Invisible Inkling (4 page)

The Invention of Wood Erk

L
et me understand this soccer thing,” Inkling says. “I saw it once on television.”

I told him all about what happened at school the minute I got home. Now we're sitting on the couch. I'm messing with one of my Lego helicopters, trying to get the doors to stay on right. But I'm not really concentrating.

“You find yourself a bunch of friends and buy a small pumpkin,” Inkling continues.

“No, you don't.”

“Then you hack off the stem, save that to eat later, and paint it black and white.”

“No, no.”

“And you kick it—what? Until it smashes? The winner is the one who smashes the pumpkin?”

“No, no, no!”

“Does he get to eat it all by himself? Or does everyone share the pumpkin at the end?”

“It's not a pumpkin. It's a soccer ball.”

“Oh.” I can hear him scratching his ear with his back paw—
thump, thump, thump
—like a dog. “A ball. Really?” he finally asks.

“Really.”

“And you're smashing it with your feet? I really don't see the point of this game.”

“You're getting it all wrong!” I say. “It goes like this—”

But then I shut my mouth.

Today's events have made it painfully clear that I don't understand soccer, either. “Gillicut hates me,” I moan. “That's the real point of the story.”

“But I like you,” says Inkling. “I'm invisible! I can speak three languages. I am way cooler than Gillicut. So who cares?”

I say, “He said ‘See. You. Later' in that way that means ‘See you later to rip your tongue out of your head, shorty.'”

“Listen.” Inkling leans against me on the couch. “You took down that fierce rootbeer unarmed. You rescued an innocent bandapat from harm and asked for nothing in return. No way are you scared of some guy who's working himself up just because you kicked a black-and-white ball in the wrong direction.”

I pet Inkling's soft fur, scratching his neck the way he likes.

“I might, though,” I say. “I might actually be
very
scared of that guy.”

“Who are you talking to, little dude?” Dad asks.

I jump.

I thought Inkling and I were alone in the living room, but here is Dad, standing in front of me. His hair is sticking up, and there's a dribble of chocolate ice cream on his white shirt.

Hmm. Who am I talking to? “I—I have an imaginary friend,” I lie.

“Oh, wow.” Dad plops himself on the couch next to me.

On top of Inkling.

Oh no!

My dad is pretty big. He could squish Inkling for serious.

“Erk,” Inkling moans.

“I used to have an imaginary friend,” says Dad, leaning back and putting his arm around me. “Back when I was your age.”

“Erk.”

“Is that your friend's name?” Dad asks. “Erk?”

“Yes,” I say. “Um, Dad? Would you mind standing up?”

“My friend's name was Gary,” says Dad. “Good old Gary. I called him Gary 'cause I thought it was a cowboy name. He used to have a horse and everything. He really helped me out during some lonely times. Hey! I bet you're feeling lonely with Alexander gone to Iowa City.”

“Erk.”

“Erk is an unusual name, though. How did you come up with it?”

“Dad—”

“It must be his last name, though, am I right? 'Cause you call everyone by last names. So what's his first?”

“Would you move?”

“Wood Yoomove Erk, that's his name?” Dad laughs. “I love the way your mind works, little dude.”

“Dad!” I shout. “Stand up!”

“Okay.” Dad scratches his head and stands. “Oh no! I was sitting on Erk, wasn't I?”

“Yes!”

Dad bends over and looks at the empty spot where he was sitting. I can't tell if Inkling is there or not. “I'm sorry, Erk,” he says, slow and sweet. “I'll be more careful in future.”

I roll my eyes. “Don't talk to him like he's a baby, Dad. Sheesh.” (For a moment I've forgotten that Wood Erk doesn't exist, not even in my imagination.)

Dad pats my shoulder. “Look, I know Erk is probably kind of a private thing. I won't talk to him any more or ask you questions. Why don't we just watch some TV together? I don't have to start cooking dinner for another half hour.”

I feel the couch next to me. Inkling is gone.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say. “That would be great.”

I hope Inkling's okay.

“Can I sit down again now?” Dad asks.

“Sure,” I tell Dad. “Right here.”

Dad plops back down with a sigh and flips on the TV.

Food channel. That's what he always picks.

“Dad?” I ask, after a minute of watching this gray-haired lady make meat loaf. “When you were a kid, were you good at sports?”

I'm thinking he'll say no. I've never seen him play a sport in my life.

I actually
want
him to say no.

“I was good at Hacky Sack in college,” Dad answers.

“What's Hacky Sack?”

“You stand in a circle, and everyone keeps a beanbag up in the air using only their feet.”

“Did people ever get all mad and stuff if you, like,
failed
to keep the beanbag up in the air?”

Dad flexes a muscle. “Not at me. I was the Hacky Sack master.”

“So they didn't want to—I don't know—
see you later
and rip your tongue out of your head 'cause you messed up?”

“No way.” Dad laughs. “I ruled that little beanbag.”

Oh.

I decide not to tell him what happened in gym class today.

Sprinkie Tax

T
he next day, in the cafeteria, I'm just sitting down to eat when Gillicut stalks over. He demands that I show him the contents of my lunch box. “Spanky Pantalones!” he shouts. “Whatcha got?”

I remember the way he came at me in gym. I remember how he said “See. You. Later.”

I open my lunch box and show him.

“Bread and peanut butter, yuck,” he says. “Yogurt, yuck. Apple, yuck. Oh, Oreos!”

“They're not Oreos. They're organic sandwich cookies,” I mumble, hoping he'll drop them.

But no. He just eats them both at once and grabs my Tupperware container full of chocolate sprinkles.

“These are mine, too,” he says, mouth full. “How come ya got sprinkies?”

“Sprinkles?” I say. “My parents own an ice-cream store.”

“You get sprinkies every day?” Gillicut asks.

“A lot of days, I guess.”

Why am I telling the truth?
I think.
I should be lying right now.

But it's too late. Gillicut pours the sprinkles into his mouth. He tosses the empty Tupperware on the floor, then trots across the room to the lunch line.

My shoulders sink and my eyes fill.

I find the Tupperware over by a garbage can and pick it up. When I get back to my table, Chin is there. “Spanky Pantalones?” she says, laughing. “I heard that.”

I can't believe she's laughing. That guy just took all my dessert.

I don't answer her. Just keep myself busy opening my yogurt and finding my spoon.

Blueberry yogurt. Blueberry yogurt.

That's my favorite, and if I just think about that, I won't cry in front of everyone.

Chin watches me.

“Sorry,” she says after a minute of me not answering her. “For laughing.” She breaks off half of her chocolate-chip granola bar and pushes it across the table to me. “Since he took your cookies.”

“Thanks.”

We eat for a while.

I have the granola bar first, in case Gillicut returns.

Chin eats an apple-butter-and-pickle sandwich, like she does every day.

Then she bangs a rhythm on the table.
Bam dada bam! Dada bim bam bang!

I'm still a little mad at her for laughing, but I bang the same rhythm back.

“You know what we should build after the Great Wall of China?” Chin asks. (We are building a Great Wall of China from matchsticks, when there's nothing else to do.)

“What?”

“Taj Mahal. Taj Mahal would be slam-bang.”

And for a second, I think: Maybe fourth grade won't be so bad without Wainscotting.

Maybe it'll be good, even.

But then Gillicut is back, setting his tray of garbage on our table. “Did yah cry 'cause you lost your sprinkies, Spanky Baby?”

“No.”

“Good thing. 'Cause now you've got a sprinkie tax.”

“What?”

“Sprinkie tax goes like this,” Gillicut says, speaking slowly as if I'm dumb. “Every day, you bring me sprinkies in your lunch box. Only, not the chocolate ones. I want rainbow.”

“Hank doesn't
live
at Big Round Pumpkin,” says Chin. “He doesn't have rainbow
sprinkles,
like, sitting in his refrigerator.”

We do have sprinkles sitting in our refrigerator, actually. Dad is a big one for late-night ice-cream feasts, especially when he's trying to invent new flavors. But I keep this to myself.

“So? He can get them, easy.” Gillicut yanks the neck of my T-shirt back so it's tight against my throat.

I choke, my breath comes in gulps—

But Gillicut releases my shirt before the lunch aides have time to notice what he's doing. Then he takes his tray and dumps his trash in front of me. A pile of paper napkins, a Styrofoam plate full of unwanted baked beans, a banana peel, an oozing milk carton. All on top of my lunch.

I think: if I throw out Gillicut's garbage today, I'm probably going to be doing it every day for the rest of the school year.

Every day. Touching his slimy baked-bean garbage and his used paper napkins. “Throw it
out
, Spankitty Spankpants!” Gillicut bends over and whispers. “Throw it out or I'll rip your ears off and feed them to the science-lab hamsters.”

He grabs the oozing garbage from the table and shoves it into my arms.

Fourth grade isn't going to be good after all.

The Big Fur Fluff-Up

I
know what you should do,” Inkling says. “You should bite Gillicut on the ankle.”

“There's no biting allowed at school.”

“I bet there's no sprinkle stealing allowed, either.”

“That's true.”

“The trick is to chomp down really hard on the ankle with both the top and bottom teeth. Then waggle your head around to make it hurt more.”

I sigh.

“Come on.”

I sigh again.

“I can tell you're not going to bite him,” says Inkling. “I can tell by your voice.”

“I don't think I can.”

“Then the least you can do is fluff up your fur to make yourself look bigger.”

I laugh. “What?”

“A big fur fluff-up is very scary to an opponent.”

“I don't have fur.”

“On your head you do.”

“That's hair.”

“So fluff it up. Gillicut will back right down once you show him how really fluffy you can get. You can use some of Nadia's volumizer putty.”

“Volumizer what?”

“Putty. That stuff she puts in her hair that makes it stand up. She's got it on the bathroom counter.”

“Fluffing my hair is not going to make Gillicut back down. It's just going to get me in trouble with Nadia.”

I don't add that no boys have fluffy hair at Public School 166.

“This isn't the jungle,” I tell Inkling. “It's the lunchroom.”

“Same thing.”

“Fluffy is different for humans.”

“Suit yourself,” says Inkling. “But I'm telling you it's worth a try.”

In the morning I find Nadia's volumizer putty and scoop some into a plastic bag.

“Put more,” says Inkling.

I jump. I didn't know he was in the bathroom
with me.

“You shouldn't come into the bathroom with people,” I say. “People like privacy in the bathroom.”

“You're just stealing volumizer putty,” says Inkling.

“I know, but—”

“Whatever. I swear, I will never understand human beings.”

“Just don't come into the bathroom unless the door's open, okay?”

“Got it. Now go on. Put more in. You want to get a really big fluff-up.”

I put more in.

Right before lunch I go to the boys' room at school and mush the putty through my hair until it stands on end all over my head.

I look insane. I know I do. But maybe insane is good, you know? Maybe insane is what it takes to scare away someone like Gillicut.

Entering the cafeteria, I turn my neck side to side, displaying my fur fluff as Inkling taught me. I keep my shoulders low and my gaze fierce. It's a display of size and health, and it's supposed to make your enemies back down.

“Spikey Spankopolis. You been to the beauty parlor?” Gillicut comes up from behind.

“No,” I say, with great seriousness. “I have not.”

“Did the beauty-parlor lady stick your finger in an electric socket?” he asks. “Or did you see your own ugly face in the mirror, and now you can't live down the shock?”

“No,” I say again. I can tell the fluff isn't working, but I try to see the plan through to the end. Inkling promised it would work if I'd just commit myself and not wimp out. “I have bigger hair than you, Gillicut,” I say loudly. “In fact, your hair is small and weak looking, compared to mine.”

He bursts into a fit of giggles. Pointing at me.

Soon a number of other kids are pointing and laughing, too.

Drat.

I should never have listened to Inkling. He thinks the laws of the lunchroom are the same as the laws of the Ethiopian Outback, but clearly:

They. Are. Not.

Gillicut holds his hand out to me. “Sprinkie tax, Spikey Spank.”

I give him my Tupperware of sprinkles.

I brought the rainbow kind. Just in case.

Gillicut leaves his hand out and gets my dried-fruit snack.

And then my chocolate milk.

Instead of eating what's left, I run to the boys' room and wash the putty out of my hair.

Every day after that, regular as regular, Gillicut takes whatever's best in my lunch.