Invisible Inkling

To take my mind off it all, I help Nadia walk Rootbeer when her shift is over. She makes extra money as a dog walker, and her main client is the French bulldog who lives across the hall from us. Seth Mnookin, our neighbor, wants Rootbeer to have a half-hour walk every day.

I actually go with Nadia pretty often, because Rootbeer is funny. She snorts when she’s excited and loves to run up and down the hallways in our building, snarfling at people’s doors. Mnookin says she’s looking for cats, but there aren’t any to find. Still, she never gives up hope.

“Hank, my man,” says Nadia, when our walk is nearly finished, “will you take the leash? I have to text Max.” Max is Nadia’s boyfriend. He’s always texting her, but he never actually comes over to our place.

“Are you gonna pay me?” I ask. “For doing your job?”

I ask this every time she has me take the leash.

“No,” she says, pulling out her phone. “Because I’m still here. Supervising.”

That’s what she always says.

Anyway, Nadia is texting and I have the dog. We are right near Big Round Pumpkin when—

Rootbeer takes off. Dragging me behind her, she runs full speed to a tree. Skids to a stop and starts crazy barking.

There aren’t any cats. Or other dogs.

There aren’t any letter carriers, pretty girls, old men, people with handbags, babies in strollers, or any of the other things Rootbeer usually barks at.

Rouw! Rouw! Rootbeer howls and tries to climb the tree with her short legs.

“Does she see a squirrel?” asks Nadia, running to catch up.

We scan the trees. No squirrels.

Rootbeer takes off down the block, dragging me behind her with the leash. She skitters, knocking over garbage cans, snapping her jaws.

Nadia runs to the door of our building and holds it open. “Drag her in, Hank!” she yells. I try to pull Rootbeer inside, but the dog is racing round and round another small tree, tangling my legs in her leash. “I’m trying,” I call—but then Rootbeer lunges for the door, knocking me over. I hit the sidewalk hard and feel the leash unraveling around my legs as the dog charges. I’ve lost my hold on her, and Rootbeer zooms into the building, barking and drooling.

Nadia and I chase up the stairs to the fourth floor to find the dog growling at—

An empty corner of the hallway.

No cat. No squirrel.

Nothing.

“You’re barking at air, loony dog,” says Nadia, half laughing, half angry. She grabs Rootbeer’s leash, but the dog pulls against her.

“Treats!” coaxes Nadia, straining for the door of Mnookin’s apartment. “Rootbeer, I have liver treats for you inside.”

The dog keeps growling at the corner.

I wave my hand through the empty space. “See, Rootbeer? It’s empty”—but my hand, expecting to swing through air, hits a trembling ball of fur.

I look.

There’s nothing.

Nothing I can see.

But my hand is touching something, something warm.

Fur again.

Oh, oh, oh.

There is. Something. Invisible.

Here.

This is the thing I felt under the sink. Only now, trembling in the corner.

The thing that ate the waffle cone.

It has to be.

That thing is here. Terrified ’cause Rootbeer wants to kill it.

My head spins. The dog’s drooling jaws are just a foot away.

Instinctively, I stroke the soft fur of the invisible thing.

It is lost, probably.

The creature’s small forepaws reach up and grip my wrist, and I bend down, saying loudly, “Nothing here, see, Rootbeer? Don’t bark at the air.”

The invisible thing climbs nimbly into my arms and wraps its front legs around my neck. I hold its warm, frightened body, trying to look like I am doing nothing much with my hands.

I kick the air of the corner where the creature has been sitting. “Nothing,” I say again. “Silly dog.”

Nadia pulls on Rootbeer’s leash and reaches her key toward Seth Mnookin’s apartment door, but suddenly the dog isn’t lunging at the corner. She’s coming at me. I back up as the invisible creature hugs me, heavy and shaking with terror.

“Save me,” it whispers in my ear.

I’m so shocked, I nearly fall down.

It can speak.

English.

The invisible creature claws my neck in fear, and I stumble back against the wall. “Put Rootbeer in Seth’s apartment,” I tell Nadia. “Quick.”

Nadia bends down and grabs Rootbeer around the middle like you would a bag of potatoes. The dog wiggles and strains, running her short legs in the air and growling.

Nadia manages to get the door to Mnookin’s apartment open. She tosses Rootbeer in.

I can hear the dog’s nails skitter on the floor as she lands. She lunges to get back out, but Nadia slams the door and leans against it.

Rootbeer barks and doesn’t stop.

Not Actually a

Big Round Pumpkin

While Nadia fluffs up her drooping hair in our bathroom, I go to my room. I set the invisible creature gently on the pillow of my bottom bunk bed. There’s a slight dent where it’s sitting, but otherwise I can’t tell it’s even there.

“You okay?”

I feel strange speaking to the air, but the creature answers right away. “Alive!” it cries in a hoarse but energetic voice. “Alive, alive, alive!”

“Yeah,” I say, in wonder. “You are.”

“Alive!”