An Invisible Picture of a Forgotten Girl

By Olivia G. Booms

I’d only wanted to disappear for a time, not be forgotten forever.

I grip the chalk with every muscle in my tired fingers. It scrapes my plea against the pavement in a desperate shade of blue. Mom or Dad will notice me this time. I lean back and rub my sore knees. They can see through me, but not through this.

The front door slams, followed by Mom’s red-hot voice. “I’m going, and that’s final!”

I sit straight up to give her my full attention. Notice the chalk on the pavement, Mom. Notice your missing daughter.

Mom fumbles with her car keys. Looks up. I hold my breath as she walks straight toward me…

And right past the message I left her.

My chapped knees weaken as my eyes burn. I want to cry. I want to scream. Instead, I grab the hoodie zipped up to my collarbone and pull until the navy fabric should pop from the strain. But I know better. The shimmering magic in this invisibility cloak is strong—too strong to rip easily.

I let go and sniffle. I desperately wanted the cloak to work that one night after dinner when it first appeared in my bedroom. But only for a moment. I only wanted to disappear for a couple of hours, not a week. I didn’t want them to forget me for good.

I tried talking to them. Yelling came next, followed by written messages on every sickly yellow sticky note in the house. They didn’t see them, same as me. Words don’t work, but I thought—I stop myself before my sniffles become tears. Maybe I just need to try harder.

“Janet!” Dad yells from behind the screen door. “Don’t leave the garage door open again!”

“I told you, that wasn’t me!” she shoots back but stomps towards the garage anyway. “Stupid raccoons getting into storage…”

I drop my chalk. Oh no, I left the chalk box in the garage! I scramble to my feet. But the garage door is already closing, slowly swallowing my only hope in inky black darkness. No, no, no!

The door closes with me on the outside. I shuffle back towards my failed drawing as Mom slams the car door. My singular piece of chalk looks pale and pathetic, my drawing of a lonely little girl as pitiful as I am. I plop back down on the colorless pavement, and I start sniffling again when she peels off toward the highway. Who knows how long she’ll be gone this time? Or if Dad will go after her? I rub my nose on the cloak’s silver-speckled sleeve. Oh, will they ever see me again?

I hadn’t thought about that possibility before because I didn’t want it to be true. Yet I can’t hold it back any longer, just like the tears running down my cheeks. I don’t even try to stop them from soaking my cloak. Being invisible was never a gift. It’s a curse that’s erased me from my own family portrait. I bury my face in chalk-dusted hands.

“Cool picture.”

I drop my hands to my lap as I look up in surprise. One of the neighbor girls is gazing down at the chalk on the sidewalk, a quizzical look on her freckled face. It can’t be true. Hope the color of a sunrise begins to warm me. “Can you see me?” I whisper.

She continues to stare at my scrawls, the crying blue girl locked out of her own blue house. And the sunrise disappears, replaced with a feeling grayer than despair. I should’ve known. If my own parents have forgotten me, why would she remember the girl at the end of the neighborhood? The quiet girl in blue who always stayed just outside the frame? Who never did more than wave hello and never came out to play?

She stoops down close to the concrete. “You look lonely, though. Let me help!” She grabs the remaining chalk and begins to draw.

“Maggie!” A woman calls from the house two doors down. “Where’d ya wander off to, hun? It’s dinnertime!”

“Oh!” Maggie drops the chalk. “Bye, blue girl. I hope you feel better!” She runs off, her chubby legs pumping beneath her yellow dress. I only get up to look at what she’s done after she’s disappeared. Maybe I can use her drawing to help Mom and Dad remember me.

A spindly little girl stands next to mine. She holds the hand of my girl, hearts surrounding her smiling face. Warm tears dry on my cheeks as I stare at her. Did she draw this for her? For me? I slump down again, yet that yellow glimmer of hope rises higher and higher till it envelops me in beautiful color. She saw what I drew. And she wants me to feel better.

With a single touch, my invisibility cloak unzips and falls from my shoulders. I smile despite my tears.

I haven’t been forgotten.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olivia G. Booms was diagnosed with Autism at age two, couldn’t read until age ten, and now somehow writes young adult fiction as a student at the Author Conservatory. Olivia tells stories about broken characters who still shine with hope, light, and a touch of the extraordinary. Girls who want to be seen, known, and loved. In her spare time, Olivia’s chasing down cats that don’t belong to her and organizing her bookshelves by color.

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