The crisp air smells of decaying leaves and apples as I walk slowly along the road, head down, my hair hanging over my face. It’s dinnertime and the street is  almost empty. Cars pass now and then as people hurry home for dinner with their families .  I notice that the daylight is beginning to fade just as a  car turns on it’s headlights as heads towards me down the road.

I quickly think of how I can escape if the car stops and the man driving it should jump out to grab me.  Thoughts always harass me like this when I find myself walking alone. As the car gets closer I move off to the side of the road and walk on the soft earth. Concentrating on my shoes, I pretend not to notice the car as it approaches. It doesn’t stop.

          I see the path, and the naked trees that line it. They’re big and old and, in the late spring, when they’re lush with green leaves, I always think I’m walking down a  turn of the century lane instead of down a scratchy neighborhood shortcut  that eventually leads to a high school. Now only a few leaves hang from the outer branches, making them look like outstretched arms with drooping yellow fingernails.  I decide to turn  and walk down the narrow path.  I make myself imagine that it is spring and that the wind smells of apple blossoms instead of rotting apples, and that the leaves protect me instead of point at me with their dying yellow fingers.

          A mixture of damp earth and leaves sticks to my sneakers as I walk. I will get in trouble for dirtying them. Then again, that will be nothing compared to the trouble I’ve already gotten myself into by deciding to take a walk down the path instead of  showing up at Lorain’s for dinner and  play. I know it’s only a matter of time before her mother calls mine to ask why I have not come. I push away the thought of the scolding I will get, just like I push away the tendering feeling in my arm as my sweater rubs against it while I walk. I  concentrate on my feet scuffling through the leaves, one before the other.

          I remember Lorain at recess today clad in a brown corduroy jumpsuit and her long blond hair in a tangled mess. It was a regular recess with the usual game. At the ringing of the bell  Lorain grabbed Cora’s hand and off they went, running around, reminding everyone; “Kaylee is the invisible girl. You can’t hear her or talk to her.  If she tries to get your attention run away before she makes you invisible too!”

          So the game goes, with my friends running from me  as I chase after them, without a break, trying to get some attention during the recess.

          Today I  fell. I had the idea that if I took some of the chalk they were using to draw hopscotches they would have to ask me for it. Somehow I ended up on the ground. The purplish tender bruises on my arm were the penalty I paid for breaking the rules of the game. Later, on the bus ride home I sat in the required seat, between the window and Lorain, listened to her talk and agreed to come for dinner and play tonight.
It was a typical day, or at least it had been until this evening.

           I see the bridge now.  It’s a couple of long wooden planks across a small stream but I’ve always called it a bridge. It leads to the other side of the forest. Lorain and I go to play there when we pretend we are wilderness camping or that we are forest people and have to live off of berries and bark. But this evening I stop on the faded gray planks and sit down.

           It’s becoming darker and colder. Though not enough to scare me into thinking that the man  who didn’t stop his car and jump out instead parked the car, after he passed me, and waited until I had turned down the path before following me. Or at least it wasn’t dark enough yet for me to really start  believing it.

          I notice how dirty my shoes are and decide to put my feet in the water; somehow I have the idea that wet clean shoes will get me into less trouble that mud-coated dry ones. The water stings. I almost like it. I know what’s biting at my ankles and I can take them out of the water if I want to stop it; but I don’t, not yet. They’re not quite clean. I slide my shoes along the sides of the narrow stream, rubbing them against the weedy grass to get the muck off.

I think of Lorain and how surprised she will be that I didn’t show up for dinner. Another plan is forming in my mind: on the bus tomorrow I won’t sit with her. I’m going to sit by myself at the front. I’m not going explain myself to her either. I’ve decided to erase her into an invisible girl.

       I lift my feed out and smile. My shoes are clean now, or more so than before. Then I remember I have to walk back on the same muddy path. I refuse to get my shoes dirty again. My stubby fingers move slowly to untie the soggy laces. Shoes and socks removed I stand up to go. The plank is rough under my bare feet. They are so white that the skin almost shines and I can see the blue-purple veins half popping out of feet.

 I start to walk across the bridge, back to the path that heads home. I know I don’t have much time left. Soon it will be dark enough for  me to believe that the man from the car really did  follow me. I stop walking as I reach the end of the bridge. I look at my big white toe hanging over the end of the plank.

  I jump. Unlike the long jump in track and field I land where I want, right in the mud puddle off to the side of the path. Globs of mud  fly everywhere. The dirty water reaches halfway up my calves. I keep my shoes high above my head and they’re still unspotted, white, and wet.

They stay that way.