Emily Jenkins: Invisible Inkling

Backstroke, backstroke.

I’m doing quite a good backstroke for a guy whose insides are spilling out of his torso.

When I reach the kitten and save him, we’ll live together on the raft. I’ll sew up my wounded stomach with yarn I finger-knit from shedded cat fur. The kitten will show me how to catch fish. Together we’ll survive. I’ll name him Hercules.

By the time ye olde fishing boat finds us, we’ll have made up a new language called Humankitty, so we can talk to each other. For example, Hercules will say, “Yao yao! Mrwwp tup tup. Prowl owl?” What he’ll mean is: “No fair you ate that fish head. Can’t I ever eat the head for once?”

When ye olde fisher people rescue us, I’ll have forgotten how to even speak English and—

“Hank!”

What?

How do the fisher people know my name?

“Hank! Finish your lap!”

Huh?

That sounds like Chin.

Is Chin on the boat?

Oh.

Uh-oh.

I am not in the middle of the ocean speaking Humankitty.

I am in the pool. Being tested for a swim level. And failing.

I mean, I am not even swimming. I am standing in the middle of my lane, meowing.

No surprise, I am not a Barracuda. I am not even a Cuttlefish.

I am a Neon.

The same kind of Neon I was back in second grade.

I spend the rest of the swim-class hour Neoning around with a bunch of little kids.

Patne, Kim, and Chin are Hammerheads.

Maybe You Didn’t Really Want to Take My Money

Aaghhhhhh!

When I let him out of the locker, Inkling does a flying pounce and bites my knee. Ow, ow, it hurts. I swat at him, but he wraps himself around my leg. Then he chews just above the knee where it tickles.

Aaghhhhhh! I stumble back and shake my leg, trying to throw him off. I lose my balance over the locker-room bench.

Crash!

I hit the floor backward, flailing my arms.

My head ends up inside a locker. My face is scraped.

Ow.

Inkling lets go.

Just my luck, it is Kim’s locker. I’m lying on top of the smelly green sneakers he always wears. And the socks he’s worn all day.

I feel cold seep across my back. I lift my aching head to look.

Wonderful. I tipped over an open bottle of lemonade. “Nice move, Hank,” Kim says.

I try to sit up, but the angle is funny with my head in the locker. I reach out for Kim to help me, but he pulls his hand back.

“Whoops! Too slow.” He laughs.

Patne is right behind him. Laughing, too. “You got new feet today?” he asks.

I would like to hit Patne right now. I would like to hit Patne, then karate-kick Kim. One of those moves where you spin around midair and the side of your foot connects— bam! —with the enemy’s nose. Nose kick!

Only, I don’t know karate. And my parents want me to be a pacifist and kill people with kindness. “Ha-ha, very funny,” I say to Patne. “New feet, ha-ha.”

Kim pulls a sweatshirt over his head. “You owe me a lemonade.”

I sit up. “I didn’t mean to spill it.”

“You can buy a new one from the machine outside the locker room.”

I do have a dollar, which is what the drinks in the machine cost. But I don’t want to buy Kim a lemonade. It’s not like I drank his lemonade. It’s not like I even knocked it over on purpose.

Most people? If you spilled their lemonade they would say, “No problem.” They would go get a towel and help you mop it up.

Not Kim.

“I don’t know if I have money,” I fib. “I probably don’t.”

“Joe can check while you go get towels,” says Kim. “Joe, look in Hank’s pocket to see if he has money, ’kay?”

And Patne does it. Sticks his hand in the back pocket of my jeans, which are hanging in my locker.

“Yaahhhhhhh!” Patne screams and jumps back. Shaking his hand.

“What’s wrong?” asks Kim.

“Something bit me!”

“No way,” I say, pushing down a smile. “What could bite you?”

“I don’t know. Something.” Patne’s staring at his hand and squeezing it. “Wow, that really hurt.”

“Nothing bit you,” I say. “There’s nothing there.” I say it with total confidence. I even stand up, take my jeans out of the locker, and start changing into them.

I am getting to be quite a good liar. Not that it’s something to be proud of.

“I don’t know.” Patne looks as if he might cry. “It feels like the end of my finger might come off.”

“Is it bleeding?” asks Kim.

We all examine Patne’s finger. It’s red, but not bleeding. Inkling was careful.

“Maybe you just felt badly going into my pocket for my money,” I say. “Maybe it’s mental.”

“Mental?” Patne asks.

“Maybe you didn’t really want to take my money,” I explain. I finish changing and sit down to put on my shoes.

“You do have money, then?” Kim says. “That’s great. You can buy a new lemonade.”

Oh.

Yeah.

Maybe I’m not such a good liar after all. “You can’t have my money!” I yell. “Patne, I can’t believe you’re being such a dirtbug, to stick your hand in my pocket.”

Patne looks up at me and shrugs. “Henry told me to,” he says.

“You were over at my house on the weekend! You made ice cream with me. We splatted the alien poo. What kind of person splats alien poo one day and sticks a hand in a pocket another, huh? Is that a nice person? Because I don’t think so.”

Kim wrinkles his nose. “Alien poo?”

Patne gets very busy looking for his shoes inside his locker. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Are you going to say something about sticking your hand in my pocket?” I ask Patne. “Are you?”

“Sheesh, Hank, you don’t have to get so upset about it. We were just kidding around,” says Patne.

What?

What?

“I wasn’t really going to take your money.”

“Oh yeah?” I say.

Patne laughs. “Of course not. What kind of guy do you think I am?”

I squint my eyes at them. “I just wanted to see if he’d do it,” Kim explains, smiling. “I love seeing if I can get Joe to do stuff.”

Patne socks him in the arm. “I hardly ever do stuff you tell me.”

“Yes you do.” Kim laughs.

“Only sometimes.”

“Only a lot of times.”

“Only when I want to.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“I wasn’t really taking your money, Hank,” says Patne.

“You don’t need to get mad,” says Kim.

I don’t know what to say. I feel like an idiot. “Okay, fine,” I say. “Fine.”

I walk to the front of the locker room and collect some towels. Come back and wipe up the spilled lemonade in silence. Then I get my bag, hold it open for a moment while Inkling climbs in, and wave good-bye to Patne and Kim. They are throwing each other’s sneakers on top of the lockers.

Laughing hysterically.

A Pygmy Hedgehog Sounds All Right

Nadia picks me up outside the gym. “Remember about pygmy hedgehogs?” she says. “Remember how you tried to convince Mom to get you one and she said no way?”

“Yeah,” I say. It was a while ago, though.

“So guess what?”

“What?”

“Jacquie got two.”

“For serious?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you were mad at Jacquie,” I say.

“I am, but she has pygmy hedgehogs.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, I don’t trust her. We used to be friends, but now she’s just my halfway friend. But hello? Pygmy hedgehogs!”

I laugh.

“It’s worth going over there,” Nadia says. “Don’t you want to see them?”