Lunch Money Read Free Page B

he wanted to have everything ready in September for the start of sixth grade, but hard work was something Greg had never been afraid of—especially if the rewards were great enough.
    And he expected the rewards to be astounding. School was like a giant piggy bank, loaded with quarters. Greg was convinced that his new product would be like a hammer—the perfect hammer. He was going to crack the school wide open.

 
Chapter 4

UNITS
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    Standing in the cafeteria line, Greg opened his red plastic pencil case. He counted once, and then he counted again, just to be sure. Then he grinned. There were thirteen left.
    Sweet! That means I sold seventeen units.
    That’s what Greg called the comic books he’d been selling—units. And selling seventeen units before lunch was a new sales record.
    Greg’s comic books weren’t the kind for sale at stores. Regular comic books were sort of tall. Also a little floppy. Not Greg’s.
    Greg’s comic books were about the size of a credit card, and they could stand up on one end all by themselves. They were only sixteen pages long, and he could fit about fifty of them into his pencil case. These comic books were short and sturdy. And that’s why they were called Chunky Comics.
    Greg loved that name. He had chosen ithimself. He got to pick the name because he was the author of all the Chunky Comics stories. He had drawn all the pictures too. And he was also the designer, the printer, and the binder. Plus he was the marketing manager, the advertising director, and the entire sales force. Chunky Comics was a one-kid operation, and that one kid was Greg Kenton.
    Greg snapped the pencil case shut and grabbed a tray. He took a grilled cheese sandwich, a cup of carrot sticks, and then looked over the fruit cocktail bowls until he found one with three chunks of cherry. He got a chocolate milk from the cooler, and as he walked toward his seat, Greg did some mental math.
    Monday, the first day Chunky Comics had gone on sale, he had sold twelve units; Tuesday, fifteen units; Wednesday, eighteen units; and today, Thursday, he had already sold seventeen units—before lunch. So that was . . . sixty-two units since Monday morning, and each little book sold for $.25. So the up-to-the-minute sales total for September 12 was . . . $15.50.
    Greg knew why sales were increasing: word of mouth. Kids had been telling other kids about his comic book. The cover illustrationwas powerful, the inside pictures were strong, and the story was loaded with action. The title was Creon: Return of the Hunter, and it was volume 1, number 1, the very first of the Chunky Comics. So that made it a collector’s item.

    Greg sat down at his regular lunch table, next to Ted Kendall. Ted nodded and said, “Hi,” but Greg didn’t hear him. Greg picked up his sandwich and took a big bite. He chewed the warm bread and the soft cheese, but he didn’t taste a thing. Greg was still thinking about sales.
    Fifteen fifty in three and a half days—not so hot.
    Greg had set a sales goal for the first week: twenty-five dollars—which meant that he had to sell one hundred units. It looked like he was going to fall short.
    ***
    The idea of making and selling comic books had hit Greg like aover the head from Superman himself. It made perfect sense.Candy and gum were against school rules, and tiny toys were boring—and also against the rules. But how could he go wrong selling little books? School was all about books and reading. True, reading a comic book wasn’t exactly the same as reading a regular book, but still, there was a rack of comics right in the kids section at the public library downtown, and some new graphic novels, too.
    Comic books had been part of Greg’s life forever, mostly because of his dad’s collection. Batman, Superman, The Flash, Spider-Man, Marvel Classics, Uncle Scrooge, and all the Disney comics—his dad’s collection filled