Invisible Inkling

Little Dude, Don’t Bite

I am suspended for the rest of the day and sent home from school directly.

My parents are really, really mad at me. I have never seen them this upset.

It is not pretty.

When they calm down, Dad sits me down in the grown-up bedroom for a private talk.

“Little dude.” His eyes are sad and concerned. “Don’t bite.”

“But—”

“Don’t bite. No matter what happens. Ever.”

“I didn’t bite him,” I say.

“There were teeth marks,” he says. “The school nurse found your teeth marks.”

“They were—”

I give up and go silent. I can’t explain.

Dad rubs his scraggle beard. “In this family, we are pacifists,” he says finally. “There is always a peaceable solution, little dude. Always.”

“Okay.”

“That means no more biting, or you’re in big trouble.”

“Okay.”

“I know he pinched you, and even knocked you down, but . . . It’s like the laws of the outback took over that lunchroom or something. What you did was wrong.”

I see how sad he looks, how disappointed in me he is.

I think, He doesn’t even know I said that awful, awful thing about Gillicut’s mom.

I hate knowing I’m the kind of person who’d hurt someone’s feelings that way.

But I do know it.

And I can’t erase it.

“I’m really sorry, Dad,” I say.

* * *

Saturday afternoon, Inkling is at the library looking at maps of upstate New York so he can find Land o’ Pumpkins. Chin comes to the ice-cream store with her mom. She gets strawberry and hot fudge in a dish, and joins me in the overlook.

She says Gillicut had his ankle washed out with rubbing alcohol. Rumor from the kid who was his “nurse buddy”: He bawled like a baby. He got bandaged up and came back to class walking with a limp.

His father picked him up early.

I feel a twinge of remorse. It probably really hurt, if Gillicut was crying.

Chin says she tried to tell Ms. Cherry that Gillicut started it all, “but Ms. Cherry said that she was there, sitting at our table. She said she saw everything, thank you very much. Bruno fell over on Hank and apologized for the accident. He even offered to get napkins. Then, for no reason at all, Hank bit Bruno. End of story.”

I sigh.

There is no arguing with Ms. Cherry.

“What would you say, Chin,” I ask, “if I told you it wasn’t me that bit Gillicut?”

“What?”

“It was my . . . um . . . invisible friend who bit him. And we planned the ambush. What would you say?”

Chin laughs. “I’d say, how dumb do you think I am?”

“Still, what if I told you I really did have an invisible friend?”

“I’d say you should have your eyes checked.”

“For serious.”

She eats a spoonful of ice cream. “I’d say, I’m not invisible.”

Wow.

Chin has been hanging out with me for almost a year, but she’s never called me her friend until now.

I feel pretty cheerful at that.

“Hey,” she says. “Do you think your parents would let you walk with me to the corner store? I got my allowance today, and I really want a box of Altoids.”

I swear, I will never understand girls. Who would want Altoids when they could buy Oreos or Gummi worms?

“Yeah,” I say. “I bet they will.”

Then an idea comes to me.

A good idea. An important idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

An idea to maybe make Inkling stay. Even though he’s paid his Hetsnickle debt.

“Wait five minutes, ’kay?” I tell Chin. “There’s something I realized I gotta do.”

I climb down the ladder and run to the cash register. Mom is working the counter, scooping cones and taking people’s money. “I want a job,” I tell her.

It’s something I should have said a long time ago.

“You do?” She wipes her hands on her apron.

“I want to earn extra money so I can go to the store with Chin,” I tell her. “And maybe pay off the Lego airport faster. And pay Nadia back for the pop-up book. Like, could I take out all the recycling for you? Bag it up? Bring it to the sidewalk for pickup?”

Mom looks down at me. Then at the full recycle bins.

“I shouldn’t just be sitting around the overlook all the time,” I say. “I’m in the fourth grade.”

There is a line of customers.

Nadia is scooping and Dad is fixing a broken cooler. “Yes, actually,” Mom says. “That would be a huge help. How does a dollar sound?”

“How about five, to do it every day this week?” I say.

“Sure.”

“And maybe other days I could wipe counters? Or fill napkin holders? I want to earn some money of my own, regular.”

Mom smiles. “Yes, Hank. We could use your help, actually.”

I bag up the recycling from all three bins and lug it out. Then I spray the bins with air freshener and put in new bags. I even sweep up a napkin and two spoons on the floor so the recycle area looks really good when I’m done.

Mom gives me a five-dollar bill.

“Thanks for waiting,” I say to Chin. “I needed money.”

“Whatcha gonna get?”

“Squash,” I answer. “They have squash at that corner fruit market, right?”

“I dunno.”

“I’m pretty sure I saw acorn there, if not butternut.”

“I swear,” mutters Chin, shaking her head as we walk together down the block. “I will never understand boys.”