Invisible Inkling

My Fur Looks Fantastic When I Leave

I wake. The clock in the kitchen reads five a.m. I’ve been asleep sitting up.

My neck is sore and sticky.

I jolt to my feet. Where is my bucket? My spray cleaner?

Mom is always awake by six, and if everything isn’t clean, I’ll be in even more trouble than I already am.

I dash about the kitchen stupidly, then rush into the dining area to check out the damage.

It’s spotless.

No trace of pumpkin. No trace of scuffle.

The table shines with polish, and the carpet is scrubbed.

On the table is a letter, typed and printed out from the computer.

Dear Nadia,

I am very sorry for ruining your dangerous pumpkins.

You always take me out for pizza and you are smart. Even if you did borrow my sweatshirt without asking, I think you’re a good big sister.

Forgive me.

“Inkling?” I whisper.

“You look terrible,” he says, from somewhere behind me.

“There you are!”

“Terrible,” he repeats. “Pale. Sticky. Bags under your eyes. But your hair? Amazing. You should wear it like that regular.”

I touch my hair. It’s crunchy from pumpkin, sticking out all over my head. “I’ll think about it.”

Inkling must have jumped onto the dining table, because the letter to Nadia lifts up and waves. “I figure she’ll think the letter’s from you,” Inkling says. “But it’s really from me. I do feel bad about what happened.”

“You should.”

“It’s just—Wolowitz, you don’t understand how it is when bandapats see pumpkins. In our hearts, we’re wild animals. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter that I can speak Yiddish and Mandarin—or that I’ve traveled the globe. It doesn’t matter that you humans have art projects and clean apartments. Sometimes, everything else in the world disappears but me and a pumpkin.”

“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say.

“Also, I was really hungry,” explains Inkling. “I missed dinner.”

“Where did you go last night?”

“To the gym.”

“What?”

“To the gym, all right? I went to the gym. You know, that one on Court Street with the revolving door.”

“Why?”

“I needed some exercise. Cooped up all day in here, or getting carried around the neighborhood by you—a bandapat can get into poor condition.” A dishrag leaps off the table and begins wiping a sticky spot on the floor. “I’m practically the last of my kind, Wolowitz,” Inkling says as he scrubs. “I can’t afford to get sick. I gotta take care of myself.”

“But what do you do there? Do you go on a treadmill?”

“That’s like a hamster wheel. No self-respecting bandapat would ever get on a hamster wheel.” The rag trots into the kitchen, and I follow it. It leaps onto the counter and folds itself neatly in quarters.

“So what do you do?” I ask again.

“I swim! After the place shuts down, I can still get in through the basement window. Bandapats are excellent swimmers. I bet you didn’t know that.”

I didn’t.

“We’re related to the otters of the Canadian underbrushlands,” Inkling continues. “We float like you wouldn’t believe.”

“How many times have you gone swimming?” I ask.

“This was just my second time. But I plan to go regularly. They have free hair gel in there,” Inkling adds. “And dryers, too. My fur looks fantastic when I leave.”

I touch my pumpkin hair again. “I should take a shower,” I say. “Thanks for cleaning up.”

“Oh, it was nothing.” Inkling coughs apologetically. “But don’t look in that cupboard to the left of the dishwasher.”

Of course, I go over and open the cupboard.

Ugh.

It’s full of soggy towels and pumpkin mush.

“Oh, lovely,” I say.

“Well, you should clean up something yourself. You did smash the eyeball.”

“Only to protect you!” I sigh and begin pulling stuff out of the cupboard. I run the water and rinse the towels out.

“I would have eaten that eyeball later,” Inkling sulks. “You could have saved it.”

When Nadia gets up, she is not at all happy to find the apology letter instead of her four pumpkins.

Not. At all. Happy.

I feel really bad about what happened. She doesn’t need to swear at me. Or throw stuff. Or cut up my red hoodie with the kitchen scissors.