Things Not Seen (2 page)

Horribly true. Here I am, standing here with my feet cramping up on the cold floor, imagining the rest of my life as the ultimate weirdo.

I can't go anywhere. Clothes are supposed to have a body inside them, and mine is missing. I could go out naked. But that's not something sane people do anytime in Chicago, especially not in February.

School? Gone. Off the air. Not that I care much. It's the U of C lab school. It's where the professors and the local geniuses and all the rest of the university creeps send their kids. It's supposed to be so great.
Better
than Francis Parkman.
Better
than North Shore Country Day. Blah, blah, blah. Most of the time I can barely tolerate it. Except for the libraries. And jazz band.

I mean, it's not like I'm some psycho loner or anything. I've got friends, kids I eat lunch with, stuff like that. But I'm just not a private-school kid. I go there because my family moved here six years ago. Plus, my mom teaches at the university, so the tuition is cheap. Maybe my school's a great place if you're a show-off genius or a soccer god or something. But if you're me, it's just school.

But
that's
over, at least for…well, at least for today.

I stand there in the kitchen, naked and shivering, and I look at Mom and Dad, still sitting at the table. They're stumped. I've never seen them this way. And that might be the scariest thing of all. With parents like mine, you get used to having them tell you what to do next. But I can see they don't have a clue. Not about this.

And suddenly I think,
Why did I ever believe they had all the answers for me, anyway?

I mean, they do know a lot of semi-interesting stuff. Mom knows politics and history and English literature inside out, and Dad's a certified brainiac, so he knows tons. And that's fine for them. But all that, that's got nothing to do with me, not right now.

So I look at them sitting there and I say, “I'll be up in my room. I've got to figure out what to do.”

And it's true.
I've
got to figure it out. Because this, what's happening right now, this is about me.

A
minute later I'm sitting alone on my bed. I've got my dark green robe on, so when I look down at my legs and my arms, the shapes are right. But I hold up my hand and the floppy sleeve slides down my arm, and I can't see the arm or the hand on the end of it.

I get up and turn on my desk lamp. It's a bright light, and I put my hand under it, palm down. I can feel the heat. I can't see my hand, but I do see something else. I see a very faint shadow of my hand on the green desk blotter. I start opening and closing my hand, watching the shadow of something I can't see.

I'm so into it, I don't notice my dad until he's right next to me. He says, “That's interesting,” and I jump, and my hand hits the light, and the shade makes this BONG. I should have locked my door.

Dad says, “So what do you make of that? You can't see it, but it makes a shadow—except it's not a normal shadow, is it?”

I know that tone of voice. It means Dad already has the answer, and he wants me to say, “Duhhh, I don't know,” so he can show me how smart he is. Again.

But I know the answer, or I think I do. So I say, “It means my eyes can't see my hand, but the light from the lamp can't go all the way through it…I guess.”

Dad is nodding. “Bingo! When you came to the kitchen you said you were invisible, and you are. But what does that mean? You know the Stealth Bomber? The Air Force calls that plane invisible. Well, is it?”

I say, “No, not really invisible. But radar can't see the plane. So it's invisible to the radar.”

Dad says, “Bingo! That plane is invisible to the radar. But does the plane make a shadow when it flies between the earth and the sun?”

“Yeah, because the plane's still there, right?”

“Bingo! And you're still here too. But you're invisible to the human eye. Now, how does that eye work?”

I'm playing along because this isn't one of Dad's usual lectures, like where he sucks all the fun out of a roller coaster by talking about g-forces and potential energy. This stuff is important to me. I may not be the greatest student, but I read all the time and I remember everything. I know a few things too.

So I replay some sixth-grade science for him. “The eye picks up light through a lens, and the light makes an image inside the eye, and that image gets sent into the brain.”

“Bingo! So why can't we see this hand?” Now he's got hold of my hand at the wrist, and he's shaking it up and down under the light.

“Because the eye isn't getting an image?”

“Bingo! Because what does it need to make an image?” Dad's too excited now, so he answers his own questions. It's one of the things that stinks about living with a genius. “The eye needs light! And there isn't any light bouncing off your hand and into our eyes. Look at my hand.” He holds my hand next to his big hairy one, the one with the Cal Tech ring on it. “Same light, and bingo! There it is, because the light bounces off of
my
hand and into our eyes. We see one hand, but there are two shadows on the desk. How come? Because even though your hand doesn't
reflect
any light, it's not transparent. And the reason that your shadow is faint and mine isn't must be because my hand stops the light, and yours just bends it some—that's called refraction. Bingo!”

My dad needs one of those collars like they put on dogs that bark too much. Then, when he says “Bingo!” he'd get a shock.

“Now,” he says, “lay your hand right on the desk.” And I do, and he says, “See that? That outline? It's the shape of your hand, but there's no color, no definite form, and the desk underneath is hidden. And see how the edge seems all wavy? That's because of the refraction. Now pull your hand up slowly.” And I do, and as I do, the hand shape disappears.

“Hold it there!” Dad's excited. “See that? When you get six or eight inches away from something—bingo!—you're gone. It's like our brains fill in around the shape, and you go completely invisible. We're just not wired to see nonreflective, low-refractive matter!” I feel like one of those mice in the movie they made from
Flowers for Algernon
. If I let him, Dad will think up little experiments for me all day long.

I say, “So how does all that help?”

Dad watches my robe as I go sit on the bed again. He looks puzzled. “Help?” he asks.

“Yeah, how do all these observations help me?”

“Well, I'm not sure yet, Bobby. But it's something…and it's pretty interesting, don't you think?”

I'm glad Dad can't see the look on my face. And I don't say anything right away because sarcasm does a bad thing to Dad's brain chemistry.

Then I say, “Well, I'm going to try to get some sleep, Dad.” Which is a lot nicer than saying, “Get out! Leave my room, and take all your
interesting
little factoids and theories with you!”

So Dad says, “Okay, Bobby. Sure. That's a good idea. Rest is always a good idea.”

But I don't want to rest, just be alone. When Dad's gone, I jump up and shut my door. And I lock it before I go back and flop onto my bed.

Alone isn't new for me. I spend a lot of time this way. When I'm not at school, I mostly read. That's why I like the library, the big one between Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Street. It's part of the university, not the high school. I can hang out there as long as I want.

But it's not like I need to go there to find books. Our whole house is like a library, which figures since Mom's a literature freak. If she catches me looking bored, she grabs a book and shoves it in my face and says I have to read twenty pages, and then if I want to stop, I can. A lot of the time I get hooked. Like on
Lord Jim
. That was a strange one. And Hemingway. She made me read
In Our Time
, and then I read all his books. And she gave me
Catch-22
and
Cat's Cradle
. So I got hooked on Vonnegut. And I even read
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens. High density, but good.

On my own I read stuff like Tolkien and
A Wrinkle in Time
. And Michael Crichton. And I just finished
The Odyssey
. That was a surprise. It was actually good. And I've found some good books on Dad's shelves—Richard Feynman especially. He's this very funny physicist—which are not words that usually go together.

Mostly I like books that have a world I can get into. And I guess that's because books have always been so much more interesting than my life. Until today.

After a few minutes lying down, I go over and open my desk drawer. I grab a ballpoint and write “Bobby” on the palm of my left hand. I look at the letters, and I wave my hand around in front of my face. My name is like this floating blue string.

Then I see a pack of gum. I walk to the mirror above my dresser. I unwrap a piece of Doublemint and stick it in my mouth. I open wide, and it's there on my tongue. I shut my mouth and it's gone. I chew with my mouth open, and I see the gum, moving around between my teeth like a gray caterpillar. Then I swallow the gum, just to watch what happens—all gone.

Then I work my tongue around in my mouth for about ten seconds, and I spit at the mirror. And I can't see anything on the mirror. I rub my hand over the glass, and my hand feels wet. Invisible spit. I have invisible spit.

Then I think about the gum I just swallowed. It's gone, but of course, it's not. It's just down inside me, and like Dad said, I'm not transparent. Because if I was, I'd still be able to see the gum, right there inside me. So then the gum goes through my stomach and everything…and then what?

Only one way to find out.

I unlock my door and head down the hall. I'm still shaky on my feet—I've got no visual fix on my own place in space. The robe helps, but I really miss my legs and feet. And here's the bathroom report: Most people go number one or number two. I go number three and number four. The sounds and the smells are very familiar, but there's nothing to see.

So it's like this: Something like a glass of water or a bowl of Cheerios starts out normal, but after it goes through
me
, it won't reflect light. It's too weird.

I flush and then open the bathroom door, and Mom's standing there.

She blinks, and her eyes bug out as she sees my robe, and then they wander around, looking for my face. “Are you all right, Bobby?”

I say, “Yeah, fine. I usually go to the bathroom several times every day, Mom. Do I need permission now?”

She gets this hurt look on her face, and for a second I feel like I ought to give her a hug or something. But I don't. I just step around her and carefully float my green robe down the hall to my room, and I shut my door. Then I punch the lock button so she can hear it loud and clear.

I get in bed and lie back, staring at the ceiling. I close my eyes, and it's dark. More proof that I'm not transparent. If I were, then I'd be able to see through my eyelids, right? I shiver, partly cold, partly scared.

I pull the electric blanket over me and crank it up a notch. I shut my eyes again and lie still, just trying to think, to calm down.

And I guess I do, because the next thing I know, I'm driving this dune buggy at about a hundred miles an hour across a burning desert that looks like the surface of the moon.

I sit up in bed, and I'm all sweaty, and there's a second or two when I don't know where I am or who I am, or what day it is, or anything. I'm still half in the dream, with sand hitting me in the face. There's my alarm clock, and it's 1:47, and I panic because I've overslept, like I'm late for school.

Then everything comes crashing back into my head. I jump up and go to the mirror over the dresser, and there's only my robe. And I can see some smears on the mirror—it's my spit, not invisible now. The robe's soaked with sweat, so I peel it off and pull on some boxers and jeans and a T-shirt. And socks, because I remember how cold the floor was at breakfast.

I go down the back stairs to the kitchen. “Mom?…Dad?”

There's no answer.

Then I see the note on the kitchen counter.

And then a second note scribbled below that.

My folks. They never lose sight of the important things. Like keeping up with homework. And poetry seminars. And Dad's atom-smashing team—well, we all know how vital
that
is to everyone.

I can't believe what I'm reading: “Watch TV or something”? And then, “Call me if there's an emergency”?

So let me get this straight, Mom: Your kid goes invisible, and that's
not
an emergency?

“Watch TV or something.” That's what the note says.

So I say to myself,
Fine. But I think I'll do the “or something” part
.