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.

Lucy and the invisible family played games together. And Lucy always won, so Chuck got fed up. The invisible family was very polite. They even asked Lucy where they could sleep. Zara slept on a folding bed in Lucy's room. In the morning they got up very early. When Lucy came down, they told her to make breakfast and they were very greedy. After breakfast they played another card game. Lucy always won again, so the others changed the rules. Suddenly they used their powers to win and Lucy got mad. So, the invisible family went to the fun fair without Lucy. When the invisible family was away, she wanted to bake a cake to surprise them.
Suddenly she heard her real family calling her but she couldn't see them, she asked them to come back. At this moment the invisible family returned from the fun fair and the voices of the real family disappeared. Lucy was very proud, that she had baked a cake, but when she took the cake out of the oven, it was a solid uneven misshappen ball. The invisible family didn't even want to try the cake, which Lucy baked for them. Zara and Chuck asked their father Felix to bake a better cake for them. Felix agreed and started to prepare the cake without ingredients. Lucy didn't believe, that Felix could bake a cake without anything. They bet together and the loser had to do the cleaning up. Lucy lost and was told to clean the whole house, before she was allowed to eat her piece of cake. She was very mad and a little bit sad, but finally she started to clean the rooms.
The invisible family went to bed and Lucy followed, she wanted to sleep in her bed and couldn't because, Zara slept in her bed. She couldn't find a place to sleep and they became very rough, telling her, that she was untidy, loud and smelly. Lucy wished her real family back. Then she left the house and was locked out. She was forced to break into her own house; a big fight followed and she finally fell down the stairs and hit her head. When she woke up she saw a doctor, who looked like Zara, and her real family stood around her. They were all worried about her and were happy that she had woken up.
"The next few days were great, they all ran around he, more important still, they all started actually talking to her..... Of course it couldn't last forever.... but they had all learned something, Mum, Dad and Gary. Lucy steered well clear of anymore invisible friends!"