Things Not Seen

“[…] I don’t see me. So I panic, and I wrap the towel around my waist, and I go to tell my mom and dad. Which is not like me. I don’t tell them much. I mean, they’re okay in small doses, and they can be useful. Them knowing what I’m up to usually makes them less useful. But they are smart, I give them that much, and this looks like a problem where smarts might count […]”

Bobby discovers he’s invisible, so he consults his parents, especially his dad, who’s a scientist. His relationship to them is distant, and he finds them as much an obstacle in his life as they are an asset. There’s no warmth from him to them; something’s wrong in the relationship. They are his parents, though, and they’re his first line of defense against huge problems. 

“‘Let’s…let’s call Dr. Weston—or someone else, a…a specialist.’ So I’m thinking, Oh, great. Yeah, let’s call one of those Invisible Teenager Specialists. I’ll get the Yellow Pages.”

At first, Bobby’s mom panics over her son’s invisibility, so Bobby retreats into sarcasm. It’s a way of putting a distance between himself and what he resents, including his parents. It also shows a boy who’s able to regard his predicament with a certain sense of humor.

“I stand there in the kitchen, naked and shivering, and I look at Mom and Dad, still sitting at the table. They’re stumped. I’ve never seen them this way. And that might be the scariest thing of all. With parents like mine, you get used to having them tell you what to do next. But I can see they don’t have a clue. Not about this. And suddenly I think, Why did I ever believe they had all the answers for me, anyway?”

Part of Bobby’s crisis is that he has always relied on his parents to protect him. Now, however, they seem helpless to do so. For the first time, all three of them are on the same level, and Bobby feels slightly overwhelmed as he is forced to step up in maturity. Suddenly his outcomes depend much more on his own decisions; grousing about his parents won’t do him any good.