Free Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 by Twice Twenty-two (v2.1) Page A

             "Won't touch a bristle of you, son."
                   "Well," he drawled reluctantly,
"all right."
                   The door opened. Charlie stood in his bare
feet, head down, chin against chest. "Make me invisible," he said.
                   "First we got to catch us a bat,"
said Old Lady. "Start lookin'!"
                   She gave him some jerky beef for his hunger
and watched him climb a tree. He went high up and high up and it was nice
seeing him there and it was nice having him here and all about after
                   So many years alone with nothing to say good
morning to but bird-droppings and silvery snail tracks.
                   Pretty soon a bat with a broken wing fluttered
down out of the tree. Old Lady snatched it up, beating warm and shrieking
between its porcelain white teeth, and Charlie dropped down after it, hand upon
clenched hand, yelling.
                   That night, with the moon nibbling at the
spiced pine cones. Old Lady extracted a long silver needle from under her wide
blue dress. Gumming her excitement and secret anticipation, she sighted up the dead
bat and held the cold needle steady-steady.
                   She had long ago realized that her miracles,
despite all perspirations and salts and sulphurs, failed. But she had always
dreamt that one day the miracles might start functioning, might spring up in
crimson flowers and silver stars to prove that God had forgiven her for her
pink body and her pink thoughts and her warm body and her warm thoughts as a
young miss. But so far God had made no sign and said no word, but nobody knew
this except Old Lady.
                   "Ready?" she asked Charlie, who
crouched cross-kneed, wrapping his pretty legs in long goose-pimpled arms, his
mouth open, making teeth. "Ready," he whispered, shivering.
                   "There!" She plunged the needle deep
in the bat's right eye. "So!"
                   "Oh!" screamed Charlie, wadding up
his face.
                   "Now I wrap it in gingham, and here, put
it in your pocket, keep it there, bat and all. Go on!"
                   He pocketed the charm.
                   "Charlie!" she shrieked fearfully.
"Charlie, where are you? I can't see you, child!"
                   "Here!" He jumped so the light ran
in red streaks up his body. "I'm here. Old Lady!" He stared wildly at
his arms, legs, chest, and toes. "I'm here!"
                   Her eyes looked as if they were watching a
thousand fireflies crisscrossing each other in the wild night air.
                   "Charlie, oh, you went fast! Quick as a
hummingbird! Oh, Charlie, come back to me!"
                   "But I'm here!" he wailed.
                   "Where?"
                   "By the fire, the fire! And-and I can see
myself. I'm not m-visible at all!"
                   Old Lady rocked on her lean flanks.
"Course you can see you! Every invisible person knows himself. Otherwise,
how could you eat, walk, or get around places? Charlie, touch me. Touch me so I
know you."
                   Uneasily he put out a hand.
                   She pretended to jerk, startled, at his touch.
"Ah!"
                   "You mean to say you can't find me?"
he asked. "Truly?"
                   "Not the least half rump of you!"
                   She found a tree to stare at, and stared at it
with shining eyes, careful not to glance at him. "Why, I sure did a trick
that time!" She sighed with wonder. "Whooeee. Quickest invisible I
ever made! Charlie. Charlie, how you feel?"
                   "Like creek water—all stirred."
                   "You'll settle."
                   Then after a pause she added, "Well, what
you going to do now, Charlie, since you're