Invisible Inkling

When I do the backstroke, it feels like I’m in the middle of the ocean. There’s nothing anywhere for miles but a few waterlogged boards from the shipwreck I was just in. I can’t hear the sounds of the pool like I can with breaststroke. I can’t see the bottom like I can with crawl. I can’t tell where I’m going, unless I crash into the buoys on the side of the lane.

I wonder if a shipwrecked kitten is floating, all alone, on a soggy raft. He’s scared of the ocean. He’s mewling. I have to swim over so I can rescue him, but I can only swim on my back because of this injury I have from the shipwreck. My stomach is cut open and nearly all my insides are spilling out. I can’t roll over or else my kidneys and liver and all my other guts will pour into the sea.

Backstroke, backstroke.

I’m doing quite a good backstroke for a guy whose insides are spilling out of his torso.

When I reach the kitten and save him, we’ll live together on the raft. I’ll sew up my wounded stomach with yarn I finger-knit from shedded cat fur. The kitten will show me how to catch fish. Together we’ll survive. I’ll name him Hercules.

By the time ye olde fishing boat finds us, we’ll have made up a new language called Humankitty, so we can talk to each other. For example, Hercules will say, “Yao yao! Mrwwp tup tup. Prowl owl?” What he’ll mean is: “No fair you ate that fish head. Can’t I ever eat the head for once?”

When ye olde fisher people rescue us, I’ll have forgotten how to even speak English and—

“Hank!”

What?

How do the fisher people know my name?

“Hank! Finish your lap!”

Huh?

That sounds like Chin.

Is Chin on the boat?

Oh.

Uh-oh.

I am not in the middle of the ocean speaking Humankitty.

I am in the pool. Being tested for a swim level. And failing.

I mean, I am not even swimming. I am standing in the middle of my lane, meowing.

No surprise, I am not a Barracuda. I am not even a Cuttlefish.

I am a Neon.

The same kind of Neon I was back in second grade.

I spend the rest of the swim-class hour Neoning around with a bunch of little kids.

Patne, Kim, and Chin are Hammerheads.

Maybe You Didn’t Really Want to Take My Money

Aaghhhhhh!

When I let him out of the locker, Inkling does a flying pounce and bites my knee. Ow, ow, it hurts. I swat at him, but he wraps himself around my leg. Then he chews just above the knee where it tickles.

Aaghhhhhh! I stumble back and shake my leg, trying to throw him off. I lose my balance over the locker-room bench.

Crash!

I hit the floor backward, flailing my arms.

My head ends up inside a locker. My face is scraped.

Ow.

Inkling lets go.

Just my luck, it is Kim’s locker. I’m lying on top of the smelly green sneakers he always wears. And the socks he’s worn all day.

I feel cold seep across my back. I lift my aching head to look.

Wonderful. I tipped over an open bottle of lemonade. “Nice move, Hank,” Kim says.

I try to sit up, but the angle is funny with my head in the locker. I reach out for Kim to help me, but he pulls his hand back.

“Whoops! Too slow.” He laughs.

Patne is right behind him. Laughing, too. “You got new feet today?” he asks.

I would like to hit Patne right now. I would like to hit Patne, then karate-kick Kim. One of those moves where you spin around midair and the side of your foot connects—bam!—with the enemy’s nose. Nose kick!

Only, I don’t know karate. And my parents want me to be a pacifist and kill people with kindness. “Ha-ha, very funny,” I say to Patne. “New feet, ha-ha.”

Kim pulls a sweatshirt over his head. “You owe me a lemonade.”

I sit up. “I didn’t mean to spill it.”

“You can buy a new one from the machine outside the locker room.”

I do have a dollar, which is what the drinks in the machine cost. But I don’t want to buy Kim a lemonade. It’s not like I drank his lemonade. It’s not like I even knocked it over on purpose.

Most people? If you spilled their lemonade they would say, “No problem.” They would go get a towel and help you mop it up.

Not Kim.

“I don’t know if I have money,” I fib. “I probably don’t.”

“Joe can check while you go get towels,” says Kim. “Joe, look in Hank’s pocket to see if he has money, ’kay?”

And Patne does it. Sticks his hand in the back pocket of my jeans, which are hanging in my locker.

“Yaahhhhhhh!” Patne screams and jumps back. Shaking his hand.

“What’s wrong?” asks Kim.

“Something bit me!”

“No way,” I say, pushing down a smile. “What could bite you?”

“I don’t know. Something.” Patne’s staring at his hand and squeezing it. “Wow, that really hurt.”

“Nothing bit you,” I say. “There’s nothing there.” I say it with total confidence. I even stand up, take my jeans out of the locker, and start changing into them.

I am getting to be quite a good liar. Not that it’s something to be proud of.

“I don’t know.” Patne looks as if he might cry. “It feels like the end of my finger might come off.”

“Is it bleeding?” asks Kim.

We all examine Patne’s finger. It’s red, but not bleeding. Inkling was careful.