I had to get Gio out of there before Mr. Vaslov made a huge mistake. Gio wasn’t responsible. He couldn’t take care of Zapato Power shoes! He couldn’t even take care of his dog!
And Gio was a big talker. He thought it was his job to tell everybody everything he knew. The whole neighborhood had heard about my mom’s boyfriend from Gio. Mr. Vaslov couldn’t trust Gio to be quiet about super shoes with super speed.
“Let’s go to school!” I grabbed Gio’s hand and pulled him out of the toolshed.
“What’s the hurry, Freddie?” Gio asked.
We went down the steps to the school and through the playground. It was so early, there was only one other student there. A girl in Gio’s class named Amy Escobar. She was walking slowly with her eyes down, like she was searching for something.
“Did you see my sunglasses?” Amy asked.
“The pink ones?” Gio answered.
Outside of school, we always saw Amy in sunglasses. She liked to wear them even more than I liked to wear goggles.
“Yes!” she said. “You found them?”
“No,” Gio said, “but I know what they look like.”
“Oh.” Amy’s face fell.
“Ask Freddie to look,” Gio said. “He found my dog yesterday.”
“Will you?” Amy asked. “They’re somewhere outside. Maybe up at Starwood Park.”
Did I have enough time before the bell? With my super shoes, I could be back in two blinks.
A pair of pink sunglasses were on the ground by Building C, where Amy lived.
“Thanks, Freddie!” Amy’s face lit up when I came back.
Real superhero jobs didn’t happen too often at elementary school. Most of the time I used my super speed for bringing back lost stuff. That was okay. I liked seeing people smile.
The rest of the day was nice. We didn’t have any tests, lunch was beef tacos, and in gym, Mr. Gooley let us do cartwheels and handstands.
“Look at me!” Maria said. “I did two in a row!”
Maria was my partner for gymnastics. She was also Gio’s older sister and my next door neighbor. We did a lot of things together. I thought about telling Mr. Vaslov that IF he had to give the small Zapato Power shoes to someone, Maria would be better than Gio. Then I remembered Maria’s feet were too big, like mine.
“How many cartwheels can you do, Freddie?” she asked.
Maria challenged me until Mr. Gooley blew the whistle.
“Practice on your own,” Mr. Gooley said as we left class.
“We will,” Maria promised.
After school, I went to the overhead track behind Starwood Park. I wanted to race the train and make up for yesterday, when all my running had been about a lost dog and lost goggles.
I stopped short.
Somebody had beat me there. Amy was waiting on the grass, wearing her pink sunglasses, with her arms out like the wings of an airplane. As soon as the train rumbled by, she started running.
“Does that look familiar?” a deep voice asked.
Mr. Vaslov was behind me. He was sitting on his red electric scooter—the one he used to get around Starwood Park when his bad knee was bothering him. We watched Amy together.
“She likes to run, just like you do,” Mr. Vaslov said.
Was Mr. Vaslov thinking of another first grader for the small Zapato Power shoes? A girl who wore pink sunglasses? Not Gio?
I didn’t want to ask. If I asked, it might help Mr. Vaslov decide. And I didn’t want him to make up his mind yet.
Right now, I was the only one who helped Mr. Vaslov do his job of taking care of Starwood Park. If someone else had super-powered shoes, Mr. Vaslov wouldn’t need me. I wouldn’t be special anymore.
