Has Anyone Seen Jessica Jenkins?

by Liz Kessler

  Izzy had tears streaming from her eyes. “That was so funny!” she said. “Did you see those boys actually check out the mannequin’s butt?” She burst out laughing all over again. “This is too much fun.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go to the town center and see what else we can do.”

  Over the next hour, I discovered I had a particular affinity with pets. One little boy had quite a lengthy conversation with his dog, as though it were the most normal thing in the world to discuss the latest computer games with a Yorkshire terrier.

  My favorite moment was when I knelt next to a German shepherd, and, in a deep voice, politely asked when the next bus was due. Then all twenty people waiting at the bus stop turned, as one, to stare at the dog. It was the way he stared back at them that cracked me up. His expression seemed to say, “Yes, I did ask about bus times. You have a problem with that?”

  Unfortunately, the dog didn’t actually say that, because I was laughing too much to make him say anything at that point.

  I even managed to do something slightly superhero-y.

  We were cutting through Bertram’s to get back to the town center. As we passed the jewelry department, I spotted a little girl checking out a stand of watches while her mom talked to a shop assistant.

  “Mommy, I like this one!” the girl said, holding up a watch with a hefty price tag.

  Her mom didn’t even look up. “Annabelle, leave the watches alone! If you break one of those, you’ll be paying for it in allowance for the next ten years,” she said, and went back to her conversation.

  I watched Annabelle put the watch back in its box. The only trouble was, she didn’t put it in correctly, and as she raised her hand to hook it back on the stand, the watch slipped out of the box.

  Without stopping to think, I bent down and caught the watch, a millisecond before it would have smashed to pieces on the floor.

  Still invisible, I stood up and placed it carefully back in Annabelle’s hand. The girl gazed at the watch in her palm, her mouth open. Then she glanced at her mom — who was still talking to the shop assistant. Without missing a beat, she quickly reached up and, more carefully this time, put the watch back in its box.

  A decade’s worth of allowance stayed intact. Perhaps a young girl’s belief in magic did, too.

  And I had done my first heroic deed.

  We had come out the other end of Bertram’s and were heading back through the square when we spotted a crowd of people.

  Wondering what was going on, we squeezed our way through the crowd, until we were stopped from going any farther by a thick rope and some security guards in front of the Penbridge Hotel.

  “What’s happening?” Izzy asked.

  “Hang on. I’ll find out.” I glanced around to check that no one was looking. All eyes were fixed firmly on the hotel doors, so I quickly turned myself invisible. Then I slipped under the rope and went right up to the hotel doors to see what all the fuss was about.

  Two people were coming out of the hotel. Instantly, the crowd started roaring and holding out books and photos for them to sign.

  I recognized the couple right away. Andy and Celia Fairhurst — one of those athlete-marries-model celebrity clichés. What on earth were they doing in Penbridge? Other than standing on the hotel steps flashing toothy grins at the crowd?

  Actually, I didn’t really care what they were doing here. They’d been on Celebrity Marriage Wars last year and had come across as the rudest, nastiest, and most unpleasant couple in the world. Why people were crowding around to get their autographs I had no idea.

  I slipped past and headed back to the crowd. Just when I was almost near enough to touch them, and blinking in the glare of all the cameras flashing as everyone took pics of the celebrity couple, I was suddenly overcome with an urge to tell them what I thought of them.

  Obviously, I was invisible, not unhearable — and with so many people around I didn’t want to get caught — so I did the next best thing. I stuck my tongue out at them.

  I mean, it wasn’t as if anyone could see me do it, right?

  Wrong.

  It was at approximately half past seven on Monday morning, as I was in the process of washing down two slices of toast and marmalade with a swig of orange juice and sitting opposite Dad as he read the newspaper, that I discovered quite how wrong I’d been. And quite how visible!

  Andy and Celia were pictured in full-color glory on the front page of our local paper.

  Directly behind them, thumb on nose, fingers waggling in a childish wave and tongue sticking out, so was I.

  To be fair, the main focus of the picture was the happy couple, and I was completely blurry behind them. If I was lucky, no one would even recognize me. But I recognized me — and someone who knew me well might recognize me, too! How had it happened? I’d been invisible at the time. Hadn’t I?

  I didn’t have time to ponder any more questions. I had about three seconds to do something. Dad was holding the paper up in front of him. Luckily, in his opinion the most important news is what’s happening with the local sports teams, so he always starts with the back page. But his fingers were starting to twitch. Any second now he would turn the newspaper over and see me — possibly.

  I wasn’t prepared to take the risk. Dad runs a real estate agency in town and is vice president of the Penbridge Chamber of Commerce. He’s always telling me this means it’s important for us to set a good example. To whom, I’m not sure. I’m also not sure what difference it makes to him selling houses if I get into trouble from time to time. (Which I do. Quite a bit.) But, either way, he’d go crazy if he saw me sticking my tongue out at celebrities. Plus, how on earth would I explain it?

  I thought quickly, and then I did the only possible thing I could do. I leaned across the table and knocked my orange juice over.

  It flooded the table and, more important, it caught the front page of the Penbridge Chronicle.

  “Dad, watch out!” I screamed, jumping up and grabbing the newspaper off him as I did. While he was busy leaping off his chair and looking down at his pants to make sure they were dry, I gave the newspaper a quick rub in the orange juice, just to be on the safe side.

  “Jessica, you clumsy thing,” Dad said. “Look what you’ve done to my paper.”

  I looked at the sodden newspaper. “Dad, I’m so sorry,” I said with a crestfallen frown. “I’ll go out and buy you a new one.” It was a gamble, but I had to sound sincere.

  Dad looked at his watch. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “There’s never much of interest in that local rag anyway.”

  “True,” I agreed as I took the soggy paper to the trash can.

  “Well, it’s obvious what happened,” Izzy said at break time after I told her what I’d seen.

  “It is?” Only Izzy could say that anything about someone turning invisible and then appearing in their local newspaper was obvious. She’d probably read about it in a book or something.

  “I read about it in a book,” she went on. “Someone was invisible, and — oh, wait. No, I think they were a ghost, actually.”

  “Right,” I said, feeling better by the minute.

  Izzy carried on. “You couldn’t see them in real life, but they could be seen in photographs — and by animals as well, I think. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re invisible, too.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. It made about as much sense as anything else. And it would also explain why some of the dogs I’d invisibly crouched beside on Saturday had wagged their tails the whole time I was there.

  “So we need to be careful of that from now on.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Meanwhile, let’s just hope no one else spots the idiot in the Penbridge Chronicle.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Hardly anyone reads the local paper. And even if they do, like you said, it was totally blurred. I bet you and I are the only ones who’d even know it was you.”

  Which wasn’t exactly the reply I’d been looking for. Something more along the li
nes of “You’re not an idiot at all” would have been nice. But at least she was right. I was probably safe — for now.

  “Iz, do you think we’re ever going to get to the bottom of this?” I asked.

  Izzy chewed the edge of her little finger. “I don’t know. I spent last night doing more searches online but couldn’t find anything. I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “Me neither,” I agreed. “It makes my head hurt to think about it.” I thought back to the notes we’d made for the Slightly Superhero Strategy, and how it had felt good to keep that girl out of trouble in the department store. “Why don’t we think about Step Three?” I suggested.

  “Step Three?” Izzy asked.

  “Of the strategy. The one about doing good,” I reminded her. “I think I might have an idea.”

  We spent the rest of break discussing my idea. It was a combination of Steps Three and Four, actually. It was about having fun, but also a way of doing something for which I was fairly sure every student in the school — and possibly a fair number of the teachers — would be thankful.

  The idea: Operation Principal’s Office.

  Like any other perfect plan, Operation Principal’s Office was simple. Mr. Bell is one of those principals who like everyone to know how open and approachable they are, so he keeps his office door open almost all the time. Which makes it easy for an invisible person — aka me — to go in and out pretty much anytime they like.

  The plan was that I would wait till he had stepped out, and I would step in and send an e-mail to all the staff — from him — informing them that there was to be an inspection of the school’s plumbing system on Friday, and as a result, they were to tell all their students that school would finish at lunchtime.

  I think you’ll agree that this plan was genius. Plus, it was a very special gift from me to Izzy, as a thank-you for her support. We had a geography test on Friday afternoon, and Izzy was dreading it. She’d been so busy being freaked out by my turning invisible last week that she hadn’t listened to a word of the lesson. If Operation Principal’s Office went according to plan, she’d get an extra week to study.

  We decided we would put the plan into action on Thursday. That gave us a few days to scope out Mr. Bell’s movements and pick the best time. It also gave me a few days to try to build up the courage to do one of the most daring things I had ever done. I tried not to think about the possibility of getting caught and instead focused on the idea of giving the entire student body a whole extra half a day of weekend.

  Because, surely, that was the most important thing.

  On Wednesday evening, Mom popped her head around my bedroom door. “Jess, can you come and set the table? Nancy will be here any minute.”

  I put my homework away and went down to help Mom. Nancy is a midwife at the hospital. In fact, she’s the midwife who delivered me. That’s how she and Mom met. They’d kept in touch ever since. She was Mom’s best friend now, and she came over for dinner at least once a week.

  Nancy’s cool. She’s tall and funky and wears her hair tied back in long dreadlocks. She’s not like most other adults. She’s always interested in me and acts more like an aunt than a friend of my mom’s. She even gives me presents for birthdays and Christmas.

  Like a couple of weeks earlier, when I turned thirteen, she gave me a beautiful necklace with a tiny heart made out of rose quartz. I hadn’t taken it off yet. Even at school, where you’re not allowed to wear jewelry, I kept it on under my uniform. It was beautiful, and typical of Nancy to buy such a lovely gift.

  The doorbell rang. “Jess, can you get that?” Mom called from the kitchen.

  I went to let Nancy in. She was wearing skinny jeans and a T-shirt that said in large letters, KEEP CALM AND BE ALERT. Underneath, in smaller letters, it said, YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS LERTS. As always, she gave me a big smile and a bigger hug. “How’s my favorite teenager?”

  “Hungry. You’re late,” I replied, smiling back.

  Nancy laughed as we went into the kitchen.

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” Dad said, reaching into the wine cupboard. “I’ve got an excuse to open a bottle of red now.”

  “Oh, go on, then, if you insist,” she said as he passed her a glass. “Luckily for me, Jean asked if I can swap shifts, so I don’t work till tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Excellent,” Dad said. “Better make it a large one, then.”

  “Dinner,” Mom said, and we all sat down and ate, talked, and laughed for the next hour.

  After we’d washed up, Dad went to watch a documentary about house renovations that he’d recorded from the night before, I went upstairs to do my homework, and Mom and Nancy stayed in the kitchen, talking.

  At one point, I went down to get my pencil case. As soon as I came into the room, they stopped talking quite abruptly and both looked at me guiltily.

  “You talking about me?” I asked, half joking.

  “Of course not, darling,” Mom said quickly, her face reddening as it always does when she’s lying. “Why would we be talking about you?”

  I left them to it but felt a bit odd. It was obvious they’d been talking about me, but why?

  I had an idea. I’d give them a few minutes, then go back downstairs invisibly and find out what they were talking about.

  I went back upstairs as noisily as I could, so they’d know the coast was clear and they could go back to their conversation.

  I watched the clock. Two minutes later, I made myself invisible and crept downstairs as silently as I could.

  “To be honest, I hadn’t really noticed anything until you mentioned it,” Mom was saying. “But now that I think about it, yes, she has been a bit different lately.”

  “Different how?” Nancy asked. She was leaning across the kitchen table and looking intensely at Mom. Were they talking about me?

  “It’s hard to explain,” Mom said. She got up from the table to fetch the wine from the sideboard, nearly walking right into me. I dodged out of her path just in time. “I guess she’s been a bit more secretive the last week or so. She and Isobel always seem to be discussing something privately and stop the minute I come in.”

  Er, hello? Pot calling kettle black at all, Mom?

  “Any idea what they’ve been talking about?” Nancy asked.

  Mom shook her head. “It’s funny; on the one hand, it’s as though it’s something they’re excited about, but on the other hand, I think Jessica’s been looking worried, too.”

  “Worried?”

  “I’m probably imagining it. Or you’re putting ideas into my head.” Mom shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing. Only, now that you’ve asked me, I suppose I do think she’s been behaving differently. Why? Do you think there’s something wrong with her? What made you ask in the first place?”

  “I was just interested. I’m sure she’s fine,” Nancy said quickly. Too quickly. Then in a superbright voice, she changed the subject. “She seems to like the necklace I gave her.”

  “She loves it,” Mom replied. “I haven’t seen her take it off yet!”

  “Really? Not at all?” Nancy asked lightly, although she leaned forward and stared into Mom’s eyes as she spoke.

  Mom leaned back a little. “Um. I don’t think so. Why do you ask? Nance, you’re being ever so strange this evening.”

  Nancy laughed her big belly laugh. “I am, aren’t I?” she said. “It must be the wine, I expect. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mom said. “I know you care about Jess.”

  “Almost like a daughter,” she said. “She’s the nearest thing I’ve got.”

  “I know. We’re lucky to have you.” Mom reached over and squeezed Nancy’s hand. “Now, then, tell me the latest on that doctor who got caught in the supply closet with the new nurse.”

  Hospital gossip was beyond my level of interest. I crept out of the kitchen and back upstairs.

  In my room, I tried to figure out what that whole conversation had been about. Why was Nancy asking a
bout me? How much of my recent behavior and antics had Mom been aware of? And why was Nancy suddenly so interested in whether I’d taken my necklace off?

  For the first time in two weeks, I took it off and held it in my hands. It had almost become a lucky charm to me. But after eavesdropping on Mom and Nancy’s conversation, I wasn’t sure I still felt the same way about it.

  I left the necklace on my nightstand and started my homework. Math. Quadratic equations. Which meant that after twenty minutes I was so bored I decided to have an early night instead.

  I settled into bed. Within minutes I was fast asleep and dreaming about cliffs made out of rose quartz. The cliffs were collapsing, and I was in the middle of them. I was shouting out for help, but I was invisible and no one could see me, or hear me, either. The cliffs were falling, bright-red rose rocks tumbling down until, eventually, they lay all around me, trapping me inside a deep glowing well that I had no idea how to get out of. And where no one could ever find me because no one knew I was there.

  The next morning, I woke sweating, restless, and late for school.

  Mom was at my bedroom door. “Jess, get up!”

  I had the quickest shower in the world, threw my school uniform on, and wolfed down a piece of toast in record time.

  “See you tonight,” I called, grabbing my bag and running out the door to catch the bus.

  Izzy was waiting for me at the school entrance. “Today’s the day,” she said. “You sure you’re up for this?”

  “I have no idea,” I said honestly. I mean, I’d never shied away from the occasional prank, but this was a whole new level. Could I really do it? Should I really do it? I wasn’t sure. And could I actually get caught?

  It was highly unlikely anyone would suspect that a student had turned invisible and sneaked into the principal’s office! Plus, I owed it to Izzy and to all the other students, who I’d silently promised would have a long weekend.

  We’d planned the operation for morning break time, when Mr. Bell would be in the staff room with the other teachers for about ten minutes. Plenty of time to turn invisible, sneak into his office, send a quick e-mail, and get out.