Lunch Money (3 page)

 

 

The very next day Greg had started selling candy and gum in the shadow of the sliding board during lunch recess—gum was ten cents a stick, and he sold tropical fruit Starbursts at three for a quarter.

Sales were brisk, and Greg was making some money. But it was risky. Kids took the candy and gum into their classrooms, which was against school rules. And if one kid had turned him in, Greg would have found himself having a little chat with the principal, Mrs. Davenport.

So Greg began to look around for other things he could sell. He thought about the ads on TV when he watched his favorite shows. What did they always try to sell to kids—besides candy and breakfast cereals? Simple: toys.

Greg did some research on the Internet and quickly discovered dozens of companies
that sold toys and souvenirs and gadgets at incredibly low prices.

“You need to do
what
?”

That's what Greg's mom had said when he told her he needed to borrow her credit card.

And Greg had explained: “I need to buy some toys—not for me. They're to sell to other kids. To make some money. This company has great stuff, and it's real cheap, but I need to order with a credit card. I can pay you back with cash right away, if that's what you're worried about.”

His mom was actually worried about something else. She thought Greg spent too much time thinking about making money. Just a few days before, she had asked her husband, “Is it something we've done, to make Greg like this? All he ever thinks about is getting rich. I want him to just enjoy being a kid, hang out with his friends more, have more fun.” But her husband had told her, “As far as I can see, Greg's definitely a kid. He likes to read and draw, he plays sports, and he gets good grades. I'd say he's pretty well balanced. And he seems to be having plenty of fun. This money thing is probably just a phase. Besides, there's nothing
wrong with wanting to make money. Or working hard. If that's what you call a problem, then I wish some other people in this family had it too!”

So his mom had used her credit card to help Greg place an order with the NicNac Novelty Company. He ordered 144 miniature troll dolls, tiny plastic creatures with big eyes and long, bright hair—blue, red, orange, and green. Then Greg paid his mom $12.00 in cash to cover the cost of the credit-card order—$10.50 for the trolls, and $1.50 for the shipping costs.

The little trolls were a huge hit at school, an instant fad. Greg sold all 144 of them in three days for a quarter each, taking in a total of thirty-six dollars—and twenty-four dollars of that money was pure profit.

But Greg didn't call it profit. He liked to think of it as “new money.”

Greg had taken twelve dollars he already had—that was the old money—and he had used his old
money to buy 144 trolls for about eight cents apiece. Then he'd sold each one for twenty-five cents. So he had made back all twelve dollars of his old money, plus twenty-four dollars of new money.

And what did Greg do with his new money? He used it to place another, bigger order with the NicNac Novelty Company: 48 more trolls, 48 miniature superballs, 24 small jack-and-ball sets, 48 sticky-stretchy spiders, and 36 plastic rings—12 for boys and 24 for girls.

But the new items hadn't sold so well. After two weeks only about two thirds of the second order was gone. Kids had started to get bored with his products, and so had Greg. And there was another problem.

During third-period language arts one morning, he'd been called to the school office. And then he'd been shown into the principal's office.

The first thing Greg noticed was the toys on her desk. Mrs. Davenport followed his eyes and nodded at the four mini-superballs and the wad of sticky-stretchy spiders. She said, “I got the superballs from Ms. Kensing. She caught Eddie Connors and Hector Vega bouncing
them up and hitting the lights on the ceiling of the gym. And I got the spiders from Mr. Percy, the custodian. He says these things have left oily marks on almost every window in the school. And Mr. Percy tells me that all the kids he asked said they bought them from you. Is that true?”

Greg nodded.

“Why are you selling toys at school?” she asked.

Greg shrugged. “To make some money. And because they're fun.”

Mrs. Davenport said, “Those tiny trolls I saw all over the school a few weeks ago—were you the one selling those, too?”

Greg nodded.

The principal said, “Well, I admire your initiative, but starting right now, you may not sell any more toys at school. The boys and girls already bring plenty of other nuisance items to school, and they do
not
need extra help from you. Is that clear?”

Greg nodded and said, “Yes.”

“Very well. You may return to your class now. Ask Mrs. Ogden for a pass.”

Walking back to language arts that day, Greg
hadn't been discouraged. He wasn't even unhappy. He faced the fact that his novelty toy business had been doomed from the start. For one thing, kids usually get tired of toys quickly. And Greg also realized it was amazing that his toy sales hadn't been shut down even sooner. If you sell toys to kids at school, that's where the kids will play with them. And toys and school are a bad mix. Still, even though he hadn't sold all the toys from the second order, he'd made a small profit.

Greg carefully reviewed what the principal had said to him. And again, he saw the bright side. Because Mrs. Davenport had not said that he had to stop selling things at school. She had just said he had to stop selling
toys.

So all he needed was something
else
he could sell at school, something that wouldn't upset the teachers or Mrs. Davenport. Or the custodian. Even better, it would be great to sell something they would actually approve of. But what? What?

The answer came to Greg as the first few days of summer began turning fifth grade into a fading memory. The answer was so simple, and it seemed absolutely foolproof. It would
take some hard work if 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.

 

 

 

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 it
himself. 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 illustration
was 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 a
over 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.