Invisible Inkling

He moans again. I stroke his sticky fur.

“Then I lay underneath a park bench for ten minutes or so,” he continues, “trying to work up the strength to return to Betty-Ann’s. It was so depressing. Every time I sat up, there was more barf. If you don’t believe me, we can go up there tomorrow. I’m sure the barf is still under this one bench, across from the library.”

“That’s all right,” I say. “I don’t need to see it.”

“In the end,” Inkling says, “all that energy I’d had—disappeared. I was weak. My stomach was still rumbling. I knew if I just kept going past the plaza, I’d reach Atlantic Avenue. After that it would only be a short walk to your place. So I went home in defeat. I had to crawl with my floppy bits dragging on the ground. It was pitiful.”

“So you never did biff anyone?”

“No one,” he says regretfully. “And I tell you, it woulda solved everything if I had.”

Spot-Clean, or the Highway

Inkling is sticky with pumpkin barf. “You need a bath,” I tell him.

“No way. Just spot-clean me.”

“I can’t spot-clean you. I can’t see where the spots are.”

“I’m not going in the bathtub,” he says. “Just feel around my fur, and when you hit some barf, wipe it with a paper towel.”

“No way,” I tell him. “You need soap and shampoo and maybe bubble bath, too.”

“No way yourself,” says Inkling. “It’s spot-clean, or the highway.”

“You can’t go around smelling,” I threaten. “Mom will find out about you. Rootbeer will bite you.”

“Leave me alone!”

“What’s the problem?” I say. “You love the water. You’re related to the otters of the Canadian underbrushlands, remember?”

“Fine,” Inkling grumbles. “But run the bath and then give me some privacy, okay? I am perfectly capable of using shampoo without your help, thank you very much.”

I do what he says. I turn on the water and go back to bed. I’m asleep almost as soon as I lie down—but I start awake again at five a.m., because I hear the water running.

Still?

Did Inkling forget to turn it off? Did he flood the bathroom? Did he hurt himself in there and couldn’t turn the water off because he was at death’s door?

I hurl myself up and rush into the bathroom, expecting to find the floor soaked in water, an overflowing tub, and a half-dead invisible bandapat somewhere, unconscious.

Everything’s fine.

The tub is full of fresh bubbles. The water is a safe distance from the top. The bathroom is clean.

Inkling is in the tub, backstroking like an otter. A cluster of bubbles hangs off one ear. His tail is splashing gently.

What?

What?

Inkling.

He’s in the tub.

I can see him.

They Only Have Teeny-Tiny Brains

I don’t need to write down the shouting and toweling and blow-drying that occurs next.

It isn’t pretty.

Inkling is for-serious mad that I barged in on him in the bathroom and saw his floppy bits.

I am for-serious mad that he never told me he was visible when wet.

Inkling is for-serious mad that I won’t leave the bathroom once I get in.

I am for-serious mad that he is floating around visible when Mom is going to be up any minute and coming in to take a shower.

Enough to say that we get him dry and invisible before anyone sees him, and I go off to school with Nadia.

“Jacquie’s having trouble with Derek and Teakettle,” Nadia tells me, as we stand on line for take-out coffee and corn muffins at the diner.

“What do you mean?”

“The pygmy hedgies keep fighting,” she says. “They don’t like each other.”

“Why not?”

“Who knows? They’re hedgehogs. We can’t know what they’re thinking. They only have teeny-tiny brains. But Jacquie said that hedgies sometimes don’t like living with each other. They’re happier alone. She should never have gotten two.”

“Why did she get two?”

“She said two were cuter than one.”

“What’s she going to do?”

“She talked about bringing one of them to a shelter. Can you believe her?”

A wave of sadness washes over me. “You mean Jacquie would just, like, drop Derek off at the Animal League?”

“Not Derek. Teakettle. She likes Derek better.”

“I don’t care which one,” I snap. “It’s just so mean.”

“That’s Jacquie for you,” says Nadia, paying for our food. “She doesn’t think about others. That’s why I’m only halfway friends with her now.”

“Why are you even halfway friends?”

Nadia shrugs. “She’s funny. Don’t you have halfway friends?”

We eat our corn muffins and Nadia drinks her coffee as we walk. “Yeah,” I finally say. “I do.”

“Like who?”

“None of your business.”

“Are they people you want to be total friends with?” she asks. “Or do you not like them enough to be total friends?”

I shrug.

“It’s those guys from swimming,” Nadia says with authority.

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“Fine.”

“So do you want to be total friends? Should Mom call their moms and ask them over?”

“Ahhhhhh!” I yell. “Mom asked you to ask me that, didn’t she? You only started talking about Jacquie so you could work your way around to asking me about Kim and Patne.”

Nadia looks sheepish. “You kinda busted me, yeah.”

“Ahhhhhh!” I yell again.