I was thinking two things: Eww, gross—and Hubert.
Jody was rattling on.
“See, I can’t chew the gum myself because of my braces. And I can’t really store the juice for very long because fresh seems to work best. There used to be these two kids, twins, who lived next door. Cleo and Kimberly. They had great jaws. But they moved to Pittsfield. So now I have to scramble for my supply. We need about a cupful. Of gum juice.”
“You mean right now? Before we can do anything?” She didn’t seem to realize that I was about to scream.
“Yep.”
“Well, lucky for you … I mean, lucky for me, I happen to have a champion gum-chewer downstairs, waiting for me across the street. He can blow a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble!”
“That’s a very handy skill,” said Jody in mock admiration.
“I’ll go get him,” I said.
“Well,” said Jody. “We also don’t have any gum.”
When I stepped outside, the street seemed like a surprise. Just that it was still there, quietly being a street, holding Jody and this crazy house right in its middle.
Hubert was looking at his watch, probably counting the seconds until he went to the police station. He didn’t see the door open and close, and he certainly didn’t see me approaching.
“Hey,” I said from a few feet away. He moaned.
“Oh, no! Billie! What happened? Why aren’t you here?”
I told him the whole story. When I came to the gum part, his face turned from a stormy scowl to beaming sunshine.
“That’s easy!” he said. “I’m the master chewer of all time! Did you tell her?”
“Yes, you show-off. And now’s your chance to put your skills to good use.”
“Let’s go.”
We set out down Eighty-fourth Street, away from Central Park and toward Columbus Avenue, figuring that’s where the stores would be. There was a little newspaper kiosk one block down that had magazines and candy and lots of gum, right there on the street.
Hubert bought three packs of Banana Bubbalot and I stole another eleven packs, some banana and the rest cinnamon. It felt bad to keep stealing, especially after seeing the pickpocket, but we didn’t have a choice. I knew I would have to fix things later. Hubert was embarrassed, but he couldn’t help his dopey little smirk when I stuffed his pockets full of gum.
“Okay, big shot, start chewing.” We began our mission.
Something nudged my leg. I looked down to see a puppy sniffing at me. His head rubbed against me like an invitation to play. His owner was trying to get a newspaper out of the box with one hand while he held the pup’s leash with the other. I knelt down to stroke him. When I looked up at Hubert, he was watching in alarm. The owner couldn’t figure out why his pet was sniffing at nothing with such pleasure. Hubert quickly leaned over to pat the puppy.
“Nice dog,” he said. “I guess he can smell my gum.” The man tugged on the leash, and the puppy moved on to a hydrant.
16 • Master Chewer
We sat on a bench outside the ice cream store, tipping our faces into the sun and chewing intently.
“Do you think I can still get a sunburn?” I wondered aloud. Hubert didn’t answer.
“We don’t have anywhere to put the gum,” he said after a minute.
“Wait here a sec,” I said.
I stood up and poked my head into the ice cream store. There were stacks of paper cups behind the counter. I promised myself it was the last time I would do this.
I waited for the lady to get busy wiping tables, and then I ducked under the little counter hatch and swiped a couple of cups.
Back outside, Hubert was looking around in dismay.
“I’m here,” I said, sliding onto the bench next to him.
“I don’t like the way you keep disappearing,” said Hubert. I laughed.
“What were you doing?”
I put the cups in his lap to answer the question.
“You’ve got to stop this, Billie,” he scolded. He was bent over, pretending to scratch his leg, while he talked to me so that no one would think he was a loony.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s almost over. I hope. Now get chewing! And don’t fool around with any of your tricks.”
We peeled off the paper, chomped into the gum, and worked it into soft, juicy wads. Hubert can fit seven jumbo pieces of Bubbalot in his mouth at once, so his cup filled up faster than mine. We wandered back to Jody’s house, chewing all the way, pausing only to spit the next ready wad into a cup. Making the change from banana to cinnamon was a taste challenge, but Hubert put one banana aside for his last piece, just to look forward to.
“Won’t you come in with me this time, Hubert? Please, please, pretty please? With Bubbalot on top?”
“I’ll think about it.” He was getting better at looking in the right place when he looked at me. He stood on the stoop, pretending he hadn’t decided, but I could tell he was too curious not to come in, now that he knew we wouldn’t be locked in the broom closet and used for soup ingredients.
Jody’s voice crackled through the intercom and Pepper’s barking greeted us as we opened the door. We headed up the stairs like regular visitors, with me in front and Hubert behind, groaning about how many steps there were. But he shut up quickly when he saw the lab and the chemicals and the train.
“Hey there!” Jody smiled at Hubert, her braces glinting under the skylight.
“Hey,” he said back, already a fan.
“Still chewing, huh? How much have you got?” We showed her our cups. Mine was only half full, but Hubert was almost done.
My jaws were aching, like I’d just spent the afternoon smiling at my gram’s friends.
“I have to take a break,” I said. “Hubert, you can fill mine.” I sat down in the rolling chair and rubbed my cheeks.
“I got everything together while you were out. I hope I remember everything,” Jody said.
Hubert kept on stoically chewing. He was playing with Jody’s satin bag, taking out the makeup and lining up the pots on the table.
“What does all this other stuff do, anyway?” Hubert asked as he unwrapped another piece of gum. “Is it all magic?”
“These are scientific experiments,” Jody scolded. “Magic is for babies. I am a scientist and an inventor.”
“Sorry.”
“That clear lipstick makes everything you eat taste like strawberry pie, which just happens to be my favorite food.”
“That might be the greatest invention I ever heard of,” I said. “Except for Hubert, it would have to be Banana Bubbalot!”
“Yeah,” said Hubert, “and I sure could use it. My mother is the worst cook.”
“And this lipstick …” Jody rolled out the tube of coral that I had first looked at in my own bathroom. “Well, maybe you should just try it and see.”
17 • Rhyme Scheme
I took it from her, and it disappeared. But I could feel the slim case, to roll it in and out.
“It’s not going to, you know, do any permanent damage, is it?”
“Just try it.”
“Billie, don’t,” said Hubert.
Jody flashed me a silver smile. “I promise, you will not turn into a werewolf.”
I rolled the lipstick over my lips, expecting a tingle or a flavor. But nothing happened. Jody was looking my way with an expectant grin.
“Nothing’s changed a single bit. There must be something wrong with it. Did you give me the right one? Are you teasing me for fun?”
The words tumbled out like a high-speed tape.
“Oops.” I covered my mouth as if I’d burped at the lunch table.
Jody shook with laughter. Hubert snorted. How did I fall for this?
“You mean that now I speak in rhyme? And this will happen all the time? What about when I’m at school? They’ll all think that I’m a fool!” I had horrible visions of trying to present my Small World Project in verse. Alyssa’s smirk flashed in front of my eyes.
&nbs
p; “Fix me up without delay! Give me something right away!” I glared at Jody, wishing she could see my fury.
“This one’s easy,” Jody reassured me. “Just wipe it off with a tissue and then gargle with vinegar.”
She heaved a gallon jug of Grand Union white vinegar from under her table. I wiped my lips raw on the sleeve of my sweatshirt and then took a swig. I wanted to vomit at once. I swilled it around for maybe four seconds and then spat it out into the saucer that Jody was offering.
“I better not be talking in rhyme …” I tested the cure. They both applauded.
“That was funny,” said Hubert. “You’re pretty smart, Jody. Now what do we do with all this gum?” He handed her two full cups.
“Let’s get going,” said Jody. “You’ll have to carry all this stuff. I’ll need my hands for the railings.” She gave him back the gum, along with a canister of talcum powder; a box of dog biscuits; a net bag of something dried and black and twisty, like fungus; and two test tubes from a tray on her lab table.
“When I did Pepper in the kitchen sink, she kept jumping out, and there was such a mess afterward, you wouldn’t believe. I think we’d better do this in the bathtub.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I have to take a bath?”
“Of course you have to take a bath. What did you think?”
“I guess I didn’t really think,” I mumbled. Hubert was the color of cherry bubblegum, he was so embarrassed.
“Come on,” said Jody, limping to the stairs. “We haven’t got all day. My mother is going to be home before you know it.”
“Oh, shoot,” said Hubert, looking at his watch while trying to keep the cups upright, “it’s really late, Billie. You better get moving.”
I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?
“Hubert, you have to wait up here,” I ordered, taking his armload of ingredients, which vanished immediately.
Jody went down the stairs sideways, like a baby, and she only stepped on Pepper’s tail once.
18 • Chowder Bath
As with most great creations of science, from the planet Earth to the human body, this formula is mostly water.”
She turned on the hot-water tap with a flick of her wrist. The water poured into the tub, splashing on the marble veins, making them look alive. She dumped the contents of both test tubes under the flow. The water turned yellow immediately. She crumbled bits of the fungus and watched as they absorbed water and doubled in size. She shook in some talcum powder and then some more.
“I’ve never made a big batch before.” She gave me a weak smile. “I’m not really sure of the quantities.” She turned off the water. “I guess it should be too strong rather than too weak. We wouldn’t want you to look wispy or fuzzy or anything.”
She put several dog biscuits on the floor.
“Help crush these,” she commanded. Pepper was going crazy, but Jody kept shooing her back. I did a little dance in my sneakers, and Jody rolled her cast back and forth across the floor until the biscuits were chunks and crumbs. We scooped them up and dumped them into the tub. Pepper licked the traces off the tiles.
“Now the gum.” She took fistfuls of gum wads and squeezed them over the mixture. Only the tiniest drops of juice dribbled out. Then she tossed the sticky lumps in with everything else. She rolled up a Vogue magazine that was lying on the floor and used it to stir with big, swishing turns.
“Oh, good, it’s starting to thicken. Now take your clothes off.”
I hesitated.
“Your body has to be completely covered,” she said firmly. “You have to be immersed. You should have seen me doing Pepper. She kept slithering away from me, but she was invisible so she was hard to catch.”
“So I really have to get into that and slop around? Like a snail in butter?”
Jody laughed.
“Uh-huh. Like a snail in butter. That’s a good one.” She saluted and limped into the hall. “I’ll be waiting outside,” she called as she closed the door.
I looked down at the tub full of chowder. I looked down at where I should be. I pushed off my sneakers without untying them, thinking how that drives my mother crazy. I peeled off my socks.
I unstrapped my watch and tucked it into the pocket of my jeans. I could see its face for the first time since this morning. Yikes! It was after two o’clock. Time was galloping by. Sweatshirt, jeans, and underwear reappeared as they flew from my hands into a rumpled pile beside the toilet.
It was so weird to be naked in a stranger’s house with Hubert creaking around in the attic above me.
As much as I did not want to, I dipped my left foot into the soup. It was warm. I stepped in with my other foot. It was like standing in the squishy kind of mud that lives at the bottoms of lakes.
“Five, four, three, two, one …” I sat down. I smeared the disgusting stuff on my face, my shoulders, my stomach. I flipped over and wiggled around, just to make sure. I opened my eyes, hoping hard that I would be there.
“It’s not working!” I wailed.
19 • Try, Try Again
The door swung open. Jody’s brown eyes peered around it. Pepper poked her nose in.
“Oh!” remembered Jody. “It has to be dark! You know, ‘in order to come out of the darkness, the light must first be extinguished …’”
I wondered if that was a real quote from somebody.
Jody lurched across the room in her cast and pulled down the window shade. She flipped the switch on the wall as she went back out the door, leaving me in the kind of dark that is inside a theater just before the show begins. You can see the shapes of people all around you, but nobody has a face.
I sloshed around for about a minute, wondering how long it might take. I closed my eyes. I let my head go all the way under and came up again quickly. I rubbed the muck into my hair like shampoo. The combined smells of dog biscuits and talcum powder and fungus were beginning to get to me. I plugged my nose. I started to wipe the biggest chunks off my knees, when I realized that I could sort of see my knees!
“I can see my knees! I can sort of see my knees! It’s working! Everything’s coming back!” I stood up and did a slippery jig.
The door flew open with a crash.
“Get out of here!” I shouted at Jody. “You don’t have to see everything!”
“Ooops, sorry,” she said, retreating to the hallway. “It’s just so cool, so cool, so totally cool.”
I heard Hubert’s voice calling from the attic, muffled but excited.
“Yeah,” Jody shouted up to him, “it’s working!”
“Hey, Billie,” she called to me. “You can take a shower and rinse it all off now.”
Hubert’s feet clunked down the stairs. They were standing there in the hall, waiting for me to appear.
I pulled the shower curtain closed and turned on the tap. I could hear Jody yammering away. Well, I guess she deserved to be a little pleased with herself.
The shower was delicious after the bath. I used the Mango Shower Gel that was on the bath sill and rinsed away every gloopy drop of dog biscuit and gum. I washed my fabulous, reawakened hair and let the water pour over me like a waterfall on a Hawaiian hillside.
But, as I scrubbed my wonderful, visible legs and my lovely, reappeared arms, I realized that something wasn’t quite right. Most of me was back, pale and freckly as usual. But my hands and feet were still a bit vague. I can’t think of another way to describe it except that they weren’t really all there. As if the felt pen ran out of ink before the picture was finished.
I dried off and got dressed, with my heart as heavy as it had ever been. My hair was still drippy and tangled so I swooped it up in a towel turban. I didn’t bother to put on my sneakers.
I opened the door to the hall to face my friends. Pepper put her paws right up and sniffed me all over. Jody actually jumped up and down, with her cast thudding against the wooden floor. Hubert was grinning like he just won first prize at the Computer Fair.
Then I held up my hands. For a
second, they didn’t get it. Then they focused on the faintness of my fingers.
“Oops,” said Jody.
20 • Halfway There
My feet are the same,” I said, lifting one and then the other for them to inspect.
“Oh, no!” cried Hubert. “What are we going to do now? Everybody’ll notice if she doesn’t have hands!”
Jody’s face was screwed up in concentration. She looked like an old gnome.
“Don’t panic,” she said. “There has to be a solution. There is a solution to every problem.”
“That’s what my mother says,” I said.
“Your mother is right,” said Jody. “Turn on the tap in the sink. The cold tap.”
We all pushed into the bathroom together, eager to try anything. The cold water rushed into the marble basin, and Jody shoved my hands under and held them there. The water got icier the longer it ran and, if anything, my hands faded slightly more.
“So much for that idea,” whined Hubert. “Do you know it’s nearly two-thirty, Billie? We couldn’t get back to school on time if we had a helicopter. We are in so much trouble we might as well kill ourselves.”
“Too bad I haven’t invented a flight potion,” giggled Jody as she dried my hands on an eensy guest towel. “Don’t worry; I have another idea.” She reached into the bathroom cupboard and took out a hair dryer, shaped like a violet machine gun. I could tell that Hubert was getting more upset by the second.
Jody plugged in the hair dryer and fiddled with the settings.
“This is going to be hot, Billie,” she said, pointing the weapon right at me. The hot air blew on my hands, and Jody waved it back and forth for even coverage. Sure enough, only a couple of minutes went by before we could see a change. Bit by bit, my hands were looking more substantial.
“Hubert, stop bobbling about like that.” He was making me nervous. “Go get my backpack. As soon as my hands are done, we’re leaving. I can wear my socks and do my feet at home. Come on! We’re late!” Hubert scuttled off upstairs while Jody kept the hot air blowing at me.
The Invisible Day Page 5