Read Johnny B. Fast: The Super Spy Part One Page 9

  * * *

  Henry Clunker was frantic. He was hunched over his desk, shifting through piles of paperwork and tossing it around with abandon, creating a bigger mess than he had before.

  The desk was filled to overflowing with paper, pens, clipboards, used coffee mugs, and a large, old computer.

  Not finding what it was he was looking for, Henry dumped the massive pile back onto his desk and started opening his desk drawers, banging his elbow on the cubicle wall behind him.

  Henry’s cubicle was in the corner of the fifth floor, barely bigger than his desk, giving him almost no room to move the hard, wooden chair he sat on. Other people around him had more space, with newer computers and more comfortably shaped chairs.

  “I know it’s here somewhere,” Henry said out loud.

  It had to be there because Henry never threw anything out. His entire cubicle was one large deposit of paper waste. He kept digging, accidentally knocking over a large pile and then watching in dismay as the entire stack tipped over and fell to the floor.

  Henry dove to his knees and starting picking up the paper, resigning himself to a long and difficult day, when he found himself staring at a pair of expensive shoes right in front of him. The shoes were attached to legs, and the legs were attached to Mr. Underling, his boss.

  Henry, down on his hands and knees, slowly looked up to see Mr. Underling glaring down at him. Mr. Underling was an old man, with chalk white hair and eyebrows. He had a white mustache that looked out of style, and complemented his entire look with a white button up shirt and a black tie and pants. It looked very much like Mr. Underling hadn’t yet discovered color.

  Henry, by comparison, had a mixture of browns and grays that didn’t seem to go together very well. He never spent as much time figuring out what to wear as he should, but then he spent even less time thinking about what people thought about his appearance, so it all worked out rather well. When he heard other people talk about the black and white drabness of Mr. Underling’s outfits, Henry would support his boss by saying that at least his color scheme made it easy to pick him out in a crowd. People always thought that Henry was joking; it was what saved him from being a complete social outcast.

  “Have you found that sales report yet, Clinker?” his boss boomed.

  “It’s Clunker,” Henry corrected.

  His boss scowled at him.

  “Almost, I’ve narrowed it down to the right side,” Henry said triumphantly as he stood up and gestured to the city of paper buildings that were on his desk.

  “We are in a meeting right now, and we can’t go on until you present the sales report.”

  “I’ve almost got it,” Henry stalled for time.

  Mr. Underling shook his head as he looked at what Henry would have to search through.

  “Why don’t you just get it off the computer and print it out again?” Mr. Underling said.

  “My computer is still booting up,” Henry explained. “I turn it on first thing in the morning, and then it’s up and running just before lunch time.”

  Mr. Underling shook his head again.

  “Just get me the report, and then get into the meeting to give it to me!”

  Mr. Underling stormed off before Henry could respond.

  Henry tried to explain to Mr. Underling’s back that he was just in the process of doing that very thing when he realized at the last moment that it might look like he was being sarcastic. Still, he had to say something to let his boss know that he was hard at work trying to fulfill his wishes.

  “Okay!” Henry called out after him, yelling it out loudly enough that Mr. Underling would hear him from the distance he had traveled.

  Mr. Underling stopped, turned, and glared at him again.

  A few other heads popped up from cubicles to stare at Henry. Henry waved weakly and then sat back down on his hard chair.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have yelled quite so loud? Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all? Maybe he should have come in early to give his computer a head start in booting up? What was he supposed to be doing again? Looking for the sales report!

  Henry started sorting through the piles of paper with renewed energy, like he was digging for buried treasure.