The Schwa turns to me and whispers, "Thanks. At least now he won't mark me absent today."

I shake my head and laugh. "I swear, it's like you're invisible or something." I say it like a joke, but then I catch the Schwa's eyes—eyes that match the gray clouds outside the window. He doesn't say anything, and I know I just stumbled onto some­thing. He turns back to his notebook, but I can't concentrate on my work. I feel like my foot is pressed down on a land mine that will blow the second I move.

Howie, Ira, and I got together the next Saturday morning to detonate Manny. I had told the Schwa about it the day before, but in a way I was hoping he wouldn't show—almost as much as I hoped he would. I call it the "film-at-eleven factor." You know, on the news, how they say, "Horrible train wreck. Graphic footage. Film at eleven." And then for the rest of the night you're disgusted by how much you actually want to see it, and you're relieved if you fall asleep before it comes on.

The thing is, I can't get past the feeling that there's something... unnatural about the Schwa. I don't do well with un­natural things. Take spiders, for instance. I mean, sorry, I don't care what anyone says—there can't be anything natural about spinning a web out of your butt. And then there's those Hindu coal walkers. The way I see it, if God meant us to walk on hot coals, He would have given us asbestos hooves instead of feet—but first He probably would have smashed us in the head a couple of times to knock some sense into us, because why would we want to walk on coals in the first place? And don't even get me started on my aunt Rose's Christmas tree. First of all, it's aluminum. Second of all, it's pink. I mean, like the color of Pepto-Bismol, which makes sense, because I get sick to my stomach just looking at it.

Not that the Schwa is anything like a spider, or a coal walker, or a pink tree, but he is unnatural in his own disturbing Schwa­like way.