Something's Fishy

Table of Contents

 

 

 

For Orit, Kathie, and Cindy—the most
supportive mermaids I know—N. K.

 

For Michael—a big fish in our
little pond!—J&W

 

 

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Text copyright © 2007 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2007 by John

and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of
Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2007007024

eISBN : 978-1-440-69601-5

“Welcome to school,” Mr. Guthrie greeted Katie Carew as she walked into her classroom on Monday morning. “All fish travel in schools. This is right where you belong.”

“But I’m not a fish . . .” Katie started to say. Then she stopped herself. As she looked around she saw that her classroom had turned into some sort of underwater world.

Of course, Katie wasn’t
really
underwater. Mr. G. had just decorated the classroom to make it look like a giant aquarium. Her teacher was always doing things like that.

“Let me guess, we’re studying fish now,” Andy Epstein said.

“You’re a wise little guppy,” Mr. G. told him.

Katie looked around the room. Mr. G. sure had worked hard. The walls were lined with giant photographs of fish and coral. The floor was covered with a sea green carpet. There were fish-shaped balloons hanging from the ceiling.

Mr. G. had even surrounded Slinky’s cage with blue and green streamers. It looked as though Slinky were a sea snake, instead of a snake who was the class pet.

“Do we get to decorate our beanbags now?” Kevin Camilleri asked excitedly.

“You sure do, dude!” Mr. G. told him. “You’ll find everything you need in the art corner.”

Katie clapped her hands. Decorating her beanbag was always the most fun part of starting a new learning adventure. Mr. G. called all lessons learning adventures. And he called the kids dudes, instead of students. Mr. G. didn’t talk like other teachers.

He didn’t act like other teachers, either. All of the kids in Mr. G.’s class sat in beanbag chairs. Mr. G. thought kids learned better when they were comfortable. Katie definitely agreed. And the beanbags were just one of the cool things Mr. G. did for his students. He also let the kids play games, cook, and tell jokes in the classroom. It was never boring in class 4A.

Sometimes Katie felt sorry for the kids in class 4B. Their teacher, Ms. Sweet, was really nice. But she was no Mr. G.

“Hey, do you guys know which fish is the most valuable?” George Brennan asked.

“No, which?” George’s best pal, Kevin, asked.

“A
gold
fish,” George answered. He laughed really hard at his own joke.

The other kids laughed, too. Well, all the kids except Kadeem Carter. He wasn’t about to let George tell the only fish joke today.

“What do fish get when they graduate from school?” Kadeem asked the other kids.

“What?” Emma Stavros asked him.

“A deep-ploma!” Kadeem shouted out. “Get it?
Deep
water?”

The other kids laughed. But not George. Katie could tell George was trying to think of a joke to top Kadeem’s. All of a sudden he smiled in triumph.

“Yeah, I get it,” George said. “And now I’m throwing it back.”

“The laughs were too small to keep,” Kevin added.

“Now here’s a
real
joke,” George told the class. “What kind of fish goes best with peanut butter?”

“What kind?” Mandy Banks wondered.

“
Jelly
fish!” George exclaimed.

“Sounds like we’ve got a great joke-off going on here!” Mr. G. chuckled. “Kadeem, it’s your turn.”

Kadeem stopped taping a Styrofoam fish eye to his beanbag long enough to say, “What part of a fish weighs the most?”

“What part?” Andy asked him.

“The scales!” Kadeem joked.

Everyone laughed at that—even George.

“Good one,” Mr. G. chuckled. “Now finish up with your beanbags, everyone. I want to get started on this amazing learning adventure!”

 

The kids in class 4A were all in very good moods when they got to lunch later that morning. Learning about fish could be a lot of fun!

“After lunch we are each going to get assigned a fish to study,” Katie explained to her best friend Jeremy Fox. Jeremy was in class 4B.

“And then Mr. G. told us we’re going to play this really great game where we get to pretend to
be
our fish,” Kevin added.

“Big deal,” Katie’s other best friend, Suzanne Lock, said. She sat down across from Katie and Jeremy. “You should see the pretty aquarium Ms. Sweet brought in for our classroom.”

“Our classroom
is
an aquarium,” George said. “Mr. G. decorated every inch of it. You almost feel like you’re underwater when you’re in class 4A!”

Katie watched Suzanne’s face fall. Her best friend really hated it when someone topped her. And she could be pretty mean when it happened.

“That’s perfect for you, George. You smell like a fish. You should be in an aquarium,” Suzanne told him.

Katie sighed. That was
such
a typical Suzanne thing to say.

“Of course in our class, we had a
really
awesome surprise,” Suzanne continued. “One that’s a lot cooler than fish stuff.”

“What’s so cool?” Mandy Banks asked, tugging at Suzanne’s sleeve.

“Ms. Sweet is getting married!” Miriam Chan announced before Suzanne could get the words out.

Wow!
Katie thought. That
was
big news.

“I was just going to tell them that!” Suzanne snapped at Miriam.

“Oops. Sorry,” Miriam apologized.

“And, that’s not all,” Suzanne boasted to the kids in class 4A. “We’re having an engagement party for Ms. Sweet.”

“We are?” Jessica Haynes asked Suzanne. “Who says?”

“I do,” Suzanne told her. “I just decided it. Of course it’s only for
our
class.”

Katie frowned. She hated it when Suzanne left her out of things.

“You understand, don’t you, Katie?” Suzanne asked her.

Katie shrugged, but she didn’t answer.

“I mean Ms. Sweet is
our
teacher, not yours,” Suzanne reminded her. She smiled triumphantly. “It’s going to be a really great party. I bet that makes all you kids in 4A wish you were in our class.”

“We do not wish that!” Katie exclaimed suddenly. “We don’t wish anything!”

Everyone looked at Katie.
They probably think I’m crazy,
she thought to herself.
But I’m not. I just know that wishes can be terrible things
.