On the B2 bus at 3:30.

  Xandra was the only one of all the Hobson siblings who regularly rode the city bus. Quincy had started driving to school in his own car, and the others usually got rides in carpools driven by the parents of their Heritage Avenue friends, and once in a while, when it was the Hobson family's turn, by Clara. But Xandra wasn't the carpooler type. So what if it was faster and maybe a little more comfortable? She'd tried it just once and that was enough. After she'd been teased or ignored all the way to school by older siblings and their friends, the bus seemed like a better choice, even if she did have to pay for it out of her own allowance. But this time, instead of catching the 3:15 that went straight to Heritage Avenue, she would be taking the B2, which headed for the downtown bus terminal, where she could transfer to one that went to Heritage Avenue.

  The B2 bus left a little later, so Xandra got to the stop early, and at first there was no sign of Belinda. When she did show up, she didn't say hello or even seem to notice that Xandra was there. It wasn't until the bus had arrived and Xandra had taken a seat near the rear that Belinda came down the aisle and sat beside her.