Ginger woke up one morning feeling perfectly ordinary. Her hair was tangled from sleeping, one sock had disappeared somewhere beneath the bed, and she was hungry enough to eat two pieces of toast instead of one. There was nothing about the morning that suggested it would be different from any other day. But somehow, before breakfast was even finished, Ginger began to feel as though she were disappearing.

She tried to tell someone about the strange dream she'd had during the night, but everyone seemed busy. There were dishes to wash, things to put away, places people needed to go, and grown-up conversations that apparently could not wait. Ginger stood nearby for a while, hoping someone would look at her and say, "What were you going to tell me?" No one did. So Ginger ate the last bite of her toast and went outside.

Usually, being outside made everything better. There were always things to investigate. Ants marched through cracks in the sidewalk, birds argued from the trees, and clouds made shapes that changed before Ginger could decide what they were. But that morning even the world seemed too busy to notice her. A robin landed in the grass a few feet away. "Hello," Ginger said. The robin stabbed its beak into the ground, pulled out a worm, and flew away. "Fine," Ginger muttered. A little later, she found a ladybug crawling across a leaf and held out her finger. "Would you like to come with me?" The ladybug opened its tiny wings and disappeared. Ginger frowned. "Apparently not."

Later, some children were playing nearby. Ginger walked over and stood at the edge of their game, waiting for someone to ask her to join. Nobody did. They were laughing and running and shouting to one another, and Ginger waited until she couldn't stand there anymore without feeling foolish. She walked away slowly.

By lunchtime, Ginger had decided there could only be one explanation. She had become invisible. It seemed unlikely, of course, but Ginger had learned that unlikely things happened all the time. She held up her hands and could still see them, but perhaps invisible people could see themselves. She looked into a window and saw her reflection staring back at her. That didn't prove anything either. Mirrors were mysterious things.

Ginger decided she needed a proper test. She stood in the middle of the kitchen doorway. Someone walked around her. Ginger's eyes widened. She moved to the hallway and stood directly in the middle of it. Someone said, "Excuse me, Ginger," and stepped around her. That complicated things. They could apparently see her. They just weren't really seeing her. Ginger wasn't sure which felt worse.

She went outside again and sat beneath a tree with her knees pulled against her chest. For once, she didn't look for bugs or collect interesting rocks or wonder where the birds were going. She just sat there. A tiny breeze moved through the leaves above her as Ginger picked at a loose thread on her shorts. "If I really disappeared," she whispered, "I wonder how long it would take anybody to notice." Saying it aloud made something hurt inside her. Ginger blinked quickly because she did not intend to cry. Crying would only make her nose run, and then she would be invisible with a runny nose, which seemed especially unfair.

Something touched her shoe. Ginger looked down and saw a small brown beetle climbing over the toe. "Well," she said, "you found me." She lowered her hand, and after a moment the beetle crawled onto her finger. Ginger lifted it carefully and studied its shiny brown back and tiny moving legs. "Nobody noticed you either, did they?" The beetle didn't answer.

Ginger looked around and realized there were hundreds of tiny things she hadn't noticed that morning. A spiderweb stretched between two branches, so thin it disappeared unless the sunlight touched it. A feather rested beneath a bush. Tiny yellow flowers grew between patches of grass. High above her, a hawk circled silently against the blue sky. All of those things had been there. Ginger simply hadn't seen them.

She wondered if perhaps people were like that too. Maybe sometimes they became so busy looking at what was directly in front of them that they forgot to notice what was beside them. That didn't make the lonely feeling disappear, but it made Ginger understand something she hadn't understood before. Being unnoticed wasn't the same as being invisible, and being overlooked wasn't the same as not mattering.

Ginger carried the beetle to a patch of grass and let it crawl from her finger. "There you go," she whispered. "I saw you." That afternoon, Ginger noticed someone sitting alone while the other children played. She almost walked past. Then she remembered what the edge of the game had felt like that morning. Ginger stopped. "Do you want to play with me?" The child looked up, surprised, and then smiled. "Okay."

They spent the rest of the afternoon making a village out of sticks, rocks, leaves, and anything else they could find. Ginger built the houses. Her new friend made the roads. Together they constructed a crooked little bridge that fell down three times before they finally got it to stay.

When Ginger went home, the house was quieter. Someone finally asked, "How was your day?" Ginger thought about it. For a moment, she considered saying, "Fine." Instead she said, "I felt invisible today." This time, someone stopped what they were doing. They looked at her. Really looked at her.

Ginger told them about breakfast, the children playing without her, the beetle beneath the tree, and the new friend she'd made. She told them that sometimes people could see you without noticing you at all. "I'm sorry," came the quiet answer. "I should have noticed." Ginger leaned against them for a moment. "It's okay," she said.

But Ginger knew it wasn't completely okay, and perhaps it didn't need to be. Sometimes people we loved could hurt our feelings without meaning to. Sometimes we had to tell them when they did.

That night, Ginger climbed into bed and pulled the covers beneath her chin. She no longer wondered whether she was invisible. She knew she wasn't. But she also knew something else now. There would always be people standing at the edge of things, waiting for someone to notice them. There would be quiet children, lonely people, tiny beetles, and small things the rest of the world hurried past.

Ginger couldn't make everyone see them. But she could.

And sometimes, being the person who noticed was almost as important as being noticed yourself.