Wake up. Shower. Eat. Read. Talk to Mom. Watch TV. Talk to Mom. Eat. Nap. Listen to jazz. Read. Talk to Dad. Watch TV. Go online. Talk to Mom. Eat. Practice my trumpet. Worry. Watch TV. Read. Talk to Mom. Nap.
So that’s Wednesday, my second thrilling day as Bobby the Missing Person. It’s weird not having anybody around. It makes it so easy to think. Too easy. Because unless the tube is on or there’s music playing, it’s just me, thinking. Until Mom calls again. And again.
When she calls in the morning, she wants me to tell her everything I’m doing, like every second. Starting with the cab ride home from the hospital last night. And she hopes that I remembered to turn on the alarm system. And why didn’t I call her, which I did, but she was too messed up to remember to turn the phone on. And have I remembered to water the plants? Because the ivy in the front hall needs a half cup of water every other day or it droops. And did I do my homework? What do I mean, I couldn’t get the assignments? So if no one is online, then you just call them on the telephone. Have kids today forgotten how to use the telephone? What do I mean that I didn’t want to talk to anyone last night? Am I feeling all right? Am I eating nutritious foods? I’m not just eating junk, am I? Because that’s the worst thing for my complexion.
Fifteen minutes of that, and I’m ready to scream and yank the phone out of the wall. The only good thing is that she doesn’t have a charger there in the hospital. I’m guessing the batteries on her cell phone give out pretty soon. But then she’ll just get a regular phone put in her room. So there’s no escape. I’m missing the old Mom, who would show up once or twice a day, give an order, and then get on with her busy life. Suddenly, it seems like I’m her life.
Dad sounds all right when he calls me about noon. And I’m glad, because I need Dad’s help. I mean, like, what if the accident had messed up his head? But that clearly has not happened. Because first he explains exactly how he’s hurt. Exactly, like he’d been the surgeon himself, or like he was awake the whole time, taking notes. Then he tells me how he’s been thinking about my “situation.” I can tell there’s another person in the room with him because he’s not being specific.
He says, “Regarding your, um, situation, Bobby, I’ve been running through some possible cause scenarios.” Possible cause scenarios. That’s vintage Dad. He says, “The second I get out of here, I’d like to run some tests at the lab. Maybe put a sliver of your fingernail under the electron microscope, maybe try to get a reading from a spectrometer, things like that. Plus, there are dozens of very fine papers in the journals of the past ten years—things about light and energy, subatomic refraction, ideas that could give us some good science as a starting point, you know, so we can generate a theory about what’s going on here. Sound good?”
I say, “Yeah, I guess.” But then I say, “How come we don’t just do detective work? Because it could have been anything that caused this, right? Like maybe I ate a chunk of irradiated beef at the school cafeteria. Or maybe we lived too close to some big power lines down in Texas. Or maybe I inherited something from you, because you’re the one who’s been smashing atoms for twenty years. Shouldn’t we just start looking for clues?”
Because I’ve been thinking too. Dad’s not the only guy in the world with a brain.
Dad says, “Yeees,” drawing out the word while his gears are turning, “you’ve got some good points there—but we have to start somewhere, and for me, that means finding a theory.”
Who’s surprised? With Dad, it all gets back to theory. That’s what he does all day long: He theorizes. Has he ever actually even seen one of these atoms he studies year after year? No. He looks at made-up pictures of things that are invisible and comes up with theories. I don’t want theories. I need some action.
I’m not saying anything, and it’s too long a pause, so Dad starts talking again. “Maybe you could go online this afternoon, Bobby. You could go to the website of the journal Science and do some poking around, search their database for articles on light, do some reading—okay?”
I don’t want to argue with an invalid, so I say, “Yeah, I’ll check it out.” But when we hang up, I turn on the tube and tune in to a John Wayne festival on AMC. Because a John Wayne movie is an almost perfect cure for Dad’s kind of thinking. With John Wayne, it’s all about action.
My big event for Wednesday is when Mrs. Trent comes to the front door about two o’clock—just as the Duke is revving up his War Wagon. The doorbell rings, and I trot to the front hall. I can tell it’s her. She makes a very wide shadow on the frosted glass.
She rings a second time, and I make my voice sound kind of weak, and I call out, “Hello? Who’s there?”
“Bobby? It’s Mrs. Trent…from next door. I heard about your parents. You poor dear, are you all alone in that big old place? I saw the lights come on last night, so I thought you must be there, but I didn’t see you leave for school this morning, so I’ve been worried about you, and I thought I would bring over some cookies.”
It’s the old “get your foot in the door with some cookies” trick. She really does bake amazing cookies. With Mrs. Trent, sometimes it’s cookies, sometimes it’s a question about how to make her VCR work, or maybe it’s a piece of our junk mail that got delivered to her house. Anything’ll do. And once Mrs. Trent gets into the front hall, it takes at least twenty minutes to get her out again.
I’m not sure what to say, but I guess I have to go with what Mom told the hospital, so I say, “My great-aunt Ethel is staying with me till my folks come home. She came late last night. And I’m at home because I’ve got the flu. And Aunt Ethel told me to come to the door because she’s in the bathtub, but I shouldn’t open the door…because of the flu…and because it’s cold.” Sounds lame to me, probably to Mrs. Trent too.
But all she says through the door is, “Well, that’s fine. I just wanted to be sure you were all right, Bobby, so I’ll leave the cookies here on the porch, and your aunt can fetch them inside a little later. Now, you run along and get back into bed.”
“Okay. Thanks a lot, Mrs. Trent. And I talked with my mom and my dad today, and they’re both doing fine.”
But she’s already down the steps and waddling across the brown grass on her tiny front lawn. I peek through the glass, and I can see that she put the cookies down about five feet from the door. That’s because Mrs. Trent is smarter than she looks, plus she has a big nose. With the cookies that far out on the porch, Mrs. Trent can sit in her front window and get a sideways look at whoever comes out to retrieve them. She wants to have a gander at Aunt Ethel.
About ten minutes later Mrs. Trent sees the storm door swing open on our front porch. Then this short plump person with stooped shoulders wearing a long pink terry cloth robe and fuzzy blue slippers shuffles out to the cookies, bends down slowly, picks up the plate, turns around, and shuffles back to the door. Mrs. Trent doesn’t get a good look at Aunt Ethel for three reasons. First, the collar on the pink robe is turned up; second, there’s a bath towel wrapped around her head; and third, the real Aunt Ethel is about twelve hundred miles southeast of here.
And as a reward for my first major acting role, I have a whole plate of chocolate-chip macadamia nut cookies to myself. They’re gone by the end of the third John Wayne movie.
But apart from my big performance on the front porch, Wednesday is mostly boring. But I don’t get scared at all Wednesday night.
And then it’s Thursday.
Wake up. Shower. Eat. Worry. Watch TV. Talk to Mom. Worry. Watch TV. Worry. Talk to Dad. Read. Worry. Eat. Worry. Read. Worry. Talk to Dad. Worry. Talk to Mom. Worry. Listen to jazz. Talk to Mom. Worry. Worry. Worry. Nap.
I even worry during my nap.
So Thursday is pretty much like Wednesday, only worse.
Besides the worry, it’s worse because it’s a beautiful day outside, one of those trick days near the end of February in Chicago when it feels like spring, except you know there’s going to be six or eight more weeks of cold and snow and sleet. But a day like this actually makes you want to go outside and throw a Frisbee or something.
And it’s worse because Mom and Dad are doing a lot better and they feel like they have to call me all the time now—which is something new for them.
And it’s worse because I’m starting to see what’s happening to my life.
Because it’s not like I wanted this. It’s not like I’m some mad scientist who planned and studied and dreamed about becoming invisible all his life, and now it’s happened, so now I can use my powers to take over the world. It’s not like that, not when it’s really happening.
And I can just hear some guys at my school talking about this. They’d go, “Whoa! You’re invisible? And you’re bummed about it? Like, what’s your problem? Go with the flow, dude. Check out the girls’ locker room. Check out the jewelry store. Go to the bank and learn some codes, man. Go work for the CIA, you know, like James Bond, only better. Invisible. That’s so cool!”
Because if that’s what some kid is thinking, that’s because it’s not happening to him. He’s not facing it all day and all night, what it really means. This isn’t a movie where you watch it for two hours and then it ends, and then you climb into a car and you talk about how the movie was while you go to get pizza with some friends.
This isn’t like that. This is my life.
And what’s happening means that suddenly my life is completely off track. It’s like a train wreck, and I’m pinned down, trapped. And it’s starting to feel like this is permanent. What if I never change back to the way I was? What then? Do I have to keep it a secret forever, like a spy who can never tell his wife and kids who he really is? Hah! What wife and kids?
Right now it feels like I’m never going to get to be on my own. Like, never even get my driver’s license, or go away to college. Never buy a car or get a job or have my own apartment. Never!
And how would I live?
And where? Am I going to have to stay in this house with my parents? Forever?
I’m pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the TV room, back and forth, and my whole life is on hold. I’m waiting for something to happen. I’m waiting for Mom to come home and Dad to think and Mrs. Trent to bake more cookies and the school to call and the sun to go down and the sun to come up again tomorrow. It’s like my life is supposed to be playing, but the VCR is on pause and the screen is blank and maybe the whole rest of the tape is erased.
So I go down the steps from the kitchen and out the side door. That’s the door away from Mrs. Trent’s house. I turn off the alarm. I peel off my clothes, all of them. I take the key out of my jeans pocket, and I go outside and tuck it inside the drainpipe beside the steps.
And I go around the front corner of the house and walk west, right past Mrs. Trent’s window. The weatherman said it was going to be unseasonably warm, and for once it was the truth.
It’s about 65 degrees, so it feels like when the air conditioner is up on high. I can bear it, so I’m going for a walk. Today. Right now. In the sunshine. Because I can. Because I want to. Because I’m not going to just sit around and wait for stuff to happen anymore. I’m still me, and I have a life. It’s a weird life, but it’s still mine.
It’s still mine.