Why Can't I See Air?

Emmi was the kind of girl who asked questions about everything. Not just regular questions like "What's for dinner?" or "Can I have one more story?" No, Emmi asked the big questions. The ones that made grown-ups stop chewing their food and stare at the ceiling.

And today, standing in her backyard with her arms crossed and her eyebrows scrunched together, Emmi had a really, really big one.

"Why can't I see air?"

She looked up. She looked down. She looked sideways. She waved her hands in front of her face and wiggled her fingers through absolutely nothing.

"I know you're there," she said to the air. "I can feel you on my skin. I can breathe you into my lungs. But I can't see you. Not even a little. What are you hiding from?"

The air, of course, said nothing back.

Emmi's grandmother was sitting on the porch, snapping green beans into a silver bowl. She had been listening, because grandmothers always listen, even when they look like they aren't.

"Come sit, Emmi-bird," Nana said, patting the step beside her. "You want to know why air is invisible?"

"Yes! It doesn't make any sense. Water is real and I can see water. Dirt is real and I can see dirt. Why does air get to be invisible? That's not fair."

Nana smiled. "Well, the real answer is that the tiny, tiny pieces that make up air — called molecules — are so small and so spread apart that light passes right through them. Your eyes need light to bounce off something so you can see it. But air just... lets the light go on through. Like a window."

Emmi thought about this. "So air is basically a window that goes everywhere?"

"Everywhere," Nana said. "All around us, all the time. An everywhere-window."

Emmi flopped back on the porch step and groaned. "That's a terrible superpower. Being invisible but being everywhere. Nobody even notices you."

Nana snapped another bean. Snap. "Oh, I don't know about that. I think air gets noticed plenty. You just have to know where to look."

Emmi sat up. "What do you mean?"

Nana pointed to the old oak tree at the edge of the yard. Its branches were swaying, long and slow, like they were dancing to a song only they could hear. The leaves shivered and flickered, showing their pale undersides.

"What's making those leaves move, Emmi-bird?"

Emmi's eyes went wide. "The wind! Wind is air!"

"Mm-hmm. You can't see the air. But you can see every single thing it touches."

Emmi jumped off the porch and ran to the oak tree. She stood underneath it and watched the branches sway. She felt the breeze press against her cheeks like a cool hand. Her ponytail lifted and swung sideways.

"It's pushing my hair!" she laughed. "I can see it pushing my hair!"

She ran to the garden next, where Nana had hung a pinwheel on a stick near the tomato plants. It was spinning — red, yellow, blue, red, yellow, blue — around and around in a dizzy circle of color.

"Air is doing THAT!" Emmi pointed.

She ran to the clothesline, where two bedsheets were hanging. They billowed out like the sails of a ship, then flapped back, then billowed again. Whap. Whap. Whap. They sounded alive.

"And THAT!"

She ran to the puddle by the garden hose, where the surface of the water was rippling in tiny waves, even though nobody had touched it.

"And THAT!"

Then she stopped running and just stood very still in the middle of the yard. She closed her eyes and listened.

She could hear the wind chimes on the porch — five metal tubes clinking together in a melody that was never quite the same twice. Ting. Ting-ting. Tinnng.

"Nana," Emmi whispered, "the air is playing music."

"It certainly is."

Emmi opened her eyes. A dandelion puff was growing in the grass right by her feet — a perfect white globe of seeds, like a tiny planet made of wishes. She knelt down and picked it.

She held it close to her face and blew.

Pfffffft.

The seeds burst apart and flew — dozens of them, maybe hundreds, each one carrying its own tiny parachute, drifting and swirling and rising up, up, up into the blue sky.

Emmi watched them go with her mouth open. "I can see exactly where the air is right now," she said. "It's carrying them. Every single one."

She chased the seeds across the yard, spinning in circles, watching them float higher. Some went left. Some went right. One drifted all the way over the fence and into Mr. Kowalski's yard.

"Goodbye, little seed!" Emmi called. "The air is taking you on an adventure!"

She ran back to the porch, out of breath and pink-cheeked.

"Nana. I just thought of something. Bubbles!"

"What about bubbles?"

"When you blow bubbles, you're putting air inside something you can see! You're trapping it! It's like catching a piece of the invisible thing and holding it in a tiny round cage!"

Nana set down her bowl of beans. "Emmi-bird, I do believe you're right."

"Can I get the bubble stuff? Please? Please please?"

Nana nodded, and Emmi flew into the house and came back with the bottle of bubble solution and the wand. She dipped it in, held it up, and blew — gentle, slow, the way that makes the really big ones.

A bubble the size of a softball floated off the wand. It wobbled and shimmered, its surface swirling with rainbows — pink and green and gold. And inside it: air. Invisible, weightless, impossible-to-see air, trapped in a perfect sphere of color.

The breeze caught the bubble and carried it across the yard. Then another breeze nudged it higher. Then another one spun it gently sideways.

"Look, Nana! The air outside the bubble is pushing the air inside the bubble!"

Emmi blew more. Dozens of bubbles floated across the yard — drifting over the garden, bumping into the clothesline sheets, catching the sunlight. The whole backyard looked like it was full of floating jewels.

Then — pop, pop, pop — one by one, the bubbles burst, and the air inside them joined the air outside them, and it was all invisible again.

Emmi plopped down on the grass and lay flat on her back, staring up at the sky. Big white clouds were drifting slowly overhead, changing shape as they went. One looked like a rabbit. Then it stretched into a dragon. Then it smooshed into something that looked a lot like a grilled cheese sandwich.

"The air is pushing the clouds around too, isn't it?" Emmi said.

"It is."

"So the clouds are kind of like... the air's fingerprints. You can't see the hand, but you can see where it's been."

Nana was quiet for a moment. Then she said, very softly, "That might be the most beautiful thing you've ever said, Emmi-bird."

Emmi smiled and stretched her arms out wide on the grass, like she was trying to hug the whole sky.

"I think I was wrong before," she said. "I said air had a terrible superpower. But actually... it's kind of the best superpower. It moves everything. It carries seeds and pushes clouds and makes music and fills up bubbles, and you never even see it do any of it. It doesn't need anyone to watch."

She took a deep, deep breath. She felt her chest fill up with it — with the invisible, everywhere, impossible-to-see air.

Then she let it out in one long, happy whoosh that sent the grass beside her face bending sideways.

"I see you," she whispered to the air.

And from somewhere across the yard, the wind chimes sang back.

Ting. Ting-ting. Tinnng.