the invisible girl
My name is Poppy Fields. I’m average height, average weight, average build, and I’m invisible.
Not
literally
, of course. I’m not a superhero. It’s just that fading into the background is my speciality. At school, I’ve mastered the art of sitting in the teacher’s blind spot – not at the back with the troublemakers, or at the sides where people who haven’t done their homework try to sink into the walls, but slap-bang in the middle of the classroom. What you have to do is maintain an expression of polite interest – not too keen, not too bored – and that way the teacher’s eyes sort of slide over you as if you’re not there.
At weekends I know exactly how to brush my hair and precisely which clothes to wear to remain unseen. I’ve got a wardrobe full of uninteresting garments in indeterminate shades of blue and grey that get me through most situations totally unobserved.
It’s not because I’m shy, it’s because I’m fascinated by other people. My mum says I study their behaviour with the same curiosity that a scientist gives to the inner workings of a termite colony. She’s probably right. To pursue my hobby I’ve learnt to camouflage myself. No one ever notices Poppy Fields.
So when I first set foot on American soil, why did I have the unnerving sensation that someone was watching me?
It had been OK on the flight over. I’d been sandwiched between Mum and my friend Graham right in the middle of this massive aeroplane. For the whole of the journey from England to America I’d stayed nicely anonymous. In fact, I’d avoided attention so successfully that when I’d edged out to go to the toilet the steward handing out the lunches had tripped over me. The passenger sitting on the other side of Graham had been hit by several flying trays but he hadn’t glared at me even though I’d caused the accident. He hadn’t registered my existence.
Collecting our suitcases and going through the no-man’s-land of passport control and immigration had been fine.
But then we’d entered the brightly lit arrivals hall. Mum was looking for the person who had come to collect us when I experienced something strange.
Eyes. Looking at me. Staring. I could feel it like the press of fingertips on my skin.
Alarmed, I whipped around, spinning in a full circle to catch whoever was doing it. Yet everyone in the crowded airport seemed busy with their own concerns – noisily greeting friends, or running to catch buses and trains. No one was looking at me. So why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing bolt upright?
“Someone’s watching us,” I hissed to Graham out of the side of my mouth. “I can feel it.”
“That would be physically impossible,” he replied, flashing me one of his blink-and-you-miss-it grins. “But I gather that disorientation is a common sign of jet lag. I expect you’re suffering from that. The majority of people who fly across more than five time zones do, you know. And we’ve flown across eight.”
“OK.” I nodded. I knew that California was eight hours behind London. Graham had explained all about Greenwich Mean Time and the earth’s rotation on the way to the airport – he knows about stuff like that – but I still found it peculiar. We’d taken off from Heathrow at ten o’clock in the morning and flown for eleven hours.
Eleven hours!
As far as I was concerned it was bedtime. But although Graham and I were yawning and our eyelids were drooping, everyone in Los Angeles was just having lunch. No wonder I felt weird. Graham was right. That was all it was, I told myself. There was nothing to worry about.
Mum had started waving energetically at a woman clutching a sign with GREEN FIELDS AND FAR AWAY scrawled across it. “That must be Baby Sugarcandy’s secretary,” she said to us as we made our way towards her. “Sylvia Sharpe. I talked to her on the phone. She’s the one who made all the arrangements.”
We stopped in front of a solid woman
My name is Poppy Fields. I’m average height, average weight, average build, and I’m invisible.
Not
literally
, of course. I’m not a superhero. It’s just that fading into the background is my speciality. At school, I’ve mastered the art of sitting in the teacher’s blind spot – not at the back with the troublemakers, or at the sides where people who haven’t done their homework try to sink into the walls, but slap-bang in the middle of the classroom. What you have to do is maintain an expression of polite interest – not too keen, not too bored – and that way the teacher’s eyes sort of slide over you as if you’re not there.
At weekends I know exactly how to brush my hair and precisely which clothes to wear to remain unseen. I’ve got a wardrobe full of uninteresting garments in indeterminate shades of blue and grey that get me through most situations totally unobserved.
It’s not because I’m shy, it’s because I’m fascinated by other people. My mum says I study their behaviour with the same curiosity that a scientist gives to the inner workings of a termite colony. She’s probably right. To pursue my hobby I’ve learnt to camouflage myself. No one ever notices Poppy Fields.
So when I first set foot on American soil, why did I have the unnerving sensation that someone was watching me?
It had been OK on the flight over. I’d been sandwiched between Mum and my friend Graham right in the middle of this massive aeroplane. For the whole of the journey from England to America I’d stayed nicely anonymous. In fact, I’d avoided attention so successfully that when I’d edged out to go to the toilet the steward handing out the lunches had tripped over me. The passenger sitting on the other side of Graham had been hit by several flying trays but he hadn’t glared at me even though I’d caused the accident. He hadn’t registered my existence.
Collecting our suitcases and going through the no-man’s-land of passport control and immigration had been fine.
But then we’d entered the brightly lit arrivals hall. Mum was looking for the person who had come to collect us when I experienced something strange.
Eyes. Looking at me. Staring. I could feel it like the press of fingertips on my skin.
Alarmed, I whipped around, spinning in a full circle to catch whoever was doing it. Yet everyone in the crowded airport seemed busy with their own concerns – noisily greeting friends, or running to catch buses and trains. No one was looking at me. So why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing bolt upright?
“Someone’s watching us,” I hissed to Graham out of the side of my mouth. “I can feel it.”
“That would be physically impossible,” he replied, flashing me one of his blink-and-you-miss-it grins. “But I gather that disorientation is a common sign of jet lag. I expect you’re suffering from that. The majority of people who fly across more than five time zones do, you know. And we’ve flown across eight.”
“OK.” I nodded. I knew that California was eight hours behind London. Graham had explained all about Greenwich Mean Time and the earth’s rotation on the way to the airport – he knows about stuff like that – but I still found it peculiar. We’d taken off from Heathrow at ten o’clock in the morning and flown for eleven hours.
Eleven hours!
As far as I was concerned it was bedtime. But although Graham and I were yawning and our eyelids were drooping, everyone in Los Angeles was just having lunch. No wonder I felt weird. Graham was right. That was all it was, I told myself. There was nothing to worry about.
Mum had started waving energetically at a woman clutching a sign with GREEN FIELDS AND FAR AWAY scrawled across it. “That must be Baby Sugarcandy’s secretary,” she said to us as we made our way towards her. “Sylvia Sharpe. I talked to her on the phone. She’s the one who made all the arrangements.”
We stopped in front of a solid woman
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