Invisible Emmie

Emmie’s health teacher announces that the heat is fixed, and they head back to the classroom, where they are tasked with making a collage that expresses their personality. Emmie feels lost, and a moment-by-moment sequence shows a blank page followed by a page with a few things on it. Her teacher encourages her to add more, but Emmie feels like the blank spaces describe her best. She hears Joe Lungo quoting her love poem and suddenly feels sick. She rushes to the bathroom and cries, feeling like “flaming, scorched, dropped-on-the-floor toast” (108). Suddenly, someone knocks on the bathroom stall door.

Katie is sitting in health class after finishing her very complete collage. She watches Emmie run past as Joe and his buddy snicker about the poem, and she decides to follow Emmie to the bathroom. She empathizes with Emmie about how mean Joe is being and offers to walk Emmie back to class. There, Katie glares at Joe and his friend with a “deadlier withering glare” (113).

Emmie draws herself being “humiliated into a puddle of slime” (114). She struggles through Spanish class and passes Joe Lungo in the hall, still reading