I shrug and look away. What’s the point of denying it? My reputation is ruined anyway.
After they’ve finally finished the third encore, I turn to Elizabeth, or where Elizabeth is supposed to be—beside me in Row D, Seat 24.
“All right, let’s get out of here,” I say.
Silence.
“Don’t tell me you were dozing too?”
Still no answer. I pat the seat. It’s empty. Great, she dumped me at the first opportunity.
The party backstage is in full swing. The members of Boys-R-Us are gorging themselves on Mom’s white-chocolate raspberries, slapping one another on the back and uttering meaningless words like “rockin’ ” and “rad.” They’ve probably never finished a book among them. They don’t even play their own instruments, for crying out loud. My sister has the worst taste in music ever.
“Elizabeth,” I say out loud, just in case she’s listening. “You have the worst taste in music ever.”
Right on cue, a CD is thrust into my hand.
“Get him to sign this for me,” she says, her fingers digging into my arm. “I bought it especially.”
“Get who to sign it for you? All these guys look the same. Does it matter which one?”
“Are you talking to me?” asks a girl wearing too much lip gloss who is standing beside me with a CD in her hand.
“The singer, you dolt,” says Elizabeth. “I don’t care about the others. Well, not much. He’s right over there.”
Lip Gloss Girl looks alarmed and slinks off.
Mom comes by and—cue more embarrassment—kisses me on the cheek. I try to hand the CD to her.
“Please, Mom?” I ask. “Could you get it signed by the singer?”
“I’m too busy, honey,” she says. “But you know what, he’s actually really sweet.”
And then she disappears into the crowd with a tray of drinks.
“Frank?” says Elizabeth.
“No way,” I say. “He’s ‘really sweet.’ Do it yourself.”
“It’s Brucy Bruce! Please, Frank, I’m begging you.”
“Watch my lips. N-O. I’ve suffered enough for one day. Unless you come up with another offer …”
“Okay, I’ll give school another week.”
“Two and I’ll do it.”
I admit it: I always like to do a good deed, especially if there’s a payoff. And so there I am, hovering with the new Boys-R-Us CD, aptly named Heaven Help Me, in my hand, when Brucy Bruce spots me.
“Hey, little dude! It’s so great to see a little dude!”
Boy, this guy is smart.
“How’d the show register on the dude-o-meter?”
I hem, I haw … well, he did ask.
“Truthfully?”
His smile is blinding me.
“Yeah, little dude!”
He’s waiting. Here goes.
“Honestly, I thought the show was a real—”
Without a hint of warning, Elizabeth gives me a mighty push from behind, propelling me straight into the open arms of Brucy Bruce.
“Whoa, dude, you really are a big fan.”
Before I can get away, he gives me a man-hug, whacking me so hard my sunglasses fly off. To make matters worse, over his shoulder I spot four girls from my class. They’re all staring at me with their mouths wide open.
This is the end of my life as I know it. I will never live this down.
“I’d love to sign this for you,” he says, taking the CD from me. “Someone get this little dude a T-shirt.”
The party finishes early. I’d say it’s just as well because this band needs all the beauty sleep it can get. Outside, at the stage door, Elizabeth accosts me.
“Give me that CD,” she says.
“Not quite what we agreed,” I point out. “We had a deal. The CD is yours, but not until the two weeks are up.”
“Yeah right,” she says. “Give it to me. I spent $14.99 on that.”
She tries to grab it from me, but I’m not letting her have it. I duck, I swerve, I turn, each time miraculously escaping her clutches. And yes, I realize that I must look like a lunatic doing a crazy dodge-dance by myself, but I’m not giving in that easily. Just as she and I twist for the last time, I see the girls from school staring at me from the bus stop across the road. And in that split second, Elizabeth has me from behind and I can smell her shampoo and chewing gum, I can feel the zipper from her invisible boot digging into my shin and the pinching of her bangles on my arm. But she has overestimated my balance; she has used too much force, and rather than hold me still, she propels us forward until we’re both falling headlong toward the sidewalk. In slow motion, the CD slips from my hand.
“Nooooo!” we both yell like we’re in some action movie and not in a small suburban town outside an empty theater. The CD flies through the air and lands in the middle of the road. Of course, an oncoming bus smashes it into a million pieces.
“So does this mean the deal is off?” I say.
The next day, the principal calls me out of home ec. He wants to “have a word.” I don’t mind. I need a break from the constant teasing. Those girls made sure the whole school knows about my “special relationship” with Brucy Bruce and my “wacky” solo dancing. Even though I’m wearing my Death Metal T-shirt, it doesn’t seem to help.
“Have a seat, Frank,” says Mr. Polwarth. He seems harmless enough. I wonder what he wants to talk about. Actually, I have an idea.
“I’d like to speak to you about Elizabeth,” he says. “I’m sending a letter to your parents, but I thought maybe we could have a little chat as well.”
He talks for a while, but I’m not listening. What has she done now? I have to intercept that letter. If Mom and Dad get wind of any trouble, who knows where it could lead.
“Frank? Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”
“Don’t tell me,” I reply. “Is it the Lunch Lady Bait and Switch Trick?”
He gives me a puzzled look.
“The Dancing Chalk?”
He still looks blank.
“Oh, please tell me it’s not the Lock and Leave Toilet Trick.”
By the look on his face, I think I should probably shut up now.
“You mean she’s not in trouble?”
“Not as far I know …”
“Has she been skipping school?”
“No, Frank, her attendance is excellent and her grades are generally good. She’s a bright and polite student.”
“No, no, you have her mixed up with someone else.” I stand up. “My sister is Elizabeth Black, the invisible one.”
“Frank! Relax. Sit down.” He gestures toward the chair. “We want every student in our school to feel like a part of the wider community. Our sense is that Elizabeth is not fitting in as well as she could be. I’ve tried talking to her, tried getting her to join some clubs, but frankly, Frank”—he pauses and laughs at his own joke. If only he knew how many times I’ve heard that one—“I’m not getting anywhere. Do you have any ideas?”
I think about this.
“Just because she’s invisible,” I say, “doesn’t mean that she has to be, well, invisible.”
The equipment arrives the very next day. I get time off from class to help Mr. Polwarth set it all up. Although it’s officially for the media club, he and I have our own agenda. I even manage to convince him that a letter home won’t be necessary.
“I’m not interested,” says Elizabeth.
“Well, you will be when I tell you what I set up.”
Elizabeth is interested. She’s so interested that she even threatens to kiss me. Also, she agrees to my demands. Giving the school a little longer has been forgotten—there’s no question of her wanting to leave right now. Instead she agrees to be my slave for a day and that the big tree in the yard stays.
It’s a week later, and my sister has kept her word. Yesterday I sent her to the store for two megasized jaw-breakers, a bag of dog biscuits for Bob, and the latest copy of my favorite comic. She
brought me breakfast in bed this morning, but I was too nervous to eat it. I’m not the only one. Mom has been reading the classified ads since I came home from school, and Dad has been in the garage endlessly tinkering with his fishing rods. At last, at four o’clock exactly, we all sit down on the couch and Mom turns on the radio.
“Good afternoon, this is Elizabeth Black broadcasting loud and clear from KGJH, Grovesdale Junior High School’s new state-of-the-art radio station. My first guest is none other than Brucy Bruce, patched in live from New York City …”
We shouldn’t have worried. Elizabeth is in her element. The interview goes off without a hitch. By the end, even I think there’s more to Boys-R-Us than meets the eye. And then he has to go and spoil it.
“Before I sign off,” says her special guest, “I have a shout-out going to the little dude, Frank Black. Brucy Bruce loves you too, man.”
So I’ve succeeded in making Elizabeth visible, at least for a little while. But I’ll tell you one thing—right now, I wish I were the invisible one instead.
Chapter Five
It’s finally Halloween. For weeks, all Charlie has been talking about is his zombie costume. He’s already gone through several tubes of fake blood, staged a car accident, and had a couple of amputations. And now he’s so excited he can hardly wait until nightfall.
“You want to come over and help me put the finishing touches on my costume?”
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I’m babysitting for Smelly Vincent’s mom. Well, not exactly babysitting. She’s going to be in the attic office working, but she needs me to keep an eye on the kids. She promised that she won’t be more than a couple of hours.”
Yes, ever since my sister’s atrocious Bang and Bolt Routine a week after we moved in, I’ve had to put on my best-neighbor-ever face. Babysitting? I love it! Hedges? My passion! Gnomes? Uh … so … so … so cute, I lie. I’m beginning to wonder just how much longer I can keep it up.
“But your costume,” says Charlie. “You haven’t finished it.”
I’ve been working on my Impaled Airplane-Pilot Crash Victim costume for about a month. I have all the parts: the uniform complete with cap, the control stick (which will be protruding from my stomach), and an extra-large package of latex stick-on wounds, all courtesy of eBay.
Charlie said it will be the grossest thing ever and he should know; he’s the King of Gross.
As Charlie pointed out, however, it still needs a lot of work. I haven’t decided exactly how to get the control stick to look like it’s going right through me.
“You’re going to be able to finish in time, aren’t you?” asks Charlie. “I don’t want to have to go by myself.”
“Of course,” I reply. “She gave me her word.”
…
Smelly Vincent’s house has a jack-o’-lantern pumpkin on the porch. When I walk in, I’m bombarded by a hail of tiny plastic spiders.
“Ooooooh!!” the children all shriek, trying to be scary. It’s not even dark yet and they are already hyper.
“Frank,” says Smelly Vincent’s mom, “I’m so grateful to you for this. I know it is short notice, but I have to finish some paperwork. Can you possibly give the kids a hand putting on their costumes? They’re so looking forward to going trick-or-treating.”
I have a few questions for her, like how many snacks are too many snacks and should the TV really be that loud, but she sneaks up the stairs when the kids aren’t looking. And then they all start crying because they seriously believe she’s gone forever and they are being left for eternity with the loser boy from next door.
“Don’t worry,” I yell in an effort to calm them down. “Didn’t she tell you that I turn into a ghost at midnight? … OOOoooh …”
But that just makes them bawl even louder. I start over.
“This must be yours,” I say to Laura, holding up a very pink, very frilly princess costume in an attempt to distract her.
“I changed my mind. I’m too old to be a princess,” she says, her sobs turning into sniffs.
“Why? How old are you?” I ask.
“Six and three quarters. And I want to be a cowboy.”
“Where’s the cowboy costume?”
“We don’t have one, so you’ll have to make it.”
“Okay … we’ll come back to you later.”
Joey and Lucy are twins. They’re three. I recognize their costumes from a buy one, get one free deal at the local supermarket: one devil, one angel. Sounds simple? Think again.
“Which one of you is the devil?”
“I am,” says Joey.
“No, I am,” says Lucy.
“I had it first,” screams Joey, grabbing the pitchfork.
“No, I did,” screams Lucy, throwing the angel wings at Joey.
And then they both start crying again at full volume. This is a nightmare. I close my eyes and wonder how long I can stand it. I’ve only been here for ten minutes and I’m temped to quit. Snap goes the pitchfork as it’s broken in two. Rip go the angel wings as they’re yanked from their elastic.
“Waaahhh!” go the twins.
Pete, who’s about five, has been pulling on my shirt and repeating “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,” for the last few minutes. Finally, he kicks me in the shin.
“Ow!” I cry out. “What was that for?”
“Excuse me!” screams Pete.
“What is it?” I scream back.
“I can’t find my donkey costume.”
“Where’s the last place you saw it?”
“In the dress-up box.”
“Okay,” I say as calmly as I can. “Let’s go and look for it.”
I pull everything out of the box. It’s not there. The closest things I can find are a tiger suit and the bottom half of a zebra.
“Here you go,” I say cheerfully.
“That’s not a donkey, it’s a tiger.”
“Is it? Well, it’s a very donkeyish kind of tiger.”
“It’s a tiger, stupid.”
“Laura! Where’s the donkey outfit?”
“We don’t have one,” she says. “You’ll have to make it. But only after you make my cowboy costume. And I’d like some juice now. In my favorite cup. I’ll take it here.” And then she flops down on the couch, turns on the TV with the remote, and starts to watch the shopping channel.
I try not to lose my temper, but it’s getting harder by the second. And so I dig down for my big grownup voice.
“Just a minute, young lady.”
“And it has to be very cold, otherwise I won’t drink it.”
I’m speechless. Who does she think I am? I’m not even getting paid for this. The twins are still fighting. Pete is sulking in the corner, methodically pulling out clumps of fur from the tiger suit, and Smelly Vincent is … where is Smelly Vincent?
I rush from room to room. After frantically searching the entire house, I finally find him in the laundry room. He’s about to plunge a large screwdriver into a wall socket.
“Stop!” I scream.
“Stop!” Vincent screams right back at me.
I wrench the screwdriver from his tiny fingers. The handle’s all covered in snot.
Having saved Vincent’s life, I take a long, deep breath. “I can do this,” I tell myself. “It’s only baby-sitting, not brain surgery.” I plunk the baby down in the playpen for safekeeping, get Laura’s juice, separate the twins, and pull out the craft box. “If I can make Impaled Airplane-Pilot Crash Victim,” I tell myself, “I can make anything.”
After what feels like a week, I have created one psycho cowboy, one demented donkey, and a couple of robots. (It’s amazing what you can do with tinfoil, a glue stick, and some cardboard boxes.) By the time I get to Smelly Vincent’s, I’m on a roll. Dressed in a sheet with a string of plastic ivy on his head, he is a perfect Roman baby.
“You guys look fantastic,” I enthuse. Laura doesn’t look convinced.
“I’m not so sure about the hat.” She tries to adjust the swimming cap w
ith its cardboard brim. “And these cowboy boots hurt.” I customized her rubber boots by pinching a couple of clothespins on the backs for spurs. They look great, but they must be killing her.
“I think I want to be a princess after all.”
The doorbell rings. It’s Charlie in full zombie getup.
“You still here?”
“No,” I reply. “I’m an illusion created from your own distorted imagination.”
“Very funny. We gotta go.”
“I’m heading out now!” I shout up the stairs to the attic. I have been here two hours after all.
“Oh, Frank,” shouts Harassed Mother, “I’m not quite finished up here. Are you going trick-or-treating?”
You can hear us coming from the end of the street. Charlie (in full character) groaning in agony, Laura clacking her clothespin spurs, the twins in their crunchy tinfoil outfits, and Smelly Vincent gurgling like a drain.
“Give me five minutes, Charlie,” I say when we reach my house. “I’ll just run in and put on my costume.”
I try to hand him the baby.
“No way—I don’t want baby drool to ruin my perfectly splattered blood.”
One of the twins bursts into tears.
“My tinfoil is tearing.”
“Stop pulling on my tail!”
“You’re standing on my toe!”
Just then our front door opens. There’s no one there.
“You’re not busy, are you?” I yell over the din.
Elizabeth drives a hard bargain: half my trick-or-treat loot for an hour’s work. But I’m desperate.
“It’s not likely you are going to get much, looking like that,” she says. “I’ve seen senior citizens in the grocery store who look scarier than you. And what’s the baby supposed to be, anyway?”
But there’s no time to argue or explain. I thrust Smelly Vincent into her arms, leave Elizabeth to introduce herself, and rush upstairs to get changed.
It could have been the best costume ever. It could have been really, really gross. But you try being Impaled Airplane-Pilot Crash Victim when there’s a crowd of small children yelling at you to hurry up.
“I know what you are,” Laura says when I come downstairs. For a split second, I actually believe it’s better than I hoped.
My Invisible Sister Page 3