The Schwa Was Here

“Always. And besides, you’re only half invisible, so, I dunno, maybe you should look for a girl who’s blind in one eye.”

He punched me hard in the arm, and I punched him back, matching his force. We both refused to rub our aching arms, even though they hurt. For a second I wondered whether this would swell into a full-on fight.

“Hey,” I said, “Lexie does what she wants—and besides, I was the one Crawley hired to hang with her, not you.”

“But, but . . .” The Schwa’s mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish. “But she said I’m sweet-cream ...”

“Big deal. I’m Italian gelato, and there’s only room for one scoop on the cone.” Which technically isn’t true, but he got the point.

Then the Schwa invokes the friendship clause.

“Antsy, you’re my best friend,” he says. “I’m asking you as a friend. Please ...”

Like I said, I was in hot water, because whether I like it or not, I got a conscience. But I also got a selfish streak, and once in a while it kicks in before the water starts to boil.

“Forget it,” I told him.

Then Mr. Schwa burst happily into the room. “Okay, boys, lunch is ready. It’s franks and beans!”

He left, never noticing our argument, or the paper clips on the floor. I knelt down to pick up the bags of clips. “Do these go in any order?”

“Put them in any way you want.” He left for the kitchen, let­ting me pick up all the clips.

We didn’t talk much over lunch, and said nothing about Lexie. The Schwa cleaned his plate, but if you ask me, he looked like a man eating his last meal.

***

The Schwa was not giving up. For a guy famous for not being noticed, he was suddenly everywhere. Somehow he managed to walk Crawley’s dogs three at a time without being dragged down the street like a human dogsled. That meant he was done with the job quick enough to barge in on anything Lexie and I were doing.

I was coming up with all this clever stuff to do with her—it amazed me how clever I could be when a girl was involved. It actually gave me hope that maybe I had latent superintelligence that was activated by girls, like the way the Incredible Hulk was activated by anger.

One afternoon, I had this bright idea of playing “Name That Texture,” which consisted of us challenging each other to iden­tify unusual objects just by feeling them.

“In school we do a lot of tactile learning,” she warned me. “I know the whole world by touch.”

Because she had an advantage, I chose really weird things for her, like a geode, and a Pisher Plastic replacement kneecap. She chose normal household things for me, because the only thing I knew by touch was my bathroom light switch in the middle of the night. And even then I turned on the fan half the time by mistake.

As soon as the Schwa showed up to walk the dogs, Lexie in­vited him to play, too. I didn’t move to give him a place to sit, but he made room anyway, so I glared at him.

“Why the dirty look, Antsy?”

He knew why. He had only said it to inform Lexie I was mad-dogging him.

“Come on,” said Lexie, “we’re all friends.”

I put my blindfold on, and the game quickly became an exer­cise in embarrassment. I had just mistaken a corkscrew for a Swiss Army knife when I heard Crawley roll by. I peeked out from under my blindfold to catch him sizing me up in his own disapproving way. “The boy cannot correctly identify a cork­screw,” he said. “Don’t let this moron dull your intelligence. Lexis.”

I grinned at him and said, “Send in the clowns!”

Old Chuckles was not amused.

After Crawley rolled away and I had handed Lexie her next mystery object, she whispered so her eagle- eared grandfather couldn’t hear. “Sometimes I think my grandfather died long be­fore I was born.”

“Huh?” I said. It was such a weird thing to say.

“You want me to think this is a quarter,” Lexie said of the object in her hand, “but it’s a Sacagawea dollar.” She was, of course, right.

Once we heard the door to the old man’s bedroom close, Lexie said, “The way he lives in this stuffy cave. It’s not really living, is it? That’s why I come to stay with him. My parents would much rather I stay somewhere else when they go out of the country, but I want to come here. I’m still working on changing him.”

While the Schwa pondered his object, I pondered what she had said. I didn’t think Crawley could be changed. My dad once told me that people don’t change when they get older, they just get more so. I imagine that when Crawley was younger, he was the kind of kid who always saw the glass half empty instead of half full, and had a better relationship with his dog than with the neighborhood kids. In seventy- five years of living, half empty became bone-dry, solitary became isolated, and one dog became fourteen.

“Saltshaker!” said the Schwa.

“Wrong. It’s the queen from a chessboard,” said Lexie.

“Your grandfather is who he is,” I told her. “You should just live your own life, and let him live his. Or not live his, I guess.”

“I disagree,” said the Schwa. “I think people can be changed— but usually it takes a traumatic experience.”

“You mean like brain damage?” I asked, then immediately thought about the Schwa’s father and was sorry I said it.

“Trauma comes in many forms,” Lexie said. “It changes you, but it doesn’t always change you for the better.” She handed me my next object; something like a pen.

“Well, if it’s directed trauma,” said the Schwa, “maybe it could change you for the better.”

“Like radiation,” I said. They both waited for me to explain myself. This was easier said than done, on accounta the intuitive part of my brain was three steps ahead of the thinking part. It was like lightning before thunder. But sometimes you see light­ning and the thunder never comes. Just like the way I’ll some­times blurt out something that sounds smart, but if you ask me to explain it, the universe could end before you get an answer.

“We’re listening,” Lexie said.

I fiddled with my object, stalling for time. “You know, radia­tion . . .” And for once it all came to me—what I meant, and what I was holding. “Just like this . . . laser pointer!” I must have known in some subconscious way all along.

“I get it,” said the Schwa. “Radiation can be like a nuclear missile, or it can be directed, like a medical treatment that saves your life.”

“Yeah,” I said. “When my uncle got cancer, they used radia­tion therapy on him.”

“And he lived?” asked Lexie.

“Well, no—but that’s just because he got hit by a garbage truck.”

“So,” said Lexie, “what my grandfather needs is trauma ther­apy. Something as dangerous as radiation, but focused, and in the proper dose.”

“You’ll figure it out,” I told her.

“Yes,” she said, “I will.”

I gave her the plastic kneecap, but I could tell her mind was no longer on the game. She was already thinking of a way to traumatize her grandfather.

“Maybe if we put our heads together,” the Schwa said, “we’ll come up with something quicker.”

I squirmed. “Three heads are a crowd,” I said. But whatever Lexie’s opinion was, she kept it quiet.

***

That Friday night I had Lexie all to myself, since the Schwa’s aunt came over every Friday night. I took her to a concert in the park at an outdoor amphitheater.

The music was salsa—not my favorite, but that was okay. Con­certs have a way of making music you don’t regularly like, likable. I guess it’s because when the people around you really like it, some of that soaks into you. It’s called osmosis, something I learned about in science—probably by osmosis, since it isn’t like I was listening. I was listening to the music, though, and so was Lexie. I watched the way she moved to it, and I didn’t even feel