Рэй Брэдбери: Invisible Boy

All sorts of things shot through his brain, she could tell. Adventures stood up and danced like hell-fire in his eyes, and his mouth, just hanging, told what it meant to be a boy who imagined himself like the mountain winds. In a cold dream he said, «I'll run across wheat fields, climb snow mountains, steal white chickens off'n farms. I'll kick pink pigs when they ain't looking. I'll pinch pretty girls' legs when they sleep, snap their garters in schoolrooms.» Charlie looked at Old Lady, and from the shiny tips of her eyes she saw something wicked shape his face. «And other things I'll do, I'll do, I will,» he said.

«Don't try nothing on me,» warned Old Lady. «I'm brittle as spring ice and I don't take handling.» Then: «What about your folks?»

«My folks?»

«You can't fetch yourself home looking like that. Scare the inside ribbons out of them. Your mother'd faint straight back like timber falling. Think they want you about the house to stumble over and your ma have to call you every three minutes, even though you're in the room next her elbow?»

Charlie had not considered it. He sort of simmered down and whispered out a little «Gosh» and felt of his long bones carefully.

«You'll be mighty lonesome. People looking through you like a water glass, people knocking you aside because they didn't reckon you to be underfoot. And women, Charlie, women ―»

He swallowed. «What about women?»

«No woman will be giving you a second stare. And no woman wants to be kissed by a boy's mouth they can't even find!»

Charlie dug his bare toe in the soil contemplatively. He pouted. «Well, I'll stay invisible, anyway, for a spell. I'll have me some fun. I'll just be pretty careful, is all. I'll stay out from in front of wagons and horses and Pa. Pa shoots at the nariest sound.» Charlie blinked. «Why, with me invisible, someday Pa might just up and fill me with buckshot, thinkin' I was a hill squirrel in the dooryard. Oh…»

Old Lady nodded at a tree. «That's likely.»

«Well,» he decided slowly, «I'll stay invisible for tonight, and tomorrow you can fix me back all whole again, Old Lady.»

«Now if that ain't just like a critter, always wanting to be what he can't be,» remarked Old Lady to a beetle on a log.

«What you mean?» said Charlie.

«Why,» she explained, «it was real hard work, fixing you up. It'll take a little time for it to wear off. Like a coat of paint wears off, boy.»

«You!» he cried. «You did this to me! Now you make me back, you make me seeable!»

«Hush,» she said. «It'll wear off, a hand or a foot at a time.»

«How'll it look, me around the hills with just one hand showing!»

«Like a five-winged bird hopping on the stones and bramble.»

«Or a foot showing!»

«Like a small pink rabbit jumping thicket.»

«Or my head Heating!»

«Like a hairy balloon at the carnival!»

«How long before I'm whole?» he asked.

She deliberated that it might pretty well be an entire year.

He groaned. He began to sob and bite his lips and make fists. «You magicked me, you did this, you did this thing to me. Now I won't be able to run home!»

She winked. «But you can stay here, child, stay on with me real comfort-like, and I'll keep you fat and saucy.»

He flung it out: «You did this on purpose! You mean old hag, you want to keep me here!»

He ran off through the shrubs on the instant.

«Charlie, come back!»

No answer but the pattern of his feet on the soft dark turf, and his wet choking cry which passed swiftly off and away.

She waited and then kindled herself a fire. «He'll be back,» she whispered. And thinking inward on herself, she said, «And now I'll have me my company through spring and into late summer. Then, when I'm tired of him and want a silence, I'll send him home.»

Charlie returned noiselessly with the first gray of dawn, gliding over the rimed turf to where Old Lady sprawled like a bleached stick before the scattered ashes.

He sat on some creek pebbles and stared at her.

She didn't dare look at him or beyond. He had made no sound, so how could she know he was anywhere about? She couldn't.

He sat there, tear marks on his cheeks.

Pretending to be just waking — but she had found no sleep from one end of the night to the other — Old Lady stood up, grunting and yawning, and turned in a circle to the dawn.

«Charlie?»

Her eyes passed from pines to soil, to sky, to the far hills. She called out his name, over and over again, and she felt like staring plumb straight at him, but she stopped herself. «Charlie? Oh, Charles!» she called, and heard the echoes say the very same.

He sat, beginning to grin a bit, suddenly, knowing he was close to her, yet she must feel alone. Perhaps he felt the growing of a secret power, perhaps he felt secure from the world, certainly he was pleased with his invisibility.

She said aloud, «Now where can that boy be? If he only made a noise so I could tell just where he is, maybe I'd fry him a breakfast.»

She prepared the morning victuals, irritated at his continuous quiet. She sizzled bacon on a hickory stick. «The smell of it will draw his nose,» she muttered.

While her back was turned he swiped all the frying bacon and devoured it hastily.

She whirled, crying out, «Lord!»

She eyed the clearing suspiciously. «Charlie, that you?»

Charlie wiped his mouth clean on his wrists.

She trotted about the clearing, making like she was trying to locate him. Finally, with a clever thought, acting blind, she headed straight for him, groping. «Charlie, where are you?»

A lightning streak, he evaded her, bobbing, ducking.

It took all her will power not to give chase; but you can't chase invisible boys, so she sat down, scowling, sputtering, and tried to fry more bacon. But every fresh strip she cut he would steal bubbling off the fire and run away far. Finally, cheeks burning, she cried, «I know where you are! Right there\ I hear you run!» She pointed to one side of him, not too accurate. He ran again. «Now you're there!» she shouted. «There, and there!» pointing to all the places he was in the next five minutes. «I hear you press a grass blade, knock a flower, snap a twig. I got fine shell ears, delicate as roses. They can hear the stars moving!»

Silently he galloped off among the pines, Ms voice trailing back, «Can't hear me when I'm set on a rock. I'll just set!»

All day he sat on an observatory rock in the clear wind, motionless and sucking his tongue.

Old Lady gathered wood in the deep forest, feeling his eyes weaseling on her spine. She wanted to babble: «Oh, I see you, I see you! I was only fooling about invisible boys! You 're right there!» But she swallowed her gall and gummed it tight.

The following morning he did the spiteful thing. He began leaping from behind trees. He made toad-faces, frog-faces, spider-faces at her, clenching down his lips with his fingers, popping his raw eyes, pushing up his nostrils so you could peer in and see his brain thinking.

Once she dropped, her kindling. She pretended it was a blue jay startled her.

He made a motion as if to strangle her.

She trembled a little.

He made another move as if to bang her shins and spit on her cheek.

These motions she bore without a lid-flicker or a mouth-twitch.

He stuck out his tongue, making strange bad noises. He wiggled his loose ears so she wanted to laugh, and finally she did laugh and explained it away quickly by saying, «Sat on a salamander! Whew, how it poked!»

By high noon the whole madness boiled to a terrible peak.

For it was at that exact hour that Charlie came racing down the valley stark boy-naked!

Old Lady nearly fell flat with shock!

«Charlie!» she almost cried.