Free The Caped 6th Grader by Zoe Quinn Page A

any questions. I'll be in the stockroom, making sure there's room for the new shipment.”
    Howie and I went over to the display of purses. “What are we looking for, exactly?” I whispered. “How do we tell if it's a real R.A.D. or not?”
    “According to my research”—he opened a small pad and scanned some notes—“there are several indicators if it's a fake. Shoddy stitching, discoloration in certain suedes, mostly the hotpinks and aubergine tones. They fade more quickly than the mushroom and canary colors.”
    I was impressed.
    He quirked an eyebrow. “Er, what's aubergine tone?”
    “Dark purple,” I replied. I had Electra's pencils to thank for my thorough knowledge of color names. I pushed the thought of Electra out of my mind—I needed to concentrate on what Howie and I were doing.
    “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