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‘TRACEY!’

Her mother’s voice rang out loud and clear from the kitchen. Curled up with a book on the living room sofa, Tracey responded.

‘What?’

‘Tracey! Have you seen my handbag?’

Tracey raised her eyes from the page and surveyed the room.

‘It’s under the coffee table,’ she called back.

‘Tracey!’ Now her mother sounded annoyed. ‘Tracey, answer me!’

Tracey frowned. Was her mother developing a hearing problem? She was about to yell back even louder when the front door opened and her father came in and walked right past Tracey without even greeting her. That was when Tracey realized that sometime in the past half-hour, she’d gone invisible.

She wished she could understand how and why this had happened. It used to be so simple. Years of feeling unimportant and not worthy of attention had caused her to go invisible on a regular basis. She didn’t feel that way about herself any more, but occasionally she could make herself go invisible by recalling how she used to feel. It wasn’t always a reliable process, but she’d been getting better and better at controlling her gift. Still, every now and then it just happened — she would disappear, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe this time it was caused by the book she’d been reading, Jane Eyre. The character of Jane had just been sent away to a nasty boarding school, and she was lonely. Maybe Tracey was simply feeling sad for the character. .

Her father had gone into the kitchen and she could hear her parents’ conversation.

‘Have you seen my handbag?’ her mother asked.

‘No, did you lose it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so — I had it this morning. But I’ve looked all over the house! The seven are at their swimming class, I have to pick them up in ten minutes, and I can’t find my bag!’

So that was why the house was so quiet, Tracey mused. Her little sisters, the identical septuplets collectively known as the ‘Devon Seven’, weren’t at home.

‘What am I going to do?’ her mother wailed. She sounded on the verge of hysteria, which didn’t really alarm Tracey. Mrs Devon had a tendency to become terribly dramatic very easily.

Reluctantly, Tracey put her book down. Come back, she ordered herself. But of course, it wasn’t that easy. She concentrated on feeling good about herself. People pay attention to me, my parents care about me, I’ve got friends. It didn’t work — she was still invisible. She really had to work harder on controlling her gift, practise more, learn how to concentrate harder. But meanwhile, her mother needed her handbag.

Tracey got up, retrieved the handbag from under the coffee table, and ambled into the kitchen. Her mother was still ranting.

‘My car keys are in the bag! How can I pick the girls up without car keys?’

‘Take my car,’ Mr Devon suggested.