The Schwa Was Here ab-1

by Нил Шустерман

  Conclusion: Four out of five people do not see the Schwa in your standard classroom.

  I don’t know what it was about the Schwa that kept getting to me. I can’t say I was always thinking about him—I mean, he was hard to think about—that was part of the problem. You start to think about him and pretty soon you find yourself thinking about a video game, or last Christmas, or fourteen thousand other things, and you can’t remember what you were thinking about in the first place. It’s like your brain begins to twist and squirm, directing your mind away from him. Of course that’s nothing new to me—I mean, it seems like my brain is always twitching in unexpected directions, especially when there are girls around. I’ve never been the smoothest guy around girls that I like. I’ll say stupid things, like pointing out they got mud on their shoes or mustard on the tip of their nose, like Mary Ellen MacCaw did once—but with a schnoz like hers, it’s hard not to get condiments on it, and maybe even a condiment bottle lodged up inside there once in a while. My awkwardness with girls did change, though, once I met Lexie. Lots of things changed after I met Lexie—but wait a second, I’m getting way ahead of myself here. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. The Schwa.

  See? You start thinking about the Schwa, and you end up thinking about everything but. I guess this fascination I had with the Schwa was because in some small way I knew how he felt. See, I never stand out in a crowd either. I’m just your run-of-the-mill eighth-grade wiseass, which might get me some­where in, like, Iowa, but Brooklyn is wiseass central. No one ever has anything major to say about me, good or bad, and even in my own family, I’m kind of just “there.” Frankie’s God’s gift to Brooklyn, Christina gets all the attention because she’s the youngest, and me, well, I’m like an afterthought. “You’ve got middle-child syndrome,” I’ve been told. Well, seems to me more like middle-finger syndrome. Do you ever sit and play that game where you try to imagine yourself in the future? Well, whenever I try to imagine my future, all I can see are my classmates twenty years from now asking one another, “Hey, whatever happened to Antsy Bonano?” And even in that weird little daydream no one had a clue. But the Schwa—he was worse off than me. He wouldn’t be the “whatever-happened-to” kid—he’d be the kid whose picture gets accidentally left out of the yearbook and no one notices. Although I’m a bit ashamed to say it, it felt good to be around someone more in­visible than me.

  ***

  LAB JOURNAL The Schwa Effect: Experiment #2

  Hypothesis: The Schwa will not be noticed even when dressed weird and acting freakishly.

  Materials: The boys’ bathroom, a sombrero spray-painted Day-Glo orange, a costume from last year’s school production of Cats, and the Schwa.

  Procedure: The Schwa was asked to stand in the middle of the boys’ bathroom wearing the cat cos­tume and the orange sombrero, and to sing “God Bless America” at the top of his lungs. We ask un­suspecting students coming out of the bathroom if they noticed anything unusual in there.

  Results: We caught fifteen people willing to dis­cuss their lavatory experience. When asked if there was anything strange going on, aside from the one kid who kept talking about a toilet that wouldn’t stop flushing fourteen out of fifteen said there was someone acting weird in the bathroom. We thought the experiment was a failure until we asked them to describe the weirdo.

  “He was wearing something strange, I think,” one person said.

  “He wore like a pointed blue party hat, I think,” said another.

  Not a single person identified the orange som­brero, or the cat costume, although one person was reasonably certain that he had a tail.

  All agreed that he was singing something patri­otic, but no one could remember what it was. Five people were sure it was “The Star-Spangled Ban­ner.” Six people said it was “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” Only four properly identified it as “God Bless America.”

  Conclusion: Even when acting weird and dressed like a total freak, the Schwa is only barely noticed.

  The basketball courts in our neighborhood parks have steel chain-link nets. I like that better than regular string net because when you make a basket, you don’t swish—you clank. That heavy, hearty rattle is more satisfying. More macho than a swish. It’s powerful, like the roar of a crowd—something invisi­ble kids like the Schwa and semi-invisible kids like me never get to hear except in our own heads.

  It was on the basketball court that I came up with the Big Idea.

  By now the Schwa was hanging around with us more—I mean when we actually noticed him there. Ira was not too thrilled about it. See, Ira was not invisible. He had made great advances into the visible world. Take his video camera for in­stance. You’d think it would make him a behind-the-scenes type of guy. Not so—because when Ira has his eye to the viewfinder, he becomes the center of attention. He directs the world, and the world allows it. So I guess I could see why he kept his distance from the Schwa. Invisibility threatened him.

  Ira did join us on the basketball court, though. Couldn’t resist that, I guess, and in playing “friendly” choose-up games, we had quickly learned how to turn the Schwa Effect to our ad­vantage.

  Move number one: Fake to the left, pass right to the Schwa, shoot, score!

  “Hey—where did he come from?” someone from the other team would always yell.

  Move number two: Dribble up the middle, flip it back to the Schwa, who’d drive down the sidelines for a layup—shoot—score!

  “What?! Who’s guarding that guy?” It was great watching the other teams get all frustrated, never noticing the Schwa until the ball was already in his hands.

  Move number three: Pass to Howie, back to me, and then to the Schwa, who’s right under the basket. A quick hook shot—score!

  As for the other team, there would be much weeping and gnashing of teeth, as the Bible says.

  On this particular day, after the other kids went off to console themselves in their humiliating loss, Howie, the Schwa, and I hung around on the court just shooting around. Ira also left right after the game, not wanting to hang around the Schwa any longer than he had to.

  “We oughta go out for the team,” Howie suggested as we shot baskets. “We’ve got a system.”

  “The Schwa oughta go out for the team, you mean,” I said.

  The Schwa dribbled the ball a bit, took a hook shot, and sunk it. “I played peewee basketball a few years back, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Don’t tell me—the coach always forgot to put even when you were in, and even when you were in, nobody passed to you.”

  He shrugs like it’s a given. “My father never showed up for the games either. So I figured, what was the point?”

  “How about your mother?” says Howie. I might be the prince of foot-in-mouth disease, but Howie’s the king. He gri­maces the moment after he says it, but it’s already out.

  The Schwa doesn’t say anything at first. He takes another shot. He misses. “My mother’s not around anymore.”

  Howie keeps looking at me, like I’m gonna cough up the guts to ask about it, but I won’t do it. I mean, what am I supposed to say? “Is it true that your mom was abducted by aliens in the middle of Waldbaum’s supermarket?” or “Is it true your father got a samurai sword and went Benihana on her?”

  No. Instead I change the subject, changing all of our lives from that moment on, because that’s when I come up with what would forever be known as Stealth Economics.

  “Hey, if the Schwa Effect works on the basketball court, there’s got to be other ways to put it to good use.”

  The Schwa stopped dribbling. “Like how?”

  “I don’t know ... Spy on people and stuff.”

  Howie’s ears perked up at the mention of spy stuff. “The gov­ernment would pay big bucks for someone who’s invisible.”

  “He’s not invisible,” I reminded him. “He’s invisible-ish. Like a stealth fighter.”

  “The CIA could still use him.”

  “And abuse him.” I grabbed the b
all away from the Schwa, went in for a layup, and made it.

  “I don’t want to go to the government,” the Schwa says.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They’d dissect him and put him in a form­aldehyde fish tank in Area 51.”

  Howie shook his head. “Area 51 is for aliens,” he says. “They’d probably put him in Area 52.”

  “Maybe we should try something that isn’t so big,” I suggested. “Maybe just stuff around school. I’m sure there are people around here who would pay for the services of a Stealth Schwa.” At first this had just been my lips flapping, like they often do—but every once in a while my lips flap and something brilliant flies out. I realized that maybe I was onto something here.

  “How much do you think people would pay?” the Schwa asked.

  I took an outside shot. “How much is the stealth fighter worth?” Clank! Nothing but chain. I reveled in the sound.

  LAB JOURNAL The Schwa Effect: Experiment #3

  Hypothesis: The Schwa can pass through airport security with an iron bar in his pocket.

  Materials: JFK American Airlines terminal, a six- inch iron bar, and the Schwa.

  Procedure: The Schwa was asked to walk through the security checkpoint, go to Gate B-l 7, then walk back.

  Results: The Schwa stood in line at the security checkpoint, but the guy who was checking IDs and airplane tickets skipped right past him. The Schwa gave us the A-okay sign. Then he walked through the metal detector, and it buzzed. Security then no­ticed him. They made him raise his arms, passing a wand all over him until finding the iron bar. They called more security over and two national guards­men dressed in camouflage. They asked where his parents were and wanted to see his ticket. That’s when the rest of us came forward to explain that it was just an experiment and not to get all bent out of shape. The national guardsmen and security officers weren’t happy. They called our parents. They were not happy either. This ends our experi­mentation on the Schwa Effect.

  Conclusion:

  1. The Schwa is unnoticed by your generic secu­rity guard unless he’s tipped off to his presence by advanced technology like a metal detector.

  2. Iron bars in the Schwa’s pocket are still iron bars.

  4. Making Big Bucks off of Stealth Economics, Because Maybe I Got Some Business Sense

  Once we decided to turn the Schwa Effect into a money-making proposition, it wasn’t hard to get the ball rolling. When we had presented our series of Schwa experi­ments to the class, most everyone laughed, figuring it was a joke—but enough of our classmates had been part of the ex­periments to suspect there was something more to it. You know, it’s like that TV show where the psychic dude talked to your dead relatives—all of whom seem to be just hanging around, watching everything you do ... which is really disturb­ing when you stop to think about it. You don’t really believe it, but there’s enough borderline credibility to make you wonder.

  That’s how it was with the Schwa. It was too much for most kids to really believe the Schwa Effect, but people were curi­ous—and curiosity was a key element of Stealth Economics. Mary Ellen MacCaw was the first to offer hard cash.

  “I wanna see the Schwa do something,” she said to me in the hall after school. Most everyone else had left, so we were pretty much alone.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Something.”

  “The Schwa doesn’t do things for free.”

  Mary Ellen reached into her pocket, jangled around in there for a while, and came up with four quarters. She handed them to me.

  “For a dollar, the Schwa will appear out of thin air.”

  “Where?” said Mary Ellen. “When?”

  “Here and now,” said the Schwa.

  And she jumped. I’ve never seen anyone jump like that ex­cept while watching a horror movie—because the Schwa had been standing right next to her all along.

  She bumped into a locker and the sound echoed down the hallway. “How do you do that?I” she asked the Schwa.

  “Guess you could call it a 'hidden’ talent.”

  As Mary Ellen’s mouth was almost as big as her nose, by the next day people were waiting in line to pay the price and share in the Schwa Experience.

  My dad says that at Pisher Plastics they believe anything can be marketed and sold. “They’d put a price tag on a dead rat if they thought it would sell,” he once told me. “Then they’d hire an advertising firm to show beautiful women wearing them on their shoulders. It’s all part of a free-market economy.”

  I can’t vouch for the dead-rat theory, but I do know that in our local free-market economy, the Schwa was a high-ticket item—and as his manager, lining up his jobs, I got a decent percentage of the money he made. I gotta admit, though, the money was just gravy. It was great for once to be the center of attention—or at least positioned next to the center of atten­tion. Funny how the Schwa could be right in the middle and still go unseen.

  “It’s a waste of time,” Ira said, when I asked him if he and Howie wanted in on our business venture.

  “Yeah,” said Howie. “I can think of a hundred better ways to make money.”

  They were still pretty annoyed about the grade we had got­ten on our Schwa experiments. “F for eFFort,” Mr. Werthog had said. He thought the whole thing was a scam when, for once, it wasn’t. After that, Ira and Howie wanted nothing to do with Stealth Economics.

  “Why don’t you forget this Schwa thing and help with my next movie,” Ira said. “Gerritsen Beach Beauties.”

  “I’m casting director,” says Howie, beaming with pride that may have just been hormones.

  I told them no, because I couldn’t just bail on the Schwa.

  “Suit yourself,” Ira said. “But when we’re surrounded by babes begging for a part in the film, don’t come crying to us.”

  In the end no girls were stupid enough to audition for them, so they had to settle for Claymation. Stealth Economics, on the other hand, turned out to be a much better business decision than anyone thought.

  Once Mary Ellen MacCaw spread the word, people began to devise more and more uses for the Schwa’s unique talent. A bunch of jocks paid the Schwa ten bucks to eavesdrop on a gaggle of cheerleaders and find out which guys they were talk­ing about. I negotiated an eighteen-dollar deal for the Schwa to slip a kid’s late book report into a teacher’s briefcase, right be­neath the teacher’s nose.

  “We want to put the Schwa on retainer,” our eighth-grade student officers told us barely a week into our little business. In other words, they wanted to pay him a lot of money ahead of time so they could ask him to do whatever they wanted, when­ever they wanted it.

  “Cool,” the Schwa said.

  “How much?” I asked.

  I negotiated them up to ten bucks a week for service-on-de­mand. The Schwa cost more than cable!

  They used him a lot in the first few weeks he was on retainer. Mostly they asked him to go into the teachers’ lounge, hang out in a corner, and report back to the student government on all gossip. He always slipped in right behind one of the fatter teachers, and never got caught. The student officers also had him hang out in the cafeteria kitchen to see who was mooching all those missing snack cakes, because the principal was blam­ing it on students. It turned out to be Mr. Spanks, the school security guard.

  “We’d like to sign him up as an investigative reporter,” the journalism class said, after they heard how old Spanky got busted. But the class officers made a big stink since they al­ready had him on retainer, claiming we couldn’t work for both government and the press, so we had to tell them no.

  The jobs made us decent money for doing nothing more than not getting noticed—but it was dares that payed the most, depending on how many kids paid into it. Since I acted as the bank, paying out of my own pocket when we lost, the Schwa and I shared our dare winnings fifty-fifty.

  “I dare the Schwa to walk into the principal’s office, thumb his nose at Principal Assinette, then leave, without being seen.�
�

  Piece of cake. Total take: $32.

  “I dare the Schwa to cut in front of Guido Buccafeo in the lunch line without being noticed, then dip his finger in Guido’s mashed potatoes, and not get beaten up.”

  No problem. Total take: $26.

  “I dare the Schwa to spend an entire day at school wearing nothing but a Speedo and not be noticed by his teachers.”

  We lost twenty-two bucks on that one, but he made it all the way to third period!

  I told the Schwa he was like Millard Fillmore—the president famous for going unnoticed—and as his manager, I found my middle-finger syndrome fading away. I was suddenly being treated with respect.

  “It’s all gonna crash and burn,” Ira kept telling me after Ralphy Sherman started spreading the rumor that the Schwa could teleport. No one believed it, but it still damaged our credibility. “It’s like Las Vegas,” Ira said. “No matter how much you think you’re winning, the odds are stacked against you.”

  I reminded him we had already scientifically proven that the odds were on our side. “We can still cut you in on the action,” I offered him—and then I had to add, “You can take your money and buy more clay.” Ira was not amused.

  Still, no matter how much he and Howie frowned on our scheme, it didn’t faze the Schwa, so I tried not to let it faze me.

  “You oughta go into business school, Antsy,” the Schwa told me as we scarfed down fries at Fuggettaburger. “You’ve got a real knack for it.”

  “Naah,” I said. “I’m just leeching off of you.” But still, what he said struck a chord in me—and no minor chord either. It was the first time anyone ever accused me of having any real talent. I mean, my mother sometimes says I should go into astrophysics, but that’s just because I’m good at taking up time and space.