Lunch Money Read Online Free Page B

So Greg was still hoping to reach that goal of selling one hundred units the first week.
    But business can be a lot like life—full of unexpected events. And thirty-three minutes later, standing in the hallway next to the music room, Greg and his new company got a shock.
    There were two minutes left before sixth-grade chorus, and Greg was making the most of his time. He had just sold two copies of Return of the Hunter to Roy Jenkins when Ted came up and pressed something into his hand.
    Greg glanced down and saw a minicomic. Then he noticed the expression on Ted’s face. “What?” he asked. “Something wrong with this one?”
    Ted nodded and said, “Take a look.”

    Greg turned the little book over. Ted was right. Something was very wrong with this one. Because what Greg held in his hand was not one of his Chunky Comics.
    A tiny banner on the front cover announced that this was “An Eentsy Beentsy Book.” The title was The Lost Unicorn, and the cutesy cover picture had been brightened up with colored pencil.
    A deep scowl formed on Greg’s face as he realized what he was holding. It was obvious: Some other kid was trying to cash in on his idea. And who was the person responsible for this . . . this sneak attack, this giant rip-off ?
    Greg didn’t even have to look. He knew. Only one person would have dared to copy his idea like this. But Greg turned to the first page of the little book and looked anyway.
    And there was the proof, in tiny, perfect cursive, just below the title: “Written and Illustrated by Maura Shaw.”

 
Chapter 5

THE GIRL ACROSS THE STREET
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    Greg Kenton had always lived on Maple Avenue. As a very young boy, Greg had sometimes noticed the girl across the street who helped her dad rake leaves, and sometimes he had seen her riding a tricycle around and around on her driveway. She looked like she was about his age, but she didn’t go to his nursery school or his Sunday school. So Greg didn’t know who she was—and he didn’t care.
    Greg’s world was small back then, and that little blond girl wasn’t part of it. Greg noticed the girl the way he noticed the neighborhood dogs, or the colors of the flowers growing next to the front walk, or the blinking yellow light at the corner. Even when they both started kindergarten at the same school, Greg went in the morning, and the girl went afternoons. It was like they lived on different continents. The concrete ocean between them was onlythirty-five feet wide, but young children never crossed it alone.
    For his fifth birthday Greg got a Big Wheel, all blue and red and yellow with fat black tires. The hard plastic wheels made a huge rumbling sound, as loud as the trucks on Maple Avenue.
    The first day he had it, Greg rode his Big Wheel for at least two hours. Over and over he rocketed down his driveway, yanked the handlebars to the right, and then roared along the sidewalk, his curly hair swept back from his high forehead. And when he noticed the girl across the street sitting on her front steps watching him, Greg poured on an extra burst of speed, and he smiled and waved as he went grinding by. The girl waved back, but she didn’t smile.
    Then late one afternoon about a week later, the little girl wasn’t sitting on her steps when Greg went outside to ride. She was thundering around and around her driveway on a Big Wheel of her own—except hers was pink and green and white. And when Greg went speeding out of his driveway and zipped along the sidewalk, she did the same thing, a mirror image. And when Greg stopped at the corner of Tenth Street and headed back toward hisdriveway, so did the girl across the street. When he sped up, so did she. When he jammed his feet to the ground and slammed to a stop, she did too.
    Greg was annoyed, but he pretended to ignore her. He turned and slowly pedaled up toward the corner at Tenth Street again. He didn’t look, but he could