Things Not Seen Summary

How It All Goes Down

Fifteen-year-old Bobby Phillips wakes up one morning to find that, to his surprise, he's become invisible. He tells his parents, who are obviously pretty concerned about the whole thing, but end up going to work anyway (what?). Because he's left home alone, Bobby bundles up and goes to the library, where he runs into a blind girl named Alicia who is the one person who can't tell that he's invisible.

Later on, he comes home and exchanges some tense words with his dad, telling him that it was kind of messed up that they just went to work instead of staying home with him. His dad feels badly about it and tells Bobby that he's going to go pick up his mom, and that they'll all have dinner together. Bobby waits at the house for them and turns on the news to see that his parents have gotten into a bad car crash and are at the hospital.

He goes to the hospital to see his parents, who tell him to lay low at home until they can get back. He hangs out at home, but gets bored and goes to the library again, where he sees the girl from before. They talk for a while, but while they're crossing the street, she realizes that he's not wearing any clothes and he has to reveal to her that he's actually invisible. Alicia (the girl) doesn't believe him at first, but then asks a random stranger about the boy standing next to her and gets confused responses. They make a plan to meet up again the next day.

The following day, Bobby's mom comes back from the hospital, although his dad has to stay there in order to heal up following some nasty surgeries. Bobby goes to visit with Alicia at the library, but they get caught by her dad, so they tell him about Bobby's invisibility as well. It turns out that her dad is a professor at the same university where Bobby's mom teaches, and he and Bobby's dad start talking about possible scientific explanations for his condition.

Over the next few weeks, Bobby gets to hang out with Alicia more and more. At the same time, Children and Family Services is starting to get concerned because of Bobby's absence from school, and they start dropping by the house to check up on his parents. Bobby's mom lies and tells them that he went to stay with Aunt Ethel in Florida, but it's clear that they're not going to give up, and that they need a solution fast.

Because he's worried about his parents getting arrested, Bobby decided that he needs to figure out why he's gone invisible. He narrows down the list of possible suspects to his electric blanket, and calls Sears headquarters to ask for the list of people who have complained about the blanket. They won't give it to him, so he and Alicia hatch a plan to break into the legal department and get the list of names.

They sneak in and Bobby starts calling through the list. He reaches a woman named Sheila who had the same thing happen to her three years ago… and it hasn't gone away yet. Yikes. She promises him to secrecy, but at least Bobby now knows that the electric blanket is definitely the cause. He tells Alicia about this, and she suggests that he try out the blanket again, just to see what happens—after all, it's not like he can get any more invisible than he already is.

Bobby falls asleep with the blanket plugged in, but is woken up by loud banging. The police have come in with a search warrant to look for Bobby in his house. When they enter his room, everyone is startled to find that Bobby is there—and naked. Bobby's mom tells the police that he just got back from Florida and that she wants them to leave right now.

Bobby decides to break the news of his miraculous return to Alicia in person. At first, she seems happy for him, but out of nowhere she gets mad, runs up to her room, and slams the door. He doesn't know what's wrong, so he goes to the post office and mails his electric blanket to Sheila.

When he returns, he finds an email from Alicia explaining that she's sorry about her outburst—she just feels that he'll leave her behind now that he doesn't need her company anymore. She also writes him a poem. Bobby starts crying tears of joy and runs over to Alicia's house to tell her that he loves her. Aw.