Now You See It... by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online

a paranoid conspiracy nut.
    The end-of-first-period bell rang, and those girls who had phys ed second period started streaming down the stairs.
I
had phys ed second period. I put the glasses on so that I wouldn't get run over, then I kept them on for class because I'm bad enough at volleyball even when I can see. I kept them on even though Tiffanie Mills is in my class.
    Coach Roycroft blew his whistle at me and said, "Lose the sunglasses until
after
you win the Olympics, Selmeyer."
    Tiffanie, my team's captain, called out, "They're not a fashion statement, Coach. She lost her regular glasses."
    "Broke," I corrected, though I was amazed she'd been paying enough attention to know my personal troubles, much less intervene on my behalf. She was probably worried about a delay-of-game penalty. I tried not to look at her, with her warts and wrinkles and all, and her upper arms flapping every time she bounced the ball. At least her gym shorts didn't reveal any more than her skirt had, and I felt personally indebted to whoever it was who'd invented the sports bra.
    I was sure the little blue guys would show up—that they always hung around the gym, and that they
were the explanation behind my total inability to make actual contact with the ball whenever it came at me. But either they'd gone totally invisible or I simply have no athletic talent at all: No little blue guys, no dead guys, no more guys with pointy ears. The only weird thing was Tiffanie jiggling, wiggling, and flapping all over the court. It was hard to concentrate. Kaylee Shipperd returned a serve right into the side of my head, sending my glasses flying off my face and onto the floor.
    Of course, without the glasses, I couldn't see well enough to find the glasses.
    But I could make out Tiffanie bending down. "Amazing," she said. I wondered if, holding the glasses, she had caught sight of something dead, blue, or pointed, but then she added, "They didn't break."
    By then I'd reached her. "Thanks," I said, trying to lift the frames out of her hand.
    But she didn't let go.
    "You realize," she told me, "these are the ugliest glasses I have ever seen in my entire life, barring only the goggles Mrs. Spagnola wore after her cataract surgery."
    Even though—to my bare eyes—Tiffanie was back to looking straight out of a fashion magazine's pages, I didn't feel she was one to talk about ugly. Still, I didn't say so. "Can I just have them back,
please?" I tugged a bit harder—but carefully, not wanting to rip the arm piece off.
    Coach Roycroft blew his whistle so that we would hurry up, and Tiffanie, with her wrinkled-nose little smile, released the glasses.
    But she glanced down just as she did, and I was close enough to see her startled expression. I was also close enough to see what she saw: her hand, seen through the lenses, gnarled and spotted.
    Except by then I had a firm hold on the glasses, and I popped them back onto my nose and around my ears.
    Through the lenses, Tiffanie once again looked like the witch out of
Hansel and Gretel.
I saw her clawlike hand extend toward my face, ready to rip the glasses away, and I stepped back, tripping over Merilee Penzak's big feet. I didn't fall, but bobbled backward so that Tiffanie's hand closed on empty air.
    She glared at me. I knew she could see her reflection in the mirrored surfaces, but I could only presume her image there looked normal—otherwise she would have noticed back in biology.
    Coach Roycroft blew the whistle yet again. "Did we come here to play?" he demanded.
    Well, no. Most of us came because it's a state requirement.
    Tiffanie backed off.
    I went up to the coach and said, "I broke my regular glasses, and these are prescription lenses, but they're making it too dark in here for me to see well enough to play." That was an out-and-out lie, because the tinted lenses did not make the windowless room any dimmer—though they should have.
    Coach Roycroft looked skeptical. He'd had me for two years of gym classes