The Caped 6th Grader (6 page)

THE
rest of the week went smoothly, if uneventfully. I reported for work at Electra's and was given loads of jobs to do, like stacking paper and making sure she had enough pencils in each color. She'd sit at her desk and draw and write and tell me things about ink quality and printer deadlines while I checked her ideas against old issues to be sure the action was consistent. I even caught a mistake—she was drawing one of Lightning Girl's archenemies, the glamorous Claw-dette, with red polished claws, but when the previous episode had ended, Claw-dette had just gotten a French manicure.

Mornings at school were hectic. It felt as if the teachers were trying to squeeze in as many classes as they could before our early departure. Everything seemed to be moving at top speed—which wasn't such a big deal for me, of course. On Friday morning, Emily and I blew past each other in the hallway.

“Hi,” I said, rushing toward my locker while several other sixth graders hurried by.

“Hi.” She was practically jogging in the direction of the science lab. “Hey, let's meet at the Burger Barn for lunch today, after school, before work-study.”

“Sounds good.”

“Invite Howie and Josh, too. I'll ask Caitlin.”

“Okay.”

“See ya,” she called, disappearing around the corner.

I opened my locker, searching for my history book. Mr. Diaz poked his head out of his classroom and smiled at me. “Time's a-wasting, Zoe,” he joked. “Pick up the pace! Can't you go any faster?”

I pulled out my history book and smiled back at him. “I'll try,” I said. But inside I was laughing.
If you only knew, Mr. Diaz. If you only knew!

I was the first one to get to the Burger Barn after school.

Guess how!

Okay, so it was risky using my superspeed in broad daylight, but it had been a while since I'd cut loose, and I really needed to flex my supermuscles! I couldn't afford to get rusty, could I? I was careful to keep to the quieter roads and woodsy lots to avoid being seen.

When Emily arrived, I noticed that she was wearing one of the great outfits I'd helped pick out for her—a little plaid skirt in hot pink and lime green with a green crocheted shrug over a white T-shirt. We'd been in such a rush when I'd seen her at
school that it hadn't registered. She really did look like a magazine editor! I, on the other hand, was wearing old blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a tear in the elbow. Emily slid into the booth and eyed my getup.

“So I guess Electra Allbright prefers a casual work environment, huh?”

“I'm going to be scrubbing out ink bottles this afternoon,” I explained. “You look great. What's on your work schedule for the day?”

Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. “I'm going to be sitting in on a big meeting. Harriet—she's my mentor—is interviewing Rachel Anne Donovan.
Rachel Anne Donovan!
Can you believe it?”

I had to think for a minute to remember who exactly Rachel Anne Donovan was. I knew I'd heard her name from Emily a million times, and if she was being interviewed by
Go, Girl!
she was most likely some big shot in the fashion industry—I just couldn't recall exactly what she was famous for. Was she a supermodel? A makeup artist? An A-list photographer?

“Who's Rachel Anne Donovan?” asked Josh, who was just joining us in the booth. I silently thanked him for asking the question so I didn't have to.

“She's only the most awesome handbag designer on the whole entire planet!” Emily gushed.

Now I remembered. R.A.D. BAGS—that was Rachel Anne Donovan's brand name. Emily thought they're just too chic for words and had been begging her parents for months to buy her one, but even the smallest bag in the R.A.D. line cost major bucks. Mrs. Huang had told Emily that she wasn't about to shell out two hundred and eighty dollars for a purse that was only big
enough to hold two tissues and a tube of lip gloss. I had to admit, I couldn't blame her.

Josh took a seat beside me in the booth. “That's great, Em.”

“Thanks. And guess what else! The editors are even thinking of letting me write a fashion-for-middle-schoolers column when the project is over, kind of a ‘preteen at large’ contributing editor gig.”

I reached across the table to give her a high five. “Cool-litzer, here we come!”

Then I turned to Josh. “How's your job going?” I asked him.

“It's awesome. I'm doing lots of hands-on work with endangered insects.”

“That's gross,” said Caitlin, sidling up to the table, then softening her snippy comment with a broad smile. “Hi, everybody!”

Howie was right behind her, looking as though he had something terribly important on his mind. “Hey, guys.”

Caitlin sat down beside Emily, and Howie squeezed into the booth next to Josh, which meant Josh had to scoot down closer to me so that our shoulders touched. The waitress came and we all ordered burgers and sodas.

“How's police work, Howie?” Emily asked.

“EXCITING.”

We all waited for him to elaborate, but after a few moments, it became clear that he wasn't going to. I figured Howie thought his work required top-secret classification.

“How's the comic-book world?” Caitlin asked me when the waitress was gone. “Do you have to bring your own crayons, or does Electra Allbright let you use hers? Oh, let me guess— you've got a big lunch meeting with Superman, Spider-Man
and the Incredible Hulk tomorrow?”

Josh grinned at me. “Now, that's what I'd call a
power
lunch.”

“The comic-book world rocks! I'm learning a ton of fascinating stuff,” I told Caitlin firmly. “How's your job?”

Caitlin's cool look vanished and she looked away. “Fine,” she said.

Howie raised his eyebrows, and I could tell he knew something about Caitlin's job at the florist. The waitress returned and handed out our sodas, and there was a moment of confusion when Emily was given Josh's root beer by mistake. Caitlin looked glad of the distraction, but Howie wasn't about to let the topic drop.

“Aren't you going to tell them what happened?” he prompted.

Caitlin shot him a look that could have frozen the soda in his glass. “Of course I am,” she said. “Why wouldn't I? After all, it was just an honest mistake. It was kind of amusing, actually.”

“Hmmm.” Howie took a long sip of his cola. “I don't think Mr. Adamson thought it was amusing.”

“What mistake?” Emily asked. “Who's Mr. Adamson?”

Caitlin let out a long sigh, then forced a bright smile. “The Adamsons are regular customers at the flower shop. Yesterday, Mr. Adamson called and ordered an elaborate bouquet and asked that it be sent to his wife, with a card that said, ‘I love you more each day, Hugs and kisses, Melvin.’ Well, I took the order and prepared the arrangement and had it delivered to Mrs. Adamson.”

“So what was the problem?” Josh asked.

“The problem,” said Howie, “was that the phone call wasn't from Mr. Michael Adamson, it was from Mr. Melvin
Abramson.
So when Mr. Adamson got home and saw the mushy card his wife had gotten from some guy named Melvin, he was furious.

He thought his wife was dating another man!”

I gulped. Caitlin was studying the tabletop. She looked uncomfortable, but not especially sorry. In fact, she looked as if she was trying not to crack up.

“So what happened?” Emily asked.

Howie shook his head. “It was awful. Mrs. Adamson swore she didn't know anyone named Melvin, but Mr. Adamson said the flowers were proof that she was lying. Finally, they had to call my grandpa to get to the bottom of the mess. He figured out that Caitlin had gotten the names confused and sent the arrangement to the wrong wife. But to make matters worse, Mr. Abramson called to say that he was in the doghouse because his wife never received her birthday bouquet.”

“Adamson, Abramson,” Caitlin said offhandedly. “It could have happened to anyone.”

Sure it could, I thought. Except it had happened to
her
, and there was something about Caitlin Abbott that made me the teensiest bit suspicious.…

The waitress arrived with our burgers and we dug in, eating quickly because no one wanted to be late to work.

Especially me. Washing bottles may not sound like fancy work, but it was cool by me. I'd scrub at the sink in the workroom, and Electra would draw, and I'd get to hear more of her stories from the comics-writing world. For the world's biggest Electra Allbright fan (that's me, by the way), what could be better?

When I arrived at Electra's mansion, I found that she had left the front door unlocked for me. I let myself in and headed up
to her attic studio, my backpack stuffed with Grandpa's huge scrapbook—thudding against my shoulder.

I entered the attic and found Electra frowning at a storyboard.

“Hi,” I said from the doorway.

“Hello, Zoe,” said Electra, not looking up. “Hope you didn't mind seeing yourself up—I'm experiencing a comic-book author's worst nightmare at the moment.”

“What's that?” I inquired.

Electra let out an exasperated huff. “Writer's block.” She frowned at the sketches in front of her, then glanced up at me with a grin. “I could use some input.”

I put my backpack on the floor beside the door and crossed the attic to her table. “Here's the problem,” she said. “Lightning Girl has been captured by the villain Riptide. Nasty guy …”

I nodded. “I remember him. He's the one who trained the killer sharks to breathe on land and set them loose in shopping malls all over America.”

“Right. Well, now he and Lightning Girl have crossed paths again and he's just sealed her into an airtight room. No windows, no vents, and the door is padlocked on the outside, so she can't fire a lightning bolt at it.”

“YIKES.”

“Indeed.” Electra tapped her pencil on the last two empty squares in the long sequence. “Riptide is filling the room with water. See? It's up to LG's knees already. But now that I've got her stuck in the room with the water gushing in … well, frankly, I'm having a hard time coming up with a solution to get her out.”

I could feel my heart racing with excitement, because (a) I'm such a big Lightning Girl fan and this is exactly the kind of suspense
I live for, and (b) Electra was seriously asking for my input! She needed
my
help to figure out a way to rescue our hero!

“Any thoughts?” she asked, sounding a bit desperate.

“Well …” I studied the pencil sketches of Lightning Girl in her hero outfit that looked so much like mine, with the zippers and the hooks, and the supercool insignia, and the tool belt and …