Emily Jenkins - Invisible Inkling

I can’t write down the things Inkling says when he wakes up wet and visible. They are not polite.

Still, he’s cute. His ears are huge. His tummy is round. His eyes are large and curious. It’s nice to actually see him. “Everyone’s eating breakfast,” I say, when he stops yelling and throwing wet socks at me. “I need you to help me with something while they’re busy.”

“This had better be urgent,” he says. “I stayed up late last night.”

“It’s not exactly urgent,” I confess, “but it’s fairly important.”

Inkling growls. “How important? Is it going to help defeat Betty-Ann?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Will it save the bandapats from extinction and bring some of them here to Brooklyn to hang out with me?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Well then, what will it do?” Inkling asks, irritated. “Because those are the only things I’d really call important enough to be dousing me with water before eight o’clock in the morning.”

“It’ll make me a Cuttlefish,” I say.

Inkling demonstrates swimming techniques on the rug in my bedroom. I lie down next to him. “Watch,” he says. “You’ll go a lot faster with your breaststroke if you rotate your feet like this.”

I can see what he’s doing, this time.

I rotate my feet.

Then he shows me how to lift my elbows in the crawl, and how to loosen my knees in the flutter kick.

I can see him.

I lift my elbows. I loosen my knees.

He shows me how to turn my head so I don’t swallow water.

I turn my head.

We do these things over and over, and as Inkling demonstrates swimming, even though we’re both facedown on the rug, I think about—swimming.

Just swimming. Not shipwrecks or drowning kittens or giant hammocks.

“I was head of peewee bandapat aquatics in the Norwegian deserts,” Inkling brags. “I coached our team through four winning seasons.”

“You did not,” I say.

“I most certainly did.”

I stop flutter-kicking and sit up. “Inkling! The whole point of deserts is that there’s no water for peewee aquatics.”

“Says you.”

“Norway doesn’t even have a desert.”

A guilty look flits across Inkling’s face. “Stop wasting time,” he tells me. “Your flutter kick is getting better, but the frog kick still needs work. Let’s see it again.”

Your Predictions Are Wrong

You know how teachers want you to make predictions when you read? Halfway through every book, they make you write down what you think is going to happen.

They learn to do this at teacher school. Every teacher I’ve had is obsessed with it.

By now, you’ve probably made predictions about what happens with Big Round Pumpkin and Betty-Ann. Not because you’re reading this in school; just because at this point your brain has been trained to make predictions about every book you read, unless you’re homeschooled or something.

Guess what? Your predictions are wrong.

Mom doesn’t convince Union Market to sell pints.

More restaurants don’t begin using Big Round Pumpkin ice cream in their desserts.

Inkling doesn’t pop out and biff Betty-Ann like she’s nothing but a nudnik bandapat.

Dad doesn’t perfect the pumpkin whoopie pie cake and win the whoopie pie war that way.

And there’s not a big action sequence where I suddenly learn karate and nose-kick Betty-Ann.

So what finally happens then?

Thanksgiving comes and goes. People lose interest in pumpkin desserts.

The day after the holiday, Dad puts candy-cane and eggnog ice creams on the Big Round Pumpkin menu. Mom decorates the shop with a million recycled-paper snowflakes. And Betty-Ann starts selling red-velvet whoopie pies with bright-green ice cream.

Dad starts researching red-velvet-cake recipes.

Mom lies down with a sick headache.

One afternoon in early December, Nadia picks me up from school, stomping in her big boots. “We have to go to Jacquie’s right now,” she announces.

“But it’s Thursday,” I say. “I have work.” Thursday is one of the days I clean out the recycling area at Big Round Pumpkin.

“I’ll tell Mom and Dad you’ll be late,” she says. “This is important.”

“What is?” I ask. “Why are we going all the way to Park Slope?”

“Jacquie is bringing Teakettle to the animal shelter,” says Nadia, through gritted teeth. “She’s doing it today.” My sister is walking so fast I can hardly keep up with her.

“What can we do?”

“She said I could have him if I came home with her,” Nadia says. “I told her I had to pick you up. She said hurry, because her mom would only drive to the Animal League right after school. I have to get him before she abandons him.”

“What are we going to do with a pygmy hedgehog?” I ask. “Where are we going to keep it? Mom will never let us have a pet.”

“I don’t know what we’ll do with him!” barks Nadia. “I don’t have a plan. I just don’t think she should dump this hedgie in a shelter. She adopted him. She promised to take care of him. He’s only the size of an egg, Hank!”

I know. Poor Teakettle.

“He can ride in your tote bag,” I say, patting her arm. “We can buy tissues for him to sleep on.”

“Okay.” Nadia nods. She is almost in tears. “I don’t want to be halfway friends with Jacquie anymore,” she says. “After we get this hedgie, I’m not even sitting with her at lunch. She’s not a good person.”

It’s true, I think. Jacquie is not a good person. But I don’t know how to talk to Nadia about her friends. It’s always teenage stuff that is way too complicated for me to get involved in. I change the subject. “What’ll we feed him?” I ask.

“Vegetables and cat food,” she says. “I am pretty sure. I need to do some research.”

“Okay, that’s not hard; but he’ll need a big cage,” I say. “You can’t just box hedgies up like hamsters, remember?”

“I have money saved,” says Nadia. “I can buy a habitat. I worked all those extra hours while Dad was making whoopie pie cakes. I was going to save for an iPad, but that doesn’t matter now. I’ll buy Teakettle a place to live.”

“Where will we keep him?” I wonder. “Mom will no way let us have a hedgie in the apartment. What with the seven hundred books and Dad and all.”

“I know she won’t,” Nadia admits. “I’m, like, adopting him without a home to give him.”

Then, in a flash, I have an idea.

I know what to do with Teakettle, and I know how to help Big Round Pumpkin.

Nadia and I run the rest of the way to Jacquie’s.

Isn’t He a Little Cute One?

Big Round Pumpkin: Ice Cream for a Happy World is now home to one of Brooklyn’s only pygmy hedgehogs. Teakettle has a habitat with several levels. It’s stationed by the window at the back of the shop, near a cozy seating area that’s stocked with picture books and wooden blocks. Families with little kids hang out there.

Teakettle has a warm place to sleep, balls to play with, and some newspaper to scrounge around in. He seems happy there.

What’s more, parents bring their children in to see him. Nadia makes a chalkboard sign that goes on the sidewalk, telling people to come visit our hedgie. Mom puts out the word on local newsgroups and in family newsletters. Someone with a blog comes and takes Teakettle’s picture. I put up flyers around the neighborhood. “Say hello to Teakettle the pygmy hedgehog at your friendly neighborhood ice-cream shop!”