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Della a slice of white bread. She stuffed it in her mouth and let it soak up the spice. Tears ran down her cheeks.
    â€˜I’m so sorry sweetie, why don’t you let me go out and get you something else? Anything you like. Do you want me to go get some Italian ice?’ Dad had his keys in his hand and was almost out of the door before Della managed to speak.
    â€˜Dad, I’m fine,’ Della wheezed. ‘I’ll just have some toast. I shouldn’t really eat anything spicy before an audition anyway.’ She poured her soup back into the styrofoam cup and sealed the lid.
    â€˜Oh, of course not. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’ Dad sat back down at the counter slowly. He always tried way too hard when Della came to visit and ended up getting mad at himself.
    We sat in silence while Della put two slices of bread in the toaster. Awkward silence. I had some more soup and tried not to make any slurping sounds.
    â€˜Why don’t you tell Della about the press conference?’ I suggested. It was the best thing I could think of to make him feel better.
    â€˜Well,’ he said, ‘I guess it was pretty interesting.’
    Dad ran through the facts of the case, slowly at first, but picking up speed as he went.
    â€˜And then the scientist working on this top secret invisibility project walked into his office and vanished without a trace. It was a locked room, with only one exit and we know from the security cameras that Dr Learner didn’t come back out that way. But when his assistant went to look for him, he wasn’t in his office.’
    â€˜So someone messed with the security cameras,’ Della said, spreading peanut butter on to her toast.
    â€˜Ah, that’s what I thought, but Mr Delgado’s assistant assured me that the security cameras are controlled by a professional security company in the city. And there’s no way someone tampered with the recording.’ Dad slurped up a noodle and then wiped the drips off his chin.
    Della sat back down at the counter. ‘Then there must be another way out of the office.’
    â€˜Not according to the floor plan.’ Dad was enjoying himself now.
    Della took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.
    â€˜Well, then I guess he must have turned himself invisible. That’s what he invented, right?’
    I groaned. Della’s idea of what scientists do was based on the time she played Dr Frankenstein in the fourth grade.
    â€˜People can’t turn invisible,’ I said.
    â€˜But Dad said he was a scientist studying invisibility. What else would he be trying to do? He probably drank some chemicals that turned his body clear.’ She giggled. ‘Maybe he’s running around the lab naked right now.’
    â€˜He didn’t turn himself clear,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Besides, even if he did, clear isn’t the same as invisible. You can still see things that are clear.’
    Della raised a disbelieving eyebrow at me.
    â€˜Glass is clear, but you can still see glass. It refracts light.’ I could feel my voice starting to rise. ‘If you really wanted to turn invisible, you’d have to figure out a way to stop light from touching you. Sure, maybe Dr Learner can do that on a small scale, like molecular-level small, but there’s no way he could invent something that could make him actually disappear. He’d have to change the laws of physics, and even then—’
    I stopped mid-sentence when I noticed the smile on Della’s face. She was winding me up.
    â€˜You’re too easy, Alice!’ Della laughed, and licked a bit of peanut butter off the side of her hand.
    I put my face on the table and covered my head with my arms. I couldn’t believe I fell for it. No one knew how to push my buttons like Della.
    â€˜That was payback for the milk shower you gave me before.’ Della paused. ‘But I still think his research must have had something to do with