The Schwa Was Here

We caught the next bus, and all the way home the Schwa was bouncing his knees up and down like he's gotta go pee, but I know it's because he's all nervous,

"Come on, Schwa, take it easy. There are so many dogs in there, you'll probably trip on a bowl on the way in." "And if I get caught?"

"If you get caught, I pay everyone fifty-four bucks out of my own pocket—no loss to you, except maybe loss of life—but that's a real long shot." I was only kidding but he took it seri­ously. I began to feel a bit lousy for rushing into the dare with­out checking out his feelings first.

"We can always back out," I told him.

He didn't like the sound of that either—it would make him look chicken. "It's just that everyone's heard how creepy Old Man Crawley is. There are all these rumors about him."

"So? There are rumors about you, too."

"Yeah," said the Schwa. "And some of them are true."

He had me there, although I didn't have the nerve to ask which ones. "Listen; if you actually go in there, you'll be going in as just some guy—but you'll be coming out as a legend: the one kid ever to penetrate Brooklyn's last great mystery."

That hooked him. "People remember legends, don't they?"

"Always."

The Schwa nodded. "Okay, then. I'm gonna nab myself a dog bowl."

5 Which Is Worse: Getting Mauled by a Pack of Dogs, or Getting Your Brains Bashed Out by a Steel Poker?

We set the operation for Sunday morning, 10 a.m.

Wendell Tiggor and a cluster of Tiggorhoids showed up to witness and make sure we didn't just go out and buy a dog dish somewhere, then say we got it from Crawley's. A bunch of the other kids who had bet against us were there, too, leaning against a railing across the street, so when the Schwa and I ride up on our bikes there are all these kids already there, looking way too suspicious. It's called loitering, which is like littering with human beings as the trash. I checked to see if Crawley's looking out on us, but all I see in the dark windows above the restaurant are a couple of furry dog faces in front of closed curtains.

"So we thought you'd chickened out," Tiggor says.

The Schwa took off his jacket. He was strategically dressed in dark brown; the same color as Crawley's curtains. He walked over to the railing that overlooked the murky water of the bay, and stretched like this was an Olympic event.

At this point I was beginning to get nervous for him. "Lis­ten," I say, "you might go unnoticed around people, but I don't know about dogs. Our experiments didn't include dogs. What if you're like one of those whistles that people can't hear, but dogs can—or what if they can smell you? We don't know if you got a stealthy odor."

He sniffed his armpit, then looked at me. "I smell stealthy to me. Want a whiff?"

"I'll pass."

"So what's taking so long?" says Tiggor. "Are you gonna do it or not, because I ain't got all day."

"Hey, this is a delicate procedure," I tell him. "The Schwa's gotta get himself mentally prepared."

Tiggor gave an apelike grunt. I took the Schwa aside. "Just remember, I'll be right outside. If you need help, you signal to me and I'll be there in a second."

"I know you will, Antsy. Thanks."

I swear, it felt like he was going off to war and not into some cranky old geezer's place. The thing is, none of the other dares had the Schwa venturing into the unknown, unless you count the locker room. Crawley, even without ever being seen, was scary—and who knew if any of those Afghans were trained to kill.

I went around back with him, where a fire-escape ladder led up to the building's second story. Old Man Crawley's apartment was huge, filling the whole second floor—the only way in was through the restaurant itself—but by looking down from the roof of an apartment building a few blocks away, we had learned that there was a little courtyard patio in the middle of his apart­ment, open to the sky. That would be our point of entry.

The stench of yesterday's lobster wafted out of the Dumpster behind the restaurant, smelling like a fish market on a hot day, or my aunt Mona (trust me, you don't wanna know). Ignoring the smell, we hopped up to the lip of the Dumpster so we could reach the fire-escape ladder. I gently pulled it down, try­ing to keep it from squeaking. The Schwa climbed on.

"Stealth is wealth," I said to him, which has been our little good-luck phrase ever since we started taking dares.

"Stealth is wealth," he said back. We punched knuckles, and he climbed up, disappearing onto the roof. I crossed the street and waited at the edge of the bay with the others.

Tiggor looked at the windows of Crawley's place, then looked at me. "So what do we do now?"

I shrugged. "We wait."

Turns out we didn't have to wait long. Although I wasn't there to see what happened, it probably went something like this: