Peter couldn't help grinning as time slowed down. He saw the look of shock on the parents' faces, but as the mother looked at her children and visually counted each one, her face paled.
"Christian!" she screamed.
Peter's stomached vaulted with him. He'd gotten everyone out! Had he actually missed someone? Racing into the house for the fourth time, Peter swept through every room, thoroughly searching every one before descending into the basement and locating a couch in the corner. There was a small hiding spot behind the couch, and this Peter inspected and located Christian in. Grabbing him underneath the arms, Peter picked him up and threw a television remote at the window opposite them, shattering the window. This window he escaped by, and he was just stepping out of the house when time slowed down and the house behind him collapsed. Peter looked at the young Christian in his arms, then smirked as the house fell, casually walking out from behind the house and seeing the mother's look of amazement when he walked forward with her child in his arms.
The parents looked at each other in amazement, staring at Peter as they took Christian from him. Finally, the father found his voice. "H-how did you do that?"
Peter shrugged, then grinned without showing his teeth. "I'm fast."
"T-thank you," the mother said.
Peter nodded, then turned to the firefighter who stood nearby without his coat. "Thanks for the coat. It came in handy."
The firefighter was simply staring at the house with his mouth agape. He looked first at Peter, then at the house, then vaguely nodded and took the coat from him.
Peter's stomach complained, and he looked at the collapsed house. He could see a refrigerator sticking out from the rubble, and instantly he was digging the fridge out and opening it to see that most of its contents were still intact. He pulled out a large roast of beef and consumed it, along with eight chicken legs and an entire liter of root beer. Then he raced back to the family with a chicken leg in hand. "Thanks for the food," he said, tossing the bones to the ground.
The father blinked and nodded. "Kid, who are you?"
"Just a guy with a whole lot of energy," Peter said, grinning.
"What's your name?" the mother asked.
"Peter." Then, bored with the conversation, Peter returned to the fridge and ate the remaining half a chocolate cake and took the apple pie with him as he raced away, now full and happy. The people were safe, but even more important was the food. The food was great. Almost as good as his mom's.
By the time he was home, he'd eaten three-quarters of the apple pie. Peter sat in the living room as time returned to normal, and his mother whirled around with a dust mop held like a bat. Then she relaxed. When she saw the apple pie, however, her eyes narrowed.
"Peter, I told you not to steal," she said a bit exasperatedly.
"I didn't steal this, Mom," Peter said, taking another bite. "I saved a family from a burning building and this was in their fridge."
Magda put a hand on her hip. "Really."
Peter blinked, slightly annoyed by her tone. "Yes, really! Turn on the television; they've probably got a news report on it."
After giving him another look, Peter's mom turned on the television and flipped the channel until the image of a collapsed house appeared on the screen.
"There it is!" Peter said.
"This just in," a male reporter just said, "I'm at the house of the Frost family where a fire just occurred. Moments before the house collapsed, a mysterious boy rushed in and saved the day, somehow able to get all four children out of the building a second before the building collapsed. Now, we don't know who this amazing boy is, and we don't know how he was able to pull off such a feat, but we know his name is Peter."
Peter smirked at the television as he watched the news report, but his expression faltered when he saw his mom glaring over at him. "What?" he asked. "I didn't steal anything!"
"You could've been killed, Peter!" she yelled, turning off the television and standing in front of him with both hands on her hips. "What would I have done if you'd died?"
"I didn't die, Mom! I saved everyone! Isn't that good?"
"A burning and collapsing building is no place for a twelve-year-old."
"I was fine," Peter reiterated. "Sure, my powers skipped but—" Instantly Peter clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. His mother's eyes widened.
"You were caught in the building without your powers?" she whispered. "What were you thinking?! Do you have a death wish? What if you had been caught underneath a support beam or had inhaled too much smoke or had fallen through the floor?!"
Peter recoiled and said nothing more, not wanting to tell her that exactly those three things had almost happened to him. He only cowered as his mother continued to berate him. It'd been a challenge. He'd saved all those people. Why was she so mad at him? He was alive, and so were those children. That was the important part, right?
" . . . recently found out that Jacob suffered minor whiplash from whatever force managed to get him out of the building. Reports are speculating that whatever happened to these children, it happened very fast. One other child is also suffering from whiplash as well, and this only occurs in high-speed situations such as car accidents and the like."
Magda glanced to the television then glared over at Peter again, and Peter swallowed. Oops. How was he supposed to know that those guys would suffer whiplash? It was better than being burned alive.
The news report ended, and Magda pinched the bridge of her nose and waved Peter away. "Don't try saving people anymore, Peter," she groaned. "At least not until your powers come in fully. You could've died, you know."
Peter left the living room, smiling a bit as he did. But he didn't die. That was what made it fun.
Abruptly, the doorbell rang. Peter raced to the window to see who it was as Magda answered the door, and he felt a twinge of nervousness inside him when he saw that two police cars now stood outside their house. Three police officers stepped into the house, and Magda led them into the living room to sit down. Peter stood worriedly as the officers eyed him, but at the same time he felt a little bit smug when he realized that it was the same three officers who'd seen his powers fail the last time they'd come to his house when he'd beaten up Nicholas. This time, they wouldn't laugh at him. He'd show them up.
"Hello again, Peter," the first officer asked.
"What's up?" Peter asked.
"We recently received word that a kid by the name of Peter singlehandedly saved four children from a collapsing building," he said. "Is this true?"
Peter glanced at his mother. She nodded, so he nodded.
"And so you used your super speed powers?"
Peter shrugged. "Yeah. I saved them all in less than a second."
Some of the officers were laughing. Again. It irked Peter, but soon the joke would be on them. "So you're super human."
Peter grinned. "I am."
Now the officer looked at him with a slight smirk. "All right. Would you care to demonstrate it for us?"
Peter shrugged. "Sure. But you won't be able to see me. So, what do you want me to get?"
"In the police car outside is my speed radar gun. Go get it for me—"
"You mean this?" Peter asked, returning instantly with the gun in hand and aiming it once at the officers before casually tossing it into the air and then handing it to the officer.
The officers all stared.
"H-how did you do that?"
"Super speed."
"It has to be a magic trick," one of the officers whispered. "So, Peter," he said, raising his voice, "could you replicate your trick?"
"Duh. Of course I could, or else those four guys in the house would be dead."
"Then do it again," the officer said. "Go to my car and get my pair of handcuffs in the backseat."
Instantly, Peter was back, twirling the handcuffs around one finger. He casually tossed them to the officer, but the officer was so stunned that the cuffs simply hit on the chest and fell into his lap. The three officers looked at each other and whispered in a huddle for a few moments before pulling away and turning back to Peter.
"O-okay," the third officer said, "here's one more test. I'll give you five bucks, and I want you to go over to the doughnut shop on Third and Oakwood and get me a caramel glazed doughnut. Can you do that?"
Hardly had the officer finished his sentence before Peter took the bill from the officer's hand and raced out the door. He got to the shop, picked out a doughnut, and raced behind the cashier's counter and rang the doughnut up himself since he didn't want to wait. After getting the proper change, Peter made sure to seal the deal. He glanced at leaving customers who had their doughnuts in small bags and got a bag with the store's logo on it for good measure. He even got the receipt and stuffed it into the bag with the doughnut. Then he was gone and back at the house. He held out the doughnut to the officer.
The officer blinked, looked from Peter to the doughnut, then looked again. He did this a third time and finally took the bag from Peter's hands, checking the doughnut, the receipt, and the change Peter got before biting into the doughnut and sighing in happiness.
"You did it, kid," the officer said, wiping caramel off his upper lip. "I don't know how, but it seems like . . . man, this is delicious!"
The other officers were still staring at him. One had a pad and a pen in his hand to take notes, but the pen fell from his hands as he stared at Peter.
"O-our questioning is over," the first officer said, his voice strangely high. "We'll leave now and make a report back at the station."
The officers left the house, and Peter laughed a bit as he watched the officers drive away. Their expressions had been priceless when he'd shown up with the objects they thought he couldn't get. It was hilarious to say the least. Beside him, Peter's mother was laughing as well. "Their expressions were funny, weren't they?" he asked.
Magda shook her head. "It's not that. Those officers are fools if they think anyone will believe their story. Remember the school board? They wouldn't believe you, either."
Peter blinked, never considering that the police officers' words would be rejected by their superiors. "Really?"
"Of course, Peter," Magda said. "That'd be like saying a normal human being could sprout wings and fly."
"That would be cool," Peter said. He turned to the front door. "I want to follow them."
Magda shrugged. "I can't stop you. Try not to be seen, and be home for dinner."
Peter nodded and took off, getting to the police station long before the three officers returned. He occupied himself by listening to his music and painting the entire police station red, white, and blue with paint that had been disposed of at a nearby recycling center.
Finally, after five whole minutes of waiting, the officers showed up and staggered from their vehicle, not even noticing Peter's new paint job. Peter outran them with his eyes closed, and he found a good vantage point and hiding spot inside the police station underneath a desk. Several other officers were mulling around, and Peter knew that the other three would at least talk to them a bit before making their report.
"You look like you've seen a ghost!" one officer said.
"I-it was crazy. We went to that kid's house, Peter. You remember him, right? Well, he really did it."
"Really did what?"
"Super speed!" another officer said. "He got me this doughnut!"
For a moment, silence. Then several officers started laughing.
"Are you all crazy, or did you guys just stay up last night playing cards again?"
"We're serious! The three of us saw it! He ran outside and got these handcuffs in half a second!"
Peter frowned. It'd been one-eighth of a second. But he'd let it slide.
"Okay, now you three are really pulling our legs. If you report with a tale like that, you'll all get fired. What really happened?"
Again, a moment of silence. Peter wished he could see the conversation, but he stayed hidden where he was instead. His mother had told him to not be seen.
"I guess, we just went to his house and . . . nothing happened."
"There's a good man. A much more believable story than a speedster." The man snorted. "What's next? Somebody who can read minds? Or maybe a guy who controls metal?"
At this, they all laughed.
"Soon there'll be guys who can phase through walls," another said.
"Oh, I'm scared now." Footsteps neared Peter's location, and Peter panicked. "People who run super speed," the officer muttered, "give me a break."
Instantly, Peter was off. He raced past all the officers in the building and stood outside, listening once more to the conversation within.
"Turn down the air, man! I think I just got hit by a tornado!"
"Maybe I really am too tired. I thought I just saw a flash of red or something."
Peter looked down at his red Jim Croce shirt and grinned before taking off. He was back at his mom's house in a second, and he unceremoniously flopped down in the living room and looked up at his mother, who was sitting on the sofa eating a salad.
"You were right, Mom," Peter said, startling her and almost causing her to choke. "They didn't believe them."
Magda drank some water before having a coughing bit and blinking tears from her eyes. "Would it kill you to knock?" she asked, clutching her chest briefly.
"Yup. And they didn't believe those guys who said I ran super fast."
His mother rolled her eyes. "Well, I figured as much. No normal human being would believe that there are speedsters around."
"Why not?" Peter asked.
"Because so many people are just normal, like me, and it's hard for those normal people to
believe that there are people out there who are . . . superhuman."
"I'm not superhuman," Peter said. "I'm a mutant."
"That you are, Peter," Magda said, sighing a bit.
Peter sat up and rocked back and forth on the ground, looking up at his mother. "So, could you tell me a story about Dad?"
Magda took another bite of her salad, frowning a bit. "Peter, you've heard all those stories about Lehn a hundred times already."
"But I like them so much," Peter pouted, his eyes widening. "Please?"
Magda looked down at Peter and laughed. "All right, Peter."
Peter jumped in joy then raced to the freezer and got himself a gallon of vanilla ice cream to eat while his mother told the story. Also feeling like popcorn, Peter popped several envelopes of the stuff, covered the entire mass in butter and salt, and returned to his seat, waiting for his mother to begin.
Magda blinked, then reached down and took a few pieces of popcorn for herself as she began her story.
"I was driving to college, when suddenly this semi-truck swung into my lane. I knew it was going to hit me, but suddenly my car lifted itself into the air and avoided the accident entirely. When my vehicle was set back down, I looked near the highway and saw a young man of about twenty standing there. That was Lehn, of course. He helped me from my car and introduced himself as Erik . . . "
Peter listened to the story with rapt attention, not even wanting to eat popcorn since he might miss his mother's words. These stories were so fascinating. They were a little bit of insight into the character of a father Peter had never met. It made him both happy to hear the stories and depressed that he'd never met Erik. But now, that could change. Since Peter was now a speedster, maybe one day soon he could search for and meet his father for real. Wouldn't that be awesome?
