Don’t miss the first six ZAPATO POWER books!
Freddie Ramos Takes Off
Freddie Ramos Springs into Action
Freddie Ramos Zooms to the Rescue
Freddie Ramos Makes a Splash
Freddie Ramos Stomps the Snow
Freddie Ramos Rules New York
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.
Text copyright © 2018 by Jacqueline Jules
Pictures copyright © 2018 by Albert Whitman & Company
Pictures by Miguel Benítez
First published in the United States of America in 2018 by Albert Whitman & Company
ISBN 978-0-8075-9500-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
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For more information about Albert Whitman & Company, visit our website at www.albertwhitman.com.
With many thanks to Marta Camacho Stewart
Contents
1. Air and Space Museum
2. Secret Hero
3. The Gift Shop
4. Creepy Storage Cellar
5. Snooping
6. Back at the Museum
7. The Mystery Returns
8. Cat Trouble!
1. Air and Space Museum
Everyone in my class had questions about the Air and Space Museum.
“Will they have moon rocks?” Maria bounced in her bus seat.
“And space suits?” Geraldo added.
“What about bathrooms?” Jason asked. “I want to see how an astronaut goes potty.”
While the bus parked in front of a big building, our teacher, Mrs. Blaine, stood up to repeat the same field trip rules we’d heard five times back at Starwood Elementary. Then she pointed at Maria’s mom, who had come along to help keep an eye on us.
“If you’re not with me or Mrs. Santos, you are not where you’re supposed to be. Understand?”
“We do!” Hamza jumped up from his seat. “Let’s go!”
Mrs. Blaine laughed and waved us on. “I’m glad you’re so excited.”
As we rushed up the steps, my feet tingled inside my superpowered purple sneakers. I wanted to zoom all over the museum with my Zapato Power. But I had to be careful about using my super speed. Mrs. Blaine had said to stay with the class OR ELSE. I wasn’t sure what OR ELSE meant, but Mrs. Blaine made it sound like something I did not want to find out.
“Look up, Freddie!” Geraldo shouted.
Airplanes were hanging over our heads. I stopped in my tracks like I was stuck to the floor. I’d never seen a museum like this.
“Are you by yourself?” A security guard tapped me on the shoulder. “Children should always be in the company of an adult.”
OOPS! My class was clear across the hall, standing around Mrs. Blaine and Mrs. Santos.
I touched a button on the purple wristband I always wear.
With my super zapatos, I could run ninety miles an hour in a cloud of invisible smoke. I could also jump really high and hear things from far away.
Mrs. Blaine had her finger out, counting heads. I snuck into the group just as she got to twenty-four, the number of kids in my class.
“Read the signs!” Mrs. Blaine said as she led us into a room with space suits and space food and panels with dials. “Learn about the wonders of technology.”
I thought about my friend Mr. Vaslov. He was a scientist who made inventions, including my superpowered sneakers. Mr. Vaslov would love seeing all these machines. I wondered if he had ever been here.
Then Jason started jumping up and down.
“There it is! A space toilet!” he called.
I went over with Geraldo and Maria to see. The space toilet had bars and foot straps. Astronauts had to wear seat belts to do their business.
“Eww!” Geraldo said.
Maria whistled. “It’s big!”
Two guards with walkietalkies and worried faces came into the room. That took my attention away from the space potty. Ever since I got my Zapato Power sneakers, I’ve tried to be a superhero. That means always being on the lookout for hero jobs.
I rubbed the buttons on my wristband to turn on my super hearing.
“We’ve scanned the floor,” the taller guard said. “No sign of the little boy.”
“It’s been twenty minutes,” the shorter one said. “The mother is frantic.”
A boy was lost in a big museum. He needed help. And I wanted to be a hero.
2. Secret Hero
Somebody little and lost would be crying. Could I hear it with Zapato Power? I moved closer to the doorway.
Sniff! Sniff! “Mommy!”
The sound was faint and almost drowned out by all kinds of other voices around me. But it was definitely there.
Sniff! Sniff! “Mommy!”
I checked behind me for Mrs. Blaine. She was with Jason at the space potty. Mrs. Santos was looking at some dials with Geraldo. No one would miss me if I was back in two blinks.
The next hall was gigantic, full of airplanes, rockets, and people. I darted in and out, hidden beneath my Zapato Power smoke.
I looked under airplane wheels, glass boxes with engine guts, and a billion signs I wished I had the time to read. No little boy. Where was he? I kept hearing him.
Sniff! Sniff! “Mommy!”
There were lots of families moving around, talking with each other. My Zapato Power caught it all.
“Don’t pick your nose!”
“I wet my pants!”
“Can we have a snack?”
My ears hurt. In a big noisy place, my Zapato Power hearing would be better turned off. But I had to find one sad voice calling for his mommy.
The cries led me to a small, dark room with a movie screen. At first, no one seemed to be in there. Then I heard sniffling again.
“Mommy.”
A little boy in a red shirt and jeans was curled up like a snail, underneath a bench. No wonder the security guards couldn’t find him.
“Come with me!” I told the little boy.
“NO! I want my mommy!”
The little boy wasn’t making things easy, but I could still be a hero. All I had to do was get some help.
I dashed back to the space toilet room, expecting to find the security guards. They weren’t there. Neither was my class. Esto no era bueno. Not good at all.
Back out in the big room, I spotted Mrs. Blaine counting heads beside a staircase leading up to the body of a giant airplane.
I made it just in time to be number twenty-four. But I couldn’t stay in line. There was a lost little boy in the museum. And thanks to my super hearing, I was the only one who knew where he was.
Where were the security guards? Maybe I could see better from above. I pressed the button on my wristband for super bounce. YAY! I was up in the air next to all the airplanes hanging from the ceiling. It was great, except for almost bumping into a wing. To use my super bounce in a museum, I had to look both ways—up and down.
BOING! BOING! BOING!
Finally, I saw one of the guards talking in a corner through his walkie-talkie.
I landed on the floor in a puff of smoke.
“Help!” I told the guard. “There’s a little boy in a movie room, alone and scared.”
“Where?”
I pointed, and the man ran with his walkie-talkie against his mouth.
“Child spotted! Bring mother!”
A few minutes la
ter, the little boy was in his mom’s arms. It made me feel good to see everybody crying happy tears, even though I had to watch from a distance. A superhero shouldn’t stick close and take credit.
And a kid on a field trip shouldn’t forget to stay with his class!
“Where’s Freddie?”
With Zapato Power, I could hear Geraldo’s voice somewhere behind me. But when I turned, I didn’t see my friends. The big hall led to three smaller ones. Could I find my class before Mrs. Blaine started counting heads again?
3. The Gift Shop
The first hall had kids my size standing around a teacher. I rushed to join them until I realized it was a group from another elementary school. UGH!
The second hall had a school group too. Those kids were way too tall to be my age.
By the time I caught up with my class, my heart was pounding, but not from running. Mrs. Santos had noticed me.
“Freddie?” she questioned. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in a while. Have you been staying with the class?”
“I’m doing my best.”
And I was. Except Zapato Power was distracting me. I heard people with problems I could solve.
“The baby’s teddy bear dropped out of the stroller.”
“Where’s my bracelet? It was on my arm a minute ago!”
Instead of seeing how astronauts walked on the moon or the control panels in a cockpit, I was running around looking for a teddy bear and a bracelet. I pretty much missed everything until the end of the day when my class visited the gift shop. That’s when I turned off my Zapato Power hearing to listen to my friends.
“Why is everything so expensive?” Jason whined. “I only have five dollars.”
“I only have four,” Geraldo said.
They were both doing better than I was. I had two dollars and thirty cents—all Mom had in her wallet that morning.
“Even the key chains cost too much,” Maria complained.
Everything in the museum store was cool, from socks with moon pictures to kid-sized space suits. Everybody, including me, wished they could buy at least one thing.
“Do you have something that costs less than two dollars?” I asked the white-haired man behind the cash register. His name tag said Bob, and he wore thick glasses and had stubble on his chin. He reminded me of my inventor friend, Mr. Vaslov.
“Follow me!” His friendly smile let me know I had asked the right person.
Bob led me to a spinning metal rack filled with postcards. They all had colorful pictures of astronauts, airplanes, and the moon.
“Seventy-five cents each,” Bob said. “Four dollars for a pack of six.”
¡Excelente! I called Geraldo over and soon my whole class crowded around. With so many happy kids grabbing, cards fell on the floor. That made a mess! But I didn’t mind cleaning up while my friends paid for their postcards. It gave me extra time to pick one. Did I want the red airplane or the space walk?
While I tried to decide, everyone else followed Mrs. Blaine and Mrs. Santos out the door.
“Hey, kid!” Bob called to me. “Your class just left.”
I raced out of the store in a panic. I’d missed my chance to get a souvenir. I couldn’t miss the bus too.
“Sit with us, Freddie!” Maria waved. She was in the third row, beside Geraldo.
I plopped down at the end of the seat.
“So many airplanes!” Geraldo said. “They made me want to be a pilot.”
“I liked the room with the activities,” Maria said.
All around me, kids were talking about the stuff they’d seen at the museum. No one knew I’d been busy finding a lost little boy, a bracelet, and a teddy bear. No one knew how much I wanted to see what I’d missed. Sometimes being a superhero is lonely.
We got back to Starwood Elementary just before three o’clock. Mrs. Blaine looked tired, like counting heads all day was a big job. When the bell rang, she gave us a weak wave. No homework for the weekend!
In a blink I was out the back door of the school and up the stairs leading to Starwood Park Apartments. I should have been home two seconds later, feeding my guinea pig, Claude the Second. But just outside my apartment, 29G, my ears caught a moaning sound.
“WAAAEEE! WAAAEEE!”
I rubbed the buttons on my wristband to hear better.
“WAAAEEE! WAAAEEE!”
Did somebody else need help?
4. Creepy Storage Cellar
I followed the moaning sound down a set of concrete stairs outside Building G. At the bottom was the steel door to the basement storage room.
“WAAAEEE! WAAAEEE!”
What a strange cry! Who or what could it be? How could I find out? Only Mr. Vaslov had the keys to unlock the basement. Should I zoom around Starwood Park to look for him? If Mr. Vaslov wasn’t in his toolshed inventing things, he was off in one of the apartments unclogging a drain or making a washing machine work. Even with super speed, it could take a while to find him. And I was worried that seconds might count. What if someone was hurt? For once, there was a quicker way than Zapato Power. I ran up the stairs to my apartment to use the telephone. Mom had posted Mr. Vaslov’s phone number on the refrigerator.
“What’s up, Freddie?” Mr. Vaslov sounded surprised. I’d never called him before. He knew running around was more my style.
“We have an emergency!” I hollered. “Someone is trapped in the Building G cellar.”
“Be right there!”
Mr. Vaslov met me on the basement steps.
“Do you know who’s trapped?” he asked as he opened the door.
It was dark inside the storage cellar. Our voices echoed while Mr. Vaslov reached along the wall to flip on the light.
“No,” I admitted. “I just heard moaning.”
“With your super hearing?” Mr. Vaslov questioned. “Or normal?”
“Both!” I answered.
The cellar had wire cages. Each one was filled with boxes and other things people didn’t want in their apartments all year long. There were lots of Christmas trees—the kinds that aren’t living. And one skeleton from Halloween. I was glad it was in a cage.
Everything was quiet. Really quiet. Not a single sound.
“Are you sure you heard something, Freddie?” Mr. Vaslov asked.
I felt embarrassed, like I was letting him down. He always took me seriously, not like some grown-ups who think kids aren’t important enough to listen to.
“Positive!”
We poked our noses against the wire holes and looked in the corners for something suspicious. Nada. Only piled up paint cans and spiderwebs.
“Nothing wrong here,” Mr. Vaslov said finally. “This place is the same as this morning when I put away some boxes for Mrs. Ramirez.”
He looked at his watch. “Sorry, Freddie, I have to go.”
Mr. Vaslov rushed out of the storage room and up the stairs. He didn’t even stop to lock the door. I stood on the steps, watching him take off in a lopsided run. Why was he in such a hurry? Was someone waiting for him? I was curious. And when I get curious, I get an itch to use my Zapato Power.
With my super speed, it wasn’t hard to get ahead to see where Mr. Vaslov was going. I hid behind a tree and watched him go up the walk into his own apartment at Starwood Park.
I snuck up to his doorstep to listen with my Zapato Power. As I rubbed the buttons on my wristband, I felt a little guilty. If Mr. Vaslov hadn’t told me why he was busy, maybe he didn’t want me to know. Was I using my Zapato Power in the wrong way?
That’s when I heard crying. A lot of crying. Someone inside Mr. Vaslov’s apartment was upset. Who?
5. Snooping
“I’m scared.”
The voice on the other side of the door was too high to be Mr. Vaslov’s. It sounded young, like a kid.
“It will be all right. Don’t worry,” Mr. Vaslov answered.
Who was in Mr. Vaslov’s apartment? What were they worrying about? Since I wasn’t supposed to be snooping outside the d
oor, I couldn’t knock to ask questions no matter how much I wanted to. And it was getting dark. My mom would be coming home from work soon, expecting me to be doing my homework. Breaking the rules could mean no TV time.
I ran across Starwood Park, stopping short at the rail by the cellar steps. The moaning sound was back.
“WAAAEEE! WAAAEEE!”
What was making that noise? Was it the wind? Sometimes the wind sounds like someone moaning. But the air was perfectly still. The noise had to be someone crying.
“WAAAEEE! WAAAEEE!”
Mr. Vaslov forgot to lock the door. If I was brave enough, I could turn the knob and step inside.
“WAAAEEE! WAAAEEE!”
Superheroes are supposed to face danger, not run away. I forced myself to open the door and reach for the light switch. It was hard to find. Even worse, the concrete wall was cold and scratchy against the palm of my hand. A cobweb broke across my face. Yucko!
As soon as I turned on the light, the crying stopped. The storage room was deathly still, just like last time. Should I poke around again? The skeleton in the cage seemed twice as big as before. Did it always have dark hollows for eyes?
I searched slowly, facing forward. I kept feeling like someone was behind me, reaching for my neck with long bony fingers.
“FREDDIE!” a voice shouted. “What are you doing down here?”
I whirled around. “Mom!”
Even though I knew she was mad, I was happy to see her. A little bit of yelling was better than being alone with a skeleton in a creepy storage room.
Mom grabbed me. “I came home from work and saw you weren’t there. When I went back outside to look, I saw you walking down the cellar steps. Yo estaba preocupada.”
Freddie Ramos Hears It All Page 1