The Schwa Was Here

There came an urgent knocking at the door, and all the dogs went running toward it, barking. "Mr. Crawley," said a muffled voice through the door, over the chorus of barks. "Mr. Crawley, are you all right?"

The old man gave the Schwa and me a twisted grin. "Destiny calls." He rolled off toward the door, calling back to us, "Either of you try to escape and I'll have you shot."

I didn't really believe that, but I also didn't want to take any chances.

"This is bad. Antsy," the Schwa said. "Real bad."

"Tell me something I don't know."

Crawley rolled back in about a minute. Amazingly, no police officers were with him. "I told them it was a false alarm."

The sigh of relief rolled off the Schwa and me like a wave. "Thank you, Mr. Crawley."

He ignored us. "The police will only give you a slap on the wrist, and since you're not crying hysterically in terror right now, I assume your parents will not beat you. Therefore I will administer your punishment personally. You will return here tomorrow by the front door, at three o'clock sharp, and begin working off your transgression. If you fail to come, I will find out what your parents do for a living, and I will have them fired."

"You can't do that!"

"I've found I can do anything I please."

I thought it was just an idle threat, but then I remembered the great egg shortage. A man like Crawley had more money than God in a good economy, as my father would say, and probably had friends in both high and low places. If he said he'd have my father fired, I figured I should believe it.

"What will you pay us?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"That's slaveryl"

"No," said Crawley, with a grin so wide it stretched his wrin­kles straight. "That's community service."

6 As If I Didn't Already Have Enough Annoying Things to Do Every Day, Now I Gotta Do This

I wasn't too hungry at dinner that night. Sure, I was no stranger to failed schemes, but never had one backfired so badly. The fifty-four bucks were the least of my worries, now that Crawley was pulling our strings. It was enough to kill any appetite.

For the entire meal I just sort of moved my food around my plate. My parents didn't notice, mainly because I wasn't Frankie or Christina. If Christina doesn't eat, right away they're feeling her forehead to see if she's got a fever. As for Frankie, not eating isn't one of his problems. He's more likely to get yelled at for taking all the food. Once I tried to take a huge plateful like Frankie does, just to see what my parents would do. While I wasn't looking, Frankie moved some food from my plate to his, and my parents got on his case instead of mine. He always complains that I get away with everything. Well, there are two sides to that wooden nickel.

I was unnaturally quiet for most of the meal, which was probably a mistake, because it threw off the entire family equi­librium.

Mom and Dad had begun a conversation about what sort of carpeting to put down in our unfinished finished basement. You have to understand that my parents live to bicker. You could stick them at the beach and they'd argue whether the ocean was bluish green, or greenish blue.

They rarely argued over dinner, though, I think because when you eat, your blood rushes from your brain to your stom­ach, putting you at a strategic disadvantage, because how are you going to come up with the real zingers when your brain isn't at full power?

Like I said, it started as a discussion, and then it began heat­ing up to the point where I would usually throw in some wise­crack. When I didn't, the discussion suddenly evolved into an argument.

"We already agreed it should be Berber!" Mom says.

"I never agreed to anythingl The carpet in the basement should match the rest of the house." It's escalating to the point where food is flying out of their mouths while they talk. Frankie just shakes his head, Christina's reaching for her journal, and I start thinking about dog collars, maybe because dogs are on my mind after being at Crawley's. When dogs bark too much, you can put on special collars, so each time the dog barks, it squirts out a funky smell. It doesn't really teach dogs not to bark, but it distracts them long enough to make 'em forget they were bark­ing.

I decided to let the carpet argument build just a bit more, then dropped my fork on my plate loudly. "Jeez! What's the big deal? Put down a hardwood floor and each of you can buy a rug."

"Watch that fork, you'll break the platel" Mom says.

"What? Are you gonna pay for a wood floor?" Dad grumbles.

"My friend's got a wood closet to keep away bugs," says Christina.

"That's cedar," Mom explains.

"We oughta build a cedar closet," says Dad.

And that was that. The conversation lapsed into an endless stream of other topics, and I went back to pushing my food around my plate. They never noticed I had stopped the argu­ment, just like they didn't notice I wasn't eating. Sometimes the Schwa had nothing on me.

***