The Invisible Day Read Free Page B

invisible with me!”
    He perked up immediately.
    “But we have to get my pack. And we have to swipe the attendance sheet when it goes down to the office and check off our names. It’s so cool that McPhee is sick. The sub won’t know my mother.”
    Hubert’s head started to shake back and forth in double time.
    “I don’t think so, Billie. This is maybe not such a good idea.”
    “Hubert, it’s our big chance. We can go outside and see the world and the world can’t see us. Hubert, come on!”
    “Billie, you’re dreaming. You—”
    There was a knock on the door. We froze.

6 • Walking Tall
    H ubert? This is Ms. Maloney.” It was a perky voice. “Are you okay?”
    “The substitute,” hissed Hubert.
    I poked him.
    “Uh, yes, ma’am,” he stuttered.
    “Well, then. Get a move on. You should be preparing for the math quiz.”
    “Flush the toilet,” I whispered. He flushed the toilet.
    “Turn on the taps.” He turned on the taps.
    “What are you going to do, Billie?” He was really washing his hands.
    I knew what I was going to do.
    He reached for the paper towel. I had to keep dodging him.
    “I’m going to go out, Hubert. Outside, by myself. Just for a little while. I’ll meet you back here in an hour. And you have to get mypack from Alyssa. That’s your mission. And cover for me.”
    There was another knock.
    “I’ll be okay,” I whispered. “You better go.” I watched him walk down the hall behind the substitute. He kept looking back. He even lifted his fingers in a goofy little wave. I tore off a piece of paper towel and let it float to the floor so he’d know I was there.
    Ms. Shephard, our door dragon, was sitting in her cubicle in the front hall, with her glasses shoved up on her forehead. She always wears some junky piece of collage jewelry that her kid made.
    The pink attendance sheets were in a stack on the ledge right in front of her. I waved my hand in her face. She didn’t flinch.
    The phone rang. Ms. Shephard turned toward the switchboard, and I gently thumbed the top corners of the pages, looking for Ms. McPhee’s class. Just as the swivel chair swungback, I found the right page and slid it to the ground. The paper had to lie on the floor so that I could see it to find my name. I stood up to swipe a pencil and crouched down again. I made a tiny check, just like the ones Ms. Maloney had done. When the phone rang again, I put the page back. Easy as pie.
    I put my fingers into my ears, stuck out my tongue at Ms. Shephard, and wiggled like Jane doing a belly dance. No reaction.
    Oh, boy, this was going to be fun!
    As soon as I stepped outside the school, though, I took a big breath. It was the first time in my life that I had been on the street all by myself. Not exactly by myself, of course. I guess if those half million other people could have seen me, they wouldn’t have bumped into me so much.
    I concentrated on walking tall with my shoulders back. That’s what my mother says is the best way to seem confident. I realizedthat no one could see me, but I kept on doing it anyway, just to fool myself.
    I went along Bleecker Street because it was the most familiar. I had walked this block on the way to school with Jane and my mom, and it had been just regular. The deli, the funeral parlor, the Japanese restaurant never open till noon, the watch repair, the bagel shop: just regular.
    Now it seemed about to explode with adventure, as if all the doorways might burst open together and let a stampede of clowns tumble into the street. Or a flock of giant larks might perch on the water towers and douse the air with a joyous song. It seemed possible.
    I was just walking along, but it seemed like a dramatic adventure.
    I was suddenly starving. My breakfast bagel was a long time ago. I stopped outside a fruit market called City Eden. I had a dollar bill and three nickels in my pocket, but I figured thatmoney magically appearing and my voice coming out of thin air could only cause trouble. I