“I feel better,” Jace said. He and his dad walked slowly down the sidewalk of Main Street in Ravens Pass. They’d had a quick lunch of pizza and sodas. Ruth was sleeping happily on Dad’s shoulder.

“Me too,” Dad said. “I’m glad we stopped here. As a matter of fact, look at that.” He pointed down the street. “A garage sale.”

“Oh no,” Jace said. He grabbed his dad’s elbow. “Can’t we just head home now?”

But Dad was already grinning and walking toward the corner. Jace groaned. If there was one thing he knew, it was that nothing—and that meant really, nothing at all—could keep Dad away from a garage sale.

Soon, Jace was surrounded by garage-salers. Ruth was awake and digging through a box of old dollies, squealing every time she found a new one she liked. Dad was flipping through stacks and stacks of records, making a pile of the ones he wanted.

Jace sat on a worn, wooden stool at the back of the sale to wait.

“There’s some great stuff here, Jace,” Dad called out. He held up an LP jacket with a photo of a dorky-looking guy in a white suit. “This was your grandmother’s favorite singer!”

Jace dropped his head into his hands. “Get me out of here,” he mumbled.

“Want to get out of here? I have just the thing to do that,” someone said.

Jace lifted his head.

A tall, skinny man with thinning curly hair and a thick gray mustache stood there. He was smiling, or maybe just trying to. The man seemed out of practice at smiling.

“Oh, sorry,” Jace said, jumping up from the stool. “Is this your garage sale?”

The man ignored the question. Instead, he lifted the table cloth of a nearby folding table to reveal a ride-on toy car underneath. He reached in and pulled it out, into plain sight. “Voila,” the man said. “This will get you out of here!”

Jace liked what he saw. It was made for a kid a little younger than him, but somehow he didn’t care. It was sleek and red, built like a convertible from the 1960s.

The seats even looked like real leather. On the passenger seat was a pair of driving gloves. It was the coolest thing Jace had ever seen.

“Wow,” Jace said. He ran his finger along the top of the door on one side. “It’s for sale?”

“Of course,” the man said. “Why else would it be here?”

Dad walked up. He was carrying an armful of records and a set of five coffee mugs (labeled Monday through Friday). A white rabbit’s foot dangled from his pinky finger. On his head was a baseball cap with a minor league team’s logo on it.

“That looks expensive,” Dad said, gazing down at the red car.

Jace looked at the man with the mustache. “Is it?” he asked.

“Let’s see,” the man said. He looked at Jace, then at Jace’s dad, then back at Jace. Finally he knelt next to the little red sports car. “I’ll sell it for five dollars.”

Jace’s eyes went wide. He quickly dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill. His dad didn’t even have time to think about whether Jace could bring it home.

“Here you go,” Jace said, holding out the bill.

The man grabbed it and shoved it into his own pocket.

“Thank you,” he said.

Then he walked off to talk to a woman who was looking at a set of dining room chairs.

“See if you can get that into the trunk,” Dad said. “I’ll pay for this other stuff and see what Ruth has found.”

When the trunk was loaded up with the car, records, and other odds and ends, they headed back to the highway. The traffic was gone. They were out of Ravens Pass and back home in Lakeville in no time.