The Fizzy Wizard

Mone LEVELED BOOK • Took 10

T e Fiz yh z

Wiz ra d

Series

Written by Karen Mockler ybags Mike · B
Illustrated by Jacqui Davis

www.readinga-z.com

TWheizFairzdzy

Written by Karen Mockler
Illustrated by Jacqui Davis

www.readinga-z.com

Focus Question
How does Mike choose a business,
and what is the outcome?

Words to Know

asking price marked down
customer base net
deprived price out
desperate profit
gross quantity
loan tactic

The Fizzy Wizard Correlation
Level T Leveled Book LEVEL T
© Learning A–Z
Written by Karen Mockler Fountas & Pinnell P
Illustrated by Jacqui Davis Reading Recovery 38

All rights reserved. DRA 38

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It was the week after Easter, and Mike
McCarthy had a chocolate egg in his lunch.
From several feet down the cafeteria table,
his classmate River eyed it longingly.

“Your mom packs candy in your lunch?”
River asked.

“My dad, actually,” Mike said. “Sometimes,
after holidays and stuff. You know.”

River shook his head. “I don’t know,” he
sighed. River was one of those poor, deprived
kids whose parents never let them have sugar.

Mike peeled away the pink foil from his
egg. He didn’t want to torment River, but
even under the cafeteria lights the chocolate
gleamed warmly.

The Fizzy Wizard • Level T 3

“I’ll give you a quarter for that egg,”
River said.

“Cheapskate,” said Derek. He was Mike’s
best friend.

“Done,” said Mike.
River dug in his pockets, but in the end
he could only bring up seventeen cents.
“I’ll pay you the rest tomorrow,” River
promised.
Derek’s eyes gleamed with sudden interest.
“Hold on,” he said, producing a dollar bill.
“I’ll pay you one dollar right
here and now.”

4

Mike knew Derek didn’t really want the
chocolate egg because he knew Derek was a
chocolate snob. Derek would probably say the
chocolate egg tasted like wax. But behind the
dollar bill, Derek eyed Mike slyly, and Mike
understood what his friend was doing: he
was trying to drive up the price.

It was working. River looked desperate now.

“I’ll pay you a dollar tomorrow,” he
promised.

“Nah,” Mike said, handing him the egg.
“We’re good.”

At recess, Derek reached over and shook
Mike’s hand.

“Well played,” he said. “The old ‘first
one is free’ tactic, am I right?”

“Not really,” Mike said, “unless you
consider seventeen cents free.”

The Fizzy Wizard • Level T 5

“Pretty much,” Derek said. “Besides, now
he’s hooked and you’ve got him exactly where
you want him. Think how much money you
could make if you doubled your asking price.”

Mike shook his head. Almost without
thinking, he said, “I can’t price out my
customer base.”

Mike’s feet stopped so suddenly that he
nearly tripped over them. Thunderstruck,
his mouth fell open. Customer base?

What customer base?

What customers?

What product?

In that moment, Mike
knew the answer to all
three. Thanks to Derek,
he knew at long last what
his business would be, and
he knew that this time his
business would succeed.

“Derek,” Mike said, “you’re a genius.”

6

When Mike got home, he pulled down
the bag of foil-covered eggs from the kitchen
cupboard. His mom walked in.

“Not before dinner,” she said.

“Oh, I know,” Mike said. “I was just
curious how many of these eggs come
in a bag. It doesn’t say on the back.”

“About forty.”

“And how much was the bag?”

“About four dollars.”

Mike put away the bag and ran upstairs
to visit his banker.

“Hey, sis,” he said, hanging
in Aster’s doorway. “I’m
ready for that loan.”

Math Minute

If a bag of chocolate eggs costs
$4 and contains 40 eggs, how
much does each egg in the bag cost?

Answer: 10 cents

The Fizzy Wizard • Level T 7

Originally, Mike had planned to take out a
loan from Aster for twenty-five dollars. That
amount had seemed like just enough to get a
business up and running, but that was before
he knew what he’d be selling. As it turned out,
twenty-five dollars was far more than he
needed because the thing Mike ended up
selling was so cheap.

Instead, Mike took out
a loan for ten dollars. He
bought two bags of Easter
candy—marshmallow chicks
and more chocolate eggs—
marked down for quick sale.

His customer base started with River and
his sugar-deprived friends. Kids might not
carry wallets, but everybody seemed to have
loose change in their pockets. If they didn’t,
nobody seemed to mind loaning a friend a
dime. Nobody seemed to mind that Easter had
come and gone, either. Word spread through
the third-grade class like wildfire: Mike’s got
candy! Dirt-cheap candy!

8

The chicks were gone in two days, the eggs
in three. That afternoon, Mike rolled up the
second empty bag, stuffed it in his backpack,
and whistled on the walk home.

“You’re in a good mood,” said Aster.

Mike smiled and kept on whistling.

“Candy business working out?”

“I’ve got the money to pay back the loan you
gave me”—Mike paused—“and the interest.”
He was trying to sound casual, but his brain
was shouting: This is working, this is working,
this is actually working!

The Fizzy Wizard • Level T 9

Aster fist-bumped him. “You’re on a roll,”
she said. “Gonna keep going?”

“You know,” Mike said, “I think I might.”

Now that the Easter candy was sold, Mike
changed things up. He wanted hard candy,
which wouldn’t dry out or grow stale like
marshmallows or melt like chocolate. If the
candies were wrapped, they wouldn’t stick
together in the Midwest humidity, either.

He shopped for the best deal and found a
big bag of Fizzy Wizzys (128 candies!) for four
dollars. Mike stood in the store aisle with a
pocket calculator, punching numbers. At that
price and quantity, each piece of candy cost
him just over three cents.

10

Lost in thought, he stared so hard at the
store ceiling that passing shoppers looked
up, too, wondering what was up there.

“Say I sell these for ten cents apiece,” he
muttered feverishly. “I’d be clearing almost
seven cents per candy. That’s”—he punched
more numbers—“almost nine dollars profit.
And that’s net, not gross!”

The numbers were mind-boggling, almost
unbelievable. Mike double-checked his math,
but the numbers spoke the truth.

The Fizzy Wizard • Level T 11

Aster spread the word, and soon the second
graders were buying from Mike, too. Then it
was the fourth and fifth graders and even a
teacher or two.

12

His business was going gangbusters,
ramping up as third grade was winding
down. On a bad day, Mike was selling twenty
Fizzy Wizzys; on a good day, he was selling
double that. He was clearing twelve dollars
a week, and business showed no signs of
slowing down.

The best part, though, was that customers
loved his product. It made them happy—
he made them happy. They’d even given him
a nickname: the Fizzy Wizard.

It was only one year since his business
adventures had begun, one year since he’d
been a clueless second grader who didn’t even
know the difference between net profit and
gross. Mike looked back now and shook his
head in wonder: Imagine not knowing that!

When school let out on the last day, four
hundred shouting kids exploded through
the front doors like a short, crazed army. So
when Ruben Aguilar-Green approached Mike
and Derek, he seemed to float toward them
through a sea of small, noisy heads.

The Fizzy Wizard • Level T 13

“Hey, kid,” Ruben said. “Are you the one
they call the Fizzy Wizard?”

Mike nodded, pleased that his fame had
spread so far. Ruben was the coolest kid
in school, and Mike—even Derek—had
worshipped him for as long as they could
remember.

“Show me what you got,” Ruben said,
and Mike did.

14

Ruben picked two and handed Mike
a quarter. “You’re performing
a public service,” he said.
“Keep the change.”

Mike and Derek watched in awed silence
as the older boy unwrapped the watermelon
Fizzy Wizzy. He tucked the candy in his
mouth, the wrapper in his pocket, winked,
and ambled away.

Derek’s tongue worked first. “He’s a
national treasure!” Derek called after him.

Ruben kept walking, but over his shoulder,
he gave them a big thumbs-up.

The Fizzy Wizard • Level T 15

Glossary

asking the amount of money a person or
price (n.) company expects a customer to pay
for a good or service (p. 6)

customer a group of people who will regularly
base (n.) buy a good or service (p. 6)

deprived lacking something important
(adj.) or beneficial (p. 3)

desperate having an extreme need or willing
(adj.) to use extreme measures (p. 5)

gross (adj.) of or relating to the total money earned
before costs have been subtracted (p. 11)

loan (n.) something that is borrowed for
a certain amount of time (p. 7)

marked lowered the price of a good or service
down (v.) (p. 8)

net (adj.) of or relating to the money earned after
all costs have been subtracted (p. 11)

price out to make the cost of a good or service so
(v.) high that customers won’t buy it (p. 6)

profit (n.) the money earned from a business or
investment after all costs are paid (p. 11)

quantity (n.) an amount of something (p. 10)

tactic (n.) a plan for achieving a certain goal (p. 5)

16

The Fizzy Wizard

A Reading A–Z Level T Leveled Book
Word Count: 1,200

Connections
Writing
Write the script for a television
commercial persuading people to
buy candy from Mike. Present your
advertisement to your class.
Math
If Mike wants to sell 160 eggs and
there are 40 eggs in a bag, how many
bags will he need to buy? Show your
work two ways.

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