Mr. Pearson is a teacher of Squeaky’s who pins on runners’ numbers at the neighborhood’s annual May Day races. Squeaky and her classmates nickname him Jack and the Beanstalk because he walks around the park on stilts and tends to clumsily drop the many supplies he carries around. Squeaky refuses to let Mr. Pearson use her nickname since she isn’t allowed to call him Beanstalk to his face, insisting that he call her by her full name—Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker—instead. Mr. Pearson further offends Squeaky when he suggests that she should intentionally lose the 50-yard dash so that other girls—particularly Gretchen, who’s new to the neighborhood—can have a chance. Near the end of the story, Mr. Pearson is involved in the squabble among the race judges as they try to figure out whether Squeaky or Gretchen won the 50-yard dash.