The Caped 6th Grader Read Online Free PDF Page B

greenish pencil between my palms. “But I'm still not sure which box to put this in.”
    Electra glanced up from her drawing and checked the pencil.
    “Let's call that one green-blue,” she said. “I see a touch more of the cobalt tone in it, so put it in the blue box. Somewhere in that box you'll find one that's similar, but with more of an emerald tint.”
    “When I find that one, I'll put it in the green box, right?”
    Electra smiled. “Color … such a wonderful way to learn the concept of compromise!”
    After that, I picked through the pencil collection and Electra explained to me some of the technical aspects involved in drawing and producing a comic book.
    “I don't go in much for all that computer-graphic stuff,” she said, using the side of her thumb to smudge and blend the edge of a sketch. “I like good old-fashioned art.”
    Before I knew it, the clock on her desk (with the lightning-bolt-shaped hands!) was striking three.
    “Zoe, would you mind seeing yourself out?” asked Electra, fishing through the red box for a raspberry-colored pencil. “I'm in the middle of a great thought and I don't want to lose it.”
    “Sure thing,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
    “Looking forward to it.”
    I grabbed my backpack, made my way downstairs, and closed the front door behind me. When my feet hit the front walk, it was all I could do to keep from breaking into superspeed, I was so excited.
    Electra Allbright was looking forward to seeing me!
    Man! How cool was that?
    I'll tell you how cool that was: supercool!

AT home, I had a marathon IM session with Emily. She all about her day at the magazine. I probably should have gotten a jump start on my chores for the week, but it seemed that the whole sixth grade was online and wanted to share their first-day news.
    Howie was the only one who wasn't online—knowing him, he'd stopped at the video store on the way home and rented every police movie ever made, just to bone up on the lingo.
    I stayed on the computer until Mom called me down for dinner. I could smell something spicy and I knew what we were having.
    “Tacos. Awesome!” I slid into my chair and happily began to pile shredded cheese and tomatoes into my corn tortilla.
    “How was your first day on the job?” asked Mom, handing a bowl of chopped olives to my dad.
    “Well …” I scanned the table for the taco sauce. “It was good. Electra was drawing a really cool background page, and she told me all about how comic books are made while I sorted pencils.” I bit into my taco, remembering the blue-green/green-blue issue. “It was way more complicated than you'd think.”
    “Sounds like you learned your first lesson about grown-up work,” said Dad. “Even the little things can be challenging.”
    “And important,” Mom added. “In any profession there are a million small jobs that can make or break the end result.”
    “Even if you're just sitting there at a desk for hours, sorting pencils,” I said with a nod. I sounded very wise and experienced.
    Dad took the bottle of taco sauce and drizzled some over his dinner. “Nobody starts at the top, kid.”
    Except superheroes
, I thought, hiding a smile behind my taco. And it's true. Even the smallest superhero duty is a big deal. I supposed I should be glad that my nonsuper job for the next two weeks was going to be a low-stress one.
    “And sooner or later,” Mom said with a sigh, “we all feel like we're just chained to our desk.”
    “Speaking of being chained to a desk,” said Dad, “would you like to hear about Howie's first day on the job?”
    I gulped down the bite of taco I'd just taken. “Howie got chained to a desk?”
    “Well, handcuffed, to be precise,” Dad said, chuckling.
    “TELL ME!”
    “Well, it was lunchtime when Howie and I got to the station house, so there weren't too many detectives around. Anyway, one of the uniform cops, Ted Morrison, came down to our department to consult on a case. Of course, he had his