This is a story about a girl called Lucy Baines. She lives with her family in a house. Lucy isn't a normal young teenager. She is a girl with an excessive love for orderliness. Her room is very tidy, everything is in its place. Next to her room is her older brother's room. Gary is also called Grisly Gary. He is the extreme opposite of Lucy, his room is very messy. Clothes strewn everywhere, an unmade bed, cluttered tables and chairs. Among all that is Gary's pride - his hi-fi equipment. He is always listening to loud and aggressive music. Even when he goes downstairs to eat, he listens to music on his walkman. Downstairs in the living area it is always drab and untidy. Walt, Gary's and Lucy's father, sits most of the time asleep in his armchair and watches TV. He is overweight and umkempt. Joy, his wife and Lucy's and Gary's mother, does everything in the house with a great sense of sorrow. Lucy is not very happy with her family, because everyone is preoccupied with him or herself. They do not talk to each other. Nobody listens to Lucy when she comes home from school and would like to talk about what had happened in school. Nobody is interested in her problems and pleasures. So, she feels very lonely. And this is why she starts to talk to the audience imagining her perfect family - a family where everyone is happy, everyone listens and talks to each other. She also starts to imagining Zara. Zara is her very best friend, her invisible friend. Zara is always there for Lucy. Sometimes Lucy imagines that Zara comes to visit her and sits at the table with her whole family. Then Joy has to dish up extra food for Zara. But Lucy's family absolutely hates this, and they get very angry when Lucy starts to talk to Zara. They do not understand and accept her behaviour. So, Zara is often the cause of trouble in the Baines' house.
One night, while there is a terrible storm outside, Zara becomes visible. She suddenly appears in the Baines' house. Lucy, who wakes up because of the thunder, gets up in the middle of the night and hears someone downstairs. She is absolutely sure that this must be Zara. So, she goes downstairs. But then an accident happens; her foot gets caught on the stairs in the darkness and she falls down and knocks her head. She loses consciousness for a brief moment. When she wakes up again she sees Zara, a visible Zara. First Lucy cannot believe this, but then she recognizes that this girl knows things about her which only Zara knows. As Zara tells Lucy that she will stay with her, Lucy is very happy. Now everything will become better, she thinks. "But how is it possible that you are here now?" she asks Zara. "Only you can see me, I'm still invisible for the others. You believed in me so much that I'm here now. We can do almost everything, if we believe in it strongly enough." Zara makes an example: she moves the vase along the table without touching it. She tells Lucy, "You can do this too. With a little practice and concentration." In the evening Lucy and Zara go to the bedroom. Lucy is so happy as never before. Lucy falls asleep.
But the next morning when she wakes up, she can't find Zara. Lucy runs downstairs and yells, "Zara, Zara!" But she can find only her mother in the kitchen, her father in his armchair and Gary, who is listening to music on his walkman, just as everyday. But where is Zara? Perhaps she has only dreamt about Zara and she has never been visible. So, she tries to move the vase along the table, but it doesn't work. But suddenly she hears Zara's voice. She begins to talk with her. When Joy hears this, she is afraid that Lucy starts with her Zara story all over again. So, there is another trouble in the Baines' house. Lucy goes upstairs with Zara. She is unhappy, because her family doesn't believe in Zara. You can make your family vanish. "When you believe in something strongly enough, it can happen", says Zara, "picture your mother, picture your father, picture your brother and make them vanish!" Lucy does what Zara says and with Zara's help, it works. Her visible family really disappears. In this moment Lucy hears some voices. "Who is this?" she asks. "Oh, this is my invisible family. My father Felix and my brother Chuck." So Lucy lives in the Baines' house with Zara, Felix and Chuck.
by Daniela M and Daniela N.