Chapter Two

I woke up to the warm sunlight hitting my face coming through the glass panes. I felt a lot lighter for some reason today, warmer too, but it seemed darker for some reason. I rolled out of bed and hopped down the stairs skipping every other one. “Good morning Lili! Morning mom!” I called. I heard faint sobs from the kitchen. Did something happen? I walked slowly now to the kitchen where my mom and sister were sitting at the table. My mom cried quietly and Alia babbled as she spat her gooey slobber. “Is there something wrong?” I asked. She continued crying. She grabbed Alia and hobbled up the stairs. My mom didn’t cry that often, almost never. There was definitely something wrong, but if I wasn’t going to get an answer I would just leave it alone.

A few minutes later, mom stumbled down the stairs in sadness wearing a silky black dress with a gold braided belt around her waist. She wiped her tears and fixed her earrings as she slipped on her black heels. Alia was dressed up also in a black leather skirt and a black flower sitting atop her head. “Why are you all dressed up?” I asked. Mom unlocked the door and turned the knob. She was taking Alia and not me? Well I had school anyways so that was probably why. “Bye mom…” I said, slightly confused. But that’s when things went terribly wrong.

I sat on the blue bench pondering about the reasons that could’ve brought my family to leave without saying goodbye. It was so strange. DRING! DRING! DRING! The bell rang and I trudged inside. Another strange thing was that Sara didn’t even try to talk to me today. Finally she must’ve given up. I still tried my best to avoid her because I didn’t want her to ruin my day. I sat at my desk in the back row next to my friend Kelli Dindyal. She was always nice so I always hung around her. She sat at her desk reading a book with a man that had a faint moustache and brown hair on the front cover. It was called Miguetsh. It was french for some reason, I’m not really into french books. I’m not even into books actually.

A short figure strolled into the classroom with a clipboard in her hand and a pen behind her ear. Her hair was out and curly and she looked happier than i’d ever seen her. She had a big smile on her face in the shape of an upside down rainbow. Ms Dome, my English teacher.

“Okay say here if you’re here!” said Ms Dome, speaking in her loud voice to the classroom. She pulled out the blue pen from her ear and stuck it to the page. She read down the list and I was usually at the top, right after Amy Cale.

“Amy?!” she yelled across the classroom.

“Here,” she said shyly.

I got prepared to say here since I knew exactly where I was on the list. “Sierra?!” she yelled. As soon as she finished the A in my name, I yelled “HERE!” in a loud voice to try to make the class laugh. No one did.

“Sierra?” asked Ms Dome again. She mustn’t of heard me, which is a bit odd. “HERE!!!” I yelled louder. I noticed when I said things my voice echoed, like I was in a cave or something. But I wasn’t.

“Okay,” she said. Ms Dome’s voice wasn’t echoing.

Nevermind, I thought. It’s probably nothing.

I went through the whole boring lesson about putting capitals at the front of sentences which I already knew all about.

When the day was over, I walked home, hoping that Alia would be there to greet me. But someone else was there. The police. I was so confused. Did we do something wrong? Mom was standing at the door crying, her short hair attached to her face from the tears. She was bawling her eyes out, harder than she had this morning. Alia was crying also at the sound of the sirens and chaos. My mom covered her mouth and handed a police officer a handful of photos as she sobbed helplessly. I ran up to her. “Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked. She continued with her weeping. How come she wouldn’t tell me? I bent over to see the pictures she gave the officer and I was shocked when I saw my face smiling up at me. The officer flipped through polaroid pictures of ME.

“We’ll find her miss Cornaccia.”

That’s when I realized something had gone wrong. Nobody could see me.

I watched my mom’s tears pour from her eyes like a waterfall, and my baby sister cry in a more intense way than I’ve ever seen her cry before (and trust me, she can CRY). A tear trickled from my eye.

“I’m in here,” I murmured. Those were the first lyrics of my favorite song.

What do I do now? I wondered. No one could see me, and I had no idea why. I really couldn’t do anything productive without interacting with people.

Wait… am I a ghost-- I stopped myself before the thought sunk in and pushed it far away. I had no idea why no one could see me, but right now all I needed to focus on was how I was going to make myself seen and heard again. The best way to be heard is to scream from what I’ve learned. My mom told me that if something’s wrong to scream her name.

“MOM!!!” I yelled, wearing out my throat.

No reply.

“MOM!!!” I screamed this time, and when I did I noticed something. It started to get slightly foggy around me. I thought it must’ve been a weather change but boy was I wrong. I tried screaming again but my voice gave out. I ran up to her and squeezed her in a tight hug, but something felt wrong. My arms weren’t wrapped around her. I pushed my arms towards her but they couldn’t seem to break the wall that was pushing them back. Did I lose my strength? I pulled my arms back testing it. It felt completely normal. I tried hugging her again but all there was was an invisible wall between us. I thought of something. I closed my eyes and opened my arms wide. I fell back and PLUNK! Had I hit the concrete? No, definitely not. It was squishy and somewhat bouncy.

So my voice echoed, when I spoke it became foggy all around me, and I’m bouncing off everything like I suddenly have borders.

Then the thought struck me. I had been trapped in a bubble.

For the next few days I had to watch my family in sorrow, because I was trapped in a bubble. How often does that happen? I mostly stayed in my room but because I was in a bubble I couldn’t pick anything up. I tried to pick up my phone but I couldn’t. Also, the bubble had looked a lot more like a bubble over the past few days. It looked like a hamster ball but softer. You may be wondering why I couldn’t just unzip myself out. Well that’s because there was no zipper. I checked every nook and cranny of this ball and nothing came up. I tried to pop it with my nails but it’s not poppable. I wished it was just a dream. It almost felt like one because I’ve never heard of people getting stuck in bubbles. I needed to find a way out.

I tried yelling again but my lungs hurt from all of the yelling I’d been doing. I sat in my room crying as my tears fell onto the bouncy surface and rolled across the bubble leaving a puddle of tears on the bottom. But suddenly I stopped crying. A stack of paper and a pencil appeared in front of me. The pencil rolled down into my fingertips. My first instinct was to try to pop the bubble but that didn’t seem to work out. An idea popped up in my head. Letters. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote from Sia. I’m in here! I wrote. I took a deep breath and pushed the paper out of the bubble. It actually worked. It landed on my bed but instantly vanished. Where could it have gone? I groaned and picked up another piece of paper. Can anybody see me??? I wrote. I did the same thing as I did with the last note. It vanished again! A thought hit me in the head like a bird hits its head on the glass. If the letters could get out, why couldn’t I? I pushed my hand on the bubble but I had no luck. It was maybe only inanimate objects that could get through. It felt so lonely when no one was around. No one could see me.

I shook my head. Nothing was working. I was trapped in a bubble and nobody could see me and I could do nothing about the terrible situation. As sadness came upon me once more, I started to sing softly the song whose lyrics matched the position I was in now. As my voice filled the bubble, more tears escaped my eyes, and I sat there sobbing and singing all alone in a bubble.