by Ross Welford
We follow the wall round till it joins onto a fence belonging to another house’s garden. That might be one way in: get into the adjoining garden, and then gain access to the Knights’ garden. Like it makes a difference with a snarling devil-dog, albeit one with a heart of gold.
The back lane ends and we’re on the street that’s parallel to mine. We follow the road round to the right onto the coast road, where the front of the Knights’ house overlooks the Links. The house is big, but tatty, with peeling paint and a rusting car in the driveway.
The sun has just about gone down but it’s still twilight for another hour. The sky’s a deep royal blue and the street lights are coming on, so Boydy and I cross the road and sit together in the darkened bus stop, hoping to be able to observe the house unobtrusively.
Above us, an aeroplane follows the line of the coast before banking left, high above the lighthouse, and I watch it, mesmerised by its silence and grace.
Beside me, there’s a loud crunch as Boydy bites into an apple.
‘Not long now, eh?’ he says.
I follow his gaze to the lighthouse, but I don’t say anything.
‘Had you forgotten?’
‘No, no,’ I lie. I had forgotten. ‘Day after tomorrow? Light The Light?’
Boydy grins. ‘’S gonna be awesome! You’ll be there?’
I’ve been so caught up in my own stuff, but I nod. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for anything.’
Boydy turns his attention to the Knights’ house. ‘It’s the back or the front, basically,’ he says after a while.
Over the next ten minutes, we devise a plan for tomorrow night. Whether it’s going to work or not remains to be seen.
One big question is: can this all be done in the time after school? The invisibility lasts about five hours, or it did last time. It takes about two hours to activate.
So, assuming I’m back from school at about 4.30, start the process at 5.00, invisible by 7.00 …
We could be OK.
Only, Gram gets in at about 6.00, right in the middle of the turning-invisible process.
It’s unlikely she’ll go into the garage. Not impossible, but unlikely. So I need to be in there, on the sunbed, from five, and hope that she doesn’t come in. Once the process is complete, I can go out the back way, hopefully avoiding Gram. And Lady, who might just go crazy, but I’ll have to hope not.
I’ll give Boydy my phone during The Operation. That way, if Gram texts or calls, Boydy can text back as me to say I’m on my way, or have been held up.
I’m going through this in my head, wondering what will go wrong, counting on my fingers the potential traps I can fall into, worrying about that enormous Japanese tosa who might – or might not – be OK with invisible people, and wondering how – how on earth – I’m going to achieve the near impossible.
And that is: gain access to the Knights’ computer(s).
It’s a gamble. It’s all a huge gamble, with the odds stacked against me, and it’s my only choice.
Here is the plan (such as it is). Boydy writes it down and texts it to me so we both have it:
19.50 – Ethel leaves home by back door.
20.00 – rendezvous with E. Boyd in back lane. E. invis. Go to Knights house.
20.15 – B. knocks on door and begins plan. E. slips through open door.
20.15 onwards (part 1) – E. locates J & J’s computer(s). Mac or Windows? Is there a shared family computer? Execute Operation Wipe, as discussed.
20.15 onwards (part 2) – locate J & J’s mobile phones. These will be password-protected. Steal them or destroy them.
To which, of course, has to be added:
Don’t get caught.
Don’t get mauled to death by some weird ninja–wolf hybrid.
It is ridiculous. Monstrously, impossibly stupid.
But it’s going to have to work.
Boydy and I walk back up the lane in near silence. Before he gets on his bike, Boydy hands me a folded sheet of paper.
‘It’s the translation of the Chinese tea box. Danny Han’s dad did it for me.’
Danny Han lives above the Sunrise Chop Suey House. Boydy is one of their better customers.
We stand under the yellow street light in the back lane while I read it. Where Mr Han did not know the correct word he put in question marks:
DR CHANG HIS SKIN SO CLEAR
Very old remedy/medicine for many skin and scalp problems including: acne, boils, psoriasis, vitiligo, mange, (???) and (?rash?).
Using historic and traditional plants and minerals, Dr Chang from Heng San Nan has created a mystical (?magical??unknown?) blend of (???) that will bring clean and (?smooth?) skin to those who use it.
This is how you use: one to two qian (5 g?) in water one time in day.
Carefully: do not eat more.
Contains: powder of mushroom, (???), jiun sai (?), lime stones, (???), salt of lake, horn of rhinoceros, plus secret mixture.
And that’s it. Terrific.
Not only is there no indication of an address, the ‘secret mixture’ could be anything. Plus, of course, I have – without knowing it – been taking rhino horn, which is just about the worst thing you can do if you have any respect at all for endangered wildlife (which I like to think I do, and I once did a sponsored walk in aid of the elephants of somewhere or other).
Worse are all the question marks.
‘Mr Han explained those,’ says Boydy, and he sounds quite proud. ‘Fing is, unless you know the symbol in Cantonese, you can’t necessarily tell what it is. In English, even if you don’t know what a word means, you can still look at it and know how it sounds. Doesn’t work the same in Cantonese.’
‘Where’s this Heng San Nan, anyway?’ I say.
It’s just about the only clue to anything at all. We look it up on my phone.
Heng Sahn Nan, or Nan-Heng Shan, or any of the other combinations, is a mountain in southern China, the southernmost of the Five Great Mountains of China. At the foot of the mountain is the largest temple in southern China: the Grand Temple of Mount Heng.
‘So Dr Chang lives by a mountain. Big deal. I’ll bet he doesn’t even exist. You haven’t told anyone, have you? This has to be secret.’
He gives me a hurt look. ‘You gotta trust me, Eff. I ain’t told no one. Honest.’
I do believe him. I’m just on edge, I guess. After all, tomorrow I have to drink some more of this stuff with rhino horn in it.
Then I have to break into a house belonging to psychotic twins, with a Japanese fighting dog inside.
‘So,’ says Boydy. ‘See you tomorrow night. Or I won’t see you, actually.’
‘Ha ha,’ I say.
But I’m not feeling very funny.
I’m in my room, later that night, staring at the packet of Dr Chang His Skin So Clear, and my heart sinks.
The grey powder is almost gone. I do a rough calculation in my head, which involves guessing how much I have drunk of this stuff in the past to make me invisible. I haven’t really been scientific about it: I just guzzled as much as I could without it making me sick.
Four, five full mugs of the vile brew? More? I don’t really know.
What I do know is that there’s enough left for one more go, and no more.
There’s another thing that’s bothering me too.
This stuff – this herbal concoction, tea, gloop, whatever. It’s pretty special. It deserves to be investigated, surely? I mean, investigated properly, by a proper scientist, from a university or the government or something like that.
But here’s the thing: why would anyone believe me?
Who would I go to? A twelve-year-old girl cannot just wander up to a random professor and say, ‘Excuse me, Professor. This powder, when made into a tea and consumed in quantities that make me burp – sorry, eructate – powerfully and pungently, and combined with a long session on a dodgy sunbed, makes me invisible.’
It’s not going to happen, is it?
Who else would I go to?
The police. Yeah, right. I walk into a police station and give the same spiel as above? I’d be lucky not to be arrested for wasting police time.
My doctor. Dr Kemp at the Monkseaton Surgery is a nice man but why would he believe me? Why would anyone believe me without proof?
Mr Parker, our teacher. It sounds like a classic teacher wind-up, doesn’t it? I can hear him now: ‘Very amusing, Ethel. Very droll. If only you put as much effort into learning physics as you do into the creation of such whimsical folderol, you might make quite a successful student. Until then …’ etc.
Our local MP. He’d have contact with government scientists, but I’m too young to vote so he wouldn’t take me seriously and he’d probably be scared of being mocked if he did.
Finally – and, I suppose, most obviously – it’s Gram. Force her to watch while I do the whole invisibility thing. She’d certainly have to believe me then. Trouble with that is that I wouldn’t then be able to rescue the evidence from the Knight twins – that requires secrecy. It’d be like: ‘OK, Gram, you can see I’m invisible now. Just wait around while I go out to do this really important thing. Back soon! Honest!’
It all comes down to proof. People are going to demand that I show them.
‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,’ said some guy, sometime.
So this is what I’m going to do. It sounds crazy, but bear with me.
I’m going to use the last of the powder to become invisible one last time, for the break-in at the Knights’. All but one teaspoon, which I shall keep for analysis by the experts. That’s about all I can spare, anyway. Later, perhaps someone can track down Dr Chang, if he’s even real.
I shall then film myself turning invisible.
I know. It sounds crazy, seeing as one of the reasons I’m becoming invisible once again is to destroy the film of my invisibility.
But this will be under my control. It will not appear on Facebook or YouTube, or Vimeo or Instagram, or any other thing like them that might come along in the future.
It won’t be all Tragic Star Felina’s Daughter Turns Invisible.
Once something’s on the internet, you’ve lost control of it: it’s not yours any more. And I wouldn’t be me any more. I’d be the Invisible Girl, which would make me anything but invisible.
And this is mine. My invisibility, under my control. It will be private, secret. I will find an investigator, a scientist, a researcher – someone I trust completely. I will own it.
It will be on my terms alone.
I have hardly slept at all.
(I don’t think you would, either, if you had to do what I have to do this evening.)
I was kept awake by another rainstorm. It’s turning into one of those English summers that you get in the old comedy films that Gram likes: that is, the unfunny ones where people go on holiday to resorts like Whitley Bay used to be, and it rains just as they’re putting up their deckchairs.
Anyway, all night I was torn between thinking, Please stop, rain, please stop and Rain as hard as you can so there’s none left tomorrow.
Rain, as I discovered at school, is not a good companion to invisibility.
As for explaining why I’ll be out all evening, this has taken a bit of thought. In the end, I settle on a text to Gram, which I send to her during morning break.
Boydy’s having a gathering tonight for his birthday. Movies and pizza. His mum will drive me home. Back by 11. Don’t wait up. E xxx
Normally – that is, with Gram behaving normally – a text like that would produce an avalanche of further questions, probably starting with ‘What on earth is a gathering, Ethel? Is it like a party?’ But lately, I’ve begun to trust that Gram will react anything but normally. It’s kind of like ‘expecting the unexpected’.
She texts back:
Will there be others there?
Easy.
Yes, there will be about seven of us.
Plausible? I think so. So does Gram.
All right. Have fun. X
I’ve been staring out the window during the physics lesson, gazing at the flat, grey sky and trying, by force of will, to ensure it stays dry. Soon, I’m practically falling asleep, even though the subject is very close to my heart: the nature of light.
‘I hope you all understand this,’ says Mr Parker. ‘There’ll be a test at the end of term, you lucky duckies.’
Groans all round.
Light is energy, I’ve got that.
It’s a type of radiation – the type we can see, because our eyes have evolved to be able to see it.
Then Jesmond Knight puts his hand up. He’s in the same class as me, but his sister isn’t.
‘Mr Parker,’ he begins, and then he turns his head to look straight at me. ‘Do you think it’s possible for a person to be invisible?’
‘I’m over here, Mr Knight, thank you. Do you mean like Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility? Or the one that occurs in the legend of King Arthur? Or the “cloaking device” in Star Trek? A splendid question, and the answer is – get ready to have your gobs smacked and your flabs gasted – yes! In theory, at least. You see, researchers have been working—’
Jesmond interrupts him – always a dangerous move with Mr Parker, but he gets away with it. ‘Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean that. I meant the whole person.’ Again, he turns and looks at me, a sly smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes.
‘Ah! An invisible person? Well, that would require both biological and technological breakthroughs that have so far proved elusive to even the finest minds in science. So the answer to your question, Mr Knight, is – for the time being at any rate – a disappointing and resounding “no”. Continue with this inquisitiveness, however, and you may yet be the scientist who makes the discovery that—’
‘So, sir, if someone had the ability to become invisible—’
‘That is a BIG if, Mr Knight.’
‘I know, sir, but if they did, they’d be, like, famous an’ that?’
‘I very much expect that indeed such a person would be, like, famous an’ that. It would be a worldwide sensation without a shadow of a doubt. And talking of shadows, who can tell me the difference between the umbra and the penumbra of a shadow? Yes, Miss Wheeler?’
And he’s off again on the nature of light, leaving Jesmond smirking at me in the most creepy way. It makes me feel sick.
People are still talking about the strange events of Monday:
Rafi McFaul tells me I missed the freakiest thing, like, evah, even though she didn’t see any of it, while those who do claim to have seen something – mostly people in the foyer who were looking out at me running through the rain – are exaggerating their accounts alarmingly.
Sam Donald says he saw the ‘ghost’ (for this is what I am becoming) turn and laugh, pointing at someone in the crowd.
Anoushka Tavares insists it was not the figure of a human, but something larger, like a big ape.
I have to hand it to the Knight twins: they must have incredible willpower not to just show everyone their film. But they’ve only given us till the end of tonight to make the first payment of money we don’t have, and once they go on that school trip there’s no way they’re not going to end up getting out the video when everyone’s around the campfire or whatever.
It all makes it even more essential that I act now.
After school, the evening is warm and a bit hazy, with a salty breeze coming off the sea. Normally I’d love an evening like this. I’d walk Lady on the beach, have a ‘summer salad’ for supper with Gram, do my homework, watch a bit of TV, go to bed when it’s still a bit light.
There’s a lot to be said for ‘normal’. Normal is nice, normal is reliable, and unsurprising, and comforting. Now I am wondering if anything can ever be normal again.
I am treating this whole thing like I’m a commando on a raid, or something
, and it is very far from normal.
First of all, I shower. I don’t want any tiny bits of dust or dirt clinging to me to give away my presence. I check my nose for snot, my ears for wax, my hair for dandruff, my nails for dirt trapped beneath them. You may think it’s gross, but tough: I’m not taking any risks.
Which is a stupid thing to say. What I mean is, I’m not taking any risks apart from entering someone’s house invisibly wipe their computers. That’s risk enough for me.
I brought some Dr Chang His Skin So Clear to school in my water bottle and I drank it at lunchtime. It hadn’t improved. It was still foul.
By the last period, I could feel the familiar gut-rumbling and I knew what was coming. The lesson was English, and Mrs West had allocated parts for us to read from Othello, which is Shakespeare. Tyrone Bower always gets to do Othello because he throws himself into it and doesn’t care about sounding like a complete clown, e-nun-ci-at-ing his Shakes-pee-ahh like he’s appearing at the Theatre Royal.
And I did something that – only a week ago – I would not have dreamt of doing.
Bored with Tyrone and his overacting, I had skimmed ahead in the text, and saw something coming up that I thought, well …
Here’s what happened. I would normally never burp in class. Who would? And what made me suddenly decide that now would be a good time?
I held on and held on, while Tyrone shouted his lines. He was even doing arm actions at his desk. I really couldn’t hold on any longer – it was giving me stomach cramps. If I say so myself, when it finally came, it could not have been timed better.
Othello, if you didn’t know, is the name of an army general and he’s crazily in love with a woman called Desdemona. Take it away, Tyrone:
Othello: If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have wakened death!
Me: Buuuuurp!
You know when you drink a cold Coke on a hot day, and guzzle it too quickly? It was like one of those burps, but doubled. It was loud, and perfectly timed. But that was nothing – nothing – compared with the smell, which was worse than ever.