The Girl Who Could See It All

Chapter One

I'm getting bored here, all of my friends are either dating someone, mourning their girlfriend who died months ago, or just plain preoccupied with fitting in. It's at these times that I hate being invisible. If I weren't I'd be able to go to school like the others, they might not fit in, but that's what they are trying to do. I have to stay home all day and make sure that the Portmans don't lose it again. Since, it has been awhile though, they've all become accustomed to us being here and just pretend that it is only a dream. Basically I have nothing to do. All day, I pace back and forth in my room, flop down on my bed, get up again, pace some more, study the Map of Days, get food (usually the potato chips that Jacob has tried hiding from me, but failed to actually hiding them because I was literally standing right behind him when he tried doing so.), flop back down on my bed, and repeat. Miss Peregrine has gone back to Devil's Acre for a week, as there has been a disturbance in the Panloopticon, and Nim hasn't been seen since he went to check it out. Mr. and Mrs. Portman have gone to a spa all the way up in New York. I am absolutely by myself because everyone, as I said previously, is at school.   Finally I decide that I'm going to the park. I've been there a couple of times with the others and know how to get there pretty well. I roll out of my bed, ever so gracefully falling onto the floor. Then I go downstairs, grab the keys, and leave, locking  the door behind me.

As I walk down the street, I realize how odd it must be for normals to see floating keys, so I quickly jogged back to the house and threw them under the flower pot, where the spare keys go. Turning around, I walked the rest of the way to the park, enjoying the warm sun on my face, and the blues of the sky.  When I reached the park, my feet were sore from having to walk on cement in bare feet, but I didn't care, finally I could do something. I sat on the nearest bench and started to watch people, in a non-I'm-a-creepy-invisible-guy way. There were adults playing with their children, people jogging and bicycling, and and older man sitting on the edge of the wishing fountain.  The man had a long gray beard, with dark brown eyes. He had a rugged look to him, as though he had been through a lot. He also had a wise look about him, I could tell that it was fading along with him. I have seen the look on his face so many times before. It was the look of the dying.   I had watched that look creep over all of my normal friends' faces when their time had come. I turned my gaze away form him, and scanned the park some more. Suddenly a girl around Jacob's age sat down on the bench next to me. She had long brown hair and beautiful, dancing brown eyes. Her cheeks and the bridge of her nose were lightly splattered with freckles. Then she did something that I would have never expected.  She turned her head, her long hair flipping over her shoulder, and looked directly at me.

"I can see you, you know." She whispered in my ear.

I quickly became self concious, and threw my hands over, well, erm, you know where. She snickered and I blushed so hard that a normal could probably see me.

"How?" I whispered.

She smirked then disappeared.