Lunch Money

  Mr. Z began to breathe again.

  She said, “Well, Mr. Zenotopoulous, I thank you for your pioneering work as a reading specialist, and also for keeping watch over our young tycoons. And I’ll be there tomorrow night to hear the presentation. And who knows? I just might have an agenda of my own—to represent the best interests of the school.”

  And with that she turned and left, chuckling all the way back to her office.

  Chapter 21

  THE QUESTION OF MONEY

  Thursday afternoon was scraping along like a glacier. Greg looked at the clock again. Not even four minutes had passed. It was still almost the beginning of fifth period. Mrs. Chalmers was teaching them a new piece of music, and she was working with the sopranos first. Then came the altos. And then finally, the tenors would get a turn. At this rate the school day was going to drag on for another month, maybe two.

  Tonight was the night of the School Committee meeting, and Greg couldn’t wait. He was eager to stand up and talk to the grownups, a whole crowd of them. He was going to state his case. He might even have an argument. That part was exciting to him. Greg was dying to see what everyone would think about the comic-book club.

  But more than that, Greg wanted the whole thing to be over, finished, settled one way or the other. He wanted it to be over so he could think about something else. Because for a solid week now, he’d been thinking about nothing but money. And during that week, money had become much more complicated.

  Until his big blowup with Maura, and then his run-ins with Mr. Z and Mrs. Davenport, the question of money had been simple for Greg. In fact, it hadn’t even been a question. Money was money, and money was great. It was good to make it, good to have it, good to save it, and it was always good to want more and more and more of it. Money? Simple.

  Also, Greg’s attitude about money used to be private. Until he had started trying to sell Chunky Comics, how he made his money and what he chose to do with it was nobody’s business but his.

  And tonight he was going to have to stand up in public and try to tell all these people why he ought to be allowed to sell his comics and make some money at school.

  It helped that Maura was in on the deal, and Mr. Z, too. But Greg knew they didn’t think about money the way he did. They thought he was a nutcase, a money maniac—a moneyac. And tonight what if everybody else thought so too? And worse than that, what if it was actually true?

  Greg thought, Maybe I really am a greedy little money-grubber. Maybe I really don’t care about anybody but myself. “Ladies and gentlemen, meet Greg Kenton, the greediest, most selfish kid on earth.”

  Greg looked at Mrs. Chalmers. She was going over and over the same sixteen notes with the sopranos, smiling, nodding, playing the piano, and singing along. It looked like hard work. And I know she doesn’t make a lot of money, he thought. None of my teachers do.

  And that reminded Greg of his conversation with Mr. Z about other jobs. Greg knew Mr. Z could be making tons more money if he worked for a lab or an engineering company. But instead he was a math teacher. And that thing he’d said about his brother, the low-paid doctor: for him, enough is enough.

  And ever since that conversation, Greg had thought about Mr. Z’s toilet theory at least four times a day.

  And three days ago Greg had heard on the evening news that Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, was giving away another 375 million dollars for education in Africa. Superrich, and giving his money away. And in that same news story, they told how Ted Turner, the man who started CNN, had given one billion dollars to the United Nations—a billion.

  Money thoughts had been following him everywhere—around the school, onto the soccer field, across town to his home, even into the bathroom. Greg couldn’t get away from them. But if this slow-motion school day would ever end, and if tonight’s School Committee meeting would ever arrive, maybe that could change.

  Chapter 22

  NEW BUSINESS

  At 9:20 on Thursday night Greg sat next to his dad and mom near the back of the meeting room in the municipal building. He sat up extra straight once in a while, trying to see the small group of principals, because Mr. Z had said they would be here. And in the second or third row, down near the front, he was pretty sure he’d spotted the back of Mrs. Davenport’s head.

  Greg squirmed on the folding chair, twisting his neck from side to side. He couldn’t get comfortable. He had on a blue sport coat, a pair of itchy gray pants, a white shirt, his best black shoes, and a red necktie borrowed from his brother Ross.

  Dressing up was Maura’s idea. Greg had complained, but she had insisted. “What—do you want to look like some kid who just came in from the playground?”

  Maura sat three chairs away. She was wearing a dark blue pants suit and a white shirt with a small ruffle at the neck—her new business outfit, bought especially for the occasion. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, and at the other end of the row, Mr. Z sat next to Greg.

  Greg decided that his math teacher was just as twitchy as he was. They had all been sitting, waiting, fidgeting for almost two hours.

  Greg had seen School Committee meetings on the local cable TV channel, but he had always flipped right past. And now he knew why. These people talked and talked and talked—health care for teachers, new science books, snow plowing, special-education grants, state funding for tests, roof repairs—on and on and on.

  Greg whispered to Mr. Z, “How much does the town pay the School Committee?”

  Mr. Z held up his right hand with the tips of his thumb and forefinger pressed together.

  At first Greg didn’t get it. Then he whispered, “Zero?”

  Mr. Z nodded.

  So there it was again: All the people in the world were caring, noble volunteers. Except for Greg Kenton, who was selfish and greedy.

  The note cards Greg held had been rolled, unrolled, bent, chewed on, and twisted until the black ink had turned gray and smudgy. But it didn’t matter, because Greg had planned out exactly what he was going to say anyway. And he got to talk first because he had won the coin toss—heads—a victory over Maura. But at the moment he was wishing he had called tails.

  As Greg began going over his opening statement for the ninth time, the chairperson of the School Committee said, “For the next item under New Business, we have a proposal about . . . a comic-book club at Ashworth School. Who’s speaking on this?”

  Greg bounced to his feet and managed to say, “I . . . I am.”

  The chairperson pointed. “Please come up to the table and talk into the microphone.”

  Maura thought Greg looked very nice tonight in his blazer and his gray slacks. His black eye was almost gone, and she was pretty sure he had even tried to brush his hair.

  As Greg went down the center aisle, he got a good look at Mrs. Davenport sitting in the second row with the other principals. She wasn’t smiling.

  Greg handed a copy of Return of the Hunter and a copy of The Lost Unicorn to each of the five committee members. He also gave each of them a book-club flyer.

  Greg sat at the table in front of the microphone. A woman from the local cable channel turned on a video camera, and a small red light began blinking at him. Greg tried to smile into the camera, but his mouth was so dry his lips got stuck on his front teeth. His pounding heart made it feel like he had a squirrel running around under his shirt.

  The microphone was high, so Greg pulled one leg up under him, cleared his throat, leaned forward, and rattled off his first sentence in a loud, squeaky voice. “I’m Greg Kenton, and I go to Ashworth Intermediate School.” Greg gulped, and forced himself to talk slower and lower. “I started making little comic books over the summer.” He held up the Creon comic. “This was the first one. And in September I took some copies to school and I sold them to my friends, one for a quarter. And everybody liked them. But I didn’t know I had to have permission from the School Committee to sell things at school. Until Mrs. Davenport told me. So that’s what I’m here to ask for.”

/>   Holding up a copy of The Lost Unicorn, Greg said, “Maura Shaw, she lives across the street from me, and she made this comic—I helped her. And now we both want to make more. I call them Chunky Comics. And we think kids will like them . . . because they’re fun to read. Kids could even collect them.”

  Greg held up the book-club flyer, and noticed that his hand was shaking. “Every month at our school some of the teachers give kids an ad like this, mostly in language arts or reading class. There are all kinds of books in here, and on the back there’s an order form. And kids choose what they want, and then they bring money to school, and they buy the books. And kids really like it. So we want to do the same thing—sell our comic books to kids at school.”

  That was the cue for Maura to stand up. Greg turned stiffly and pointed at her. “Maura Shaw will now explain the way our comic-book club would work.” Greg got up and headed toward a chair on the left side of the room as Maura walked to the front.

  If Maura was nervous, she didn’t show it. From a file folder cradled in one arm, she took a slim stack of stapled pages and handed one packet to each committee member. She walked to the table, sat lightly on the front edge of the chair, spread some papers out in front of her, and said, “Good evening” into the microphone. She nodded and smiled at the camera and then to each of the committee members.

  Holding up her copy of the packet, she said, “Please look at the first page of the information I handed you. This is a sample order form for the Chunky Comics Club. Right now, there are only two titles available, the ones that Greg handed to you. There would be a new order form every month, unless there weren’t any new titles. Just like a regular book club, teachers get to choose whether or not they want to be part of our club. And just like a book club, when kids order comics, teachers get to order copies for free, to have in their classrooms.”

  Maura looked up at the committee members. She said, “Please turn to page two.”

  Greg was impressed with Maura’s performance so far. No goof-ups. No shakiness. No drooling. Just about perfect. Except she looked like she was twenty-three years old. And was that makeup on her face? Or was it just the way her cheeks looked when she got excited about something? Because he’d noticed that before.

  Papers rustled, and Maura said, “Our comic-book club also wants to do something different. If we make any money selling our comics at school, we want to donate part of that money to the new-book fund of our school library—ten percent of all the profits.”

  Maura moved on to page three. “We know there are other kids at our school who are good at writing and drawing. So we want to have some after-school workshops, and maybe help other kids to be creative too. And that might mean there would be more comics, and maybe other kinds of books or stories for the Chunky Comics Club.”

  Maura slowly turned the page, lifted up the packet, and made a dramatic pause. Gently waving the sheet back and forth, she said, “This last page is important. Regular book clubs are careful about picking the right kind of books to sell to different aged kids. We’re going to be careful too. Everybody knows that some of the comic books at stores are really violent. Chunky Comics won’t be like that. Everything sold by our club is going be approved in advance by teachers. Mr. Zenotopoulous said he would be one of those teachers, and Mrs. Lindahl said she would help too. And now our advisor, Mr. Zenotopoulous, would like to say a few words.”

  Mr. Z made his way to the front of the room, and Maura moved over to sit by Greg.

  Mr. Z had no handouts. He sat down in front of the microphone and said, “I know it must seem like Greg and Maura are making a strange request. At first, I thought so too.

  “As all of you know, I teach math. And I tend to think that way—mathematically. And the more I’ve looked at what Greg and Maura are asking, everything adds up. It’s completely logical. The book clubs have permission to sell books directly to kids at school. These clubs sell all kinds of books, including ones about cartoon and comic-book characters. So Greg and Maura want permission to do the same.

  “They have been creative and responsible, and they’ve found an interesting way to use the skills they have developed at school—in reading, writing, art, history, science, and of course, math. As teachers, we try to prepare kids for life after they leave school, for the time when they go out and earn money and become contributing members of the economy and the society. So I think it’s great that these kids are doing this right now, at their own level, in a positive and practical way. And I don’t see any conflict at all with the skills and the values our schools are trying to teach.”

  Mr. Z took a deep breath, and then said, “I know some people don’t think comic books are good for children. With your permission, I’d like to use a little math right here. I’ve been sitting in the back of the room, and I have counted forty-one grown-ups at this meeting. So I am asking for a show of hands, please: How many of us used to read comic books once in a while when we were in elementary or middle school?”

  Greg looked over the audience and quickly counted twenty-nine hands. Among the small cluster of principals, only two did not raise their hands. And Mrs. Davenport was one of them.

  Mr. Z made a note on a small pad of paper. Then he said, “Hands down, please. That was seventy-one percent of the grown-ups in the room. Now, how many of us read cartoon books when we were children or young teens—cartoons like Peanuts, or Garfield, or maybe Disney characters?” All but six hands went up.

  Mr. Z made a note, a quick scribble, and said, “That’s eighty-five percent of us.”

  Then Mr. Z said, “And how many of us regularly looked at comics or cartoons in newspapers or magazines when we were between the ages of eight and twelve?” One hundred percent of the hands in the room went up, even Mrs. Davenport’s.

  Mr. Z turned and smiled at the committee. “There’s my proof. Apparently comic books and cartoons do not have the power to keep children from growing up to become responsible citizens like us—the kind of people who run schools and school districts, and decide how to spend millions of tax dollars every year. And I believe that the kids at our school will not be harmed by this Chunky Comics Club. If anything, I think they’ll be inspired and engaged in a lot of constructive ways. So I rest my case, and as Maura said, I’m happy to be one of the teachers who makes sure that every item presented by this club is appropriate.”

  Mr. Z nodded at the committee members, said, “Thank you,” then stood up and walked back to his seat.

  The chairperson put a hand over her microphone and leaned first left and then right to whisper to the other members of the committee. Then she said, “Thank you, Mr. Zenotopoulous, and thank you, Greg and Maura, for your interesting presentation. The committee would like to take some time to consider this request before voting. It’s getting late, so if there is no other discussion, we can move on to the last item under New Business, the contract with the food-service company for the high school.”

  Greg watched the chairperson as she looked out across the room. And Greg saw her eyes stop, saw her face change, saw that she was about to call on someone. Because someone wanted more discussion about the Chunky Comics Club.

  Without even looking, Greg knew who it was. And he was right.

  It was Mrs. Davenport.

  Chapter 23

  THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE SCHOOL

  Mrs. Davenport stood up and walked to the front table. Greg couldn’t believe how small she looked. Seeing her walking around in a room full of other grown-ups, she only looked about half as big as she did at school.

  But when she began to talk, Mrs. Davenport seemed larger than life, just like always. She nodded toward Greg and Maura and said, “It was good to hear students from my school speak so clearly and intelligently. And it was good to hear my colleague Mr. Zenotopoulous speak as well. He and I have worked together for over twelve years now, and I have great respect for his talent and his love of the teaching profession. But I feel I must add something to what he’s said.

  ??
?I did not read comic books when I was a child, and neither did any of my brothers or sisters. Comic books were forbidden at our home. We had plenty of things to read, but always books—real picture books and chapter books and novels. My mother felt that comic books were ‘cheap and trashy’—those are her exact words. On long car trips she read aloud to us—books like Tom Sawyer and Charlotte’s Web and The Swiss Family Robinson—lots and lots of great books.

  “We were not allowed to watch Saturday morning cartoons at my home either. Back then, I thought all of this was unfair. But by the time I reached college, I felt certain that a childhood without comic books and TV cartoons had been better and richer, not poorer. And as an elementary- and intermediate-school principal for the past eighteen years, I have tried to uphold the highest standards of literacy in our libraries and classrooms.

  “But before I go on, I have to make a confession. When I arrived home from school late yesterday afternoon, there was a package waiting for me. I don’t know who sent it, because there was no mailing label, no return address. When I opened the box, first I discovered this note: ‘Please take a good look.’ And under the note this is what I found.”

  Mrs. Davenport walked back to her chair, leaned over, reached into a box, and then held up a small stack of comic books.

  Standing in the aisle and facing the audience, she said, “There were twenty or thirty of these in the box. My husband was thrilled, because he remembered some of these from when he was a boy. And with some encouragement from him, I sat at home last night and I read comic books for the first time in my life. And here is my confession: I enjoyed myself.

  “Please don’t misunderstand me. Nothing will ever convince me that Three Supermen from Krypton or Donald Duck in Volcano Valley can be called great children’s literature. But I am ready to agree that a good comic book can be fun—and basically harmless, as Mr. Zenotopoulous said.”