Read Online The Schwa was Here by Neal Shusterman - Free Book Online Page B

with his friends, doing whatever it was honor students did on their higher plane of existence. I couldn’t help but think about the Schwa, and how he came home every day to a father who might or might not feed him. That wasn’t my dad. I might go unnoticed, but never unfed. And I never had to be the one taking care of him.
    Dad secretly loved when Mom wasn’t around for dinner, because he got the kitchen all to himself—and although none of us kids would admit it out loud, Dad was the better cook. Tonight Dad whipped up Fettucine al Bonano—his own special dish that magically transformed whatever leftovers were in the fridge into a killer pasta dish. The problem today wasn’t in the cooking, it was in the eating. Dad and I never have problems talking to each other when there are other people around, but when it’s just the two of us, it’s like we’re together on a stage and we’ve forgotten our lines.
    “Did you break Manny yet?” he asked after a few silent minutes into the meal.
    I shrugged, fettucine dangling down to my chin. “I’m not sure. His body survived detonation, but his head is missing. It could be in orbit for all we know.”
    “If he really turns out to be unbreakable, your old man gets a raise and a promotion.”
    I nodded and sucked in some more fettucine. The silence returned. I like being with my dad, but sitting across from him with nothing but food between us makes me uncomfortable. I guess I’m so used to being semivisible at home I don’t know how to handle being the only available focus of attention. And now as I sat with Dad, avoiding eye contact, it hit me that maybe he felt the same way.
    “They won’t do both,” I told him.
    “What?”
    “They give you a promotion so they don’t have to give you a raise. They give you a raise just so they don’t have to give you a promotion. They don’t do both.”
    He looked at me, grinning and nodding like I just quoted Shakespeare. “You’re right,” he said. “How do you know that?”
    I shrugged and thought about what the Schwa had once said about me having business savvy. “I don’t know. It just makes sense.” And then I added, “I probably heard it on TV or something.”
    We chowed down more food, barely looking at each other.
    “Mom tells me you’re walking dogs for that old guy who owns Crawley’s.”
    “Yeah,” I told him. “I’m being a good Philistine.”
    “Samaritan,” he said. “I didn’t even know you liked dogs.”
    “Neither did I.”
    I toyed with telling him about Old Man Crawley’s threat to get him fired if I didn’t walk the dogs . . . but didn’t. Crawley and his dogs were my problem.
    I finished up my fettucine and began thinking about what the Schwa’s dinner was like tonight. Did he have to cook it himself? Did he cook for himself and his dad? Or was this one of the lucky nights when the Schwa could relax and Aunt Peggy did the cooking? Then I wondered if Aunt Peggy ever forgot to set a plate for him, like his dad.
    “Listen, I was thinking about having a friend over for dinner.”
    “Someone new, or the usual suspects?”
    “New.”
    “Girlfriend?”
    “No such luck.”
    “Who?”
    “They call him the Schwa.”
    My dad piled some more fettucine onto his plate. “What’s wrong with him?”
    “Does something have to be wrong with him for him to be my friend? Is that what you mean?”
    “Take it easy. I just thought I heard something funny in your voice.”
    I didn’t think my dad had it in him to tune into someone’s tone. He never seemed to be able to tell when Mom was about to get mad at him, and he usually needed one of us kids to tell him what brainless, insensitive thing he had done. But this time he called it right.
    I decided to be direct. “He’s invisible,” I said.
    To my dad’s credit, he took this in stride, although he didstop chewing for a few seconds. “Does he become visible again when he takes off his ring?” Dad asked. “Does he hang out with elves