Lunch Money (16 page)

After placing the first master sheet face down on the glass, he pushed Print, and then held up the copy for Maura to see. Pointing at a gray area, he said, “See that? I can change the settings and make that part darker. It ought to be solid black. Except for that, it's a good copy.” The machine beeped as Greg made the change, and then he pushed the Print button.

Again he held up the copy. “Look okay to you?”

Maura nodded.

“Good,” said Greg. “Then let's print another fourteen.” The machine began whirring away. He said, “This'll take a few minutes. Want something to eat? Or drink?”

Maura shook her head, watching the pages come out of the printer, one by one.

When the copies were done, Greg said, “This next part is tricky. We have to take the first master copy off the copier, and put on the second one . . . like this. And make sure it's facing the right way. I had a
lot
of trouble getting this the first time.”

Greg picked up all fifteen copies of the first master, turned them over so the blank side was up, and put them back into the paper tray of the copier. “Now we print the
second
master copy onto the flip side of those fifteen sheets.” Pushing the Print button, he said, “First you try a single to make sure it's all good,” and he waited until the sheet came out. Maura looked over his shoulder at it.

“Everything seem dark enough?” he asked.

Maura said, “Yeah. Looks good.”

“Then watch this.”

Greg folded the paper in half lengthwise, then end to end, and then end to end once
more, making all the creases sharp and clean. He took the stapler and punched it twice along the center fold of the pages. Maura looked like a kid watching a magician's best trick.

Greg said, “Scissors, please,” and Maura handed them to him. He couldn't resist waving the blades around like a magic wand. “Now, the last step.”

With a skill and speed that came from having done it hundreds of times before, Greg trimmed off the top, front, and bottom edges.

Then, holding it out to her, he said, “Here . . . the first copy of your first comic book.”

Maura took it from him as if it was a rare gem. She sat on the front edge of the desk chair. She stared at the cover, then opened the book and slowly read the first page. Completely absorbed, she looked at every image, drinking in the story, the pictures, everything.

Greg might as well have been ten miles away. And he was fine with that. He pushed the button and the copier began to print the remaining fourteen sheets. And while the machine hummed and
stuttered, Greg leaned against the back of the couch and watched Maura read.

He couldn't remember any other time like this. He knew he had never just sat and looked at somebody else's face before—not for a full minute, then two minutes.

And as he watched Maura's face, seeing what this meant to her, Greg tried to find a word for the feeling he was getting. Because he was definitely getting something.

It was fun, but he knew fun wasn't the right word. It was more than that. Because this experience Maura was having, that he was watching? The fun part was knowing that he'd had a lot to do with it. After she'd snapped at him in the lunchroom on Friday, he could have just walked away—let her flop around with her pictures and her story, let her try to make something on her own. But he hadn't done that. What was happening to Maura at this very moment, it was like a gift—something he'd given to her. On purpose.

Maura finished and looked up into Greg's face. She gave a little laugh and said, “Sorry—guess I zoned out. But it's . . . it's really
something,
don't you think?” Then she smiled.

And at that second, Greg felt like Maura's smile had to be worth at least a million dollars.

Embarrassed by his thoughts, Greg nodded and said, “Yeah . . . really something.”

He quickly folded, stapled, and trimmed a second copy of
The Lost Unicorn.
It was his turn to look through it.

It truly was a great little comic. And Greg couldn't help saying, “I've
got
to figure out how to sell this. I could make a
ton
of money!”

Maura narrowed her eyes. “Correction,” she said. “You mean, ‘
We
could make a ton of money.'
We.
”

Greg was annoyed by Maura's tone of voice. But honestly, he was only half annoyed. He grinned and nodded. “Sorry. Bad habit. We.”

Maura smiled and said, “That's better.”

As she continued looking through her comic book, Maura said, “But, really, I don't care that much about the money.”

Greg looked at Maura like her brain had just plopped out onto the floor. “You don't
care
? About the
money
? Oh, sure. Like I almost believe that.”

“Well, it's true.” Maura lifted her chin and said, “But you probably wouldn't understand.
I'm mostly an artist. I just want to make a great comic book.”

“And sell it,” said Greg. “
And
make money.”

Maura sniffed. “The money comes way, way second. Because if my art and my writing isn't good, people won't want the comic, and of course, no one would pay for it. So, to me, the most important thing is that it's good.”

Greg nodded. “Right. So it'll make money.”

“No,” insisted Maura, “so it'll be
good.
Because even if I never made any money, my comic book would still be good. And that's what I really care about.”

Greg thought a second and then said, “So you're saying that back when you made all those pot holders, you
weren't
trying to make money?”

Maura tossed her head. “That was different.”

Greg smiled. “Ohhh, I see.
Some
times you want to make money, and sometimes you just want to make pot holders because they're so
beau
tiful.”

Maura glared at him and said, “If you
have
to know, I made those pot holders because
you
called me brainless, and I wanted to shut you up. And I knew that I could make as much
money as you could any day—even more. But even so, those pot holders
were
beautiful. And I
did
make a lot of money. Only it didn't really shut you up. Which is the only bad part.”

Greg kept pushing. “Well, what about in the cafeteria the other day, when I said we could make your comic books,
and
sell them. You argued—you did. You argued until I gave you seventy-five percent of the profits. So admit it—you were fighting for more money. For yourself.”

“No,” Maura said, “I just didn't want you to think you could get away with anything. Because you can't, not with me. And if my comics
do
make money, then
I'm
going to get
my
fair share. But that doesn't mean I'm all crazy about money. Like
some
people.”

Greg said, “Well, I don't care what you think. Or what Mr. Z thinks, because he's just like you are. Everybody keeps acting like I shouldn't want to make money. Too bad. I'm
gonna
make money, lots and lots of it. The more the better. And if you and everybody else want to pretend money's not important, that's fine, because that'll mean more for me.”

For the next three minutes the two of them
folded, trimmed, and stapled in silence. Then Greg reached over and picked up the small stack of comics Maura had finished. He flipped through them one at a time. “This one's okay. And this one's okay. Uh-oh . . . Look: crooked cutting on this one. And bad stapling on this one. And bad folding. Three out of five rejected. You need another lesson?”

Maura snapped, “Give me those.” She looked at the comics Greg had challenged. She said, “What are you talking about? These two are okay. And I could pull out those staples and put some others in straight. Kids would still buy them—I'm sure they would.”

Greg shook his head. “Doesn't matter. They're too sloppy. Chunky Comics have to be perfect—or at least a
lot
better than these three are.”

Maura nodded contritely, and then she grinned and chortled, “Ha-ha—gotcha!”

“What?” said Greg.

“You
do
care about whether your comics are good. It doesn't matter if kids would buy them anyway, they have to be
good
—that's what you just said.”

“Yeah? So what?” said Greg.

“So
you
agree with
me,
that's what. It's not
only
about the money. Is it?” And then Maura smiled and fluttered her eyelids at him.

“That's it,” Greg said. “No more talking. Just finish that stack, all right? And be careful. And then
you
can
leave.
”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Maura said. She held her fingers up in the Girl Scout salute. “And I promise to make every Chunky Comic as
good
as it can possibly be.”

“Very funny,” Greg said, and he kept his face as hard as iron. Which wasn't easy. And when he turned to pick up the last sheets off the copier, he grinned at the wall. But then he got serious again right away, because one of the printed pages wasn't quite dark enough.

And as he adjusted the copier to reprint another page, he had to admit that Maura was right. It wasn't
only
about the money. Not always. Just most of the time.

 

 

 

Maura took eight copies of her new comic book home from Greg's on Sunday night. She gave one to her mom, one to her dad, and one to her big brother, Tommy. Everyone was impressed.

“Maura!” her mother said. “This is a
maz
ing! Of course, I always knew you had art talent, but this is a
won
derful little book. Like a fairy tale. And I love unicorns, don't you? I mean, of course you do, because here's the book, and who made it? You did! My Maura is an
author
! This is . . . a
maz
ing!”

Maura thought so too. And that's why she autographed one copy and tucked it into the zippered pocket of her backpack. And on Monday morning when she went to meet her friend Allyson on the way to the bus stop, she gave it to her. Allyson sat right down on her front steps and read it. And when Allyson was
done reading, she said, “This is
so
good!”

Maura beamed and said, “Thanks.” As the bus came around the corner, Maura said, “You better leave that at home—just stick it in your mailbox or something.”

But Allyson said, “It's okay. I won't show it to anybody. Promise.” She slipped it inside the front cover of her social studies book, and then they both ran and got on the bus.

Maura had watched Allyson's face as she'd read the story and looked at the pictures. And sitting on the bus, she started counting kids. There were forty-seven students on the bus by the time they got to school. And Maura found herself thinking a little like Greg. Because she felt sure that she could have sold every single boy and girl on the bus a copy of her new comic book. She could have been well on her way toward being a recognized artist. And author. Except it wasn't allowed.

***

As usual Mrs. Davenport had been very efficient. She had prepared a written version of the all-school announcement she had made on Friday. She had made it shorter, more to the point, and it was printed up in large type. And
by Monday morning a copy was hanging on every bulletin board in every hallway and every classroom at Ashworth Intermediate School.