Life went from being a bad haircut to being an algebra exam. In algebra, things only make sense once you're done, there are no shortcuts, and you always have to show your work. The problem becomes more complicated the second you add a new variable. I mean, solving for x was hard enough, but with me, Lexie, and the Schwa, too, I had to solve for x, y, and z. When things get that complicated, you might as well just put down your pencil and admit defeat.
The thing is, the Schwa was not just your typical variable— he was like i, the imaginary number. The square root of negative one, which doesn't exist, yet does in its own weird way. The Schwa was on the cusp of being there and not being there, which I guess is why he clung so tightly to Lexie and me.
The Schwa called me the next morning to invite me over for lunch. I was busy working on my social studies report, the history of capital punishment—which wasn't a bad topic, since it involved beheadings and electrocutions—but it was Sunday.
Sunday and homework go together like oil and water, which, by the way, is what they boiled criminals in during the early Middle Ages. Oil, not water, although I didn't realize the hot water I would find myself in by accepting the Schwa's lunch invitation.
Mr. Schwa wasn't wearing his painter's clothes when he answered the door, but the jeans and shirt he wore did have little paint splotches all over them. He also held a butcher knife.
"Can I help you?"
If those paint splatters on his clothes had been red, I probably would have run off screaming.
"I'm Calvin's friend. Antsy."
"Of course you are. I think Calvin's at school. . . but then, if he were at school you'd be at school, too, so maybe he's not."
"It's Sunday."
"Of course it isl Come on in."
I took another look at the knife, and went in against my better judgment.
The Schwa was in the kitchen, rearranging the Post-it notes on the fridge. "Hi, Antsy," he said in such good spirits I wondered if he had won the Lottery or something.
"Have a Coke," he said, shoving the can into my hand. "My dad's making franks and beans for lunch."
Now that he had been reminded of what he had been doing, Mr. Schwa returned to the kitchen.
"C'mon," said the Schwa, "there's something I want to show you." The Schwa dragged me to his room, where his box of zip- locked paper clips sat on his bed.
He reached in and gingerly pulled out a little bag. "I'll bet you've never seen anything like this before!" The thing inside did not look like a paper clip. It might have once been a brass brad or something, but now it was broken, and all crusty black. The Schwa held the bag like the little thing inside would turn to dust in seconds.
"It looks like a bird turd."
"It's an old-fashioned paper fastener." He smiled so wide, it was like his head was on hinges, like one of those ceramic cookie-jar heads. "It's from the Titanic."
I looked at him, sure he was about to burst out laughing, but he was serious.
"Where do you find a paper clip from the Titanic?"
"I wrote to the Nova Scotia Maritime Museum six times," he said, "because I knew they had a ton of Titanic junk stored away—mounds of stuff that wasn't interesting enough to put on display. Finally I faked a letter from my doctor, telling them I had a rare brain disorder—"
"—and your last brain-fried wish was for a paper clip from the Titanic?"
The Schwa nodded. "I can't believe they bought it."
"I don't think they did. I think they sent it just to get rid of you."
The smile kind of shrunk from his face, and he looked down. "So, do you want it?"
"Me? After all you went through to get it, why would you give it to me?"
"Well, if you don't want this one, you can have another one." He dug into his box and came up with one little bag after another. "How about this one from Michael Jordan's first basketball contract—or this one? It's rumored to have been clipped to the results of an alien autopsy. I got it on eBay."
"Whoa, slow down." I grabbed one of his hands, and the box flipped off his bed, dumping little packets all over the floor.
"Sorry, Schwa."
"No problem."
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's no free lunch—and no free paper clips either. We stood there looking at each other. "So what is it you want?" I asked him.
He sighed one of those breathy sighs like a convict does moments before his execution—not that I've ever seen that.
"You gotta let me have her, Antsy."
"Her? Her who?"
"Lexiel Who else? Please, you gotta let mel"
He grabbed me, pleading. I shook him off. "She's a person, she's not a thing. I can't 'let you have her.'"
"You know what I mean." He got up and started pacing in short U-turns, like a condemned man waiting for a pardon from a governor who was probably out playing golf. "We were made for each otherl Don't you see? Invisible guy/blind girl— it's perfect. I even read it in a book once."
"You read too many books. Go see some movies. In the movies invisible guys never get the girl. Instead they usually turn evil and die horrible, painful deaths."
"Not always," he said.
"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 beansl"
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 self-conscious watching her because she couldn't see me doing it.
We had great seats—right smack in the middle. The handicapped section. I have to admit I felt guilty—not only because I wasn't handicapped, but because Lexie was the most unhand- icapped handicapped person I'd ever laid eyes on.
"Are you having fun?" she asked when the band took a break.
I shrugged. "Yeah, sure," I said, trying not to sound like I was having as much fun as I really was, because what if she took my real enthusiasm for fake enthusiasm?
"I like this band," Lexie said. "Their sound's not all muddy. I can hear all seven musicians."
I thought about that. I had been watching them for more than half an hour, and now that they were off the stage, I couldn't tell you how many musicians there had been.
"Amazing," I said. "You're like one of those mentalists. You can see things with your mind."
She reached over to pet Moxie, who sat next to her in the aisle, content as long as he was petted every few minutes. "Some people are good at being blind, others aren't," and then she smiled. "I'm very good."
"Great. We'll call you the Amazing Lexis."
"I like that."
"And now," I announced, "the Amazing Lexis, through her supersonic skills of perceptive-ability"—she giggled—"will tell me how many fingers I am holding up." I held up three fingers.
"Um ... two!"
"Wowl" I said. "You're rightl That's amazingl"
"You're lying."
"How do you know?"
"There's only a one-in-four chance that I'd get it right—one- in-five if you counted your thumb as a finger—so the odds were against it. And besides, 'lie' was written all over your voice."
I laughed, truly impressed. "The Amazing Lexis strikes again."
Lexie grinned for a moment, and I noticed how her smile fit with her half-closed eyes. It was like the face you make when you're tasting something unbelievable, like my dad's eggplant Parmesan, which is poison in anyone else's hands.
Lexie reached over to pet Moxie again. "Too bad Calvin couldn't come with us."
"Oh," I said. "Yeah, right." I probably would have gone the whole night without thinking about him once, and now I felt a little guilty about that—and annoyed that I felt guilty—and irritated that I was annoyed. "Why would you want the Schwa on a date with us, anyway?"
"This isn't a date," Lexie said. "People don't get paid to go on a date."
She thought she had me there. "Well, you're not supposed to know I'm getting paid—and since you know and are still letting me take you out, it is a date."
She didn't say anything to that. Maybe she just couldn't argue with my logic.
"There's something ... unusual about Calvin," she said.
"He's visibly impaired," I told her. "Observationally challenged."
"He thinks he's invisible?"
"He is invisible ... kind of."
Lexie screwed up her lips so they looked kind of like the red scrunchy she wore in her hair, then said, "No, it's more than that. There's something else about him that either you don't know or you're just not telling me."
"Well, his mother either disappeared in Waldbaum's supermarket or got chopped up by his father, who sent pieces to all fifty states. No one's really sure which it is."
"Hmm," Lexie said. "That's bound to have an effect on a person, either way."
"He seems okay to me." "He's very sweet," Lexie added.
"Ripe is the word," I said. "He's gotta start wearing deodorant."
The lights in the amphitheater started to dim, and the crowd began cheering for the band to start.
"Maybe you should walk the dogs," Lexie said.
"Huh?"
"I said maybe you should walk the dogs, and Calvin should be my escort."
I wasn't expecting that. It hit me in a place I didn't know was there. All I could think of was one of those medical shows. They're operating on some poor slob, they accidentally nick an artery, and he starts gushing. "We got a bleederl" the surgeon yells, and everybody comes rushing to the operating table. Nobody was rushing to me, though.
"Sure," I said. "If that's what you want."
The band began to play, and I quickly wiped away the tears I was bleeding, even though I knew she couldn't see them.
Lexie confronted her grandfather the next morning, telling him she knew that he paid boys to hang around with her. I showed up at Crawley's that afternoon, determined to quit before I got fired, but Crawley didn't give me the satisfaction.
"You are a miserable failure," the old man told me. "You couldn't even keep our financial arrangement a secret."
"She already knew," I told him.
"How could she already know? What do you take me for, an idiot?"
"Sometimes, yeah."
He grunted, then threw a chew toy at Fortitude, who was gnawing on his shoe. The toy bounced off the dog's nose, and she went for it, trotting off happily with the toy in her jaws.
"Apparently, whatever you did, it disgusted my granddaughter enough that she'd rather be with that Schwa kid than with you. You are hereby demoted to dog walker again."
"Who said I'm doing anything for you anymore?"
"You did," Crawley said calmly. "You accepted twelve weeks of community service."
"Well, now I unaccept it."
"Hmmph. Too bad," Crawley said. " I was actually beginning to think you had some personal integrity."
I grit my teeth. I don't know why it mattered what he thought of me, but it did. He was right; I was a miserable failure—even at quitting.
"Do you want me to walk the dogs now or later?"
"Walk them at your leisure," he said, and rolled off. For once he didn't gloat over his little victory.
I went to get the leashes and spent my afternoon trying to think of nothing but walking dogs.