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He studied his brother’s visage—so similar to his own—and wondered what it would be like to be him. To be the popular kid. To get called on in science class. To have actual friends. To get picked first in gym class.
What would that feel like?
* * *
After showering, they lined up in the gym to collect their school yearbooks. Excited chatter echoed through the room. Jamal waited his turn. His hands finally closed around the hardbound book. Excitement coursed through him.
He flipped it open, turning the glossy pages filled with colorful photographs. Picture after picture showed Malik sinking shots on the basketball court, playing trumpet in the jazz band, leading the pep rally. Page after page, picture after picture, but Jamal didn’t appear once. He even squinted at the backgrounds of the pictures, hoping to glimpse his face, even a blurry version. But nothing.
Then he flipped to the superlatives, but that was even worse. Malik had been voted everything.
Most Popular. Most Musical. Most Likely to Succeed. Best Athlete.
Jamal didn’t get voted anything, of course. What made it worse was that he was actually good at a few things—or so he thought, even if nobody else seemed to notice. Science, for starters. His grades in Mrs. Perkins’s class were all As. He also loved creative writing. When he wrote stories, he could be anything or travel anywhere. That was the only time he felt truly free and out of his brother’s shadow. But none of those talents were highlighted in the yearbook’s pages. What does it matter being good at something if nobody notices? he thought glumly.
Feeling even worse, Jamal flipped to the class photos. At least he was guaranteed a spot on one of those pages. Every kid got a class picture. As always, his photo was right next to his brother’s. They had the same last name and were in the same class.
His brother beamed with a confident smile in his school portrait, while Jamal’s picture was…well…horrid.
Instead of a charming smile, his face was plastered with a lopsided frown. Even the image itself looked dark and blurry, like it was taken while he was in the middle of turning his head.
“Hey, Malik, sign my yearbook!”
Jamal glanced over to see his brother surrounded by his adoring fan club. They were all clamoring for him, their books open, offering their pens. Meanwhile, nobody was asking for Jamal’s signature.
He slammed the book shut and hurried from the gym, not even bothering to ask anyone to sign his yearbook. He just couldn’t deal with any more humiliation in one day.
* * *
Jamal hid outside the school until the buses pulled up. He watched as Malik and his fan club boarded the bus. He followed them like a shadow. He still clutched his yearbook, though it really didn’t feel like his at all. He was barely in it, unlike Malik.
Maybe Colton was right about him. Maybe he was Invisible Boy.
Still limping from the gym incident, he started to board the bus when the door began to shut.
“Hey, kid, watch out!”
A hand shot out and stopped the door before it could slam into his injured leg.
Jamal looked back—it was Riley. Her dark brown eyes were fixed on him, set off by her manic purple hair. He wanted to say something cool, something that would impress her and make this day less terrible. Malik would know just what to say. He had the ability to charm anyone.
But all words—cool or not—evaporated from his brain. It was like he’d lost the ability to speak. The silence grew longer and more awkward.
“Uh…thanks,” was all he could muster before he darted up the steps and bolted for the back of the bus.
He slumped into the last row, feeling thoroughly humiliated. That was really the only word for it. He wanted so badly to talk to Riley. But every time he tried, it just made everything worse. He glanced around the bus, where all the other kids sat with their friends, goofing off and joking around. Jamal pulled up his hoodie and sank lower in his seat while the other kids chattered excitedly and signed each other’s yearbooks.
May as well embrace my invisibility powers, he thought as the bus tore off, lurching over the pockmarked streets. The latest hurricane had left them scarred, and the city had yet to repave.
His eyes flipped to the sky. It was clear blue with only a few harmless clouds, but the weather could always turn in a city like New Orleans. This had always been his home, but that didn’t make it an easy place to live. They had lost their previous house in a bad flood caused by the most recent big storm.
The bus made its way through the French Quarter. Jazz music drifted into the streets. Tourists stood in lines for famous beignets and Creole food. Tiana’s, the best restaurant in town, had a line snaking out the doors and onto the sidewalk, as always.
A few minutes later, when the bus reached the edge of the Quarter, a shop he’d never noticed before caught his eye. Oddly, it looked like it had been there a really long time. The sign read DR. FACILIER’S VOODOO EMPORIUM. Creepy dolls stared out from the shop’s window. He shifted around to get a better view. They looked like handmade dolls, stitched together from crude burlap cloth. Their heads appeared lumpy and misshapen. Jamal had seen these types of dolls before, of course, but these were more horrid than most. There was something almost captivating about them. Somehow Jamal couldn’t make himself look away.
And then the dolls looked at him.
His heart lurched. It couldn’t be. But it was. Their eyes all locked on his face, moving to stay on him as the bus inched forward. What? How was that possible? They couldn’t be—
