Freddie Ramos Zooms to the Rescue (6 page)

Most of the time when I raced, it was just a game. This time, my mom and everyone else on the train depended on me.

I stopped at the train station in a cloud of smoke. Where was the man in the yellow vest? My Zapato Power eyes spotted him just beyond the gate. You needed money to go through the gate and I didn't have any. But I did have super bounce. I pressed the second button on my wristband.

BOING!

The man in the yellow vest took a step back as I landed in a puff of smoke on his toes.

“Help!” I cried. “There's a tree on the tracks!

“Where?”

After I told him, he ran to tell another man in a blue uniform with a badge.

“A tree on the tracks!” The other man shouted. “How do you know this?”

The man in the yellow vest pointed at me. “See the kid over there? With the purple shoes and the silver goggles?”

“Stop the train!” I pleaded. “It's going to crash!”

“We will,” the man in the blue uniform said.

They picked up their walkie-talkies and gave all kinds of orders. I didn't stick around. The action was back at the tree down on the track halfway between this station and downtown. Could they keep my mom's train from crashing?

Yes! I reached the bridge just in time to see the train wheels screech to a stop. A man in a uniform jumped out to look at the fallen tree over the tracks. He put his hand on his heart and opened his mouth wide. I watched with my mouth opened, too, in a wide smile.

Sirens whistled and all kinds of officers dashed through the woods and into the train. They didn't let anybody off. I waited and wondered about my mom. Was she scared?

“It won't be too much longer, Freddie,” a deep voice said.

I turned around to see Mr. Vaslov. “How did you know I was here?”

“Your mom called to check on you. She couldn't get you, so she called me.”

“Is she okay?”

Mr. Vaslov nodded. “Everybody is.”

“Zapato Power really helped today,” I said. I told Mr. Vaslov what happened.

“You make me proud I invented it.” He put his hand on my shoulder.

Finally, the driver went to the other end of the train and drove it back downtown. My mom and all the people on the train were safe. And I was a hero.

But I hadn't told the man in the yellow vest my name. Nobody knew who saved the train, except me and Mr. Vaslov.

8. A Hero (At Last)

Mr. Vaslov drove me to the downtown station to pick up my mom. We hugged and cried and said lots of mushy stuff. Then Mom looked at me.

“Freddie? Why are you wearing silver goggles?”

My mom had just been in an almost train wreck. It didn't seem like the best time to tell her I'd gotten a gift from a stranger in Ohio, so I started slowly.

“They came in the mail,” I said.

“From Uncle Jorge?” Mom asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “Did he move to Ohio?”

“No.” Mom laughed. “But he told me he was ordering you some super goggles on the Internet.”

“So that's why they came from Ohio!” It all made sense now. “Uncle Jorge bought me goggles for summer camp.”

“You're a lucky guy!” Mr. Vaslov patted my back and grinned. We both knew I would be using my silver goggles for more than just swimming lessons.

And another job was waiting for me. Could I find the purple squirrel before Mrs. Connor did?

The next morning, all I wanted to do was rescue the squirrel. But I wasn't sure how, and I was stuck in my desk at school.

“Check the schedule on the board,” Mrs. Lane said. “Math is first today, then music.”

During math, I thought about the squirrel. Was he at school? I listened carefully. No one was screaming. That meant he wasn't running in the halls.

Could he be somewhere else? Where had I seen him? I saw him once at the recess door, once in the kindergarten hall, and twice coming out of the hole in the gym roof. Maybe he liked the gym. And the gym was just around the corner from music. I slipped away, as the other kids went inside.

Outside the gym, I saw little purple dots. This had to be a clue. I went through the door.

The big room was too quiet, and the hole in the roof wasn't pretty. No one had come in here since the tree fell. On the basketball court, I saw more purple dots. They looked like tiny feet, small enough to belong to a guinea pig—or a squirrel.

The tracks led to a heavy red curtain at the back of the gym. It was the stage. Mrs. Lane took us there sometimes for big art projects, when we needed room to spread out. Last week, my class made a teepee on the stage with a huge piece of brown paper and lots of paint. That was before the hole in the roof made the gym a dark and spooky place.

Tap! Tap! I could hear my feet echo on the floor. Tap! Tap! Wait a minute! My sneakers didn't sound like that. Somebody else was in the gym! I was being followed.

“Freddie!” Mrs. Connor turned on the light. “What are you doing here?”

Sometimes superheroes have to race to a rescue and sometimes they have to stay put. I faced Mrs. Connor.

“Looking for the purple squirrel,” I said.

The principal frowned. “We already talked about this, Freddie. I told you I would take care of that pest.”