The Invisible Girl

by Laura Ruby

  No reason to tell her that.

  “You’ll never get it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The alarm system.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said. “Are you crazy?”

  “I’d have to pull the cover off the panel, but it looks pretty tough. They probably have motion detectors, cameras, you know.”

  She opened her mouth as if she might argue with him, but instead of speaking, she slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

  “Are you resting for your chiropodist appointment?”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. “Just shut up.” Then she really did start to cry, sobs that she muffled in the crook of her arm. That made him feel kind of mean and stupid. So he pulled the cover off the alarm and scrutinised the wiring. He took a tiny pair of scissors from his pocket and made a few artful snips. Then he punched in some numbers and replaced the cover. “OK,” he said.

  “OK, what?”

  “OK, OK,” he told her. “Alarm’s off.”

  She lifted her head. “What?”

  “It’s off.”

  “It is? The whole thing? Cameras and stuff?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?”

  She blinked at him. “But how?”

  “What do you mean, how?”

  “Where did you learn how to do it?”

  He frowned. Something itched at the back of his mind, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what it was. How did he know how to pick locks and disarm alarms? It seemed as if he had always known it, that there was never a time in his life that he didn’t know it. But that couldn’t be true. A person isn’t born knowing how to pick locks! “Never mind that,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “Go?” she said. “Go where?”

  “Look,” he said. “I heard the whole thing, OK? I was listening at the office door when you were in there with the monkey queen. You have to get up to the doc’s office and erase Mrs Terwiliger’s bills from the computer. And you have to do it because she’s got my cat.”

  “You mean she has my cat,” Gurl said.

  “That’s what I said,” replied Bug. “So are we going or what?”

  “No, I’m going. You’re staying here.”

  Wham! “Don’t think so.”

  She looked at him for a minute or two, then said, “It’s on the thirty-first floor. We’ll have to take the elevator. And we still have to be careful. You don’t know if people are working late.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “Just don’t punch the walls any more?”

  Wham!

  “You have an anger problem, do you know that?”

  Wham!

  Once they got off the elevator, they saw that Dr Lucre’s medical practice took up the entire floor. Doors with etched glass led directly into the large reception area, doors that Bug opened in just a few moments of paper-clip wriggling. “Wow,” he said. “Tight security.”

  “Lucky for us. Now we just have to find the right computer,” said Gurl.

  “Maybe the billing stuff isn’t on any one computer, but on a network,” Bug said.

  “Maybe. Let’s try one behind the reception desk. Most people pay before they leave, right?”

  They climbed over the top of the desk and settled in a couple of the chairs. While they were waiting for the computer to boot up, Gurl said, “What if it has a password?”

  “Mrs Terwiliger doesn’t find out that kind of stuff for you?”

  “No. She doesn’t care how I get what she wants, just as long as I get it.”

  “What does she make you do?”

  “Steal. Clothes, perfume, whatever.”

  “Don’t you feel bad about it?”

  He got an icy glare for that one. “Don’t you feel bad about breaking into places?”

  “I’ve never stolen anything,” he said.

  “What do you want me to do? I don’t know where she keeps Noodle and until I find her I can’t stop.”

  Gurl’s face screwed up and Bug worried that she might cry again—why were girls always crying? He tried to distract her. “Noodle? My cat isn’t named Noodle.”

  “It’s better than ‘Bug’,” she said.

  “It’s way better than ‘Gurl’. OK, computer’s up.” He used the mouse to open folders and look inside. “Doesn’t look like it’s got a password.”

  “Try the one that says ‘Patient Financials’.”

  He clicked open the folder and found a database. He scrolled through the names, whistling when he saw some of the famous people who visited Dr Lucre. “Whoa! I knew those were fake.”

  “Come on, scroll down to the T’s.”

  “We’ve got a few minutes,” Bug told her. “I want to see who else is on here.” He stopped when he got to the J’s.

  “What?” said Gurl.

  “John,” he said.

  “Who?”

  Bug stared at the screen. John. O. John. He knew that name. But who was it? “Odd,” he said.

  “Hey,” said Gurl. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” He continued to scroll through the names until he got to the T’s. “Here it is: ‘Terwiliger, Geraldine.’” He clicked on the name and got to her file. “Man! She owes more than $20,000!” Gurl grabbed the mouse from his hand and deleted the balance. “Not any more she doesn’t. Now let’s get out of here.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay a little while? We can look through some more of these files. I think every star in Hollywood is on—”

  Gurl grabbed his arm. “Shhh! Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  A squeaking sound echoed through the empty offices.

  “That!” hissed Gurl. “Shut it down, shut it down.”

  Bug powered off the computer, and both he and Gurl dived underneath the desk.

  The squeaking sound was followed by a man’s voice, singing. “There was a fine lady who swallowed a pie. I don’t know why she swallowed a pie. Perhaps she’ll die.” The squeaking sound stopped, and there was a lot of banging, and then the sound of papers falling.

  Bug and Gurl looked at each other underneath the desk. “The janitor,” Bug whispered.

  The squeaking started up again and now they both knew what it was. The janitor’s cart, rolling towards them. The cart stopped right next to the reception desk. The janitor sprayed some sort of sickly sweet, orange-smelling cleaner around and began to wipe down the top of the desk.

  “There was a fine lady who swallowed some cheese. Quick as you please she swallowed some cheese. She swallowed the cheese to chase back the pie. And I don’t know why she swallowed the pie. Perhaps she’ll die!”

  He finished wiping down the counter and then walked behind the reception desk. He pulled out the chairs behind the desk and reached underneath for the trash can, catching hold of Bug’s woolly sleeve instead. “Hey!” the janitor yelled, stumbling back a step. “Who’s under there?”

  Bug tensed to run, but Gurl grabbed his hand and held it hard enough to break the bones. A queer shiver went through his body, as if he had got a brief electric shock. The janitor dropped to his knees to look under the desk. “Looks like I caught a big rat!” he said.

  His mind whirling a thousand miles a minute, Bug tried to come up with an explanation. OK, he thought, we’re orphans, and we were just looking for a place to hang out for a while. We weren’t going to steal anything, we swear, Mister. He opened his mouth, but Gurl clapped her other hand over it.

  The janitor shook his head, his bald white scalp gleaming. “Or a mouse. Damn mice! Doctor’s head’s gonna pop off. Ain’t my fault he got mice. Needs an owl, that doctor. Owl’ll take care of the mice nice and quick.” He grabbed the trash can, got to his feet and walked away singing. “There was an old doctor who swallowed a mouse, what a louse, he swallowed a mouse!”

  Was the guy blind? thought Bug. He turned towards Gurl to peel her hand from his face but stopped, utterly shocked. He could feel her hand in his, and he could feel
her palm on his lips, but he couldn’t see her!

  What? What? His mind babbled. But it got worse. When he looked down, he couldn’t see himself! It was like his legs were the same colour and pattern as the rug beneath him. He thrashed and kicked, but the girl managed to hold on till they couldn’t hear the janitor’s song any longer. Then she let him go, her face and body appearing before him as if he’d just opened his eyes after a brief nap.

  “You’re fine,” she whispered. “It’s OK.”

  He checked his arms and legs. Everything was where it was supposed to be. “What the heck…” he began, but then he knew. That first day, when she’d started to fade in front of him and then disappeared from the girls’ dorm. The reason why Mrs Terwiliger kidnapped Noodle and sent Gurl out to steal. “You can turn yourself invisible.”

  “Yes.”

  “You just turned me invisible too.”

  She bit her lip. “Yes.”

  He felt something bubbling inside him, something that made him want to jump up and up and up. “Come on,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Do it again.”

  Chapter 11

  Flyboy

  “I THINK YOU BETTER CALM down,” Gurl told Bug. “We’re not out of here yet.”

  “So make us invisible and get us out!” He presented his hands as if she were about to slap handcuffs on him.

  She knocked his hands away. “Cut it out.”

  “Please?” he begged. Gurl could see that he was trying very hard to be patient and nice about it, though he was hopping up and down like he had mosquito bites on the soles of his feet. Bug was right, though. They could escape more easily if they were invisible.

  “OK,” she said. Now that they were out of danger, holding hands seemed weird—his were slightly damp—but Gurl didn’t give herself time to think about it. All she thought was, We are the walls and the floor and the air. We are everything and we are nothing. We are not here. And then they weren’t.

  “Oh, man!” he said. “This is amazing.”

  “Shhh!”

  “Aw,” he grumbled, but she could hear the smile in his voice. It made her smile too, though she was glad he couldn’t see it. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen once they made it back to Hope House. Did he really expect she would give up Noodle without a fight? But it didn’t matter right now, she told herself. Right now, all they had to do was get out of the building unnoticed. She would deal with everything else later.

  “OK,” she whispered. “Let’s go. But be careful. It’s hard to move when you can’t see where you’re putting your feet.”

  “I’ll be careful—ow!”

  “Or,” Gurl continued, “where you’re putting your head.”

  They stood—awkwardly, as they had to hold on to each other for them both to remain invisible. Gurl felt Bug squeeze her hand. “What?” she said.

  “Nothing,” he told her. “It’s just weird that I can, you know, feel you and everything, but I can’t see you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Just don’t let go.” As soon as she said it, she could feel herself flush. “I mean, let’s go.”

  They went. Much to Bug’s disappointment, they passed no one in the hallways or in the lobby. The street, however, was a different story. Though it was late, the night was filled with bright, silvery light from a full moon. There were plenty of people out and about, and Bug charged after them all like a puppy, dragging Gurl along with him. He would dart in front of them and wait, as if at any moment they would swerve to avoid the two grubby children blocking their way. But, of course, they didn’t; at the last second, Bug and Gurl would have to jump out of the way to avoid being trampled. And each time they weren’t noticed, Bug would start leaping around so much that she had to whisper in his ear, “Will you knock it off already?”

  “Why?” he said, hauling her down the street. “Don’t you think this is fun?”

  She didn’t answer, but she had to admit to herself that it was kind of fun. As much as she loved to slip unnoticed through the city, learning all its secrets, it was nice to be with someone else. Even if that someone was a hyper bug boy.

  “Come on,” she told him, pulling on his arm. “We should probably get back.”

  “What?” he said. “Why should we go back so soon? There’s got to be something else to see. What do you think about the park?”

  Before Gurl could respond, Bug managed to haul her across the street towards Central Park. Stopping momentarily, they looked down the long path that wound its way inside the park and vanished over a small hill. Street lamps poured hazy light over the path itself, but the shrubs and rocks beyond them were hunched and shrouded in the deep emerald lawns, and the trees seemed to huddle together as if for warmth.

  “I think I read about this,” said Gurl. “Hansel and Gretel.”

  “You afraid?” said Bug, teasing.

  What she thought: the park made her nervous because it felt like a new place every time she went. What she said: “Shut up and walk.”

  As they made their way down the darkened paths, she wondered if the kindly pretzel vendor was still around because she could use a pretzel. And maybe a hot dog.

  Bug tugged on her hand. “Hey. Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?”

  Quiet? I’m always quiet, she thought. But then again, she hadn’t been quiet at all tonight. She’d probably said more to Bug than she ever had to any other person her age. “I’m not—” she began, but Bug cut her off.

  “Shhh! Someone’s up ahead.”

  Thinking of the babbling rat man who had chased her in the dark, Gurl’s stomach dropped to her knees. But it was only the pretzel vendor. “Le veo,” he said, and she and Bug stopped walking, alarmed. But the vendor wasn’t talking to them. Gurl heard a faint rustling and followed the vendor’s gaze to a clump of bushes, which were swaying as if there was a strong wind. One of the bushes suddenly stood up on spindly roots and scuttled across the path, looking somewhat like a headless, neckless ostrich. Another bush followed and then another. Soon all the bushes that had been on one side of the path clustered on the other. The trees behind them waved their branches as they too shifted places, waltzing around one another before settling in different arrangements.

  Even plants aren’t leadfeet, thought Gurl. Every day they make this a brand-new park.

  Bug’s breath tickled her ear. “Can you believe this?”

  “No,” said Gurl. “Yes. I think I can.”

  Bug tugged at her hand and the two of them continued to walk down the path to the entrance to the Central Park zoo. Bug convinced her to climb over the gate.

  “I’ve never been to a zoo before,” Gurl said.

  “It can be boring. All the animals do is sleep,” Bug told her.

  “Really? How do you know?”

  Bug didn’t answer her question. Instead, he said, “It’s kind of creepy in here. Lions and tigers and bears.”

  “Bears anyway,” said Gurl. “Look.”

  She lifted his hand and gestured to a large water tank. An enormous polar bear swam the length of the tank, his big body ghostly and graceful in the icy water. With his powerful limbs and ham-sized paws, he might have been intimidating, except for a red bucket that he wore over his head.

  “Nice helmet,” Bug said.

  “Maybe he’s shy,” Gurl said. The plaque affixed to the tank said the big bear’s name was Gus. It also said that Gus had suffered from severe depression until the zoo shipped in a couple of girl bears and installed a Jacuzzi in his exhibit.

  Gus stopped swimming and broke through to the surface, the red bucket above the water, the huge white body below. He looked like an iceberg rammed into a thimble. Ida and Lily—two smaller bears watching by the side of the pool—rolled on to their backs, slapping their legs with their paws. Gurl could have sworn they were laughing.

  As Gurl watched the bears, Bug wandered to the next exhibit. “Hey!” he said. “Bowling pins with feet.”

  “What?” said Gurl. �
�Oh, penguins.”

  Convinced that nothing in this city was as it seemed, Gurl half expected the tuxedoed birds to sing show tunes, or play tiny trumpets, or step out of penguin suits to reveal trained Chihuahuas underneath. But the penguins remained penguins. They gathered together in small groups, squawking and flapping, no different than the penguins Gurl had seen on TV.

  “It’s like a penguin powwow,” Bug said. “Maybe they’re planning to take over the world.”

  For some reason the penguins delighted Gurl. Especially the way their awkward, stumpy-limbed bodies turned sleek and graceful as soon as they hit the water. They’re birds, she thought, but they don’t fly. “Let’s see what other animals are here,” she said.

  They moved to the arctic foxes, which looked like white, fluffy dogs. “‘Arctic foxes must be very clever to escape the jaws of the polar bear’,” Bug read. “‘Like the bear, however, they have white coats to help them blend into their winter world.’”

  “Hey, puppies,” said Gurl. “Good doggies!” The foxes sniffed left and right with black button noses, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from. One of the foxes approached the bars of the enclosure, flopping on to his back right at Gurl’s feet. Gurl wished she could reach it through the bars and scratch its ears and belly. Somehow, she felt—she knew—it wouldn’t bite her.

  Next Gurl and Bug visited the sea lions, then the red panda, then the snakes and the alligators. Bug wanted to stop in the aviary to catch all the birds, but Gurl had seen and heard enough of birds to last her a lifetime. “No,” she said. “No wings.”

  “What have you got against wings?” Bug said.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Right,” said Bug. “I hope you don’t have anything against snacks. Let’s see if we can find that pretzel vendor and get something to eat.”

  They took a different route out of the zoo to the pretzel vendor, walking towards the centre of the park. Though it was darker and quieter, Gurl didn’t mind. She felt like an arctic fox blending into the snow. A part of the world and yet hidden from it.