The Invisible Enemy (9 page)

U
h-oh,” I said.

“That’s all you have to say, Miss Brainy Butt?” barked Alyssa.

“I don’t get it,” said Jody. “It worked perfectly on my dog, Pepper. The new recipe’s proportions must be a little different for humans.”

“Oh, let’s talk recipes,” snapped Alyssa. “Like what to do with the pieces of your face when I get through mashing them.”

“Hush up, Alyssa!”

“You hush up, Billie. You are such a loser, pulling mean tricks like this.”

“I am not a loser, Alyssa Morgan, and don’t ever call me that again. I’m saving you, not playing tricks. If you don’t believe I’m helping, you can go away now, without legs.”

Jody laughed.

“This is not funny,” growled Alyssa. “You’re all against me.”

“Every single person in this apartment is trying to help you,” I reminded her. “Jody is the genius who will probably invent the cure for cancer or find out how to breathe underwater or something, and you’re treating her like a servant.”

Alyssa chewed on her lip, trying to stare me down, but she blinked first.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I get your point.”

I’d expected her to bite back as usual. Now it sounded as though she might cry.

“Maybe you’re only mean when you’re around me,” I said. “I’ve noticed that I’m mostly only nasty around you. Having an enemy turns me into an enemy.”

“Heavy,” said Jody.

“Can we just fix things?” said Alyssa. “I want to go home.”

I was trying to fix things, only she didn’t get it. I looked back to where her feet should be. First things first, I told myself.

“This happened to me, too,” I said. “Don’t you remember, Jody? My hands and feet stayed kind of fuzzy for a while.”

“That’s what I tried to tell her,” said Jody. “Only she wasn’t too receptive to incoming data. We need heat, right? Isn’t that what we did when it happened to you?”

“My dad doesn’t have a hair dryer,” I said. “He honestly doesn’t have that much hair to dry.”

“Let me think,” said Jody.

There was a tap on the door.

“Billie?” Hubert whispered. “Your dad just got home!” He opened the door a crack. “He’s got Jane with him. She has to use the bathroom.”

“She can’t come in,” I said. “Distract her.”

“Your dad invited us to lunch,” said Hubert. “J. P. said he’d help make crepes.”

“Hubert, we have a little crisis here. Can you think of something brilliant to keep the others away for a few minutes?” I shut the door.

“How about if we blow on her?” I said, getting back to business. “Breath is warm. Wouldn’t it have the same effect?”

“Better than putting her feet in the oven.” Jody laughed. “Let’s try it.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” grumbled Alyssa, climbing out of the tub. “I’m visible again, okay?”

She sat down on the toilet seat, her wet hair flicking drips across her lap.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Jody and I knelt on either side of her and started to blow.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” said Alyssa. “It’s so humiliating—”

“Shhh.” I handed her a towel. “Work on your hair, why don’t you.”

Jody went for the oscillating-fan technique, using a steady breath and a back-and-forth motion. I tried the hot-spot method, blowing directly on one place at a time. We sat there huffing and puffing for at least two minutes before a shadowy impression of Alyssa’s legs shimmered into sight.

“It’s working!” said Jody.

“Keep blowing,” said Alyssa. “Come on. Faster!”

Slowly, Alyssa’s legs began to take shape. Jody and I kept on blowing, working our way down to the ankles.

“Billie!” Jane’s voice rang from the hallway.

“Jane, no!” Hubert yelled as the door swung open.

“I have to pee!”

O
h, shoot,” I said.

“Oh, no!” said Hubert, coming in behind Jane with Jean-Pierre at his side.

“Alyssa!” Jane stared. “Why don’t you have any feet?”

“What?” gasped Jean-Pierre.

“Go away,” moaned Alyssa.

“How did Alyssa come to be here?” asked Jean-Pierre.

“Can you stand up with no feet?” asked Jane. “I really have to pee.”

“Go
away
,” said Alyssa.

“Ohmigod,” said Hubert.

Jean-Pierre crouched between Jody and me, transfixed. Jody continued to breathe steadily on Alyssa’s right foot, which was slowly, slowly reappearing.

“Wow!” said Jean-Pierre.
“Extraordinaire
!”

Alyssa covered her face with her hands—dying, I’m sure, of mortification. She didn’t realize Jean-Pierre was fascinated.

“May I try?” He plucked Alyssa’s left ankle out of my grasp and took over the blowing operation. Alyssa jerked her leg, nearly kicking him in the chin, but he held on.

“I feel it, but I do not see it!”

“Billie,” said Alyssa. “Do something!”

“We all know boys are full of hot air,” I said. “So let him use it for a good cause. Think of him as a prince kneeling romantically before you.”

“Instead of some weirdo panting on her toes?” asked Jody in a whisper.

Jean-Pierre ignored us and kept blowing. Within minutes, Alyssa was whole again.

“Now, can I
please
have some privacy?” said Jane, plugging her nose and hopping from foot
to foot. Alyssa stood up and grabbed her socks and boots from on top of the laundry hamper. She flounced into the hall just before my father appeared in the doorway.

“What are you all doing in the bathroom? Is this what kids do these days?”

“Dad!”

“Eeew! What’s that smell? What
have
you been doing in here?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just an experiment.” I noticed Hubert tugging the shower curtain over to hide the junk in the bathtub.

“Well, it stinks! I don’t think your mother would approve of this, Billie. Come on, everyone. The party is moving to the living room.
Now
.”

He led the way. My friends shuffled out behind him. I yanked the Mickey curtain out of the way and turned on the taps. I rinsed what I could down the drain, but there were huge chunks of yuck that would have to wait. I closed the curtain again and finally gave Jane her private moment.

Alyssa was in the hall, pulling on her socks.
The others had gone ahead, so I waited for her. I had something more to say.

“You know what, Alyssa?” I said to the bent-over back of her head. “I’ve known you since kindergarten, just like I’ve known Hubert. But you’ve never said two nice things to me in eight years. You were always rude to me, and bossy and mean.”

She straightened up and looked me in the eye. “I guess that’s who I am,” she said.

“But it’s not,” I said. “That’s just my point. It’s only part of who you are. Because you’re also inventive and daring. Even fun to be with sometimes. But it wasn’t until you disappeared that the hidden parts of you started to show. Isn’t that weird?”

Her mouth slipped into a smile without her noticing.

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” she said. “Not that we’re ever going to be friends or anything. But you’re not as creepy as I thought. You covered up for me, and you were pretty resourceful. Like with Mr. Donaldson. And J. P.’s pj’s!” She laughed. “You’re funny
and sort of clever. You even, you know, sort of handed over J. P.”

“He does seem to find your knobby knees pretty appealing, don’t you think?”

“Very funny,” said Alyssa, pushing past me on her way to the living room. But I could tell she thought so, too.

“Don’t say thanks or anything,” I called after her, sort of kidding.

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” She was sort of kidding, too.

“Oh, hello, Alyssa,” said my father, passing around a tray of ginger ales. “That’s right, isn’t it? Alyssa? I wasn’t sure who that was, lurking in the hall.”

“She’s our surprise guest,” I said. “She just showed up out of nowhere.”

“Can you join us for lunch?” asked Dad.

Alyssa actually grinned at me. “Oh sure,” she said. “I’m here to stay, whether you like it or not.”

W
e had so much fun during lunch, eating crepes and imitating my father’s terrible French, that I almost forgot about the bathtub situation. Until the smell seeped into the living room.

“What
is
that?” asked my dad, starting to his feet. “What were you doing in there, Billie?”

“I’ll deal with it,” I said, scurrying to the bathroom.

“I’ll help,” said Alyssa, right behind me. “But we’re using these.” She giggled and handed over the latex gloves. “They were in your coat pocket.”

On the ride home, when I described the mess to Hubert, he plugged his ears and hummed like a dial tone. Amazingly, Alyssa had stayed and helped me till the tub was gleaming. That was truly the most surprising thing that happened all day.

Ever since Alyssa’s adventure, Jane has been begging me to “get gone.” Though it is often tempting, I have so far managed to resist. But I did give her a big reward for keeping our secret. I made her a pair of fairy wings, using wire hangers and tutu material and a whole tube of silver glitter. She couldn’t believe her luck, but I couldn’t believe mine either—that she didn’t blab the whole story to Mom.

Jody is writing a book, keeping track of all her inventions and their possible benefits to humankind. One of these days she’ll be famous, I bet, but first she has to figure out how to keep her ideas from being used by bad guys—and also how to blend the antidotes more aromatically!

Jean-Pierre came with me as Official Tester when I bought Hubert the coolest yo-yo we could find, to replace the one sitting in my mother’s office drawer. The yo-yo craze has subsided at school, but Hubert is still determined to conquer a Skin the Gat, and the Glow-Mobilo will definitely help him achieve that goal.

It wouldn’t be quite true to say that Alyssa and I are living happily ever after. We certainly
aren’t friends the way I am with Hubert. But when Mr. Donaldson made us partners for the “Life in a Castle” project, we built a pretty good model of a cloister without pouring glue in each other’s hair.

And, once in a while, in the middle of math, maybe, or on line in the cafeteria, she’ll look over at me and say, “Remember when Michele was bald?” or “So, what color
are
J. R’s pj’s?” and we’ll laugh till it hurts. We share a secret, after all: a memory that’s only ours.

Text copyright © 2002 by Marthe Jocelyn
Illustrations copyright © 2002 by Abby Carter

Published in Canada by Tundra Books,
75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9.

Published in the United States by Dutton Children’s Books,
a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Jocelyn, Marthe
The invisible enemy

eISBN: 978-1-77049-035-2

I. Carter, Abby II. Title.
PS8569.O254I583   2002      jC813′.54      C2001-902544-0
PZ7.J579Io 2002

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

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