FernFolio

Peering into the bathroom mirror, one morning after his shower, fifteen year-old Bobby Phillips is shocked by what he sees.  Or, rather, by what he doesn’t see, for Bobby has disappeared, become invisible.  His parents, both exceptionally intelligent and well-educated university professors, are initially taken aback by their son’s invisibility, but quickly draw up plans to keep him safely out of sight at home while they think about how best to tackle the problem.
Unfortunately, Bobby’s absence from school, and the neighbour’s nosiness brings the State Department of Children and Family Services to the door, and the Phillips find themselves caught between the state and their need to keep Bobby’s invisibility a secret.  Fed up with his parents’ failure to listen to him as well as with their persistent habit of talking at and not to him, and ready to climb walls with boredom and worry, Bobby decides to take matters into his own hands.
Bundled up for the winter weather in hat, scarf and dark glasses, he sets off for his favourite place in the world, the university library, locks himself into a cubicle in men’s washroom, strips off his clothes, and then takes a walk through the library, invisible to the many students working there.  But, on his way out of the library a couple of hours later, he bumps into a young girl and sends her – and his dark glasses – flying.  Frantic, at first, that she will notice his invisible state and raise the alarm, Bobby then realizes that the girl is blind.  So begins his friendship with Alicia, whose sudden blindness, two years previously, has left her angry, frustrated, and alone.
Somehow, confiding his secret to Alicia seems right and easy.  Since becoming blind, she, too, has become invisible to her old friends from school, to the people she comes across as she navigates her way through the streets, white cane in hand, and to her parents, who see her disability far more clearly than they see her.  Together, Bobby and Alicia try to make sense out of what has happened to him, try to examine the evidence, while his father explores scientific theories at the table in the Phillips’ front parlour, and become close friends in the process.
Things Not Seen is a wonderful story about a teenaged boy who has to lose himself before he can see, really see, what’s important.
FernFolio Editor