"How long will it take the fuse to burn?" I asked, as illegal fireworks are not my particular academic strength.
"Twelve point five seconds," says Howie. "But that's just an estimate."
We let the Schwa light the fuse, as he seemed to be the only one not afraid of blowing up, and he quickly joined us behind the barricade.
"You know, there's gotta be a way to quantify it," Howie says while we wait for the fuse to burn down.
"What?"
"The Schwa Effect. It's like Mr. Werthog says: 'For an experiment to be valid, the results must be quantifiable and repeat- able (kiss, kiss).'"
"We should experiment on the Schwa?"
"Sounds good to me," said the Schwa.
Then a blast knocks me to the ground. My ears pop and begin to ring. The blast echoes back and forth down the row of brick duplexes. When I look up, Manny's body has flown six feet, and his head is gone again.
Ira zoomed in on the body. "Thus perished Manny Bullpucky." He turned the camera off. Right about now every window in Brooklyn is snapping up as people wonder what morons are setting off fireworks at seven in the morning.
We hurry inside so we don't get caught. Once we're in, I look at the Schwa. "After that, you really want us to experiment on you?"
"Sure," he says. "What's life without excitement?"
I had to hand it to the Schwa. Any other kid would have flipped us off if asked to be a lab rat, but the Schwa was a good sport. Maybe he was just as curious about his own weirdness as we were.
***Hypothesis: The Schwa will be functionally invisible in your standard classroom.