The Caped 6th Grader (9 page)

“Oh. Well, the only surefire way to tell a knockoff from a genuine R.A.D. BAG is by the logo. You see, Rachel Anne Donovan originally used her own handwriting to create the R.A.D. logo. Look.…”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture of the R.A.D. logo he'd printed off the Internet. “There's this peculiar little swirl at the top of her
R.
”

I squinted at the
R
in the printout. Sure enough, I saw it—it was little, but it was there.

“Now, look at this,” said Howie. He showed me a second printout, of what at first glance looked like the same logo. He pointed. “No swirl. Just a standard capital
R.
This is one of the knockoff logos.”

I was stunned. “You figured this out all on your own?”

Howie nodded, blushing. “It's just good old-fashioned detective work. Patience, diligence, and a really powerful magnifying glass.”

I turned from the creased pages in Howie's hand to the shelf of display bags in Miss B's window. After looking over my shoulder to make sure Miss B wasn't coming back into the store, I reached out and picked up a purple suede bag, what must have been the aubergine tone.

“Go ahead. Check out the logo,” Howie said encouragingly.

I squinted at the small script on the purple bag. Sure enough, the
R
was swirl-less.

“OH, NO!”
I gasped.

Howie was right. These bags were fakes, made by counterfeiters. Counterfeiters who were on their way here right now with a new shipment! A creepy feeling filled me. I started checking the logos on the other bags.… Knockoffs. All of them!

I turned to Howie, my eyes wide. “Miss Bettancourt would never agree to sell fake bags,” I said.

Howie nodded. “I know. The bad guys must have her fooled as much as her customers.”

“And the delivery—” I stopped short. “Do you think the counterfeiters are going to deliver the bags themselves?”

“I'd guess so,” said Howie. “They probably wouldn't trust an ordinary shipping service with their phony goods.”

“How are you two doing over there?” Miss B called, returning from the stockroom.

“Er, f-fine,” I stammered. “We … we like this purple one, but we also like the striped one with the bamboo handles.” I lowered my voice to a whisper and said to Howie,“We should call my dad!”

“NO!”

“No?” I glared at him. “Why not?”

Howie looked down at his sneakers. “He … well … would be kind of surprised to know I was here.”

“You said my dad was okay with your looking for evidence,” I snapped. “But what you meant was that he was okay with it only because he didn't know exactly what you were doing.” I threw my hands in the air. “Howie!”

“Listen, Zoe, this means a lot to me. I don't want your dad to think I'm a total goof. It's not just the thing with the handcuffs. Today I spilled the chief's coffee all over some papers. Turns out those papers were a signed confession.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Major uh-oh. I don't want to blow my chances of ever becoming a detective!”

“I can see how much this means to you, Howie, but still—”

“Miss B said the delivery is scheduled for closing time. That's in”—he checked his watch—“five minutes. If we wait for your dad and his officers, we might lose the opportunity to catch these guys.”

I let it all sink in. It wasn't as if Howie were here alone—I mean, he did have a superhero with him. I was pretty sure that even if he messed up, I'd be able to run interference. And it was so important to him to prove he wasn't a total klutz. I knew he wasn't, but even though Howie was one of my best friends, I had to admit that sometimes he didn't show what he could really do.

“Here's the plan,” I said. “We'll tell Miss B we're coming back tomorrow to check out the new shipment. Then we'll go around back and hide. When the truck comes, we'll wait for the bad guys to bring the first box of not-so-R.A.D. bags into the stockroom, and we'll lock them inside. Then I'll call my dad and get him down here fast.”

“I like it!” said Howie. “What about Miss B? What if the bad guys break out of the storeroom and take her hostage or something?”

I thought about it, then marched across the shop to where Miss B was collecting the day's receipts from the register.

“Such a busy day!” she said. “And now I have to go upstairs to my office and record all these sales on the computer.” She
frowned. “Hang on, I've just remembered that I have to wait for the delivery to arrive before I can get started. It's going to be a long night!”

“I have an idea,” I said. “Why don't you let Howie and me help you with the delivery? We can wait for them and tell them where you want the boxes stacked. That way you can go up and get started on those receipts. We'll come and get you if you need to sign anything.”

Miss Bettancourt gave me a grateful smile. “You wouldn't mind? That's awfully nice of you.”

“Not at all.”

“I'll come down later to lock up,” she said, gathering her paperwork and heading toward the door that led to the stairs. “You just holler if you need me. You won't have any trouble, I'm sure. Those men have been very sweet and reliable.”

Yeah, right
, I thought.
They've got you selling their fake stuff. No wonder they're being sweet.

We watched as she walked through the door; then we listened to her footsteps on the stairs.

“Okay, now what?” said Howie.

I grabbed a piece of sticky-note paper from the counter and dashed off a quick message telling the delivery guys (otherwise known as the criminals!) to come in and leave the boxes. I signed Miss Bettancourt's name.

“We stick this on the back door to the stockroom and wait for these creepy counterfeiters to show up. We'll leave that door unlocked, and they'll come in looking for Miss B. Meanwhile, we'll hide outside, and when they're in the stockroom, we'll lock them in.”

“I can read them their rights,” Howie boasted. “I memorized the Miranda spiel.”

“Sounds good,” I said, but I had no intention of letting Howie anywhere near these guys. Counterfeiting was a serious crime, and that meant these crooks were bad news.

I took Miss B's cordless phone off its base and handed it to Howie. “Take this just in case,” I said. “You go wait in the back alley.”

Howie ran to the stockroom; I heard the back door slam behind him.

I locked the door that led from the stockroom into the store, then shoved a chair under the knob. Once I got those guys in, I wanted them to stay in.

When I made it to the alley, Howie was waiting, practicing his Miranda delivery.

“You have the right to remain silent …,” he recited. “If you choose to talk, anything you say can and will—”

“Hey, Howie,” I said, “maybe you should peek into that Dumpster to see if there are any shipping boxes from the fake purses.”

Howie knitted his brow. “Good idea. There may be tracking codes printed on them, and that will prove these guys have been at this a while.”

“Here, I'll give you a boost.”

I interlaced my fingers and Howie put his foot in my hands.

“Am I too heavy for you?” he asked.

I had to force myself not to laugh. “Um, no.”

He bounced up to the rim of the Dumpster and
peered over the side. “Zoe, you were right. There are lots of boxes in here with the R.A.D. logo printed on them.”

“Are there any tracking numbers?” I asked, feeling guilty for what I was about to do.

“It's hard to tell.…”

“Then how about a closer look?” I said, giving a slight boost with my hands. Howie toppled into the Dumpster.

“ZOE!”

“Oops! Howie, I'm so sorry. I don't know how that happened.”

Just then, a van came rumbling down the alley.

“What now?” Howie demanded, his voice echoing in the deep metal Dumpster. “You can't tackle them on your own! Get me out of here!”

“There's no time!” I replied. “Look, I'll get them into the stockroom and lock the door behind them. You have the cell phone, don't you? Well, call my dad at the station and tell him to come down to the boutique right now. But whatever you do, Howie, don't tell him I was here. He'd ground me for life if he knew I was messing around in police business again.”

“I promise not to say a word.”

I hid behind the Dumpster and listened to the rumbling get louder. Seconds later, the van pulled into the area near the stockroom door that served as the unloading zone for delivery trucks. I peeked out, keeping low in the hope that if they looked around, they'd look at adult head level and wouldn't see a kid crouched at knee level. Three burly men piled out of the front. One went to knock on the stockroom door. It swung open at his first rap.

“Hey, it ain't locked,” he called.

“Maybe the old lady left it open for us.”

The other two went around to the back of the van, opened the doors, and pulled out three giant boxes with R.A.D. logos crookedly stenciled on the sides. They walked awkwardly under the weight of the boxes, their fingers gripping the sides and their legs bowed out. I waited until the last in line—the one who had knocked on the stockroom door—had gotten a box and reached the doorway. Then I leaped out from behind the Dumpster.

The third guy whirled around. “Huh? Hey, kid …”

I ducked my head down like a football player and, using super-force, rammed my shoulder into his gut, sending him staggering into the stockroom. I heard a loud
ooompf!
as he crashed into one of the other goons, and they both tumbled to the floor.

“Jerks,” I said, slamming the door and locking it tight. Then, for good measure, I gave the doorknob a supersqueeze, mangling the lock. It would take my dad and five policemen with crowbars to get these guys out.

I
came down to breakfast the next morning to find the kitchen table covered with fake R.A.D. BAGS.

“What's all this? Someone go on a shopping spree?” I said innocently. I had to play dumb, pretend I hadn't been anywhere near the boutique when the action went down.

Dad looked up from a bag he was tagging with a small paper ticket and grinned. “We busted a counterfeit crime ring last night,” he said, writing a number on the ticket with a blue marker. “These are all knockoff bags confiscated from Miss Bettancourt's storeroom. She was upset to learn she'd been selling fakes, and I think the information she's giving us will help catch the rest of the gang. The delivery guys have also been singing like canaries in the hope of getting off lightly, so it won't be long before the whole gang is in police custody!”

I gave him my best confused expression, and he explained the
whole situation, starting with Howie's data collation and finishing up with the amazing operation in the storeroom of Miss B's boutique. I alternated between looking surprised and impressed. Not a bad acting job, if I do say so myself.

“So what happens to all the fake bags?” I asked.

“Well, for the moment, they'll be entered into evidence and kept down at the station house to be used when the case against the counterfeiters goes to trial. There were so many of them that I offered to bring a couple of boxes home and inventory them.” He chuckled. “Those guys in the evidence room are going to be up to their elbows in purses for the next couple of weeks.”

I took extra long putting Pop-Tarts in the toaster to hide the broad grin on my face. My first major crime bust! I didn't even mind (much) that I couldn't share how I was feeling with Mom and Dad. I'd be able to tell Grandpa Zack as soon as he got back from the conference, and I might even make the
Superhero News!
Go, Kid Zoom!

On the way to school, Dad let me in on a secret.

“We're going to have a little send-off party for Officer Howie,” he told me. “To thank him for all his hard work over these last two weeks.”

“Great,” I said. And it was great for Howie—he'd done some good detective work! But I wasn't thinking about the R.A.D. BAG triumph that much; the fact that I still had to face Electra was on my mind again.

She'd invaded my privacy by going through my backpack, and she'd put me in a really touchy situation by taking ideas from
my grandfather's scrapbook. I still hadn't decided if I should mention it to her or not. If I did, I'd have to explain about my Super legacy. If I didn't, she'd publish those books featuring Zip's real-life Super adventures and the Federation would be very upset.

Thinking about it was giving me a stomachache. I leaned forward and turned on the radio, hoping to distract myself with some music.

“And now for the local weather report,” came the announcer's voice. “Looks like Sweetbriar is in for severe atmospheric activity later today. Could get pretty wild, with heavy rain, thunderstorms, and wind gusts of up to sixty miles an hour.”

“Gonna be rainy …,” I grumbled, pressing the next preset button on the radio. Traffic report. Next button—classical music. Yuck. The third button was the lucky one: a real bopping rock tune—my and Emily's current favorite—came blasting through the speakers.

By the time we reached school, I was in a much better mood. I turned down the radio as Dad pulled into the school driveway.

“So your work-study project wraps up today, huh?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It's done.”

“Bet you learned a lot about comic books.” He drove up to the curb to let me out. “Must have been a real adventure. I mean, not everybody gets to be part of the superhero experience for two whole weeks.”

“True,” I said with a wry smile. I grabbed my backpack, opened the door, and hopped out onto the sidewalk. “And you know what, Dad? I have a feeling the superhero experience is going to stay with me for a lifetime.”

When Mr. Diaz dismissed us at twelve o'clock for our final afternoon of the apprenticeship program, I slid out the side door instead of leaving with everyone through the main lobby. I knew that Emily and Josh and would be talking about what a great time they'd had doing their work-study jobs, and Howie had been on cloud nine all day, since his counterfeiting bust had been on the morning news. All the teachers and kids had congratulated him and made a big fuss over him. Even Caitlin seemed pretty happy about what she'd learned from Mr. Hunt at the flower shop.

I was happy for my friends—honest, I was. I just wasn't in the mood to celebrate, knowing that I was heading into a very awkward situation.

As I walked, I noticed that the day had gotten dark and the wind was picking up. I remembered vaguely that the weather forecast had been for stormy skies, but I was too busy trying to think of what I was going to say to Electra to recall the details.

I reached the front door of the mansion and clanged the bolt-shaped knocker. Seconds later the door swung open and there was Electra, holding a giant cake baked in the shape of a lightning bolt. One tall sparkler fizzled brightly in the center of it.

“For the world's best intern!” she cried, her eyes shining in the sparkler's glow.

Awkward much? Uh …
yes.

I forced a smile. “Thanks,” I said, stepping into the foyer. I followed her to the kitchen, where she put the cake on a high counter.

“Oh, Zoe,” she said, bustling around collecting plates and forks
and a large knife. “I really am going to miss having you around. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed our time together.”

I dropped my backpack on the floor, pulled a tall stool up to the counter, and sat down. “That's nice to hear,” I said, feeling clunky and weird. Didn't she know that I
knew
what she'd done? Did she think I wouldn't care that she had violated my privacy? I didn't understand. She was acting so nice, so normal, like maybe …

“Hope you like chocolate,” she said, cutting into the cake, carefully avoiding the still sparkling sparkler. She made three more cuts, then balanced the dainty square of cake on the blade of the knife. I held out my plate, but Electra shook her head.

“Oh, no. This little bitty calorie-conscious serving is for me,” she said, sliding the small piece onto her plate. “This one is for you.” She sliced into the cake again and produced an enormous, frosted chunk. She put it on my plate.

“Wow. That's a big one.”

“Well, Zoe, you deserve a
supersized
piece!”

I froze, my fork poised above the yellow swirls of the frosting.

“Before I forget,” Electra went on, licking a blob of frosting off her knuckle. “I've got your evaluation forms all ready to go.”

She went to the fridge; there was an envelope secured to it with a lightning-bolt-shaped magnet. “Here you go. I think Marty Diaz will be very pleased with this.”

I took the envelope and leaned down to slide it into the outer pocket of my backpack.

Electra took a forkful of her cake.

I took one of mine.

The sparkler sputtered out. The room went eerily silent. I could hear the rain beginning against the window, soft at first but growing stronger.

“Something wrong?” Electra asked at last.

“I was just wondering … I mean … well, that is …” I sighed and took another bite of cake, which I chewed slowly, stalling for time. “Ms. Allbright, how did you come up with all those neat ideas? The ones you were working on the day you sent me home. It felt like maybe you didn't want me to see them.”

Electra looked at me in surprise. “Oh, no! I'm sorry if you felt left out, Zoe. It's just that I wasn't ready for you to see them
yet!”
She looked down at the small amount of cake left on her plate. “Artistic inspiration is a difficult thing to explain,” she said quietly. “For some, it's imagination. For others, it's wishful thinking. For me, it's—”

At that moment, a jagged bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder echoed, drowning out the end of what Electra was saying. By the time the rumble had faded to silence, she was heading for the stairs.

“Ready to get to work?” she called over her shoulder.

“Sure.” I slid off the stool and followed her up to the attic. As we passed through the upstairs hall, I remembered how excited I'd been the first day, when Electra had shown me her studio. Back then I couldn't wait to hear about how she came up with her thrilling stories. Now I could hardly bear to think about it.

Things sure had changed.

Two hours later, I'd washed about forty ink bottles. It seemed an especially appropriate task today. The sound of the water running in the sink blended sadly with the rain outside, and the inky colors ran together, turning the water a swirly blue-green-gray,
like the stormy sky. Like my mood.

Finally I put the last ink bottle in the cupboard and closed the door.

“That's the last one,” I said.

“Oh.” Electra looked up from a page she was coloring and gave me a sad smile. “Well, then, I guess your work here is done.”

“Guess so.” I cleared my throat. “So … yeah. Well, thanks for everything.”

“You're very welcome.”

Why did you do it? Why did you lie?

I wanted to ask. I didn't want to ask. I knew I had every right, but at the same time I couldn't help wondering,
What would be the point?
Electra hadn't told me about her new storyboard while she worked and I washed. But she hadn't tried to conceal it from me, either. As I'd moved around the attic, collecting dirty bottles and searching for more detergent, I'd caught glimpses of the work. The story was an awful lot like the ones in my grandfather's scrapbook, but she'd changed his name from Zip to Vroom. Actually, it looked as if she'd taken several of the stories and blended them together.

I hoped Super exposure wasn't a concern, since the comic was technically a fictional story, but that didn't stop me from feeling disappointed and betrayed.

In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to ask why she'd done it—stolen my grandfather's stories for her comics. Probably because deep down, I knew I wouldn't like the answer.