THE INVISIBLE KID

AND DR. POOF'S MAGIC SOAP

Terry and Wayne Baltz

Cover Design & Illustration by Gary Raham

A Red Feather Book

PRAIRIE DIVIDE PRODUCTIONS

Red Feather Lakes, Colorado

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues in this book are all products of the authors' rampant imaginations and are not to be construed as real. Except, of course, while you are reading the story. And unless possibly all of this really did happen and no one told them about it.

Published by Prairie Divide Productions

P.O. Box 129

Red Feather Lakes, CO 80545

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 93-87287

Printed in the U.S.A.

Text printed with soy ink on 100% recycled paper manufactured without the use of elemental chlorine.

ISBN 1-884610-11-0

For

Julie, Derek, David

and

invisible kids everywhere

THE INVISIBLE KID

AND DR. POOF'S MAGIC SOAP

One

I always wanted to be invisible. But I never expected it to really happen.

When I was little I used to prowl around the house pretending to be the One And Only Invisible Detective. I could see everybody and nobody could see me. That was better than even Sherlock Holmes.

But when I invisibly detected my sister, Penny, kissing her boyfriend behind the oak tree in our back yard, she didn't call me Sherlock Holmes. She called me "The Little Snoop."

And when I invisibly detected my mom wrapping a big box before my birthday she said, "Cassandra Ann, don't you have something to do?"

And when I got up one time in the middle of the night and invisibly detected my dad in the kitchen making a sandwich he said, "Hi, Casey. Want some peanut butter?"

But all that was before I got mixed up with Dr. Poof and my friend Kathleen's weird Uncle Terence O'Toole. That's when I really did get invisible.

And that's when all the trouble began.

* * *

It was the last day of fifth grade. Kathleen and I go to different schools in St. Louis County. She's in private, I'm in public. But both our schools let out the same day that year and I rushed over to her house so we could celebrate our freedom together. I burst in the front door without knocking and yelled, "Kathleen!" Nobody answered and I thought nobody was home.

Tap, tap, tap. That was a familiar sound. The basement door was open and I could hear Uncle Terence hammering away down there. Probably working on shoes again. He was always working on shoes, especially since he quit his job at the university. I tiptoed down the stairs to surprise him. But half way down I froze. Sweat beaded on my forehead.

I saw an odd-looking shoe in some kind of vise on Uncle Terence's workbench. A row of tiny nailheads stuck out of the sole. And above it, swinging in a graceful arc, a small hammer drove the nails in one by one.

Only nobody was swinging the hammer. Not Uncle Terence, not anybody. The room was empty.

I dashed up the stairs, my heart pounding through my chest, tripped on the top step and landed hard in the doorway. After checking for broken bones I wondered if my imagination had gotten the better of me. That's what my dad always says: "Your imagination's getting the better of you." When I was little he was saying it at least twice a week when I scrambled downstairs after seeing a ghost in my closet. He would walk me back up to my room and patiently search through my closet and under my bed without finding any ghosts. Then he would scruffle my hair and say, "Feel better?" And I would say, "Yes." Only I didn't feel better, because what does it really prove if you can't find a ghost?

As soon as the blood stopped jackhammering in my head I called out, "Uncle Terence?" No answer. I forced myself back down the stairs, stopping on every step, scrunching way down to see what I could before going further. All the way to the bottom.

There was nobody. Nothing. The shoe was in the vise, the hammer lay on the table. Like a hammer should when no one's around. I edged toward it, holding my breath and moving slower than a fish in mud. Then, with a lightning-fast move I grabbed it right behind the head, like it was a snake, pinning it to the table top. It didn't squirm or try to get away.

After about a minute of high-pressure pinning I began to feel a little silly. And my fingers started to cramp. I picked the hammer up with two hands, still keeping a tight grip. But the hammer-snake was dead. I had been letting my imagination get the better of me.

I put the tool back on the workbench and crept up the stairs, wondering the whole time what the hammer was doing now, and trying hard not to look behind me. I jumped inside my skin to see Kathleen in the hall.

"Hi, Casey. Have you seen Uncle Terence?" she said.

"No. It wasn't Uncle Terence."

"What do you mean? Who wasn't Uncle Terence?"

"I saw . . . I mean, I thought I saw . . . I mean I thought I heard him downstairs. But when I went down I didn't see anything. Nothing." She looked at me suspiciously. "Honest," I said.

"Casey, you're acting weird. What's going on?"

"I told you. Nothing." Kathleen tapped her foot impatiently. "Okay," I said, "so maybe I was just letting my imagination get the better of me a little bit."

"Oh. So what else is new?" She pulled two softball gloves out of the hall closet. "I swear, Casey, I don't know who is more strange, Uncle Terence or you."

Kathleen's Uncle Terence has always been unusual but since last fall when he quit his job he's taken to just vanishing at times. Kathleen and her parents can't find him in his bedroom or in his basement workroom. Sometimes he shows up in an hour. Sometimes in a day or two. Once he was gone for over a month. When Kathleen asked him about it he said he'd gone home. Kathleen said this was his home. Which was true: he and her father grew up in that house. He didn't argue but he didn't tell her any more, either. Just that he'd had to go. And that he was sorry for worrying her. Pretty soon he was back to his usual routine, making shoes. Lots of shoes. I don't know what he does with them.

Kathleen slapped one of the gloves against my stomach. "Let's play some ball," she said. "We've got our outfield back."

"The trailer's gone again?"

"Yep." We headed around the corner for the vacant lot.

We use it for choose-up games. It really belongs to the county, which hasn't had the money to make a park out of it. They rented the space to a small circus company last October, and when it left a couple of the carnival hands stayed behind with their trailer. I've never seen them but the trailer comes and goes and we never know for sure when the outfield's going to be clear.

Kathleen pounded the ball in the pocket of her glove. "I hope we can round up enough kids."

A lot of times it's hard to get a game going since most of the kids in the neighborhood like to watch television after school. I would never choose TV over a good ball game.

It's not that I don't watch TV. I do, but mostly only after midnight, when the really good movies are on. Like Revenge of the Mud People last night. My family doesn't know I do this late night watching because I set the alarm clock in my mind to wake me up at a certain time. Mind alarm clocks are an important detective tool because they don't make any sound. Then I sneak down to the kitchen and pull the portable TV under the table with me. I only do it once in a while, otherwise I'd get too tired and people would begin to wonder why. And too many people asking questions isn't good for a detective.

Anyway, I was tired after watching Mud People. I felt more like taking a nap than playing ball, but it was the last day of school and I wanted to celebrate. To my surprise, a lot of kids showed up and it looked like we'd be able to get a good game going. Mr. Bumps was there, too, waiting for me. He does that a lot -- showing up where I am even though he didn't go there with me. Sometimes I think he can read my mind.

His full name is Mr. Harold T. Bumps and he appeared at our door about seven months ago. I remember because it was Halloween night. Cold, with snowy rain. I had just returned with my loot. "Here I am!" I announced, expecting a great "hurrah" or something. My dad grunted, Penny left the room dramatically, and my mom pulled my ghost sheet from where it was caught in the door. "How did you ever get this so dirty?" she wailed, as though it were a family heirloom.

That's when we heard the bump. It wasn't a knock. It was definitely a bump. I opened the door. A blast of freezing air poured in but that was it. I was closing the door against the bitter wind when a small black and white terrier dog walked right in. He shook himself from nose to tail and plopped down on the rug as if he'd always lived here. I named him that very night: Mr. Harold T. Bumps. I liked the sound of it. Mr. Bumps for short. Bumps for shorter.

Bumps sat on the sidelines watching the game. Kathleen played left, I covered center, and Jay Randolph was right fielder. Nobody's much of a hitter. Sometimes we stand out there the whole game with nothing to do.

"What's your uncle up to these days?" I shouted over to Kathleen while waiting for another Babe Ruth to come up to bat.

She shrugged. "Same old thing. Puttering in the basement."

"But what was he doing today, for example?"

"How should I know? I go to school, too, remember?"

Sometimes Kathleen gets exasperated at Uncle Terence and doesn't want to talk about him. She gets very disgusted with his disappearances and with his habits of smoking a pipe and drinking a "wee too much" as he likes to describe it. "But darlin'," I heard him tell her once, "I need my pipe to think. I need my whiskey to dream." She said, "I think, I dream, without the help of either." And she tapped her foot. She always does that when she's getting mad. "You're right, Kathleen, darlin'," he answered lightly. But there was a sadness in his eyes as he returned to the basement. I never understood why he gave in so easily since Kathleen isn't really much of a dreamer. On the other hand, I certainly am, and I don't need either, either.

I was considering what to tell Kathleen about the strange goings on in her basement when nosey Eddie Maskit came up to bat. What a pest he'd been all year. Ball one. If he wasn't asking the teacher stupid questions, he was pestering me. Following me around on the playground -- strike one -- and asking me a lot of personal things. "You look tired," he'd say. "What did you do, watch Revenge of the Mud People last night?"

Once he actually made me late for school -- strike two -- asking me all kinds of nosey questions about where Bumps came from and why he was named that and what the "T." stood for. He just went on and on and I wouldn't tell him anything and then, to spite him, I refused to get off the bus. Ball two. So did he. Then the driver got mad at us because we wouldn't get off and finally he left for his junior high route and I had to sit there with eighth and ninth graders and Eddie, which was the absolute worst hour of my life. I could live without him around. Believe me. Maybe I could feed him to the Mud People.

I was thinking about how much I hate Eddie when he hit a long, high fly out to center. The ball shot over my head like a rocket and I took out after it, knowing I didn't have a chance and that Eddie would be razzing me about his homer for the rest of my life.

Then a weird thing happened. Just before the ball landed it seemed to reverse course, and when it hit the ground it rolled right toward me. It was like it hit a wall or something. Only there wasn't any wall, or anything. Just clover, wild onions, and butterflies.

"Get the ball! Get the ball!" Kathleen and Jay yelled, rushing toward me from either side like crazed lunatics. I grabbed the ball, and shot it back to the infield. Eddie was out at third.

* * *

After the game I hung around and, when everyone else had gone home, I went back out to center field. Bumps came, too. I stood where I was when the fly ball went overhead. From there I slowly worked my way deeper into the outfield.

But not slowly enough. Bam! I grabbed at the sudden, burning pain in my knee. Bumps barked ferociously. There was something in front of us. Something very large and solid.

Something invisible.

Two

"What do you mean, the trailer's on the lot but it's invisible?" Kathleen demanded the next day when I told her what had happened. She tapped her foot and sent the porch swing into a nervous wobble.

"Just what I said. The ball bounced off it. Don't tell me you didn't see that!"

"The wind was blowing a gale out of center field," she insisted, tapping and turning the swing into a carnival ride. "Or there was a spin on the ball, probably." She huffed the way grown-ups do when they can't imagine something because it isn't right in front of them. Grown-ups miss out on a lot of good stuff that way. "Your imagination's getting the better of you again," she said, putting on twenty years in the space of a single sentence. I was getting mad. I mean, your best friend should believe you.

"I'm getting mad," I said. "Your best friend should believe you."

"But it's ridiculous. An invisible trailer. Anyway, what are you complaining about? He was out at third." She jumped off the seat and stormed into the house.

"Yeah, well that doesn't make my knee feel any better, does it?" I grumbled as I put the brakes on the swing.

Uncle Terence was sitting on a slatted chair at the far end of the porch. The odd thing was that I didn't see him before. I thought Kathleen and I were alone.

Like I said, he's Kathleen's uncle, not mine. But I've known him since I was little and everybody calls him Uncle Terence and he told me I should, too. Which I was glad of, because I don't even have an uncle.

He has red hair, mostly. It's turning gray around the edges, though, and he's a little bald. Which is easy for me to see because I'm the same height as he is, even though I'm eleven and only the fifth tallest girl in my class, and I guess he is at least forty-five or even fifty. Mostly it's his legs that are short. So short that, sitting there in the chair, his feet didn't touch the floor. His shoes, as usual, were strange. They were black, and square in the front, and each one had a large silver buckle on the top. I guess he made them himself because I've certainly never seen shoes like that in any store.

I've always liked Uncle Terence but he was scaring me now, just sitting there, nodding his head at me. And the pointy tips of his ears seemed to accuse me with each dip of his head.

I decided to take the offensive. "Do you know about the invisible trailer?" I asked. He raised his head and looked at me but didn't say anything. "What's going on around here?" I said. "Yesterday in the basement I saw your hammer moving in mid air without anybody holding it. Then nosey Eddie's fly ball is stopped by an invisible trailer. And now you suddenly appear on the porch out of nowhere." By then I was on my feet and kind of jumping up and down. In an agitated state, my sister would say.

Uncle Terence stood up and came over to me, his eyebrows scrunched together on his worried face. He put his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly way, a short fatherly way, and looked right at me. "If you hide from others, you only hide from yourself," he said. He said it very softly, as if he were speaking to himself. I waited for more but he just seemed lost in thought. After a while his eyes glazed over and I wasn't even sure he knew I was there.

"Thank you," I said, not knowing what else to do.

We shook hands. Uncle Terence always shakes my hand when we part, but he held on longer this time and his eyes, black and piercing again, told me to please give up whatever it was I was up to. Maybe I should have listened.

Instead, I raced back to the lot. I was surprised to find that it wasn't vacant anymore. The trailer was back. Or was it visible again?

I walked up to the trailer and around and around to the side away from the street, looking for clues. I found two signs, one on each side of the door. One said:

DR. POOF'S MAGIC TONIC

Makes Your Ills Disappear

Enjoy Perfect Health and Tranquility

Free Introductory Sample

And on the other side:

FORTUNES

Told By

Madame Helena Farsight

Adept in Palm Reading

and

Crystal Ball Gazing

Free Introductory Session

Magic tonic? Fortunes? Icy tingles cascaded down my spine. This was weird -- better than any late, late superthriller on TV! Something was going on and Dr. Poof and Madame Farsight were definitely in the thick of it since it was their trailer that was playing peek-a-boo. But to figure it all out I would have to be clever. And careful.

I formed my plan right then. I would go in and ask for a free sample of magic tonic and a fortune and, when they weren't looking, snoop around all I could. Ask a lot of carefully worded trick questions, like detectives do, so nobody knows what I'm really after. It seemed like a sure-fire plan. Maybe a little short on details, but great detectives have to think on their feet.

I knocked, ready for anything.

Three

The door eased open. And it squeaked, just like in the movies. When the gap was no more than a foot wide Bumps came dashing around the corner of the trailer, scampered up the steps, and disappeared inside.

The door was closing. I squeezed in after him.

It was like walking into a darkened theater from a bright, sunny day. When I could see again, the show began.

Bumps was in the arms of a tall, thin, dark-haired man who wore an outfit like I've only seen at the circus. His pajama-like pants were purple, red, and orange and his shirt was bright blue. But he didn't have a clown face on.

"Welcome," he said, petting Bumps and staring at me from beneath caterpillar eyebrows. Like I was the strange one!

A woman came from the other end of the trailer. She was short and a little plump. She wore a full skirt of splashy bright colors, a red blouse, and a purple ribbon around her short, curly, jet-black hair. "I thought I heard a bump" -- the man's nod toward me stopped her -- "Oh. Company?" She sounded both surprised and pleased. "Well, come in, child. Sit down. Take a load off." She indicated a chair at a large round table that filled up most of the room. "What can we help you with today?"

"First of all I want my dog back," I said, thinking on my feet while Bumps wagged his tail and licked the man's chin.

Bumps is a friendly dog. He sleeps in my bed most nights and watches movies with me under the table and he follows me everywhere. But I've never seen him so friendly with anyone else. It bothered me.

"Give the little one her dog, dearest." She pointed from Bumps to me with fingers capped by inch-long red finger nails. "You must forgive us, child. This is the great Doctor Poof. He has powers even with a little dog he's never seen before. No harm was meant." The great Doctor Poof held Bumps out to me and I took him. Bumps looked back at Dr. Poof and fluttered his tail. Under a spell, I decided, and held him close. "My name is Helena. You can call me Madame Farsight. And I will call you `little one.' All right, little one? All right."

She didn't give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. A word like "No!" for example.

"Now let me look into the crystal ball for you. You sit right here." She pushed me into a plastic and metal chair. "And I'll sit over there, all right? Ready?"

My mouth was hanging open. I didn't seem to be thinking too well anymore, on my feet or off them. She leaned over me very close as she talked and she smelled bitter, like burning leaves.

Finally, she shut up and sat down across the table from me. I held on to Mr. Bumps. Madame Farsight was in slow motion now, waving her hand over the crystal ball, repeating, as if to herself, "Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey see, monkey do." That's what it sounded like to me. "Monkey see, monkey do." I almost laughed, but she wasn't laughing. Her eyes got all glassy and she sat perfectly still. Her breathing got slower and deeper.

"Remember the tortoise and the hare," she said. Her voice was high and warbly, not like her own at all. There was a long silence. Oh yeah, I remembered, the tortoise wins the race when everyone expects the hare to win.

"No," Madame Farsight said sharply, in the strange new voice. Had I said something? I didn't think so. "The tortoise wants to know about the hare and about all others and about all things," she warbled. "But she does not want to be known herself. She hides inside her shell and thinks she is invisible. But the hare sees her anyway, and knows her better than if she did not hide. In the end, only she who hides is fooled."

She sat up straight and looked right at me, her eyes focused and back to normal. "Well, little one, that's it. That's my free introductory. How did you like it?" It was her usual voice. I tried to mumble something polite so I could get out of there fast, but my tongue wouldn't work. "What did I say?" she asked. "I never remember afterwards, you know."

A little kid, about two or three years old, lumbered out of the back room. Madame Farsight got up, ran to him, scooped him into her arms and said, "Madame Farsight will play with you in a minute, Kevin."

Kevin had blue eyes, blond hair, and wore totally normal clothes. He didn't look anything like his parents. And Kevin didn't even sound like the name of a child belonging to Dr. Poof and Madame Farsight. A child of theirs should be called Merlin or Zodiac.

"I should take him outside for a while," Dr. Poof said.

"No, you can't take him out yet," she said quickly, moving away from the door with him. To me she said, "His skin is fair. He burns easily."

Who does she think she's fooling? Does she think I've never heard of kidnaping? Does she think she's dealing with an amateur here? I started inching my way toward the door. But Dr. Poof was there, holding a bottle and a small paper cup.

"Want to try some magic tonic?" he asked and pushed the cup toward me.

Oh, no you don't. I'm not taking any sleeping potion so you can kidnap me, too, I shouted inside my head. But Dr. Poof stood there, cup in hand, blocking my escape.

"I have to use the bathroom," I said, backing away from the table into a chair and almost falling over the couch. "Excuse me," I mumbled to the furniture. I held Bumps even tighter to my chest, ran down the hall, into the bathroom, closed the door and locked it.

It was a cramped room and I saw at once there was no window. Bad luck. I couldn't stay in there all day. And there was no way out except the way I came in.

I searched the shower. For what? A weapon? Incriminating evidence? Nothing there but a bottle of shampoo and a half-used bar of soap. Underwear hung on a line suspended above the tiny tub. The medicine cabinet had the usual stuff and it hardly seemed worth looking in the cabinet under the miniature wash bowl. But I was wrong. Something was there: a little box, high up in the back, almost out of sight, and taped to the wall. Hidden, I'd call it.

I reached in and carefully removed the tape. It was a little box, midnight-blue, with stars all over it. I opened it.

Inside was just a bar of soap. Not like the one in the shower, though, or like any I'd ever seen. It was cut into a rough rectangle and didn't have any picture or company name stamped into it. Following detective intuition I slid it back into the box and slipped the box into my pocket to check out later. Then I plotted my escape.

Brute force and blinding speed seemed like a good plan. I burst out of the bathroom, prepared to pulverize anybody between me and the outside door. But nobody tried to stop me. In fact, Dr. Poof was nowhere in sight and Madame Farsight just watched as I flashed by. Bumps whined a little as I jerked open the door and jumped the three steps to the ground in a single leap. Then I ran home faster than I've ever run before. Faster than when I was little and the ghosts were after me. Faster even than in track with Eddie Maskit coming up on my heels with his sweaty armpits and stinky breath.

For a second I thought I saw Eddie on the sidewalk near home plate but when I looked again there was nobody. I roared by without stopping to check.

* * *

I spent a very uneventful evening hiding my excitement from my family. It isn't too hard: nobody at my house ever expects anything interesting to happen anyway, so they tend not to notice when it does. I decided to shower and go to bed early.

I couldn't resist using the new soap. It smelled a little strange, like leaves burning in the fall. Like Madame Farsight, in fact. I felt bad about stealing the soap and made up my mind to return it as soon as I got the chance, and the courage to go back.

And I had to go back. I hadn't found out anything I'd gone there to find out.

I got into bed thinking I was probably exaggerating everything. Babies don't always look like their parents. Maybe he was adopted. And Kevin is a perfectly good name. Why couldn't Madame Farsight and Dr. Poof have named their baby Kevin?

Invisible trailer! I had to admit, it was a little hard to believe. Maybe I'd even apologize to Kathleen. I drifted off to sleep, pretty much convinced I'd let my imagination get the better of me.

But that was before I woke up to discover that sometime during the night I had disappeared.

Four

It was early and the windows were just getting some light. I swung one leg over the side of the bed. And screamed. There wasn't any foot sticking out of the bottom of my pajamas. I threw off the sheet and looked at the other leg. No foot there either. Little squeaky sounds slipped out of my mouth as I raised my arms to rub my eyes awake. Empty pajama sleeves hung in the air in front of me.

I fell out of bed in a panic. Ow! I did have hands and they were plenty sore from breaking my fall. I reached to where my feet should be. Something there felt like feet even if I couldn't see them. I stood up, wobbled like I do on the balance log at the playground, and fell down again.

"Casey?" My mother's voice registered somewhere in the back of my brain.

I got myself up once more and scooted across the floor like a first-time skater. In the full-length mirror on the wall I saw a pair of empty pajamas, upright and jerking along about three inches above the floor. No feet. No hands. No head!

I inched my way over to the mirror and extended a trembling invisible finger toward the glass. Touching it, I snapped my wrist back, as though I'd burned my finger on a hot stove. After a few more practice touches I was all over the mirror with both hands. A trail of smudges followed my sleeve cuffs across the glass.

The mirror felt the same as usual. So did my hands. I just couldn't see them. I leaned forward and exhaled. A tiny mist clouded the glass, then disappeared. I looked inside my pajamas: all I could see were washing instructions and the floor.

I was invisible.

"Casey, are you all right?" Mom again, closer. I had to answer.

"I'm okay, Mom. Just fell out of bed." That seemed better than, "Help, help, I'm invisible!" Let's face it, sometimes honesty is not the best policy.

There was a bump at my door. Mr. Bumps, probably. I peered through the gap along the bottom to make sure. Dog feet. I opened the door a little and Bumps waggled through. Once inside though, he stopped abruptly, sat down, and whined. I closed the door.

"It's all right, Bumps." He shuddered and a nervous yip popped out like a hiccup. "It's all right." I reached to pet him and he jumped back, growling at my sleeve.

"Bumps, it's me," I whispered. "Come here. C'mon, boy. It's just me." His ears stood up straight and so did the hair on his neck. He came to me, but he resisted each step, sniffing the air for danger. I put my hand under his nose. He licked it and finally let me stroke him. His hair and ears relaxed and he sort of leaned into my hand. But he still whined like he didn't like it one bit. I petted him and petted him.

* * *

Knock. Knock.

I jolted awake from a wild dream that I was invisible. Bumps lay against my leg, asleep. I reached to scratch his ear. No hand. It wasn't a dream.

Knock. Knock. "Casey, are you there?" Mom's voice.

"Maybe she's still asleep." Kathleen.

"She was up an hour ago. Said she fell out of bed. Casey?"

There was a note of worry in her voice and I knew she would come in. Better they see nothing than this, I thought, and threw off the pajamas. They landed in a limp pile and the mirror showed that I was -- gone!

In they came. I held my breath. Mom marched right toward me but I sidestepped to my desk. The only thing is, I knocked into my chair. It was only a little noise but enough to make Kathleen jump a foot.

"What was that?" she said.

"That's strange. I guess she's gone out," Mom said. "What was what?"

"That noise."

"Oh, Mr. Bumps I guess," she said absently as she picked up my pajamas. Kathleen stared at Bumps, who was sitting like a statue. I could tell she was suspicious, but she kept quiet. Good old Kathleen.

"I'm sure she hasn't gone far," Mom said.

"May I wait for her here?" She's my pal.

"I guess so. She probably won't be long. She hasn't had any breakfast yet."

"Thanks, Mrs. Granger."

I thought my mom would leave then but she didn't. She just stood there, looking around the room. She does things like that once in a while but I didn't like that she was doing it right now. She stared in my direction for what seemed like forever.

"What's that?" she said, pointing at me. My heart stopped.

"What?" Kathleen asked.

"There in the corner," she said, pointing harder. I couldn't breathe.

"Looks like Casey's" -- it's all over, I thought -- "softball glove," Kathleen said.

"Oh. Good. I thought it was a pile of greasy rags or something." I twisted around, careful not to make a sound. There behind me was my glove. She'd seen it right through me. Oh boy, this was getting better and better. "I guess I'm a little nervous about what she gets into," Mom continued, "after that fire with the chemistry set last winter."

"She said it was just a little fire," Kathleen defended.

My mother smiled the Grown-Up smile. "I'm sure she did, dear. They just seem so much bigger when they're right there in your kitchen."

"Yes, ma'am." Kathleen's very polite. She also knows when to fold 'em.

"I'll send Casey up if I see her," Mom said on her way out.

"Thanks, Mrs. Granger."

Mom's footsteps faded as she descended the stairs. "Close the door," I whispered. Kathleen obediently closed the door. Then she jumped a foot again. That girl ought to go out for the high jump.

"Casey?" she said.

"At your service."

"Casey? Where are you?" She looked quickly around the room, then under the bed.

"I'm not hiding, Kathleen. I'm right here."

"Stop playing tricks." She rushed around the room, looking behind the curtains and in the closet. I was having a little fun, I must admit. She even looked in a couple of dresser drawers, which made me giggle. She didn't like that a bit.

"Just stand still and I'll come to you," I said.

"Okay, but I wish you'd stop playing around. You almost got me into trouble with your mom."

"Here I am," I said, standing right in front of her.

"Where?" Her voice shook.

"Shh. Here, put out your hand." She put out one timid hand and I touched the tip of her finger. Like ET. Her mouth opened and her eyes got big and I thought she was going to scream, so I hit her on the back. Hard, like we do to stop each other from laughing to death.

She gulped. "What are you doing?" she whispered. "I can't see you."

"That's the idea," I boasted. I didn't hit her, but she yelped as if I had, turned completely around, and stared past me helplessly into empty space.

"I'm here. Right in front of you," I said. "Really."

"Casey, are you . . . are you . . . are you --"

"I think so," I said.

"Invisible?" The word was barely audible.

"Yes," I announced triumphantly, "as a matter of fact or fiction, I am." But Kathleen wasn't celebrating. In fact, it looked as if she might cry. I sat her down on the bed, which nearly made her faint instead.

"Was it the chemistry set again?" she whispered.

"The trash man's kids have the chemistry set," I reminded her.

"How did it happen then?"

"I don't know." I told her all about yesterday's weird events: getting inside the trailer, Dr. Poof, Madame Farsight and the strange fortune, Kevin, the hidden soap.

The soap. It could be the soap that made me invisible. The thought struck me as though the bar itself had been dropped on my head. A soap that makes you invisible. That was stupendous. I was the first invisible kid. And, I still had the soap.

"The soap," I gasped.

"Soap?" Kathleen said.

"I left it in the bathroom," I said. Where anyone might use it. I could just see Penny, or is it not see her, invisible. Could one invisible person see another invisible person? I didn't know. But either way, she wouldn't take it as good-naturedly as I did. Checking first to see that the coast was clear I tiptoed to the bathroom. The soap was still sitting there, next to our usual bar. I slid it back into its box and carried it to my room.

"This takes some getting used to," Kathleen said, watching the soap float into the room. "So what's the big deal about soap?" She was trying to sound nonchalant.

"Well," I said, "Dr. Poof advertises magic tonic. But if my hunch is right, this is Dr. Poof's magic soap. It's how I got invisible. I think."

"Who's Dr. Poof?" Kathleen looked sick. "Never mind. I don't think I want to hear any more," she said. "I'm going home now." No congratulations. No pat on the invisible back. Where were her manners?

"You can't go, Kathleen. Look at me." She tried. "I'm invisible. I need your help," I protested.

"And how long do you plan to be invisible?"

That was a scary question. It wasn't like I had a plan. But I wasn't going to let her know that. "Oh, for . . . a while." I casually tossed the soap into the air to show how cool I was about it all. Too bad I missed the box on the way down. "I don't exactly know how it works," I said, scuffling on all fours toward the soap.

"Not exactly?" she mocked. Where was her politeness when I needed it?

"No, not exactly," I persisted, as though the knowledge might come to me at any moment. "I took a shower with it last night. Then I got into bed and fell asleep. When I woke up I found myself . . . missing." I laughed, a little nervously. "Why don't you try it and we could find out how it works together?"

"No you don't," Kathleen said. "One of us has to stay normal, and you're out of the running. Besides, the point isn't to get me invisible but to get you visible again."

"Kathleen, how can you talk like that? I just got invisible. I want to try it out for a while. Just think of all the fun things I can do."

"But your mom's looking for you."

"Yeah, and she thinks you're waiting for me and that's where you can help out," I said. My mind was really clicking. "Go stand over by the window."

"What?"

"Just stand by the window," I insisted. She did. "Come outside, Kathleen," I said.

"What? You just said --"

"See? Now you can tell my mom you were by the window and I told you to come outside. When you go out I can sneak out with you. Pretty good, huh?"

"Do you know what you are? You're devious," she said. I waited. I know Kathleen really well. "Who's Dr. Poof?" she asked.

* * *

Going down the stairs, I tried to step in the same rhythm as Kathleen. I had a little trouble at first. I guess that was because I couldn't see where my feet were. Try it next time you're invisible.

At the bottom Kathleen went to the kitchen to talk to my mom. I was supposed to wait but I slipped quietly out the screen door. This is going to be easy, I thought. I can spy on people and they'll never even know I'm there. It couldn't be simpler! My foot slipped on the top step.

"Yaaghh!" I yelled as I pitched forward into space.

Five

Fortunately, I made a soft landing. Unfortunately, it was in the mushiest mud puddle I've ever met, face-to-mud.

What is my mother going to say when she sees me? I thought as I watched glop ooze between my toes. Then I realized that she wasn't going to see me. I was invisible.

I slipped and slid to my feet and looked down at myself. She might not see me, but she sure would see the mud plastered to my skin. I looked like I'd been attacked by the Mud People. Or become one of them.

I was standing there, feeling and looking ridiculous, when Kathleen and Mr. Bumps came out the front door. Bumps barked. Kathleen squished up her face in her usual pre-scream way.

"Don't you scream or I'll splash you," I said.

"Oh, it's you. I thought I ran into a chocolate-splattered ghost." She snickered.

"Ha, ha. Very funny." I pretended I was going to splash her anyway. She only seemed semi-scared, though. Maybe because she could only semi-see me. "Just go and get me some paper towels or something, would you?"

"Paper towels? You look like you need a car wash."

I put my hands on my hips and scowled at her the way Mom does when she's had enough of me. That didn't seem to work, either. Luckily, I happen to know that Kathleen hates to get dirty. I came at her, mucky fingers outstretched. That had the desired effect. She ran up the steps like she was being chased by King Kong. "What'll I tell your mother?" she said.

"Use your imagination, Kathleen. And hurry."

She disappeared inside.

I was alone. And muddy. Alone and muddy and naked. And very visible. I snatched glances far and near, left and right, at yards and windows and porches, hoping the nosey neighbors weren't watching. What I saw was Eddie Maskit popping wheelies down the street. What was nosey Eddie doing hanging around on my block? I dove into the clump of snowball bushes beside the steps. Branches poked and scratched at me. Bumps sniffed and snorted, then settled down next to me.

The screen door banged and I heard Kathleen saying, "Your mom wasn't in the kitchen so I brought this, too." I peeked out. She had some dish towels over her shoulder and was lugging a bucket full of water down the steps. At the bottom she did a slow, wobbly spin. "Where are you?" she said. It wasn't a friendly question.

"Shh. Over here. In the bushes." Eddie seemed to be gone.

"Don't do that," Kathleen said.

"Don't do what?"

"Hide on me like that."

"I'm not hiding on you. I'm hiding on Eddie Maskit and other nosey people. Why didn't you bring paper towels, like I said?"

"These are more ecological."

"They're also our dish towels. Anyway, I don't care about ecological. I'm invisible. I care about hiding the evidence. That's what's important now."

"Ecological is always important. Being invisible doesn't change anything," she said. She seemed to enjoy pouring the water over my head.

"Did you ever hear of warm water?" I said.

I shivered and rubbed myself warm again with the towels. Even though the mud was washed off I wanted a shower. We decided her house would be safer than mine. We walked along, Bumps following at what he figured was a safe distance, barking all the way. Kathleen didn't like it since it looked like Bumps was barking at her. "Bumps, be quiet," she snapped, turning and wagging a finger at him. "Uh, oh," she said.

"What?"

"Casey, look what you're leaving behind you," she said.

"Oh my liver," I whispered. Muddy footprints followed us down the sidewalk. I hadn't cleaned the bottoms of my feet. It looked like Kathleen, who was wearing shoes, was leaving barefoot prints. Being invisible was a complicated business.

I rubbed my feet in the grass. We watched two parallel strips of grass bend flat and streak with mud. No footprints anymore, though. Bumps even stopped barking, but he still kept his distance.

We didn't see anyone as we snuck up to Kathleen's room. I showered in her bathroom. When I came out I was glad to find that she had lunch spread out on the bed. Apples, cheese, crackers, and peanut butter. Yum.

I sat on the bed and reached for some cheese. "I'm starving," I said.

"Don't do that," Kathleen said.

"Haven't we been through this once before? Don't do what?"

"I don't know. It just makes me nervous, not being able to see you." She grabbed her red cotton robe from the closet and handed it to me. "Here. Wear this." I put it on and tied the sash.

"Better?" I asked.

Bumps growled. Kathleen stared. Then she laughed, and cracker crumbs sprayed out of her mouth. "I don't know if it's better or not. Look at yourself."

"I don't have to. I look like the headless horseman, in a red robe. Right?" I began to eat again. I could still feel Kathleen's eyes on me. "Now what?" I said.

"Excuse me, Casey," she huffed, "but it happens to be just a little strange, watching a piece of cheese rise off the bed and then --"

"Well, try to live with it, okay? I'm hungry."

While we ate I told Kathleen my plan. "I can't go home like this and I don't know when I'll be visible again. That means I have to stay overnight at your house," I said.

"That's a great plan," Kathleen said. "My mom and dad love invisible kids."

"Of course they don't," I said, ignoring her sarcasm. "That's why we won't tell them I'm here. We'll just tell my mom." Kathleen tapped her foot. "Okay, okay. I'll tell my mom."

I called home. "Mom, can I stay at Kathleen's tonight?"

"If her parents don't mind," she said.

"They won't mind," I said. "They won't even know I'm here."

"See you tomorrow, then," she said. Maybe, maybe not, I thought.

Then I told Kathleen the second part of my plan. Well, not all of it. "Let's go on over to the lot and see if the trailer is still visible," I said. Kathleen agreed, although she called it going to see if the trailer was "there." I took off her robe and threw it on the bed. Kathleen started to complain at me, but before she got two words out Mr. Bumps jumped up and walked around and around on it, the way dogs do, making a nest. He lay down and wouldn't get up to come with us.

The trailer was there, plain as the nose on most people's faces. I wanted to get inside again, to find out if Dr. Poof and Madame Farsight had discovered their soap was gone and also to see if I could find out who Kevin's real parents were so I could tell them where he was.

We walked up to the door. "What are we doing?" Kathleen said.

"Ask for a free introductory fortune," I said.

"I'm not going in there. No way," she said. I expected that. I knocked good and hard on the door.

Madame Farsight answered so fast it was as if she'd been waiting on the other side of the door. I gave Kathleen a little push.

She said, "Uhhh." That's all the encouragement Madame F needed.

"Hello, little one. Glad to see you. Come in. Come," she said. An arm swathed in rainbow colors flashed toward Kathleen. The woman took my friend's hand and she was whisked inside, like a fly on a frog's tongue.

I followed, a shadow in the night.

Six

"Sit down over here and I'll tell your fortune." Kathleen didn't move. "Right over here. Come. Sit."

Madame Farsight pushed down on Kathleen's shoulders. She sat, stiff and straight in the chair, a stunned expression on her face. She didn't say a word. While Madame Farsight went into her trance I hurried to the back part of the trailer. I tried to move without a sound but that old trailer squeaked whenever it had a mind to. I knew Madame Farsight wouldn't notice while she was in the trance but I worried about who else might be in the place.

The bathroom was empty. There was only one bedroom. I peeked in the open door. A bed, a desk, a chest of drawers, and a baby bed crowded the little room. Kevin was the only one in the room and he was sleeping soundly.

He looked so innocent and helpless. I wondered who his real parents were and how I could help him get home to them. Madame F's trance voice gave me the courage to slip into the room. A second later I was rummaging in the desk for incriminating evidence.

And in the second drawer, I found it. A lot of documents, one of which was a birth certificate for Kevin Spelling, born to Dr. Paul and Dr. Helen Spelling at St. Louis Children's Hospital. That proved it. Dr. Poof and Madame Farsight were not his parents.

The front door squawked. "Come again, child," I heard Madame F say. I threw the documents back in the drawer, flew down the short hall and out the door with Kathleen.

"Casey?" Kathleen whispered when the door had closed behind us.

"Right here," I answered.

"What did you do that for?" Her words crackled like sparks from a fire. "I didn't know what to say or anything."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"Nothing. She said everything. She called me `dear one' and `child.' How revolting. And she said" -- Kathleen imitated Madame F's high-pitched, zombie-like trance voice -- "`watch out for the tortoise, she can get you into trouble.'" Then in her normal voice Kathleen said, "Isn't that weird?"

"Yeah." Weirder than she knew. Did Madame F talk about tortoises to everybody? "Did she mention the missing soap?" I asked.

"No. Why would she? I didn't take it." Her face fell. "Oh, no. You don't think she knows I know you, do you?"

"Like that would be the worst thing that could happen to you, huh?"

"Well you're the one sneaking around her house taking things," she said. "Anyway, did you get in or what? Did you find anything?"

I gave her a dirty look but, as usual, it did no good. "I'm giving you a dirty look," I said.

"Why?"

"Because, you call me a sneak and a stealer and then you want to know what I found out."

"Oh."

We walked, neither of us saying anything. Oh well, I decided, I can't wait around all day for an apology. "I found his birth certificate," I said. "Kevin's. His parents' name is Spelling."

We raced to her house and looked in the phone book. There was no Paul or Helen Spelling listed in the St. Louis area. I couldn't believe it. Kevin was only about two or three. Had his parents just given up? Maybe not, I decided. But the alternative was just as bad: maybe Kevin and his parents lived someplace else. Carnivals travel all over the country. The Spellings could be anywhere. My heart sank.

"Dinner in three minutes, Katie," her mother sang from the kitchen.

"Okay, Mom. Be right there," Kathleen sang back even though I happen to know she hates the name Katie.

Kathleen promised to bring me some food but when she returned with only a piece of bread and a pear stuffed in her pocket -- "We had chili," she said -- I was disappointed. More important, I was starving again. I'm always starving.

After everybody was asleep I crept down the stairs to raid the refrigerator. As I passed the basement door I heard Uncle Terence, humming something sad. I lay down on my stomach and peered down the stairs. He was just sitting there in his rocker, not doing anything. Just smoking his pipe and drinking something that looked like water, but I knew wasn't. It made me realize how often he had that melancholy, lonely look in his eyes. He's hiding something, I thought, some part of himself that I've never seen. I wanted to go down, just to say hello. But I couldn't. I was invisible.

I was lying there, feeling sorry for myself and Uncle Terence too, when he stood up and walked right toward the rear wall of the shop. He was walking fast, like there was an open door in front of him instead of solid concrete. Then something strange happened, and I mean very strange. Instead of smashing into the wall he seemed to go right into it. A golden glow outlined and erased his advancing body wherever it met the wall's surface.

It only took a moment. Uncle Terence was gone.

Seven

I rushed down the stairs. My invisible heels skidded over the edges of the last six steps and I hung on to the banister for dear life.

At the back wall, where Uncle Terence had disappeared, I pushed and pounded and slapped the cold concrete with my open hands. It was as solid as it looked.

Still, I had seen what I had seen: Uncle Terence, a golden light, then half of Uncle Terence, then none of Uncle Terence. My eyes, or my imagination, told me he'd walked right through the wall! I'd expected to find a fake spot, an interlocking Star Trek door or something. I pushed and punched some more. Hoping at least for a loose block or a secret passage. Anything.

But there was nothing. I decided it was time to just set myself right down in Uncle Terence's chair and wait for his return. I'd have to watch carefully, too, because the last time I saw what I saw, I almost didn't. So I fixed my eyes on the place in the wall where he disappeared. I stared until the skin on the backs of my legs got sweaty and stuck to the seat of his rocker. I stared and stared and stared for the longest time. Detective work can be pretty boring when you're on a stakeout. . . .

When I woke up, Uncle Terence was tiptoeing up the stairs. I tiptoed after him but all he did was go into his room and close the door. I felt like kicking myself for missing everything.

I was cold and hungry and tired of being a detective. I ran to Kathleen's room and dove into the empty twin bed. Good thing he didn't sit in his chair anyway, I thought, pulling the blankets over my head.

* * *

The next morning I was as invisible as ever. What if I stay invisible today? Mom expects me home to do chores.

That was a horrible thought, no matter how I looked at it, so I put it right out of my mind. Besides, there were plenty of other things that needed thinking about: Uncle Terence and the wall, the kidnapers, Kevin and his parents. Even tortoises. I decided to think them over in a nice long, hot shower but that reminded me that I'd left the magic soap in my room. I wasn't even sure where.

If Mom finds it she'll probably put it back in the bathroom again, I fretted. What if Penny washes her hair with it? Not likely, I decided, since she has about sixteen zillion bottles of shampoo, conditioner, rinse, and all-purpose goo. Besides, it might be cool if she did use it and turned up bald. But what if Mom uses it? Or Dad? I had to find that soap, then hide it and hide it good.

And I will, I promised myself. Right after breakfast. First things first.

Kathleen brought me plenty of rations. Her mom and dad were out and Uncle Terence was down in the basement and she had time to fill a small grocery sack. The grapes, on the bottom, were a little flat. It was a great effort though. I didn't complain. I tried to share the granola or at least some toast with Bumps. But Kathleen had to feed him. He wouldn't take it from the invisible kid. Not even with raspberry jam.

* * *

I shivered as Kathleen and I emerged into an overcast day that looked and definitely felt like rain was not far off. Bumps trotted out of the house with us and pranced about on the lawn, ignoring me. He let Kathleen scratch his ears but wouldn't come to me at all.

Well, I had more important problems: I had to figure out how to get into my house. We were half way there. "Kathleen, you knock on the door and tell my mom you came for my toothbrush. Tell her I didn't come because I was busy washing dishes at your house. I'll slip upstairs while the two of you are talking."

She glared at me. Actually, she glared a little to the left of me. "Your toothbrush? Washing dishes?" She laughed. "Get real. Who would believe that?"

"Okay, okay. We'll think of something else," I said.

"Maybe being invisible rots your mind," she said. "Or maybe your brain disappeared along with the rest of you. Or maybe you've lost your mind. Or maybe you never had a --"

"Well, since you already think I'm crazy, listen to this. For your information, there's a secret door in the wall of your basement. Your uncle goes through it and there's a glow or a fire or something on the other side."

"Babble, babble, babble," she said, trying to tune me out.

"Yep. I'd say there's a secret room down there," I said.

"For your information, that house has been in my family for a long time. It was my father's father's. There's no secret door in the basement."

"Maybe lots of secret rooms. A whole network of tunnels and --"

"And there's no secret rooms."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. I live there," she said, as if I might not know. "And anyway, it just couldn't be. Your imagination's getting --"

"Yeah, and I can't be invisible, right?" I gave that a minute to sink in. Then I hit her with, "Maybe that's why Uncle Terence spends so much time down there."

"What does Uncle Terence have to do with --"

"Who are you talking to, Kathleen?"

I couldn't believe it. Eddie Maskit had snuck up on us. I had to jump to one side to avoid getting run over as he braked his bike and skidded sideways to a stop next to Kathleen.

"I thought I heard Casey," he said. "Where is she, anyway?" He looked back with satisfaction at the long black skid mark he'd created. He pointed at Bumps. "Isn't that her dog?"

When will you stop asking questions? I wanted to ask him. He's always doing that in school. Asking questions to show how smart he is. Or just because he's nosey.

"Yeah, that's him, isn't it? I remember because Casey tried to get him to bite me once." He crouched down and put out his hand. "Here, Bumpy," he said.

"Bumps," Kathleen mumbled.

"What?" he said. Another question! "Why does she call him Bumpy? I'm surprised he doesn't bite her."

Bite him. Bite him, I commanded Bumps with a secret mental command. Bumps licked his hand.

"It's Bumps," Kathleen said. "Bumps. Not Bumpy. Bumps." She tapped her foot.

Way to go, Kathleen.

"Well then, where's Casey? He's always with her. And who were you talking to? Yourself?" He laughed.

"No. Of course I wasn't talking to myself," Kathleen sneered at him.

"It sounded like Casey, talking about a secret room."

Kathleen stopped tapping her foot, swept her gaze across the leaden sky, then said in a much friendlier tone, "Well it wasn't. I was just practicing my ventriloquy."

"Ventrilo what?" Eddie asked.

Ventrilo what? I wondered.

"You know, practicing being a ventriloquist. I throw my voice into something. Like . . . like that telephone pole, over there," she said. "Then I talk like Casey, for example."

"I doubt it," Eddie said. I tiptoed over to the pole. "And why are you talking so funny?"

Kathleen ignored his nosey question. "I could do it, probably, right now if you don't believe me," she said.

"Do it then."

"I could."

"Good. Do it."

"I will," Kathleen threatened.

"I'm waiting," Eddie said.

"Hi, Casey. How are you doing?" Kathleen said to the telephone pole. Her voice was breathy. She was a little nervous.

"I'm fine, Kathleen," I answered.

Eddie gaped at the pole, too dumbfounded for once even to ask a question. Kathleen smiled. So did I.

"Uh, Eddie here was wondering, what's that you were saying about secret rooms?" she said.

"There're secret rooms everywhere," I said. "Life is mysterious." If only I had a camera, I could get a picture of Eddie's tonsils, I thought. Not that I wanted one. "Hi, Eddie," I said.

Eddie swallowed. "Hi," he said. "Hi, Casey." Then he said to Kathleen, "That was great. Your mouth doesn't move at all. And it sounds just like Casey. How do you do that?"

"I'm an impersonator, too," Kathleen improvised.

"You are? I never knew that. Who else can you do?"

"Who else?" Kathleen looked at the sky for another answer. "Who else?" she repeated. She needed help. That was obvious.

"I don't do anybody else," I said for her. "Just Casey." Kathleen was as surprised as Eddie to hear this news from the telephone pole.

"You do Casey impersonations, and ventriloquism?" Eddie asked. "At the same time?"

"You just heard it, didn't you? It's called ventriloquation," Kathleen said. "It's very difficult." It seemed to me Kathleen was getting a little out of control.

"You know what? I'm going to have a party," Eddie said. "Yeah. Tomorrow night. You could come and do your act."

"Well, maybe," Kathleen said.

What? I hot-footed it over to Kathleen, scattering a few pieces of roadside gravel with my first step.

"And bring Casey. She'd love it," Eddie said.

I crunched on her toe a little. Just enough to bring her back to reality. Eddie watched one of the small stones I'd kicked skitter to a stop against his bike tire. He smiled. "Come on. It'll be fun."

"Well" -- I stepped again, harder -- "ow!" Kathleen said.

"What?" Eddie asked.

"Ow'll . . . tell her about it," Kathleen said.

A clap of thunder ended the conversation. I was never so glad to get caught in a rainstorm. As Eddie zoomed down the rain-spotted sidewalk he called back to Kathleen, "By the way, it's going to be a masquerade party."

"Can you believe it?" I said to Kathleen when he was out of earshot. "A masquerade party. In June yet. We don't have to go." Lightning sizzled through the clouds. The rain intensified. "Or maybe we do. It would be fun to give Eddie a good scare."

"Come on, Casey, I'm getting wet," Kathleen said.

"Yeah, I'm freezing."

"Guess what? You're also visible again," she said.

I looked down. "I don't see anything."

"That's the problem. Your body's blocking the drops and they're running down your skin. You look like a hole in the rain."

Kathleen ran with me the rest of the way to my house, hiding me from view as best she could. I invited her in but she said she wanted to go home and change. And she did. Bumps seemed uncertain whether he wanted to come in with me or go with Kathleen. But when I opened the door and went in he followed, wagging his tail. What a change, I thought.

I closed the door, turned around and there was Mom, staring right at me.

"Casey," she said, "what in the world are you doing standing there dripping wet, and naked?"