Invisible Inkling

I go back to running my hands along the floors, searching for Inkling. He must be wounded, or he’d come to me. And he must be scared to make any noise, because now Erik’s on the lookout for a rat.

My hand finally hits quivering fur and I can feel Inkling, shaking and limp, squeezed between two bins of granola. I’m so relieved I want to cry, but instead I pick him up. He crawls slowly onto my back, moving as if he’s bruised all over.

Keeping him gently in place with one hand, I pick up the unshattered half of the butternut squash that’s lying in the produce section. “Excuse me, Erik?” I say, interrupting his chat with Mom. “Since you probably can’t sell this, would it be okay if I took it home?”

He tells me yes, and Inkling and I head outside and wait on a bench for Mom to finish her shopping.

“Yummy, yummy squashy goodness,” Inkling mumbles to himself, as the butternut disappears in small, eager bites. He makes grunting noises as he eats.

In minutes, the whole thing is gone. Inkling burps in satisfaction.

When she comes outside, Mom asks me what happened to that squash I asked Erik for.

“I took a bite and you were right,” I tell her. “I don’t like it after all. I threw it in the trash. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like it.” She laughs. “I guess you learned a lesson, huh?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “I did.”

Invisible Blood

Inkling is bruised and shaken. He’s got a cut on his back left leg, and he demands that I put ointment and a Band-Aid on it when we get home. I get the stuff and bring it to my bedroom.

“Where’s your leg?” I ask, kneeling by the bottom bunk where he’s lying on my pillow.

“Here.”

“Where here?”

“Here!” His rough foot hits me gently in the nose.

“Okay, already.” I take his leg in my hands and feel the ankle beneath the thick, damp fur. “I can’t see any blood.” I look down. My fingers feel wet, but they look as clean as ever.

“Where your left hand is touching,” snaps Inkling. “It’s a gaping wound, practically. I’m sure you’re getting germs in it right now.”

“Sorry.”

“Did you wash your hands before you started this operation?”

I yank my hands away and open the tube of antibiotic cream. “Put your cut underneath the tube,” I say. “That might work better.”

I manage to squeeze the cream on and wrap a large Band-Aid around the leg where Inkling says the wound is. The bandage disappears as it sticks to Inkling’s fur.

That night, Inkling sleeps on my pillow instead of in the laundry basket. I pet his fluffy neck in the darkness.

I hate not knowing what he looks like.

How can you really know someone if you don’t know how he looks?

I know Nadia by her green hair and big boots—not the whole Nadia, but an important part of her. I know Chin by her dimples and the jeans with the holes, Dad by his scraggle beard, Mom by her chapped ice-cream-store hands.

Inkling has been here a while now, and all I can tell you is what my fingers know:

He’s about the size of Rootbeer, but fatter.

He has claws and a bushy tail.

His nose is cold and wet.

His teeth are sharp.

But is he brown? Or blue? White?

Does his face look shifty? Bossy? Clever?

Thoughtful, like Chin’s?

Or enthusiastic, like Dad’s?

I’ve asked him over and over, but he never really answers.

“I’m extremely cute,” he tells me when I ask again, tonight. “What else do you need to know?”

“Cute people don’t like to be invisible,” I point out. “Funny-looking people like to be invisible.”

“I’m naturally invisible,” says Inkling. “It’s not like I could let you see me even if I wanted you to.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Not even for a few minutes?”

Inkling avoids the question. “Invisible is better for me anyway. It’s a rough world in this big city. Bandapats are endangered. I have to keep myself alive. If anyone got a glimpse—if anyone besides you knew about me—I’d end up in a science lab. Or even worse, a zoo.”

“So you can be visible, sometimes?”

“No.”

“You just said, ‘If anyone got a glimpse.’”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Wolowitz. Will you leave it alone? I’m an invisible bandapat.”

We’ve had this conversation, or one very like it, lots of times.

But I can never leave it alone.

I want to see him so badly.

On Wednesdays, Chin and I have Theater of the

Mind after school. It’s where you stay late with the drama teacher and do projects. I like it because the drama teacher never complains about my overbusy imagination. He actually likes my overbusy imagination.

I go because Dad can’t pick me up until the after-school rush is over at Big Round Pumpkin, and on Wednesdays Nadia has PSAT study all afternoon. When he’s off work, Dad picks up Chin, too. He arranged it with her mom at the start of the school year. I heard him on the phone saying stuff about “fostering their friendship” and how Hank “seems lonely since Alexander moved away.”