Emily Jenkins - Invisible Inkling

“No way,” I tell him. “You need soap and shampoo and maybe bubble bath, too.”

“No way yourself,” says Inkling. “It’s spot-clean, or the highway.”

“You can’t go around smelling,” I threaten. “Mom will find out about you. Rootbeer will bite you.”

“Leave me alone!”

“What’s the problem?” I say. “You love the water. You’re related to the otters of the Canadian underbrushlands, remember?”

“Fine,” Inkling grumbles. “But run the bath and then give me some privacy, okay? I am perfectly capable of using shampoo without your help, thank you very much.”

I do what he says. I turn on the water and go back to bed. I’m asleep almost as soon as I lie down—but I start awake again at five a.m., because I hear the water running.

Still?

Did Inkling forget to turn it off? Did he flood the bathroom? Did he hurt himself in there and couldn’t turn the water off because he was at death’s door?

I hurl myself up and rush into the bathroom, expecting to find the floor soaked in water, an overflowing tub, and a half-dead invisible bandapat somewhere, unconscious.

Everything’s fine.

The tub is full of fresh bubbles. The water is a safe distance from the top. The bathroom is clean.

Inkling is in the tub, backstroking like an otter. A cluster of bubbles hangs off one ear. His tail is splashing gently.

What?

What?

Inkling.

He’s in the tub.

I can see him.

They Only Have Teeny-Tiny Brains

Idon’t need to write down the shouting and toweling and blow-drying that occurs next.

It isn’t pretty.

Inkling is for-serious mad that I barged in on him in the bathroom and saw his floppy bits.

I am for-serious mad that he never told me he was visible when wet.

Inkling is for-serious mad that I won’t leave the bathroom once I get in.

I am for-serious mad that he is floating around visible when Mom is going to be up any minute and coming in to take a shower.

Enough to say that we get him dry and invisible before anyone sees him, and I go off to school with Nadia.

“Jacquie’s having trouble with Derek and Teakettle,” Nadia tells me, as we stand on line for take-out coffee and corn muffins at the diner.

“What do you mean?”

“The pygmy hedgies keep fighting,” she says. “They don’t like each other.”

“Why not?”

“Who knows? They’re hedgehogs. We can’t know what they’re thinking. They only have teeny-tiny brains. But Jacquie said that hedgies sometimes don’t like living with each other. They’re happier alone. She should never have gotten two.”

“Why did she get two?”

“She said two were cuter than one.”

“What’s she going to do?”

“She talked about bringing one of them to a shelter. Can you believe her?”

A wave of sadness washes over me. “You mean Jacquie would just, like, drop Derek off at the Animal League?”

“Not Derek. Teakettle. She likes Derek better.”

“I don’t care which one,” I snap. “It’s just so mean.”

“That’s Jacquie for you,” says Nadia, paying for our food. “She doesn’t think about others. That’s why I’m only halfway friends with her now.”

“Why are you even halfway friends?”

Nadia shrugs. “She’s funny. Don’t you have halfway friends?”

We eat our corn muffins and Nadia drinks her coffee as we walk. “Yeah,” I finally say. “I do.”

“Like who?”

“None of your business.”

“Are they people you want to be total friends with?” she asks. “Or do you not like them enough to be total friends?”

I shrug.

“It’s those guys from swimming,” Nadia says with authority.

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“Fine.”

“So do you want to be total friends? Should Mom call their moms and ask them over?”

“Ahhhhhh!” I yell. “Mom asked you to ask me that, didn’t she? You only started talking about Jacquie so you could work your way around to asking me about Kim and Patne.”

Nadia looks sheepish. “You kinda busted me, yeah.”

“Ahhhhhh!” I yell again.

“Mom worries about you,” she says. “She thought I could talk to you better than she or Dad could, maybe.”

I stamp my foot at her and make a mean face. “Is Jacquie even giving up a hedgie, or were you just making that up to get me talking to you about stuff?”

Nadia ruffles my hair and laughs. We’re in front of PS 166 now. “Eat your corn muffin and go to school,” she says.

“I’m dropping you at a shelter,” I say. “You’ll be in with a bunch of sad dogs and you’ll be really sorry you did Mom’s dirty work for her.”

“Yeah, right,” says Nadia.

Then she hugs me.

Ugh.

Lord Baldy Is with Us or against Us

That afternoon, Dad picks up me and Chin from school and takes us to play on the big rock in the playground. We play alien schoolchildren for a bit, like usual, and then Chin says, “Let’s play supervillains instead.”

“Okay,” I agree, “but is The Architect of Doom fighting Reptiliopolus, or are they teaming up to take over Manhattan?”

“Hm.” She furrows her brow. Chin gives this kind of question a lot of thought. “I think we should take over all of Manhattan’s food trucks !” she finally says. “We’ll make them servants of our evil ice-cream empire.”

Wow. Sometimes that girl’s mind is impressive.

“We can write out the details of our evil plan,” she goes on. “Then when Joe comes over, we can see if Lord Baldy is with us or against us.”

“Joe is coming over?” I say. “Like, Joe Patne?”

“What other Joe is there?”

“He’s coming over to your apartment?”

“Sure,” says Chin. “My mom invited him and his dad to come over and stay for dinner. It’s tomorrow night, I think. We’re getting pizza.”

“Oh.”

“To be honest though,” Chin continues, “I’m kind of nervous. Do you think he’ll make fun of my ballerina calendar?”

“What’s there to make fun of?” I lie, because that ballet calendar is really foofy.

“Or the Great Wall of China we built?” she wonders. “Or the Barbies? Or my purple bedspread? I don’t want to just let Joe Patne loose in my room. I feel like he’s the type of guy who would make critical remarks.”

“Like what?”

“Like, ‘Ooh, ballerina calendar.’”

“That’s not critical.”

“Yes it is.”

“It’s just ‘Ooh, ballerina calendar.’”

“No,” says Chin decisively. “ You would say, ‘Ooh, ballerina calendar,’ and what you’d mean is ‘Hey, where’d ya get that?’ Or ‘Do you take ballet?’”

“Right,” I say. Though really, when I saw that ballerina calendar I just kept my mouth shut because, you know, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.

“Joe would mean something different,” Chin explains. “What Joe would mean is: ballet is stupid.”

“Yeah,” I say, with a prickle of guilt.

“And Joe does this thing,” she goes on, “where he acts like whatever he does is normal and whatever you do is weird. Have you noticed?”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “One time I told him how I always imagine there are giant lizards lurking in the bottom of swimming pools—you know, in the deep end where the water’s dark? And he acted like he’d never, ever, heard of giant lizards. Or deep ends. Or swimming pools, even.”