Things Not Seen

Bobby returns to his bedroom to think. He notices that his invisible arm leaves a slight shadow on his desk under the lamp. His dad walks in, notes the same thing, and reasons that Bobby’s body doesn’t reflect light but bends it. Bobby asks how this information can help him; his dad doesn’t know. Bobby is irritated to have no answers.

He thinks about his situation. Usually, he’s alone: When not at school he’s at the university library or reading books from his parents’ huge library at home. Now, he experiments on his invisible self. He spits on a mirror: He can feel it, but it’s invisible. He chews gum but can only see it when his mouth is open. He puts on a bathrobe, goes to the bathroom, and discovers that whatever comes out of him also is invisible.

His mom appears at the bathroom door and asks if he’s all right. He’s grumpy with her, and her face crumples. For a moment, he’s tempted to hug her, but he just walks past and back to his room. There, he falls asleep and doesn’t wake until early afternoon.

He goes downstairs and finds a note from his parents: Emily couldn’t get a sub and must go and teach but will be home early, and he’s to call if there’s an emergency. She told his school he had the flu, and she’ll pick up his homework. David will be home early too; he writes simply, “Bobby—Please be careful” (19).

Bobby is miffed that going to work is more important than him, and that they’re worried about his homework, of all things. He decides to go out for a while.

Bobby bundles up against the February chill and takes a bus toward the university. Gloves, a stocking cap, and dark glasses help cover his invisibility. He hands his ID card to Walt, the guard, and says hi; Walt recognizes his voice and waves him through. Bobby heads for the fifth floor, finds an unoccupied bathroom, removes all his clothes, and hides them above a ceiling panel. He walks out into the book stacks and learns how to touch things without seeing his own hand.

He takes the stairs down to the fourth floor, where students study for midterms. One girl struggles to find some information on a book; she has trouble getting past a screen, and Bobby realizes she needs to push an F key, so he reaches past her and does so. She’s surprised, then shrugs and pushes her chair back, hitting Bobby in the toe. He yells in pain, and she yelps and pushes back further as she stands up. Bobby limps away, his toe aching. A few students go over to the girl, who shrugs, and they return to their tables.

Realizing he can get into serious trouble if he’s badly injured, Bobby is more careful on the third floor, where he does nothing except observe. It feels strange to study others when they don’t know they’re being watched.

Soon, though, he tires of it and realizes he needs to hurry home before his dad gets back. He retrieves and dons his clothes. On the way out the main doors, he turns to wave goodbye to Walt and bumps into a girl walking out the same exit. Some cassettes pop from her backpack and scatter on the floor. Quickly, he picks them up and gives them back, but his scarf drops away. The girl stares directly at his invisible neck, and Bobby thinks he’s been found out.

He notices a long white cane lying on the floor, picks it up, and hands it to her. There’s a reason she’s not screaming in horror: “This girl’s blind” (28).

Bobby opens the door for the girl. She’s pretty, and he notices her blue eyes and straight brown hair cut short to her jawline. They chat a moment—like him, she’s in high school—and then Bobby has to hurry for the bus, so he says, “maybe I’ll see you around” (30). For a moment she looks hurt; then she smiles and says “Sure, see you ’round” (30). He’s halfway to the bus when he realizes he used the word “see” to someone who’s blind, and he feels hot with embarrassment.

David is already home. Bobby thinks of ways to sneak in and explain away his disappearance, but instead he stomps right into the house and begins removing jacket, scarf, and glasses. His dad expresses great relief, then scolds Bobby for going out into the world and risking revealing his unique condition.

Feeling newly powerful, Bobby yells at his dad for going off to work as if that’s more important than his son being in a dire predicament. He stalks off to his bedroom: “I don’t wait for his answer because I don’t have to. There are new rules” (33).

In his room, he realizes he’s starving. Naked, he sneaks downstairs and makes himself a sandwich. He hears his father on the phone, so he sneaks up behind him and listens as his dad talks to his mom about how angry Bobby is and how they need to be with him now. Bobby sneaks upstairs; when David announces he’s going to pick up Emily, Bobby grunts an acknowledgment.

He returns downstairs and watches TV. He falls asleep to Gilligan’s Island, then wakes two hours later to the news. A reporter describes a three-car collision. The people in the Ford Taurus are in serious condition at a hospital. The car belongs to his dad.

Police ring the doorbell, but Bobby doesn’t answer. He finds it hard to breathe. The phone rings: It’s a doctor at the hospital, Sarah Fleming. She says Bobby’s parents were injured but will be okay. His mom has a concussion and a broken nose; his dad suffered injuries to his left arm and right hand, and they performed repair surgery. His mom will be there a few days; his dad, maybe a week.

Dr. Fleming wants to know if Bobby can find an adult to stay with him. She says his mom suggests Aunt Ethel. Bobby says he’ll look into it; she gives him her own number to call when he knows more.

Aunt Ethel lives in Miami, and Bobby commends his mom for thinking fast. Still, people may start coming around to the house, including the police again. He doesn’t know what to do, so he decides to go visit his parents at the hospital.

Bobby takes a cab to the hospital. The receptionist says he’ll have to talk to Dr. Fleming about seeing Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. He heads to the emergency wing, where he finds an empty room, removes his clothes, hides them, and sneaks past patients and staff. He heads to the admitting desk, where he reads his mom’s name and room number upside-down on a clipboard. Emily is on the fifth floor.

Emily shares a room with another lady; a curtain divides them. Dark bruises underscore her eyes, a large bandage covers her nose, and a cut and a lump decorate her face. Bobby touches her and says hello; for a moment she’s terrified, then she remembers and takes his invisible hand. She says, “Bobby, we didn’t mean to leave you alone. I mean, we did, but it wasn’t like we were ignoring you or forgetting about you” (47). He says he understands.

They’re interrupted by Dr. Fleming and two others. Bobby hides under the bed. One doctor reports that Mr. Phillips is going to be just fine. Bobby’s mom says she heard from her son by cell phone, and that his aunt will stay with him.

The doctors depart, and Bobby climbs out from under the bed and congratulates his mom on her quick thinking. From her purse, she pulls some twenties and gives them to Bobby for taxis. She reminds him that there’s plenty of food in the kitchen and that she’ll be home in a few days. She thanks him for visiting. As he leaves, the woman in the other bed tries to peer around the curtain at Mrs. Phillips talking to someone who doesn’t seem to be there. Bobby acknowledges that “[s]he’s confused, and she has a right to be” (52).

Bobby returns to the empty house. He enters through a side door to avoid the gaze of the nosy neighbor, Mrs. Trent, then closes all the curtains and shades before turning on any lights. It’s his first time alone overnight, and the house suddenly reminds him of a funeral home. A kid at school, Russell, lives above his father’s funeral home. Another kid stayed over, and they snuck down to the basement and looked at a refrigerated dead body. “Stuff like that creeps [Bobby] out” (53), and he avoided Russell for a month.

Fear of being alone eats at him, and he turns on a lot of lights and the stereo, but he’s still nervous. He gets on the computer and searches for a school friend to chat with, but everyone’s offline, studying for midterms. In a panic, he runs to his room and sits on his bed with a pillow clutched to his stomach. Terror pours through him.

He manages to talk himself down, then goes downstairs, gets some ice cream, and watches an I Love Lucy rerun. He’s laughing, no longer afraid. He goes back upstairs, but he locks his bedroom door and leaves the light on: “I don’t kid myself. The bogeyman isn’t really dead, not forever. He’s just not here. Not tonight” (60).

The next day, with nothing to do, Bobby reads, goes online, practices his trumpet, eats, listens to music, and naps. His mom calls him several times and asks anxiously about everything he’s doing. She nags at him about getting his homework assignments, not eating junk food, and so forth.

His dad calls and clinically describes his own injuries—to Bobby, this means his head’s uninjured—and says he’d like a fingernail clipping from Bobby to examine back at his lab. He plans to search the literature on light energy, and he suggests that Bobby go online to a science journal and “do some poking around, search their database for articles on light” (63). Bobby would rather take some real-world action, like detective work on what led to his invisibility, but he agrees. He hangs up and watches a John Wayne film festival on TV.

Nosy Mrs. Trent rings the doorbell. Through the door, she says she’s worried about Bobby being all alone, and she brought cookies. Bobby knows it’s a ruse to get inside information; he says his Aunt Ethel is there to keep an eye on him, and he’s got the flu and mustn’t open the door. Mrs. Trent leaves the cookies outside about five feet from the door, hoping to get a good glimpse of Aunt Ethel. Bobby dresses up as an old lady in a bathrobe with his head wrapped in a towel, shuffles outside to retrieve the cookies and goes back inside.

The next day, Thursday, is about the same, except his parents call him constantly. Bobby worries about how his life is suddenly so screwed up. It’s not as if he can use his invisibility and then switch it off when he likes. He feels completely stuck: “It’s like my life is supposed to be playing, but the VCR is on pause and the screen is blank and maybe the whole rest of the tape is erased” (68).

It’s an unseasonably warm day, and Bobby feels he must do something, so he removes his clothes and goes out for a walk.