My Invisible Sister Read online

  MY INVISIBLE SISTER

  Beatrice Colin and Sara Pinto

  CONTENT

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  For Aidan, Lucca, Cecilia, and William—

  and all their invisible friends

  —S. P.

  For my children, Theo and Frances

  —B. C.

  Chapter One

  “Frank!” shouts my sister, Elizabeth. “Are you going to sit in there all day?”

  It’s another fine day in suburbia. Every flower is in bloom, every car is polished, every lawn is a perfect square of green. A pack of little kids plays on their bikes. The local ice-cream truck jingles past, playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

  The only thing spoiling the view is the van—our gigantic moving van with “Jerry’s Budget Budge-It” pasted on the side. Our whole life is wrapped up and boxed inside, just waiting to be unpacked. I climb out of the van and pick up a box at random.

  “Not that one,” says Dad. It’s the only remaining box of Mom’s best china.

  “I can handle it,” I say.

  “Just don’t drop it,” he warns me.

  I stand back and look up at our new house. It’s the same as all the other houses in the neighborhood. Red brick, white front door, and two-car garage. The only thing that stands out is a huge tree in the backyard.

  “What do you think?” Dad asks. “There’s space in the garage for all your gear, your bike, and your skateboard. And the yard’s big enough to play ball with Bob.”

  Bob is my dog. He barks twice every time you say his name. He runs up to my dad and, guess what, barks twice.

  “It seems good,” I say.

  “Great,” Dad says. “Now let’s get to work.”

  As I walk up the front path with the box in my arms, I notice a kid about my age. He’s sitting on a bike in the yard next door. I have to say, he looks kind of cool. I’m about to say hi but instead I go, “Arr-ghhphft!” Something has clamped me in the armpits. I stumble, barely hanging on to the box; regain my balance; and am immediately tripped. I stagger toward the flower bed but, just before I reach it, I’m propelled back onto the sidewalk. Miraculously, I manage to hang on to the box.

  “Careful, you nearly dropped it,” a voice whispers in my ear.

  “Are you okay?” asks the cool guy.

  “What is wrong with you?” I say.

  “Nothing,” says the cool guy.

  “You moron!” I yell.

  The box is wrenched from my grip, hovers in midair for a moment, and then falls to the ground, making all the sounds that a box of your mother’s best china would make if it were breaking into a million pieces.

  “Oh, Frank,” moans my mom. “You dropped the box!”

  “It wasn’t me!” I reply.

  And really, it wasn’t.

  You might think I am one of those boys who has everything: a bike, a skateboard (customized, of course), a dog named Bob, and a new house. But it’s what you can’t see that ruins everything.

  I have a sister. “So what?” you might say. “I’ve got one or two or six myself.” Well, I would take your six and give you my skateboard, my bike, and even my dog if you’d take my sister.

  In many ways, Elizabeth is just like any other thirteen-year-old girl. She likes music, clothes, and talking on the phone. The one thing that sets her apart is her looks. She doesn’t have any. When my sister was born, the doctor almost dropped her. She was eight pounds exactly, she had a full set of lungs, and she screamed until the place shook, but she was one hundred percent invisible. I’m not joking. Her condition, known as Formus Disappearus, is a rare and untreatable genetic disease. Although you may not have heard of it, there have been dozens of people with this problem throughout history—like the Tooth Fairy (real name Annie Morrison). For reasons I’ll never understand, she collected millions of teeth and started a craze.

  As long as I can remember, my sister’s been mean to me. She teases me, she trips me, she frames me, she blames me, she needles me, and when I try to get her back, she’s never there. Or anywhere. Punching the air, grabbing on to nothing, or lashing out at shadows just makes me look crazy. My parents tell me it’s not her fault, that I should be more understanding—but they should try being her brother. And when she’s unhappy, the only thing they can come up with is “a fresh start.”

  This is our eighth move in ten years. “Can you believe it?” I ask Bob. “You do the math.” He lets out a tiny growl and starts to wag his tail. No, he can’t believe it either (or do the math). Every time we move, my parents promise better things. Better friends, better schools, better everything. Enter Elizabeth. Exit new life. Wonder how long we’ll last in this place?

  The cool boy next door is staring at me, looking puzzled and insulted at the same time—he thinks I just called him a moron. I decide to use the pretend-nothing-happened tactic.

  “Hi, I’m Frank,” I say.

  He just stares at me—at the top of my head, actually.

  “And this is my sister, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, say hi.”

  She says nothing. Typical. I can see his mind working. He stares harder and takes half a step backward. He thinks I’m a nut.

  Dad walks up the path, a stack of boxes in his arms, and almost trips over Mom’s broken china.

  “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t!” I reply.

  Dad shakes his head; he’s not listening. As usual, it’s my fault. I pick up the box and we both lug our loads toward the new house.

  “I’d like to welcome you all to 44 Morningvale Circle,” says Dad, “our new home. Have you kids seen the backyard?”

  “I hate that big tree,” Elizabeth says. “It blocks out all the sun. The backyard is Shade Central.”

  “She does have a point,” Mom says.

  “We can always take it down,” Dad says, already sounding tired.

  “I like it,” I interject. “No one else has a tree that size. We could build a tree house.”

  “Oh great,” says my sister.

  “Elizabeth,” says Dad, “just give it a try. I’m sure once we settle in, we’ll never want to leave. Elizabeth?”

  “She’s gone, Dad.”

  This is how it always starts. Each time we move, we leave behind angry neighbors, broken friendships, and piles of junk mail. There’s always a reason. House too small, school too big, town too far away, neighbors too close, road too busy, lawn dead. My parents don’t want to see that the real problem is usually sitting in the living room, reading gossip magazines and drinking the last of the milk.

  It’s only when we put down our boxes that my dad says casually, “You may want to think twice about wearing underwear on your head. It makes a kind of goofy first impression.”

  “Elizabeth!” I yell. “Not again! You made me look like a total jerk!”

  “Keep your shirt on,” she says. “We’ll probably be out of here by Christmas.”

  Normally, I would freak out. Normally, I would go tearing around the house punching frantically, hoping for contact and screaming her name. But this time, I don’t. It comes to me in a great big thunder-and-lightning, eureka-moment kind of way. If I still want to be here past Christmas, then I have to take matters into my own hands. I’ve got to keep a handle on Elizabeth. Because I’m not moving again. I’m tired of it—tired of not living in a place long enough to make any friends and tired of always being the new boy in town. This is the house I want
to grow up in. This is where I want to stay. And Bob is in total agreement. He usually is.

  It’s almost eight o’clock when Bob and I go for a walk around the block. I can hear the sound of the neighbors’ television sets all tuned to the same channel. Our TV is lost again. Buried under some pile, probably. Dad’s gone to take the moving van back and to pick up the customary first-night Chinese takeout.

  The kid next door is working on his bike.

  “Hey there,” I say, acting casual.

  He nods but doesn’t answer.

  “Fixing your bike?”

  He looks at me with an expression that says, “What’s it look like, duh?”

  Clearly the damage has already been done.

  “See you later,” I call. He doesn’t answer.

  Bob and I decide to go exploring. There are five houses in this cul-de-sac, all set around a large tear-shaped piece of concrete. Beyond that, there’s not much to see—just endless houses all set into circles like ours. It would be easy to get lost in a place like this: nothing changes but the color of people’s cars.

  Five minutes later we’re back again. The kid is still pumping his tires. He’s out of breath and his face is bright red. Either he’s got inner-tube problems or he’s more of a wimp than he looks. But, wait a minute, I remember that the same thing happened to me last year. As fast as he pumps one tire, the other goes flat. It’s a typical Elizabeth stunt.

  With perfect timing, Dad appears with the Chinese food. “Dinner’s here,” he shouts. My sister won’t hang around now. She’s a sucker for chicken chop suey.

  “It’s your inner trig pressure,” I say nonchalantly.

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with trigs, whatever they are.”

  “Let me try. I think I can fix that for you.”

  I pump the tires and, without Elizabeth’s sabotaging, they stay that way. The kid is impressed.

  “It must have been the trig thing after all. Thanks.”

  “Frank and Bob,” Mom calls, “your crispy duck is getting cold.”

  Bob barks twice and runs into the house. It’s our favorite dish.

  “I’m not really that hungry.” I shrug.

  “You like baseball cards?” says the kid next door.

  “I love baseball cards,” I reply. This, I am afraid, is a lie. I loathe and detest baseball with every fiber in my body. I’m more of a skateboarding guy.

  “I’ve got four albums. Some of the cards are really, really rare.”

  “Cool,” I say. “Can I see them?”

  My new friend is named Charlie and he’s ten, like me. And even though he likes baseball, he’s pretty nice. Because he’s an only child, he has shelves of neatly stacked toys and no one to play with. By the time I head inside my new house, I’m starving and tired—but it was all worth it. We’ve already planned our first project. We’re going to build a tree house in my backyard. Elizabeth may be invisible, but hey, she’s not invincible.

  “I’m home,” I yell as I close the front door.

  “Bob and I ate your dinner,” says my sister from the direction of the couch. “Oh, and aren’t you going to thank me?”

  “Thank you? For what?”

  “Don’t you know when you’ve been set up? You’d never have any friends if it weren’t for me…. ‘I love baseball cards….’”

  I ignore her. “We started the plans for the tree house. It’s going to be awesome.”

  “No it’s not. That tree’s coming down. Dad promised me. And besides, you wouldn’t even know how to build a birdhouse.”

  Out of habit, I pick the closest throwable object, a single rubber boot, and hurl it in her direction. From the sound it makes, I think it hits her.

  “You are so going to pay for that.” She gasps. “I’m going to get you when you least expect it.”

  Chapter Two

  Now that you understand what I have to put up with in the sister department, let me tell you a little more about my parents. My father reviews restaurants for newspapers. This means lots of free dinners in fancy places where snotty waiters have to be nice to him. My mother is a party planner for rich people and minor celebrities. Apart from all the signed photographs of people neither I, nor probably you, have ever heard of, she’s always bringing home leftovers, like trays of miniature hamburgers or boxes of chocolate-covered strawberries.

  You may think that they sound awesome, eccentric, even cool, but I can tell you there have been many times when I wished I had the kind of parents who worked at normal boring jobs with normal boring hours.

  Because my parents are always working, we’ve been here a week and have barely unpacked. You’d think that with all their moving experience, my parents would be experts at it by now. But they are actually getting worse. So far Dad has unpacked his vintage guitar collection, and it’s taking up the entire living room. Mom’s getting reacquainted with her designer shoes, which she thought she had lost five moves ago. Elizabeth has shut herself in her room and has obviously managed to unearth her entire CD collection. Nobody can find the silverware, the can opener, or the bath towels. There’s a good chance we will never see those things again.

  I’ve unpacked and my room is fully furnished with all my stuff. I’ve learned to mark my boxes. Simple but effective: “Clothing,” “Action Figures,” “Books,” and, of course, “Miscellaneous.” The mistake the rest of my family makes is that every box is “Miscellaneous.” The toothpaste is thrown in with the cookbooks. Hamster food (Chippy died two years ago) is in with the defunct computer monitor and the spice rack. The bedding, we think, is being used to cushion the coffeemaker. And they wonder why they lose things.

  Currently we are eating our dinner straight from the pan and drinking juice out of jam jars. I have to say that we’re used to it by now, but it’s not something any of us really want the neighbors to see.

  I’m in my bedroom reenacting the fight scene at the end of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith when I realize this is the seventh time I’ve heard Green Day’s “American Idiot.” It’s not that it’s a bad song, but enough is enough. First I try the polite approach. I knock on the door. No answer.

  “Would you mind adjusting the volume?” I ask nicely.

  The volume is cranked up.

  “Don’t wanna be …,” the CD blasts.

  “Turn it down!” I yell.

  Nothing.

  “Turn it down, idiot head!”

  The music stops. Elizabeth’s door flies open.

  “What did you call me?”

  “I asked you politely and you ignored me. I was forced into a more, um, … direct approach.”

  She laughs in my face.

  “You”—I feel a sharp poke in my chest—“are a freak. No, let me be more specific. You like to wear underpants on your head. Need I say more?”

  I know I should ignore her and just walk away. But the underpants thing really gets me. I see red. My week-long efforts to not let her bug me, to not take the bait, to turn the other cheek, to swallow my pride, suddenly evaporate. Before I can stop myself, my right fist is clenched into a ball and I swing out. To my surprise, I make contact. It’s hard to know exactly where the blow lands, but my guess is that it’s a direct hit to the stomach. I regret it immediately.

  “I’m so sorry, really … I didn’t mean it.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve done that!”

  I feel her whiz past me.

  “Elizabeth? … Please don’t wreck it for us here!”

  Downstairs, the front door slams.

  This is a cul-de-sac where the mailman’s visit is about as exciting as it gets. Then we move in, and almost immediately strange things will start to happen. It won’t take long before everybody here hates us. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen many times.

  So I’m out there, practically thirty seconds after Elizabeth, but she has the definite advantage. As you know, Charlie lives right next door. His mom works nights in the local maternity hospital. Next to him is some old man who l
ives by himself and constantly trims his hedges. To our left is a family with a ton of kids. From the outside it looks as if they are all five years old, but that can’t be right. Next to them is a little old lady. Her yard is so full of cheery little gnomes, it’s depressing.

  To be honest, I’ve been expecting payback from Elizabeth ever since we arrived last week. So far, however, everything seems to be in order … birds are chirping, vacuum cleaners are gently humming, radios are forecasting cloudless skies…. It suddenly occurs to me that I could be overreacting. Maybe Elizabeth simply has gone for a walk, perhaps to cool off or to buy a small gift of apology.

  Who am I kidding?

  Above the sweet sounds of suburbia, I hear a loud knock. I’m guessing it came from next door to Charlie. I break out into a cold sweat. Oh, no—not the Bang and Bolt Routine. This is Elizabeth’s favorite—banging on people’s doors, ringing their bells, and when they open up, there’s no one there. The neighbors will know it’s us, the weird new family. And so I do the first thing that comes into my head. I run like crazy and reach Hedge Man’s door, just as he opens it.

  “Hi, Mr. Hedge, I mean, I mean …” Panting, I frantically scan the door for a name. He frowns at me. There’s no name anywhere. “I mean, your hedge, it looks so good, so neat.”

  I turn around and gaze intently at his handiwork. It doesn’t even look like something belonging to the plant family. He probably doesn’t realize it, but it looks like a giant green LEGO piece plopped into his yard, complete with the raised things that you need to stick the pieces together.

  A smile appears on his bad-tempered face.

  “It’s so refreshing to meet a youngster interested in topiary.”

  I look at him blankly.

  “The art of trimming evergreen trees or shrubs into ornamental sculptures.” He points to a bush in the shape of a bird perched on his lawn.

  He looks over toward our house. Of course, our hedges, if you could call them that, are a mess.

  “I’d be happy to offer a small demonstration, if you’re interested.”

  Bang, bang! The door to the left of our house gets pounded on.