The Invisible Enemy (2 page)

O
n Tuesday, Hubert arrived at school armed with his own wooden yo-yo. Instead of waiting for me at the gate, he was across the yard with Jean-Pierre, practicing new moves. A few boys were sliding around on the frosty concrete, playing foot hockey with a tennis ball. But most of them were dangling yo-yos and hopelessly trying to do things that Jean-Pierre was doing with no effort at all.

“Hey, Hubert,” I said, leaning against the brick wall next to the yo-yo seminar. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, Hubert!” Josh and Victor warbled a duet. “Billie’s here!” They made smooching sounds and shoved each other into the wall, like boys always do.

“Do you mind?” Hubert muttered to me. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Allo, Billie!” Jean-Pierre flashed his crooked smile, his yo-yo spinning toward me in the same moment. I flinched, and he laughed, showing all his shiny teeth. “Come on, you want to try? I’ll show you how.”

I surprised myself by blushing.

“She doesn’t have a yo-yo,” said Hubert— kind of quickly, I thought.

“She can use mine!” said Jean-Pierre.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Hubert. “She’ll only knot the string or something.”

All the boys laughed. Or, should I say, neighed? My face felt so hot my teeth were cold. I tried to grin like I was in on the joke.

With his right hand, Hubert dropped his yo-yo into the Sleeper position, rocking it forward
and back on the end of the string. Then his left hand slapped his right hand, making the yo-yo jerk straight back to the top.

“Hey! Look! I did it!” Hubert’s voice sang with pride. “I Spanked the Baby!”

“Wonderful, Hubert!” Jean-Pierre pronounced it
Ooo-bear.
He clapped Hubert’s shoulder like a proud papa.

“Way to go, Hubert!” I cheered. But he was too busy high-fiving Jean-Pierre to notice me.

The school bell rang, so I had an excuse to leave. Hubert caught up with me outside homeroom.

“And you know what else?” he said. “This is the best day, already.” He sounded so pleased with himself. “First, I did a Spank the Baby—after only three tries. He’s a really good teacher, you know that? And plus, I asked him if I could call him J. P. instead of his real name, because it’s sort of hard to say? And he likes it! He thinks it sounds like a cowboy. He wants me to tell the other guys, too.”

Hubert had never said so many words together at one time.

“The other guys?”

“Yeah. You know. The guys.”

“Hubert? Are you feeling okay? Should you maybe go down to the nurse? Because you are acting strange! Since when do you call Josh and Victor and David ‘the guys’?”

“Oh, give me a break, Billie. You don’t have to be the Queen of the World all the time. I have other friends, too, you know!”

He might have other friends, but as he stomped off I couldn’t help thinking how I seemed to be losing my only best friend instead of making a new one.

On Wednesday, Alyssa came to school with her braids cut off. At first glance, I thought we had a new girl as well as the new boy. All her life, Alyssa has worn her hair in two long braids, like Rapunzel. And now here she was with most of it gone and an actual hairstyle—sleek but kind of flippy at the same time.

“Wow! Alyssa!” the girls buzzed around her. “You look great!”

The boys all noticed, too.

“Did you slip with the bread knife?” Victor sneered.

“Put the wrong wig on?” asked Josh.

“It’s very
moderne,”
said Jean-Pierre.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t get why her haircut bothered me so much.
How dare you!
I wanted to shout. I got chills just looking at her. Suddenly she seemed way older than the rest of us. Well, me anyway. I didn’t need a mirror to tell me that my freckles and my stringy hair the color of gravy and my stretched-out sweatshirt added up to no more than eleven. But Alyssa looked like a magazine model, or like someone we didn’t know.

On our way to the library for Independent Study time on Thursday, Alyssa began to issue orders. Her new look automatically seemed to make her the leader. She tossed her flippy hair while she made her announcement.

“We’re having a contest during I.S. Anyone with a yo-yo is eligible.” It hadn’t taken her long
to realize that Jean-Pierre far outshone the other kids in the important skills of Skin the Gat (
Écorcher le Chat
) and Around the Corner
(Autour le Coin).
I could tell she already had dreams of throwing her arms around the official champion. But no one else seemed to care; they all dumped their books and pulled out their yo-yos, ready to begin as soon as my mother was out of the way.

Usually at this time I would have been with Hubert on the yellow chairs by the window. We liked to oversee the traffic on our corner of Sixth Avenue and Bleecker Street, making up stories about the people getting out of taxicabs. Hubert always invented the best names, like Dora Dipple, or Dr. von Tweezer. Sometimes we saw Mr. Belenky sneaking a cigarette between music classes.

But now Hubert was a yo-yo contestant, and Alyssa was making me sick, giggling and holding on to Jean-Pierre’s arm. I couldn’t bear to watch. I had research to do anyway, on Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. I sat next to the biography shelf, trying to concentrate.

On her way into the Story Room to read to the waiting kindergarten, my mother sent me a secret wink. I pretended not to see. As soon as she left, there was a chorus of choked giggles from the study carrels and a brief argument about rules. I tried to ignore them, of course, but I couldn’t help overhearing.

“I think J. P. should go last,” said Alyssa. “Like, save the best for last.”

“Why are you the judge, Alyssa?” David wanted to know.

“Because I thought of the contest.”

“Not much of a contest if you already think J. P is best.”

“Fine. He can go first,” she said. “To show you how to do the moves.”

Finally they decided on alphabetical order. I couldn’t resist watching. I found I could see pretty well through the middle bookshelf, between Helen Keller and Martin Luther King. Josh went first and totally flubbed. Hubert was next. He had his back to me, so I couldn’t see the actual toss, but I heard everyone gasp like in a horror movie and then there was a nasty
cracking that could only be something breaking. I stood up so fast I whacked my head on the bookshelf. Kids popped out of every cranny in the library.

Hubert’s attempt to do an Over the Falls had sent his yo-yo through the glass of the Alumni Authors display case.

H
ubert was staring at his hand as if it belonged to someone else. The other boys tromped on toes stepping back as fast as they could, as though Hubert were emitting poison rays. He stood still as a book, his cheeks white as paper.

“You’re in for it now!” muttered Alyssa, instantly forgetting that it had all been her idea.

Oh, Hubert, I thought, coming around the stack to join the crowd. Oh, poor, dear Hubert. I wished I could sprinkle him with Vanishing Powder and let him disappear.

The door to the Story Room swung open
with a terrible force. I yanked Hubert out of his trance and pulled him over to stand next to me. My mother stalked in and scanned the library, soaking up the evidence.

Oh, Hubert, I thought again.

“Would anyone care to tell me what happened here?” When she’s mad, my mother has a way of talking so quietly that you have to hold your breath to hear her. It’s way worse than being yelled at.

No one spoke. No one moved even. I wondered how Jean-Pierre had managed to position himself beside the lectern with the giant dictionary. He looked as if he’d been working there all morning.

“No volunteers?” She crossed over to inspect the damage to the Alumni Authors display case. The glass was cracked from top to bottom but hadn’t actually shattered out of its frame. The books were untouched.

Hubert’s yo-yo lay on the carpet, like a murder weapon left at the scene. My mother’s eyes swept back and forth.

“Billie?” she said, hardly moving her lips.

I nearly fainted. Oh, Mom, no! Don’t do this to me!

“Give me the yo-yo, please.”

No wonder I don’t have any friends! I crossed the carpet, seeing only shuffling sneakers all around me.

I picked up Hubert’s yo-yo and dropped it into my mother’s hand like it was moldy cheese. I could never be a normal, popular girl with my mother at school every day! A person can’t be herself when her mother’s around.

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

As if I’d snitch.

“No.”

Several kids exhaled.

“I wasn’t watching.”

“Victor?” said my mother.

“Uh-uh,” mumbled Victor. “I was tying my shoe.”

That roused a weak snicker, but not from me. I felt like I could have heard Hubert’s heart pounding, except that mine was too loud.

“Hubert?”

He trembled beside me and shook his head, not looking up.

“Fine,” she snapped. “Since you’re all unable to see properly at the moment, I’ll take
all
the yo-yos for safekeeping until Monday.”

She tapped the table. “Now.” Five yo-yos were begrudgingly dropped by her drumming fingers, though I noticed Jean-Pierre’s was not among them. Hubert’s dangled from my mother’s other hand.

“And this particular toy? This is now mine. Unless the owner wants to speak to me directly.” She swept over us with another furious look. Alyssa was now skulking in the back row.

“Well,” said my mother, “since you all seem to feel excess loyalty this morning, you have
all
assumed responsibility for this foolish accident—”

“But—” started Alyssa.

My mother ignored her. “—and you are
all
expected to appear tomorrow morning at seven-thirty for a detention. It will not interfere with the field trip. You will reshelve books and clean tables until class time.”

A few kids had the nerve to groan. My mother raised an eyebrow in her special, chilling way, and the noise stopped.

“You are now dismissed.”

“Oh, Hubert,” I whispered as we filed up the stairs. “You must feel awful!”

“You better feel awful,” moaned Alyssa, behind us.

“Awful?” He paused. “I guess, maybe. I’m sorry about the glass. But the thing is”—Hubert turned to me with a radiant grin—“I did a perfect Over the Falls! I really did it! Only the string slipped off my finger at the last second and went flying—

“Hey, J. P.!” Hubert called ahead, raising his voice in a way I had never heard before. “Did you see that? I did an Over the Falls!”

“You really are whack,” I said.

“Yes, yes, I saw, Hubert!” J. P. smiled at Hubert as if he were a good puppy. “But tell me, please, this nasty woman is for real? We must clean her library?”

Hubert glanced at me, and a blush swept his cheeks.

I prayed for the floor to open up and swallow me. What chance would I ever have?

“Who?” Alyssa was eavesdropping as usual. “You mean Old Stone-Face Stoner? She’s not just nasty. She’s Billie’s mother.”

I
didn’t even get my coat off before I was yelling at my mother. Jane ran for cover as soon as I opened my mouth. The smirk on Alyssa’s face and Jean-Pierre’s flustered apology had fueled me to a stomping rage by the time I got home.

“How do you think I feel when you single me out like that? Do you have any idea how completely humiliating it is to have my mother at school all day, sticking her nose in my life? Do you know what they call you?” I couldn’t stop myself. I jumped off the cliff. “They call you Stone-Face Stoner! How do you like that?”

“Stone-Face?” She raised her eyebrows, but
she didn’t fall apart the way I meant her to. She even almost smiled. “Stone-Face, huh?”

“How could you do that to me?” I whined, trying to get back on track. “How could you ask me to rat in front of everybody?”

“Billie, honey, I’m sorry.” She reached out to pat my shoulder, but I shook her off.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she went on. “Someone spilled juice on the encyclopedia this morning, and then the copy machine was broken. It was the last straw having to deal with broken glass. Sixth-graders should know better. Sometimes your friends just get—”

“What friends? You think I have friends? Who wants to be friends with the librarian’s daughter? Don’t you get it? I
don’t have any friends!
”

She gave me a long look and then spoke in her soft, let’s-talk-this-over-I’ll-be-your-friend voice, “Billie, aren’t you being a little extreme?”

I gave her a long look back while my brain churned. It was all Alyssa’s fault for calling the contest in the first place. Did it count as ratting
if I ratted on her, since she’s such a rat herself? I’d be protecting Hubert, and Alyssa deserved the blame more than he did. I hatched a devious plot.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I have a couple of friends. But you can’t try to make me rat on people that way. Because it backfires and they torment me. Especially if it was actually Alyssa’s idea—” I gasped, as if it had slipped out by accident. “I mean—she made them—I mean—I don’t really know, but the person who broke the glass was not—”

I fumbled into silence. The dirty deed was done. I’d planted the seed of blame on Alyssa, and Hubert was off the hook. Except that he’d have to buy himself a new yo-yo.

The next morning when I arrived to serve detention with the rest of the class, there was already a hill of backpacks just inside the door of the library. At home, I had purposely not been able to find my left boot so that I wouldn’t show up alongside my mother. I added my pack to the pile and listened to our instructions.

She set us to work with an entire cart full of books to reshelve. I bet she had gone around randomly plucking books off the shelves to make more work for us. Even if everyone in the school had read a book yesterday, there wouldn’t have been that many to be reshelved today.

The kids who arrived late for detention had to actually scrub tables. My mother had six buckets, six scrub brushes, six squirt bottles of some foul-smelling cleaning solution, and a stack of stretchy gloves like the ones doctors use. That’s how toxic the cleaning chemical was.

I was delighted to see Alyssa show up at 7:45 and trip over my pack at the door, even though she kicked it when she realized whose it was. She had missed the cutoff time and was put straight to work scouring the tabletops, along with Victor, Renee, and Josh.

“This is
so
not fair!” she whined after one minute of forced labor. My mother ignored her, and I began to hum.

Alcott goes after Aiken…. Byars goes after Blume….

“I don’t see why we should have to do manual labor just because certain people”—Alyssa threw a menacing glare at Hubert, who was reshelving in Nonfiction—“are too clumsy to hold on to their yo-yos!”

“Shut up, Alyssa,” warned Josh. The boys especially have a strict, anti-rat code.

“Well, I’m only saying—”

“Shut
up,
Alyssa,” they hissed.

“If J. P. was here, I’ll bet he’d agree with me,” whined Alyssa.

Hey, where
was
J. P.?

“Shut up,
Alyssa!”

“Alyssa,” said my mother, sticking her head around her office door, “if you’ve finished with your table, I’d like to speak to you for a moment, please.”

The library went as quiet as—well, a library. Two pink dots burned on Alyssa’s cheeks. She shot me a look of blame as she peeled off her gloves and dropped them into a bucket. Oh, so what? I thought.

As the door to my mother’s office closed, the door to the library opened. Jean-Pierre strolled
in, his black hair blown wild by the January wind.

“Allo!
Bonjour!”
he greeted us.

“You’re a little late, J. P.,” grumbled Josh, pulling his gloves off. “We’ve done all the dirty work.”

“I am sorry indeed,” said J. P. with a cheeky smile. “I’ve been here only four days and already you miss me?”

Josh grunted, and the other kids laughed.

J. P. picked up a latex glove from the table. An idea immediately sparkled in his eyes.

“Watch this,” he said. With one hand he bunched the wrist of his glove to his mouth and blew into it. With his other hand, he pulled out his should-have-been-confiscated yo-yo. As he held the inflated glove—

“It’s an udder!” shrieked Megan.

—he flipped the yo-yo up and down a couple of times and then let go of the glove. It shot from his hand like an air-powered rocket and then
zap!
the yo-yo flew up to meet it and knock it off course, all in less than a second. It was a very deft trick.

“Wow! Hurrah! Score!” we all cheered in admiration. How did he do that—skip detention and have nobody mad? Everyone snatched at the gloves, and we soon had a game of multi-udder volleyball going on.

My mother’s office door clicked open. We could hear the dreaded voice. All we needed was another detention! I grabbed a balloon from midair and pushed it out of sight into a bucket. Victor and Michele scrambled for the others. I shoved my fistful of extra gloves into the pockets of my jeans just as Alyssa clomped into the room.

Panic giggles filled my throat, but I swallowed hard at the look on Alyssa’s face.

“You are a stinking, tattletale brat,” she ranted at me. “Running off to tell Mommy when Baby Bertie gets in trouble!” She turned on Hubert, who was lurking behind Military History. “Well, you’re in a lot more trouble now. I’m not taking the rap for a butterfinger loser like you. Stone-Face wants to see you next!” She crossed her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes, brimming with satisfied vengeance.

Hubert pinched his lips together and headed to his doom. I grabbed his arm as he went past and whispered, “It’s only my mother,” but he pulled away.

“I’ll come with you,” said J. P. “It’s only fair.”

Hubert’s grateful smile made my heart crack just a little. A stranger had thought of the right thing to say, and I hadn’t. I felt horrible. I was his best friend, and I’d let him down. My whole rescue mission had failed because Alyssa had outratted me and probably told my mother every tiny detail.

When the boys came out, Hubert pushed right past me.

“Hubert,” I pleaded. “Hubert, I’m sorry, I really am. Tell me what happened, please?” I tugged on his shirt all the way up the stairs, but he wouldn’t say a word.

It wasn’t until we got to homeroom, when Mr. Donaldson was going over the rules for the field trip, that I realized I must have left my backpack in the library.