How to Disappear Completely

by Ali Standish

  “Yeah,” I grumble. “And if my mom catches us, it’ll be our last.”

  The bus stops for Ruby to get on. She bites her lip when she sees Fina sitting next to me and glaring at her. Under Fina’s gaze, Ruby seems to wilt like a thirsty rose. And weirdly, I find myself feeling kind of sorry for her.

  “Traitor,” Fina mutters.

  “Yeah, but look,” I say, nodding my head toward the back. Ruby is sitting by herself across the aisle from the Graces, staring silently out the window. “She doesn’t seem very happy.”

  “She shouldn’t be. Who would choose to hang out with those girls?”

  Fina rolls her eyes, but I shoot another glance back at Ruby, thinking. Remembering.

  “You know what she said about the kids at her old school making fun of her?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  “I bet she told Edie about me because she thought if she could just hang out with the popular girls, nobody would make fun of her anymore.”

  Fina pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “My guidance counselor back in California always said that kids who are bullies are usually kids who have been bullied themselves,” she says. “But it still doesn’t make it okay.”

  “No,” I say. “But at least I get why she did it. I don’t think it was to be mean.”

  “So, are you saying we aren’t going to concoct an elaborate revenge plot to get back at her?” Fina asks, giving a dramatic sigh of disappointment.

  “You’ve done enough plotting for one day,” I say, giving her a light shove. She curls her fingers together and does an evil-mastermind laugh, which dies away when we pull up to Edie’s stop.

  As Edie walks by us, Fina hisses like a teakettle just before it boils. “I don’t care what my guidance counselor used to say,” she mutters. “Some kids are just plain mean.”

  34

  Even with Fina beside me, I still feel anxious as I walk into school that morning. I try to focus on our conversation instead of whether people are looking at me or not. I laugh when she makes a joke about Mr. Owens. I feel okay until we have to go our separate ways for first period.

  Then during social studies, I turn around to pass back a worksheet to see a quiet girl who transferred into my class last week—I think her name is Skyler—totally staring at me. Her eyes are all round. If she’s new to the school, she might not know about my vitiligo. I face forward and make sure not to look in her direction again.

  When I tell Fina about Skyler at lunch, she thinks for a while, then says, “You know that part of The World at the End of the Tunnel when Jack and Sarah are surrounded by the clover elves? And the elves are just staring and pointing arrows at them?”

  “Yeah,” I reply.

  “And Jack and Sarah are like, ‘Uh-oh. Did we do something wrong? Are they going to shoot us?’ But then the clover elves all start to talk in Chitterish, and the one who can speak English explains that they’re just amazed by Sarah’s freckles and Jack’s buttons?”

  “And then they realize that the elves have never seen human children before,” I finish. “They’re just curious.”

  “Exactly. So maybe when people stare at you, it’s not because they’re thinking there’s something wrong with you. Maybe they’re just curious. Or maybe they look at you like people stare at sunsets or interesting paintings. Because you’re unique, you know?”

  I take a long sip of juice. “Unique,” I echo.

  “You know what I’d stare at?” she asks.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Ninjas,” she says, and giggles, “doing the Electric Slide.”

  Here is something I love about Fina. You never, ever know what she’s going to say next.

  “Um . . . and panda bears doing forward-tuck rolls?” I ask.

  Fina claps her hands. “Oh, oh, yes, and kittens chasing disco ball lights!”

  I’m giggling now, too.

  “Mr. Yardley doing karaoke,” I say.

  “Edie trimming her nose hairs!” says Fina, gasping for air.

  We both throw our arms down on the table and dissolve into hysterical laughter. When we can finally sit up straight again, I catch sight of someone else staring at me from across the cafeteria. Edie.

  There’s no way she could have heard us talking about her. But she’s still looking at us like we’re the cause of a really bad smell. I don’t mind, though, because for once, I think, it has nothing to do with my vitiligo.

  The bell rings then, and Fina and I have to go our separate ways. The echo of our lunchtime laughter sits in my belly for the whole afternoon.

  I’m not exactly sure I believe what Fina said about why people stare at me, but for the rest of the day, I think about it. And I wonder.

  The next day, I get called on in social studies to answer a question. And in English, I raise my hand when Ms. Singh asks someone to explain the difference between mood and tone.

  Both times, I get the answer right. Both times, nobody acts like there’s anything weird about it. A couple kids turn to look at me while I talk, but most just keep looking bored. Nobody gasps or laughs or whispers. I’m just a kid getting called on in class.

  For the first time since Edie’s text, things feel kind of normal.

  That is, until I go to the bathroom during fifth period.

  As soon as I open the door, I hear someone crying in one of the stalls. I have déjà vu, and I know exactly why. The crying girl is barricaded in the same stall I hid in after Fina showed me that text.

  The girl stops crying when she hears me come in. A few seconds later, she blows her nose and flushes the toilet. Then she opens the door.

  If you had asked me this morning who would end up crying in the bathroom later today, I would have definitely said me.

  I would not have put my money on Edie O’Shea.

  She stops dead when she sees me, staring at me with red, puffy eyes. For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. Edie walks to the sink and washes her hands, then splashes water on her face.

  “I know it’s stupid to ask you,” she says quietly, looking at her own reflection instead of me, “but could you just, like, not tell anyone about this?”

  “Um, okay,” I murmur, too stunned to think of anything else to say.

  Edie shoots me a weird look, either a grimace or a kind of failed attempt at a smile, and leaves without another word.

  As I walk back to class, I can’t stop thinking about how seeing her crying in the bathroom is kind of like seeing a fish flopping on dry land.

  Unnatural.

  By the end of fifth period, I’m still so busy thinking about it that I don’t even notice Austin barreling through the doorway into the computer lab right as I’m trying to get out.

  We knock into each other, and he spirals away from me, lifting his hands to his chest and making a face. Like if he touches me, I’ll burn him.

  But it’s my cheeks that are burning. And there are at least ten people in the hall watching.

  “God, you’re such a klutz, Austin,” says an annoyed voice. I turn to see who spoke.

  Ladies and gentlemen, once again, Edie O’Shea.

  “Uh, sorry,” he mumbles to Edie, who’s standing behind him looking deeply unimpressed. “I mean, sorry,” he says, this time to me, before streaking off into the lab. A couple people laugh, and then everyone turns back to their lockers and their conversations.

  Edie marches off down the hall, leaving me alone to wonder what exactly just happened.

  35

  For the rest of the week, I’m the one stealing glances at Edie, trying to detect any hint of the girl I saw crying in the bathroom. But she seems pretty much normal. Well, normal for Edie O’Shea. The only two things out of the ordinary are the faint shadows under her eyes, and the unusual quiet that has descended over her lunch table.

  She hasn’t said another word to me about what happened in the bathroom or about Austin. Did she snap at him because she was worried I would tell someone what I saw? And what’s she crying o
ver that she’s so embarrassed about?

  She didn’t need to worry, though. I told Fina about what happened with Edie and Austin. (“She probably has a guilty conscience,” Fina replied. “Who knew Edie had a conscience to begin with?”) But I don’t tell her about Edie crying. Because I know if things were reversed and it was Edie who saw me crying in the bathroom, she would tell everyone.

  And I don’t want to be like Edie.

  The rest of the week is surprisingly okay. Maybe the scene outside the computer lab has something to do with it, but nobody else does anything mean the rest of the week. Or maybe people are just getting used to the new me.

  I still get the occasional stare, but I try to remember what Fina said on Monday. When I catch a group of eighth graders looking at me before homeroom on Friday, I force myself to smile instead of look away.

  And they actually smile back.

  Still, it’s a relief when school lets out on Friday afternoon. Especially because Friday is stakeout night.

  Mom comes and picks me and Fina up from school. We both sit in the back, even though I know Mom hates that because it makes her feel like a chauffeur.

  “It’s so nice to see you again, Fina!” she says.

  “You, too, Mrs. Talbot.”

  “How’s school going? Are you liking it so far?”

  “Yeah,” says Fina. “It’s smaller than my old school, and the kids aren’t so bad.” She shoots me a look and nudges me in the ribs.

  “Does your family have big Thanksgiving plans?”

  Even though I know that Thanksgiving is next week, the word still sends a jolt through me. Thanksgiving was Gram’s favorite holiday. With Mom’s family so far away, we always spent it with Gram. It will be my first big holiday without her.

  I feel a sharp arrow of sadness, followed by an awful hardness at the thought. I guess even though things are kind of getting back to normal, I can’t stop feeling like Gram failed me somehow. Like she taught me the wrong things. Like she didn’t prepare me enough for what it would be like when she was gone.

  You should know that I don’t want to feel this way about her. I just do.

  “My mom has already started cooking,” Fina is saying. “Even though there’s only the three of us this year. She likes to have everything planned out, I guess.”

  “Sounds like my kind of mom,” says Mom. Which is funny, since Ms. Ramirez is definitely not Mom’s kind of mom. I wonder what she thought of Ms. Ramirez’s purple hair.

  That night, Fina and I eat dinner with Mom, Dad, and Lily. Somehow, having Fina there changes everything. The mood is so much lighter, and I don’t feel Mom’s eyes tracing the outlines of my patches, trying to tell if they’ve gotten bigger or not. She’s too busy talking Fina’s ear off about the one trip she took to LA in college and how she went Rollerblading at the beach and rode a Ferris wheel and saw some guy named Sean Connery in Hollywood.

  Fina and I lock eyes when Mom talks about his “dreamy accent” and nearly burst out laughing. Even Lily seems giggly.

  “Well, he was the best Bond,” Dad says—whatever that means—with a resigned sigh.

  Fortunately, everyone goes to sleep early that night, so Fina and I don’t have to wait forever to sneak out of the house. Just like on Halloween, I give Boomer a bone to distract him, and then I creep out to make sure all the lights are off.

  Fina has my backpack strapped to her shoulders, chock-full of stakeout supplies: binoculars, a flashlight, and lots and lots of snacks. I bring the journal from the sycamore tree, which I’ve kept in my room all this week, hidden in the corner of the closet.

  We bundle up, sneak out the back, and slink into the little brick lane behind Morning Glory Cottage. It’s only eleven o’clock, but the average bedtime in Lanternwood is probably closer to eight thirty, which might explain why we don’t run into anyone.

  Hopefully, not everyone is asleep, though. Hopefully, my mysterious pen pal is still awake.

  In all the times I’ve visited the Spinney, I’ve never gone there at night before. The air is cold and sharp as we cross the meadows, and the dark trees loom up before us.

  “It’s like the Dimwood,” Fina whispers.

  “It totally is,” I say, imagining screeching banshees circling overhead and grinning ogres waiting in the shadows to snatch us up.

  At the exact same time, we reach for each other’s hand.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask. “We can go back if you want.”

  Fina hesitates for just a second, glancing toward the forest. Then she shakes her head. “If Jack and Sarah did it, so can we.”

  So we duck under the barbed wire.

  Even though I know this forest by heart, we go slow and walk soft, so we don’t give ourselves away. We don’t dare use Fina’s flashlight or even our phones, because if my pen pal does come, they’d be able to spot the light from a mile off.

  An owl hoots in a tree overhead and Fina startles. She grips my hand tighter.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s not really the Dimwood. There’s no evil hobgoblin king here.”

  “Right,” Fina says. “Right.”

  When we get to the glade, I return the book to the sycamore hollow. Then we have to figure out where to hide. There’s a mostly full moon tonight, but it’s cloudy, too. Every time a cloud crosses over the moon, we can barely see anything other than the outline of the trees. But when the sky is clear, we can make out the branches and rocks and leaves, all sketched in silver.

  We decide to sit behind Throne Rock. It’s close enough to the hollow that, even if it’s cloudy, we can still make out some detail. And it’s big enough to hide the two of us.

  Fina takes out her binoculars, some Twizzlers, and a big bag of Donitas—these crunchy ring-shaped Mexican snacks her mom lets her have in her lunchbox on Fridays. We each take one, crunch into it, shush each other, then giggle, then shush each other again. Then we reach for more.

  Fina loops the binoculars around her neck. “Let’s talk suspects,” she says. “You said it must be someone who knew your gram really well. Who could that be?”

  “Mom, Dad, Lily,” I say. “Some of the villagers. There’s Old Joe and Older Joe and Gloria and Ruth. Oh, and then there’s—”

  The instant it comes to me, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before.

  “The flowers,” I murmur.

  “Flowers?” Fina asks. “Is that the name of another villager?”

  “No,” I say. “No, they were in the graveyard. The morning after Halloween, someone left my gram flowers. And I’m pretty sure I know who it was.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Fina asks.

  “Because that Monday was the day everything, you know, happened. And then I just kind of forgot about it.”

  Fina nods. “Fair. So who is it? Who left the flowers?”

  “His name is Professor Swann.”

  “Were they friends?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know,” I say. “They must have been closer than I thought, because why else would he leave her flowers?”

  “Do you think—?” Fina starts. “I mean, could he have, like, loved her?”

  I remember how he cried after Gram’s funeral. I think about what Ruth said when I asked her about him. I seem to recall he had a flame for someone else. Is it possible that the flame was for Gram? Could Professor Swann have—

  “Oh, my god,” I whisper. “Fina, give me the backpack.”

  She hands it over, and I dig to the bottom for the familiar shape of the book that’s always there. I pull it out, turning to the first page, and shine the light of my phone down to read.

  The World at the End of the Tunnel

  By R. M. Wildsmith

  For my muse and best friend.

  “I knew it,” I say breathlessly, staring at the worn writing. “I knew the handwriting in the journal looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out where I’d seen it before.”

  “I don’t get it,” Fina murmurs.


  “This book was Gram’s. I always thought my grandpa wrote this inscription because of what it says, but you can’t really read the signature, can you? It matches, Fina. The handwriting matches the journal’s.”

  “So you’re saying that whoever wrote this inscription—”

  “—is my pen pal,” I finish.

  We stare at each other. I haven’t even begun to wrap my head around what this all means when we hear a rustling noise, followed by another. The noises get closer and closer. Footsteps.

  My spine goes very, very stiff at the same time that my heart goes bonkers in my chest. Fina points frantically at my glowing phone screen. I click it off.

  Silently, Fina shifts her weight to peek out from the side of the rock again. Then she gives a tiny gasp.

  I lean to the other side until I can make out the shape of someone moving through the trees, heading straight for the sycamore. It’s too cloudy now to make out anything other than a silhouette.

  When the figure gets to the tree hollow, it stops, pulls out the journal, and flips through the pages. Looking to see if there’s a new chapter, probably. Then the figure closes the journal again. Fina reaches down to her chest for her binoculars and takes the tiniest of steps forward.

  I see where her foot is going to land right before it happens.

  She steps right onto the bag of Donitas, and a huge CRRRUUUUNCH sound fills the night.

  The figure whips its head in our direction, just as the moon finally peers out from behind the clouds, and for a second before the figure turns and runs, I see a face.

  I gasp in recognition.

  It is not Professor Swann.

  It’s the Apple Lady.

  36

  “So tell me again,” Fina says, sitting up in my bed with two pillows propped behind her. “Who is this lady? What do we know about her?”

  Even though we didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, Fina and I both woke up bright and early today.

  “The Apple Lady,” I reply. “I’ve only ever seen her when she’s going to church or walking in the morning. She comes out to pick fruit. Blackberries or apples or whatever’s in season. She always wears headphones and she doesn’t ever speak.”