As Mary Ellen’s mouth was almost as big as her nose, by the next day people were waiting in line to pay the price and share in the Schwa Experience.

My dad says that at Pisher Plastics they believe anything can be marketed and sold. “They’d put a price tag on a dead rat if they thought it would sell,” he once told me. “Then they’d hire an advertising firm to show beautiful women wearing them on their shoulders. It’s all part of a free-market economy.”

I can’t vouch for the dead-rat theory, but I do know that in our local free-market economy, the Schwa was a high-ticket item—and as his manager, lining up his jobs, I got a decent percentage of the money he made. I gotta admit, though, the money was just gravy. It was great for once to be the center of attention—or at least positioned next to the center of attention. Funny how the Schwa could be right in the middle and still go unseen.

“It’s a waste of time,” Ira said, when I asked him if he and Howie wanted in on our business venture.

“Yeah,” said Howie. “I can think of a hundred better ways to make money.”

They were still pretty annoyed about the grade we had gotten on our Schwa experiments. “F for eFFort,” Mr. Werthog had said. He thought the whole thing was a scam when, for once, it wasn’t. After that, Ira and Howie wanted nothing to do with Stealth Economics.

“Why don’t you forget this Schwa thing and help with my next movie,” Ira said. “Gerritsen Beach Beauties.”

“I’m casting director,” says Howie, beaming with pride that may have just been hormones.

I told them no, because I couldn’t just bail on the Schwa.

“Suit yourself,” Ira said. “But when we’re surrounded by babes begging for a part in the film, don’t come crying to us.”

In the end no girls were stupid enough to audition for them, so they had to settle for Claymation. Stealth Economics, on the other hand, turned out to be a much better business decision than anyone thought.

Once Mary Ellen MacCaw spread the word, people began to devise more and more uses for the Schwa’s unique talent. A bunch of jocks paid the Schwa ten bucks to eavesdrop on a gaggle of cheerleaders and find out which guys they were talking about. I negotiated an eighteen-dollar deal for the Schwa to slip a kid’s late book report into a teacher’s briefcase, right beneath the teacher’s nose.

“We want to put the Schwa on retainer,” our eighth-grade student officers told us barely a week into our little business. In other words, they wanted to pay him a lot of money ahead of time so they could ask him to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it.

“Cool,” the Schwa said.

“How much?” I asked.