Emily Jenkins: Invisible Inkling

Dedication

For my family—E.J.

For Tate Stephen Charuk—H.B.

Contents

Dedication

I Asked if We Could Get a Black Mamba

They All Taste Like Baby Food

Which Is More Fun, Alien Poo or Science?

We Thought It Would Make a Good Splat

The Technical Term Is Floppy Bits

Maybe I Took One Tiny Bite

Four Fifty a Pint Is Criminal

It’s This or Hip-Hop Dance

We Look Like Defeated Supervillains

I’ll Sew Up My Wounded Stomach with Yarn

Maybe You Didn’t Really Want to Take My Money

A Pygmy Hedgehog Sounds All Right

I’m Going to Bake Her into Submission

I Am Evil Because of How Bald I Am

She Won’t Catch You. You’ll Be a Unicorn.

I Felt Like a Wonderpat

Spot-Clean, or the Highway

They Only Have Teeny-Tiny Brains

Lord Baldy Is with Us or against Us

They Are Pies of Evil

He’s Not a Nudnik

Fried Potato and Onion in Your Ice Cream

Your Predictions Are Wrong

Isn’t He a Little Cute One?

A Note from the Author

Back Ad

About the Author and Illustrator

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

I Asked if We Could Get a Black Mamba

Hey there.

By now, you know all about Inkling. You know he’s an invisible bandapat. You know he speaks English, Yiddish, and Mandarin. You know he sleeps in my laundry basket. You know he came to live with me in September of fourth grade when I rescued him from Rootbeer, the hungry French bulldog who lives across the hall.

You know that bandapats are an endangered species from the Peruvian Woods of Mystery. Or possibly the redwoods of Cameroon. Or the Canadian underbrushlands.

Inkling never gets his stories straight. In fact, he’s a liar. He lies so often, I sometimes suspect he’s a secret agent. Who else would have that much to hide?

Nobody I can think of.

Though a secret agent would probably lie betterthan Inkling does.

Hopefully you also remember that we’ve got to keep hush-hush about Inkling living with me. I can’t tell my parents, my sister Nadia, or my friend Chin from downstairs. Scientists are looking for the last of the bandapats. They want to trap them and take them to top-secret labs. They want to know what makes the bandapats invisible. They wonder why the bandapats can only be seen in mirrors and whether eating so much squash has anything to do with it.

The other reason Inkling has to stay hush-hush is that Mom won’t let me have a pet. She says Dad, Nadia, me, and seven hundred books—that’s already more than she can handle in a small apartment.

She’s really serious about the no-pet thing. Last year before Inkling came, I asked if I could get a black mamba. Sure, they’re lethal, but people keep poisonous snakes as pets all the time. Black mambas grow fourteen feet long. They’re the fastest snakes in the world. Their heads are shaped like coffins. Even the insides of their mouths are black. Once, one was found with a full-grown parrot in its belly.

I read about them in my venomous-reptiles book. They’re for-serious one of the coolest snakes alive.

Mom said no.

Then I asked for a rattlesnake. It would be a lot smaller than a mamba.

Still no.

Then I asked for a hedgehog.

No.

“Just a bitty hedgehog,” I said. “A pygmy one.” Pygmy hedgehogs are tiny, and you can feed them cat food. Or mealworms. Or vegetables. Nadia showed me stuff about them on the internet.

Mom sighed.

I told her they’re only the size of an egg and they just need a rabbit hutch to live in.

“No!” Mom barked. All right, then.

When Mom starts barking, it’s time to stop asking.

You see, there’s no way she’d say yes to Inkling. He is much bigger than a pygmy hedgehog, and he eats a lot more than a rattlesnake.

That’s why I’m asking you: please, please, please, promise not to say anything to anyone after you’re done reading this. It’s like a classified document.

From

Hank Wolowitz

LISTEN UP!

INKLING IS NOT A PET.

N-O-T NOT.

THE IDEA OF HIM BEING A PET IS AN INSULT TO HIS DIGNITY.

IN FACT, INKLING IS THE BEST FRIEND A BOY COULD EVER HAVE. HE SWIMS A RECORD-BREAKING BACKSTROKE. HE HAS TRAVELED FROM THE VOLCANOES OF INDONESIA TO THE DESERTS OF NORWAY.

WHAT ELSE? HE IS EXTREMELY WITTY, BRAVE, CUTE—AND YET SENSITIVE TO THE FEELINGS OF OTHERS. ALSO, AN EXCELLENT MONOPOLY PLAYER.

INKLING IS NOT A LIAR.

HE IS NOT A SECRET AGENT.

HE IS ALSO REALLY, REALLY NOT A PET.

Sorry.

Inkling wrote that when I left my room for a minute.

They All Taste Like Baby Food

Itotally need to get hold of some canned pumpkin. I am going to hijack some when Dad’s not looking. I’ve got a Ziploc bag in my pocket.

Pumpkin is Inkling’s favorite food. Now that Halloween is over, it’s been hard to find. I don’t know if he’ll like canned, though. Canned pumpkin is precooked and mashed. Bandapats like their squash raw. Still, it’s worth a try, right? This morning, Dad is trying out pumpkin-ice-cream recipes down in the kitchen of our family’s ice-cream shop, Big Round Pumpkin: Ice Cream for a Happy World.

Did you know that despite the name Big Round Pumpkin, our shop has never sold pumpkin ice cream?

Dad has tried and tried to make some. It always comes out gross.

Now, it’s close to Thanksgiving. Brooklyn food shops are making pumpkin pies, pecan squares, apple dumplings. Time to try again.

I promised Inkling I’d snag some leftover canned pumpkin for him to taste. But so far this morning, I’ve missed every chance. Probably because Joe Patne is here, helping us cook.

Patne makes me nervous.

A thing about Patne is, he used to be my friend. He’s come to my birthday parties and I’ve been to his. He was on my owl-pellet team at Science Fellow summer camp. Then he started going to after-school programs every day. I hardly ever saw him anymore. Now he’s friends with this guy Henry Kim, who treats me like some tagalong kindergartner.

My best friend, Wainscotting, moved away just before fourth grade started. Without him, I’m not exactly Lord Popular. I do have Sasha Chin from downstairs. She and I built the Great Wall of China out of matchsticks together. Now we’re working on the Taj Mahal. But aside from Chin, I don’t have any other visible friends.

My dad invited Patne over without even asking me.

Here in the ice-cream-shop kitchen, we made a custard ice-cream base. Now three pots of canned pumpkin are cooking: one with vanilla, cream cheese, and honey; one with nutmeg and cinnamon; one with melted chocolate. The shop doesn’t open till noon, so there are no customers yet. Dad stirs the pots with wooden spoons. Patne and I eat orange sprinkles from small plastic dishes.

The nearly empty cans of pumpkin are sitting on the counter. Calling me.

But Dad is always here. Stirring. Making jokes. Watching.

Finally, the phone rings and Dad takes himself out to the front of the store to talk. I have to get this pumpkin for Inkling. Barefaced in front of Patne, there’s no other way. I grab a spatula and scrape the leftover pumpkin from the cans into my Ziploc.