Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff

just didn’t make sense to me.

superheroes.

    S o what’s Donut Man’s superpower, anyway?” Calista asked when she was showing me some more art tricks on Thursday, after we both got sick of studying spelling flash cards. “Eating donuts?” She scratched her nose with the end of her marker. “Making donuts?”
    I shook my head. “He doesn’t have a superpower. He just really likes donuts.”
    â€œBut he’s a
superhero,
” Calista said. “That means he
has
to have a superpower.”
    â€œNope,” I said, because I was pretty sure she was wrong. “Some people aren’t good at anything. Some people just really like donuts.”
    Calista looked at me for a long time, her marker raised in the air, and she didn’t say anything. She didn’t really even move. She sat there like that for so long that I started to worry that maybe her marker was going to dry out, because the cap was off. But finally she blinked and looked down at her paper and said, “Okay, Albie. Here, I’ll show you how to do feet.”
    â€œThanks,” I told her.

just like me.

    M om likes to go through the papers in my take-home folder every night if she doesn’t get home too late. I try to keep them neat, but sometimes I forget and smush them.
    â€œAlbie!” she said when she was looking through the folder. It was a really excited “Albie!” so for a second, I thought she was going to say how proud she was of me doing such good reading with
Johnny Treeface
(even though it wasn’t really
Johnny Treeface,
it was really three different
Captain Underpants
books, but she didn’t know that). But anyway, that’s not what she was “Albie!”-ing about.
    â€œWhat?” I asked, trying to sneak a peek around her arm. “What is it?”
    She put my take-home folder on the table. “You never told me you were having class elections,” she said. I knew she was smiling even before I looked at her face, that’s how excited she sounded. “What are you going to run for?”
    I pressed the two twenty-dollar bills for the Chinese food on the table into a neat stack so they were one right on top of the other.
    â€œI’m not running for anything,” I told Mom. “Mrs. Rouse said we didn’t have to. It’s only if we want.”
    â€œYou know,” Mom said, pulling the page out of the folder and settling into a chair, “I was treasurer of my tenth-grade class. I beat out five other students.” She seemed very happy about that.
    I put the top twenty on the bottom and re-neatened the stack. I wondered when the doorbell would ring already, because Mom had called at least twenty minutes ago and I was getting pretty hungry. Usually the delivery people were super quick.
    â€œWell, it’s not real elections,” I said. “Just fifth grade. It’s stupid anyway. The president takes attendance, and the vice president turns the lights on and off. Stupid stuff like that.” The hall manager was in charge of the bathroom pass. Being in charge of the bathroom pass sounded like the grossest job in the whole world.
    â€œYou have to start somewhere, right?” Mom said. “This could be good practice for when you want to run in high school. When do you have to decide by?”
    â€œTwo weeks. But I already decided I don’t want to.”
    Mom shook her head and stuck the paper back in my folder without even looking at all the good reading in my reading log. “Don’t be such a party pooper, Albie. Who knows? Maybe you’ll end up being treasurer just like me, huh?”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    When the food came, Wei frowned at me when I asked for the change, and he didn’t say
shee-shee
either. He stood in the door for a long time and didn’t leave until I said good-bye. Which I thought was weird, because usually Wei was so friendly. But then while we were eating, I