Page 13 of Business or Pleasure

“Don’t.” I came around the counter toward the pair, who froze at the sound of my voice. If you put it in your pants, I'll take it back and leave you in your tighty-whiteys or whatever you're wearing while I call the police. And I will let them march you out to their cars like that too.”

Slowly, without looking at me, the boy’s hands rose, and he set the comic back on the shelf. My gut said that wasn’t all he had.

“Put everything back, and I’ll only ban you from the store. Try to leave with even a paperclip, and the cops will escort you away.”

My instincts were right. The pair had been picking up little shit all over the place to work up the courage for the bigger prize. When their pockets were empty, I had a little stack of stuff on the counter, and their faces were red.

“You’re both banned from ever showing your faces in the store again. And I’ll make sure everyone else who works here knows that. Take the punishment gracefully and learn from it. You don’t want to end up in juvie for a couple of comics you could’ve borrowed from the public library.”

They nodded and left without a single word of argument.

“That was very well-handled.”

An amused female voice had me turning around. The woman appeared to be in her early forties, short, with ash blonde hair almost light enough to make the few streaks of gray disappear completely. Not a typical customer, but who was I to judge by appearance?

“Thanks.” I smiled at her. “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a few comics for a nine-year-old girl, and I have no idea where to start.”

“Daughter? Niece?” I asked.

She looked confused by my questions but answered politely, “My boss’s daughter, actually. Does it make a difference?”

“In a way,” I said. “If you were shopping for your daughter, you’d be able to tell me exactly what you would or wouldn’t allow her to read. A niece or cousin, child of a friend, those are a little trickier.”

“And since her father is my boss?” She was giving me a strange look but still didn’t sound annoyed.

“That depends. Do you like your boss and your job?” I smiled and gestured toward a rack near the front of the store. “I usually recommend these for kids under twelve because they’re safe but well-written. You should buy those if you don't want your boss to freak out when his daughter reads them."

“You’d really recommend something edgier for a child if I said that my boss was a jerk?”

I laughed. “No,” I admitted. “But if his daughter already watches and reads things that are mature for her age, then yeah, I’d recommend something older.”

“And you’d just go by what the customer said? The customer’s always right?”

One side of my mouth tipped up in a smile. “I’m an excellent judge of character.”

She studied me for a moment, and I had the weirdest feeling that she was sizing me up the same way I had been doing to her since we started talking. “All right. Evanne’s nine going on thirty but still likes to play pretend. She loves superhero movies, and Spiderman is her favorite. The Tom Holland one, not Andrew Garfield or that other guy.”

I nodded. “Should we build on Spiderman or introduce her to a new superhero?”

“A new one.”

I thought for a moment and then picked from the lowest shelf. “How about we introduce her to Stargirl? She’s DC, not Marvel, and about the same age as Spiderman in the new films.”

“Sounds perfect.” The woman took the comic. “Now, do you sell graphic novels too? You know, the ones made from regular books?”

“A few,” I said. “We mostly have original graphic novels, but some are novel-based, and I have the perfect one for a nine-year-old girl.”

I stepped around the rack to the graphic novels. The one I was looking for was on the bottom because it was technically a kids’ book.

“Here.” I held out a hardcover of A Wrinkle in Time, the graphic novel edition.

Her face lit up. “I remember this book. It was one of my favorites growing up. I didn’t know it was a graphic novel.”

“It hasn’t been for long,” I said. “One of my favorites too. Just about the only thing that I ever read as a kid.”

“Meg Murry was the first female protagonist in a young adult science fiction novel, did you know that?” She lightly traced the picture on the front. “I wanted to be just like her when I grew up.”

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