“He’s here!” Benny said excitedly, letting the curtain drop back from the living room window. He had been watching for Sid to arrive since breakfast.
“Benny,” said Mrs. McGregor. “It’s not polite to press your nose against the window.” The housekeeper straightened the drape.
“I know, but I couldn’t wait for Sid to get here,” said Benny.
When the doorbell rang, Mrs. McGregor answered it.
“Nice to see you again, Sid,” she said. “Please come in.”
Grandfather and the children entered the living room to greet their guest.
James Alden introduced himself. “It’s very nice of you to take my grandchildren to the publishing house today. They have talked of nothing else.”
“I’m glad to have such enthusiastic fans,” said Sid. He turned to the children. “Are we ready to go?”
“I’ve been ready for hours!” said Benny, grabbing his jacket and heading out the door first.
After everyone was buckled into Sid’s dark green van, Sid pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road.
“How far is it to the comic book place?” Benny asked.
“About forty-five minutes,” Sid replied.
“We were wondering how you became a comic book artist,” Henry said.
“I used to doodle as a kid,” said Sid. “I drew cartoons about a funny little character I made up. Then I put the cartoons in a book. Other kids saw it and wanted copies.”
The long drive passed quickly as Sid told the Aldens about how he kept drawing as a teenager and later went to art school.
“After art school, I got a job at ABC Comics, the comic book publishing house we’re going to,” he said. “I was hired as a ‘cleanup’ person.”
“You mopped floors and took out the trash?” Benny asked.
Sid laughed. “The cleanup person erases stray lines. It makes the artist’s job a little easier.”
“How did you go from being a cleanup person to making your own comic?” asked Jessie.
“That’s quite a story,” Sid began. “I made a couple of friends at this place. One was the letterer and the other did the inking. You’ll learn all about those jobs when we get to ABC Comics.”
Sid told the Aldens that he and his two friends decided to create their own comic. They made up a superhero character and wrote and drew a sample comic book.
“But the idea was rejected,” Sid said.
“You must have been really disappointed,” said Violet.
“We were, but I didn’t want to give up,” Sid told them. “I created my own superhero, Captain Fantastic, and did another sample comic book by myself. This time, when I showed it to my boss, he bought it.”
“Your friends must have been excited,” said Henry.
Sid maneuvered the van onto another highway. “Actually, they weren’t very happy, especially when Captain Fantastic was a hit. I was able to buy my house and work at home.”
“Are you still friends with them?” Benny wanted to know.
Sid shook his head. “They both left ABC Comics. The letterer is now working for another comic book company. And the inker quit. I think she’s doing something really different from art. I lost track of her.”
“That’s too bad,” said Violet. “Friends should stay friends.”
“I agree,” said Sid, turning the van into a parking lot.
“Are we here?” asked Jessie. She looked at the one-story brick building in front of her.
Sid switched off the engine. “This is it. ABC Comics is a small operation. There are lots of little companies publishing comic books these days. Comics are popular, so it’s a big business.”
They got out and went into the building. Sid carried his leather case.
A pretty blond woman sitting behind the front desk greeted them with a smile.
“Sid! I’m so anxious to see the new comic!” she said.
Sid set his case on her desk. “I hope everyone likes it. Cindy, these are my friends Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. They want to see how comics are made.”
Cindy asked the children to sign the guest book. “Enjoy!” she said.
They began the tour.
“This is John,” Sid said, introducing them to a young man sitting at a tilted drawing table. “He’s the cleanup man here.”
“That was your job once,” Benny said.
John grinned at Benny. “I replaced Sid Hoyt when he left. He’s famous now! Maybe one day I will be, too. As the cleanup person, I use this special eraser to erase smudges so the page is nice and clean.”
Next they visited another young artist at a drawing table.
“This is Gus,” Sid said. “He’s the inker. Tell the kids what you do, Gus.”
Leaning back in his chair, Gus explained that he inks over penciled drawings. Then he showed them his special pen and let them try it out on scrap paper.
In the back, the children met Lily, who was the colorist.
“You color in the comic,” Henry said.
“That’s right,” Lily told them. “I use a key, or chart, that the artist has written out for me. Right now I’m painting the sky on this panel. It’s supposed to look like night, so I’m using a dark blue watercolor.”
On the walls, Lily had hung oil paintings of her dog.
“I like to do other kinds of art, too,” she explained. “I’d like to paint people’s pets for a living, but this job pays the bills.”
The last stop was a desk in the corner. A young man named Chris stopped working to explain his job.
“I’m the letterer,” he said. “I write the letters in the dialogue balloons.”
“How did you learn to write like that?” Benny wondered.
“Practice,” Chris said. “I learned from copybooks. Now I write like this all the time,” he said with a laugh.
Violet studied the comic page he was lettering. Where had she seen that kind of writing before? Suddenly she remembered.
The note that fell out of their fake comic had been written in that style! The person who wrote the note was the one who made the fake comic, since it was signed “Sid.” Could that person be a professional letterer, too?
Before Violet could mention this to the others, Sid took them around to see the rest of the company.
Benny had a question. “But where do you make the comics?”
“You mean, where are they printed?” Sid asked. “The publisher doesn’t print comics. We send them to a printing company in another state and they print the copies. Will you all excuse me a moment? I have to let my boss know I’m dropping off the original art for the new Captain Fantastic.”
The kids went back to the reception area. As they did, they saw Cindy zipping up Sid’s leather case.
She flushed with embarrassment.
“I thought I saw a piece of paper sticking out,” she said. “I didn’t want it to get soiled.” She hustled the case to a glass-windowed office in the back.
“I think she was peeking inside Sid’s case,” Jessie whispered.
“Maybe she’s just nosy,” Henry whispered back. “She said she was anxious to see Sid’s new comic.”
“Maybe she’s a spy,” Jessie said. “Sid said the counterfeiter needed help to print and sell the fake comic. Somebody who works in a comic publishing house. Why not this one?”
Just then Sid returned.
“How about lunch,” he suggested. “Talking about comic books makes me hungry!”
“Me, too!” Benny agreed heartily
Sid Hoyt took them to a little restaurant nearby. Framed drawings by comic book artists decorated the walls. The sandwiches and desserts were named after comic characters.
When their Captain Fantastic platters arrived, Sid asked the children if they’d had a chance to work on the mystery.
Violet told him about the lettering in the note. “It’s just like the writing Chris uses.”
Sid put down a french fry. “Most comic book artists can letter. But probably only a professional letterer, someone who writes that way so often that it becomes their normal handwriting, would use that style to jot a quick note. The counterfeiter may well be someone in the comic book business.”
“There’s something else,” Jessie brought up. “We caught Cindy peeking in your case. She made up an excuse, but she acted guilty.”
“Cindy is kind of nosy,” Sid said.
Henry had been thinking. Everyone at ABC Comics acted as if they wished they had another job or were successful like Sid Hoyt.
“It’s possible the person who made the fake number nine comic isn’t a stranger,” he said. “It could be someone you know.”
“I’ve never thought of that,” Sid said. “I just figured it’s somebody out to make money.”
Because it was late, they skipped dessert and headed home.
Benny, who was sitting in the backseat of the van, noticed a car behind them. It was a beat-up blue station wagon.
The station wagon followed them almost to the Aldens’ house before turning off onto another street.
Was it the same station wagon they saw yesterday as they walked from Sid’s house to the bus station?
If it was, their spy had returned.
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