Authors: Marthe Jocelyn
The Invisible Day (10 page)
She looked up in complete disbelief.
“My research is all ruined!” she cried, holding up the binder for everyone to see. “All my writing is gone!”
“Well, then, Alyssa,” said Ms. McPhee soothingly, “try telling us what you know about your country, without your notes. What is the weather like, for instance? What sort of food do all those people eat? What are the conditions for women in Chinese culture?”
Alyssa’s gray face, her bugging-out eyes, her violet neck, her look of complete stupidity … this was all I needed to feel that Hubert was avenged.
I grinned at him. He slowly shook his head back and forth, and then he grinned, too.
“Excuse me, Ms. McPhee?” he said. “I could talk about China. I could, um, tell you lots of things that I know from my mom and dad.”
Ms. McPhee rose to the occasion.
“Go ahead, Hubert. We’d love to hear your family’s story. Alyssa, why don’t you sit down and we’ll discuss your problem later.”
Oh, happy day.
T
his is the part of the story where all the loose ends get tied together into a neat little tassel.
A few weeks after the invisible day, I turned eleven.
One thing I got for my birthday was a diary. I’ve been keeping a record of setting everything right.
First, when my mom took us into City Eden for an after-school snack, I pretended to find a dollar on the floor, and I gave it to the lady to pay for my banana and Doritos.
Second, I taped a subway token to a piece of cardboard and sent it to the Metropolitan Transit Authority to pay for my first ride uptown.
Third, I had to save a chunk of my allowance, which is only four dollars a week, before I could mail a ten-dollar bill to the newspaper kiosk on Columbus Avenue to pay for all the gum I stole. Who knows if mail gets delivered to a place like that, but I did my best.
The next time we went to the Museum of Natural History for a Family Excursion, I looked for the old lady with the tambourine, but she wasn’t there, so she’s still on my list.
When the movie starring Dana Clare was released, Hubert and I went, with our moms. The scene that I’m in is just before she finds out that the baker’s sister is her real-life mother, who she’s been searching for during the whole movie. I know it’s the scene that I’m in because her hair ruffles a little bit while she’s looking at the paper.
“That’s me!” I whispered to Hubert. “That’s my screen debut!”
“You deserve an Oscar,” he whispered back.
And then Dana drops the paper on the ground beside her instead of tossing it onto the road. Hubert wouldn’t believe me except that I showed him the paper. I keep it in my top drawer alongside the film canister holding the dregs of the vanishing powder. You never know when such a thing might come in handy.
Alyssa went crazy after her Small World big disaster. She even accused Sarah of sabotaging her project. Hubert and I rescued Sarah, and now she hangs out with us. She finally got some blue jeans.
I called Jody to tell her about my revenge on Alyssa, and she laughed for five minutes without stopping. Now we talk to each other on the phone at least once a week. I pretend it’s someone from school, needing help with homework.
Another present for my eleventh birthday was that my mother gave me a key to our front door. Not to start using right away, she said, but after a little practice in “street smarts.” So now we have a new routine for walking to school. I walk alone, a couple of blocks ahead of Jane and my mother, but still in their sight.
The first time I did it, I stopped to wait for a green light at the corner of LaGuardia Place. I looked back and waved at them. Jane waved wildly and then leaned over and wiggled her bottom in my direction, which is her idea of hilarious.
My mother didn’t wave because her hands were jammed in her pockets. I know she wished she was next to me with her arm around my shoulder instead of trailing along behind. She had a shiny, fake smile on her face, trying to show how brave she is.
I blew her a kiss and walked the rest of the way to school without turning around. With
my head up and my shoulders back, just like my mother taught me.
Text copyright © 1997 by Marthe Jocelyn
Illustrations copyright © 1997 by Abby Carter
Published in Canada by Tundra Books,
McClelland & Stewart Young Readers
,
75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9
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.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Jocelyn, Marthe
The invisible day
eISBN: 978-1-77049-037-6
I. Carter, Abby. II. Title.
PS8569.0254I58 jC813’.54 C97-930627-2
PZ7.J62In
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts 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. Canada
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