Things Hoped For
Andrew Clements
 The story is about 17-year-old Gwendolyn/Gwennie (Gwen) who lives in New York City with her grandfather. One day her grandfather disappears leaving only a phone message telling Gwen not to worry about him. Gwen continues her life as normal as possible while trying to practice for her violin auditions. She then meets Robert (Bobby) from Things Not Seen in a cafe. Robert is in town also preparing for trumpet auditions.Gwen invites Robert to stay in her empty house with her to help get him out of the hotel he was staying in. While shopping in Niketown Store in New York City, Gwen and Robert spot a faint shadow apparently coming from an invisible person. Robert then tells her that two years ago he turned invisible. In the following days Robert discovers Gwen's grandfather dead in the freezer. The other invisible man is found in Gwen's house after the discovery of her grandfather. The man named William started to seek out Robert to find out how to undo the invisibility. William also is revealed to be a womanizing thief. The mystery of Gwen's grandfather's death is closed when the grandfather's lawyer reads out a letter written the last day the grandfather was alive. The letter contains the will of the grandfather. Detectives decide that the grandfather knew he would die so he hid in the freezer. The detectives also say that the grandfather went in with an oxygen bottle, thick clothes, and left the refrigerator slightly open so he could have left if he wanted to. Gwen was distraught and did not feel like playing the violin the whole day.The next day she gets a phone call from Alicia, Robert's girlfriend asking her to play. Alicia ended up thanking Gwen for the beautiful song and hung up. On the day of Gwen's audition she opens an envelope with dog tags with a code leading to the title of a Bible passage. The passage says,"There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends". Gwen finally understood why her grandfather did what he did, and she walks confidently into her audition.