Chapter 10:

The Invisible Girl

After Ralph deconstructed his trash can tower and I explained to him the difference between trash cans and regular cans, we went back into the store and I paid for my soy sauce. I was almost out the door when I remembered something.

“Mr. Mac, quick question. Do you know of a Dr. Yazzie?”

His face brightened at the sound of the name. “That’s the name of Christopher’s robotics professor at Stanford,” he said. “Very kind woman, and very smart. A really good mentor to him. I got to meet her once. Her first name was . . . Janice? Janelle? Something with a J.” He shook his head. “Boy, she would be happy to know you got Ralph up and running. Real nice lady.”

Another real robotics expert? Hm. “Thanks, Mr. Mac.”

Ralph and I headed home, and he helped Mom finish making dinner while I searched for information on Dr. Yazzie. “J Yazzie robotics Stanford” did the trick. Her biography on the university website was long. It began:

“Dr. Jacqueline Yazzie (Diné) is a Professor of Robotics at Stanford University and the director of the Center for Innovation in Personal Robotics. She is a global expert in the field of robotics, especially methods for making robots interact with humans in everyday situations. Her areas of interest include machine learning, artificial intelligence, and user-centered design.”

Then it went on with a list of the awards Dr. Yazzie had won and the universities she had attended and the robots she had designed and invented. At the bottom of the page was a photo of her shaking the president’s hand and receiving some kind of medal, and next to that, a photo of her sitting inside an enormous robot suit, holding up a steel beam with one of her robot arms and smiling at the camera like this was a completely normal thing she did every day. Below that was her email address.

Cool, I thought. Just send an email to the genius scientist lady with the giant robot suit. No big deal.

I wrote a draft of a message introducing myself, saying I had heard of her from Mr. Mac, and explaining how I had gotten Ralph to operate. I attached a video of him in the kitchen helping Mom and some photos of Christopher’s notebook pages. I had Mom read it before I sent it off so it would look sort of professional.

The next morning, no matter how much I begged her, Mom refused to let me take Ralph to school.

“But whyyyy?”

“Cut that whining out, Maya,” said Mom, hustling around the kitchen. “The answer is no.”

“I’m not whining!” Okay, I was whining.

Mom grabbed some cereal and poured it into a small container to eat on her way to work. “Let’s see,” she said, dramatically tilting her head to one side and tapping her chin. “I can think of about . . . twenty thousand reasons. Give or take.” She started ticking them off on her fingers. “He’ll distract you. He’ll distract the other kids. Someone might try to steal him. Someone might break him. Your teachers will be weirded out. And perhaps most importantly, you are supposed to be at school to do your own work. It’s not fair to have a robot sidekick. Need I say more?” She looked at Ralph, who was helping Amir put his shoes on. “I mean, can you imagine him in gym class? He would annihilate everyone in dodgeball.”

“Exactly!” I said, exasperated. “That’s why I need him. To help me! And to be my friend.”

Oops. That part slipped out. Mom squinted at me. “What do you mean, to be your friend? You have friends.”

Yeah . . . about that . . . “Nothing. Never mind, Mom. You’re right. He’ll be here when I get home.”

I didn’t want Mom to know about how lonely I felt at school. Partly because I didn’t want her to feel bad for me, partly because I was sort of embarrassed, and partly because I knew what she would tell me: that I needed to adapt and make new friends at school. Which is a lot easier said than done.

Thanks to Ralph’s help, Mom was able to get us ready for school a lot more quickly, and I got to the playground nice and early. But when I arrived at our usual fence spot, Jada and MJ were nowhere to be seen. I looked around, confused, until I spotted them standing off near the swings with two kids from their class whose names I didn’t know. They were deep in conversation and didn’t notice me. I thought about going over to them and saying hi. I even practiced out loud, whispering, my head down so no one would notice me talking to myself. Hi. Hello. Hey! What’s up? Good morning! Oh hi, MJ and Jada’s new friends. I’m Maya.

And then I thought about what their conversation would be like. Jokes and stories from Ms. Montgomery’s class. I wouldn’t have anything to add. Besides, what if the other two kids weren’t friendly?

I went over to a bench near where some first graders were playing hopscotch and sat with my back turned to the swings. I pulled out a library book from my book bag—one about the different layers of the Earth and the magma beneath the surface, with lots of pictures of volcanoes erupting. Off in the distance, I heard giggling. I looked up to see Zoe Winters and some of her friends leaning against the school building, looking right at me. Zoe was saying something and the others were laughing. I turned back to my book, curling my body into itself and tipping my face away from them. I turned page after page and pretended I didn’t care about anyone. Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry. I looked down at a picture of a volcano. That’s how I felt inside—hot as a volcano. Like a big ugly rock. Like if I wasn’t careful, my feelings were going to bubble out in a red-hot mess, wrecking everything.

“I got that one last week.”

“Huh?” Startled, I looked up. A boy was looking down at me. His light brown face was covered with freckles, and he wore plastic glasses that were slipping down his nose. He pushed them back up with his index finger. He was the tallest, burliest kid I had ever seen in the fifth grade. He looked like a football player.

“That library book. About volcanoes? I got it out from the library last week.”

Without asking, he reached out and took the book from my hands. I was too stunned to say anything. The boy flipped through the book, past the title page, to the inside cover. There was a yellowish paper pocket with the lined card inside where we wrote down our names when we wanted to take a book from the classroom library. At the bottom was my name. He pointed just above it. “Elijah. That’s me.”

I hiccuped. “I know,” I said. “You’re in my class.”

He nodded. “I’m right before you in the alphabet. Elijah Reynolds.” He held the book back toward me with one hand and held out the other, waiting for me to shake it. “I’m new. Moved here this year from Indiana.”

I shook the outstretched hand, pretending I didn’t see Zoe and her friends watching from over Elijah’s shoulder.

“So how come you’re sitting here all by yourself?”

Who did this kid think he was? “How come you’re by yourself?” Okay, not the best comeback, but direct.

Elijah’s eyes fell, and I felt bad for what I had said. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t know what you meant by the question.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. Just curious. Because you seem so cool. So I thought . . .” He trailed off.

I thought it was weird that you were sitting here alone, a friendless wonder. “My best friends are in the other class this year.”

Elijah nodded slowly, taking in what I had said. “Might be a good time to make a new friend.”

I stood up. “Yeah. Easier said than done.”

The bell rang. I started moving toward the door, dazed. Had Elijah seen me stewing before he came over? Could everyone tell how frustrated I was? Why did he want to talk to me, anyway? I stood up straight, trying my best to act normal and just stroll casually toward the door.

“Hey!” Elijah called after me. His voice echoed across the playground, and I watched a flock of birds take off from a nearby telephone wire as he shouted. I spun around, mortified, as everyone else on the playground turned to look at us.

Elijah jogged to catch up with me, then held out a hand again. In it was something small and blue. “You forgot your notebook.”

That was the last conversation I had with anyone at school that day. After that, I pretty much went through the motions, not really talking to anyone, doing my work and keeping my head down to avoid trouble from Zoe or Ms. Rodríguez or anybody else. I pretended I was an invisible girl. During independent reading time, I read Freaky Friday, about a kid who switches bodies with her mom one day. I thought about how it would feel to change my identity and become someone else. Someone as popular as Zoe, or as brilliant as Christopher or Dr. Yazzie, or as helpful as Mr. Mac. Just to try on someone else’s life for a day and not be Maya anymore.