Something's Fishy (6 page)

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Authors: Nancy Krulik

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Katie smiled slightly. Ms. Sweet had no idea how true that was. “I guess I was just lucky,” she said.
“No.
I
was lucky,” Ms. Sweet replied.
“So is class 4B!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Now we can have my . . . I mean
your
engagement party, Ms. Sweet.”
“I think we should invite class 4A to the party, too,” Ms. Sweet said. “After all, Katie’s in class 4A. And she’s the one who saved the day.”
“I guess,” Suzanne said with a sigh. “But I don’t know if there will be enough cake for all of them. My recipe only makes enough for our class.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Ms. Sweet told Suzanne. “I’ll take care of the food.”
“Oh, this is going to be fun!” Katie exclaimed. She grinned at Suzanne, Miriam, and Becky. “Now we can all party together.”
Miriam and Becky smiled back at her right away. It took Suzanne a little while to force a grin.
Chapter 10
“This is so much fun!” Katie squealed, taking another bite of her blue raspberry ice cream. “Oh yum! There was a green gummy fish in that spoonful.” She smiled. “Even a vegetarian like me can eat these fish!”
Suzanne grinned. “You see, we have fun in our class, too,” she told Katie. “We may not sit in beanbag chairs or play fish tag, but we have awesome parties.”
Now Katie understood why Suzanne had wanted this party to be just for her class. Maybe the kids in class 4A did brag a little too much about the way-cool learning adventures Mr. G. was always thinking up.
“You sure do,” Katie agreed with Suzanne. “I really love that Ms. Sweet gave her engagement party a fish theme.”
“So do I,” Jeremy agreed. “I never knew fish could be so delicious,” he added, sliding a cherry-red gummy fish into his mouth.
“I think I’d like an aquarium theme for my engagement party one day,” Becky cooed, glancing at Jeremy.
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna go get some goldfish crackers,” he said as he hurried away.
“Hey, you guys, do you know what sea horses wear on their feet?” Kadeem shouted out.
“What?” Andy Epstein asked him.
“Horseshoe crabs!” Kadeem answered with a laugh.
Everyone else laughed, too.
Katie waited for George to come back with a joke of his own. But he didn’t say anything. So Kadeem told another one. “What do you get when you cross a turtle with an electric eel?” he asked.
“What?” Emma S. asked him.
“Shell shock!” Kadeem told her.
Everyone laughed even harder.
But still, not a sound was heard from George.
“What’s with George?” Katie whispered to Kevin.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said. “It’s not like him to pass on a joke-off with Kadeem.”
Just then Ms. Sweet walked over to where Katie was standing. “I just wanted to thank you again, Katie,” the teacher told her. Ms. Sweet held out her hand. The ring sparkled on her finger. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost this ring forever.”
Suzanne wrapped her arm around Katie’s shoulders. “My best friend saved the day,” she boasted. “Of course,
I
taught her everything she knows.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Becky asked.
“I was the one who taught her to play I Spy,” Suzanne explained. “We used to play it in the car. Of course, I always won.”
“But Katie won when it really counted,” Emma W. said, pointing to Ms. Sweet’s ring.
Suzanne frowned. She opened her mouth to say something, but she was drowned out by the sound of Miriam screaming.
“Ooooo! That’s so gross, George!” she shouted. “Get it away from me.”
“What’s the matter, Miriam?” he asked her. “Don’t you like the under-the-sea environment I made? Come on. Take a bite!”
“Yuck! Get that away from me!” Miriam squealed as she ran as far from George as she could.
Katie looked into the bowl George was carrying. He’d filled it with blue raspberry ice cream, gummy fish, goldfish crackers, and blue punch. It was all mushed together. Now Katie understood why George hadn’t bothered with the joke-off.
“Let me see
you
eat it,” Miriam called from the other side of the room. “I bet you won’t put one spoonful of that mess into your mouth.”
But Miriam was wrong. George scooped up a big spoonful of the ice-cream-cracker-candy-punch slop, and shoved it into his mouth.
“Ooo. Nasty,” Miriam said. She looked like she was going to be sick.
Katie laughed. It was a lot more fun pretending to be under the sea than to really be there. She blinked her eyes a few times, just enjoying the fact that she had eyelids again.
Yep, it was definitely more fun being Katie Kazoo than a clown fish. In fact, if it were up to her, Katie wouldn’t switch places with anyone.
But it wasn’t really up to her at all. And at just that moment, Katie felt a cold wind blowing on the back of her neck. She jumped up, startled.
Could the magic wind be back so soon?
Would it come here now, in front of all these people?
“Katie, will you shut the window, please?” Ms. Sweet called from across the room. “It’s a little windy in here.”
Phew.
Katie gave a big sigh of relief. It wasn’t the magic wind at all. It was just a regular old wind. Which meant Katie would stay herself.
At least for now.
Go Fish !
Katie and her pals sure learned a lot about fish during their trip to the aquarium. Now it’s your turn to take the bait and check out this list of fin . . . uh . . . er . . .
fun
fish facts!
1. Scientists believe that there are more than twenty-eight
thousand
different fish species!
2. One fish can actually walk on dry land! It’s called the climbing perch. This fish will walk on land in search of water when its water hole dries up.
3. The heaviest fish ever caught was an ocean sunfish. That whopper of a fish weighed 4,928 pounds!
4. When it comes to fish, the sailfish beats them all! It can swim up to sixty-eight miles per hour—faster than a car on the highway.
5. The slowest fish is the sea horse, which moves less than one-tenth of a mile per hour.
6. Fish don’t actually sleep. But they do rest. When they are resting, some fish just float calmly, others wedge themselves into a spot in the mud or coral, and others actually build themselves little nests.
7. The largest fish is the whale shark, which can grow as big as fifty feet long.
8. The eye of a giant squid can reach fifteen inches in diameter. That’s as big as a basketball!
9. One ocean sunfish can lay up to five million eggs at one time!
10. Goldfish have toothlike structures in the back of their throats! They use them to grind their food. When old teeth fall out, new ones grow in.
About the Author
NANCY KRULIK
is the author of more than 150 books for children and young adults, including three
New York Times
bestsellers. She lives in New York City with her husband, composer Daniel Burwasser, their children, Amanda and Ian, and Pepper, a chocolate and white spaniel mix. When she’s not busy writing the
Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo
series, Nancy loves swimming, reading, and going to the movies.
 
 
 
 
 
About the Illustrators
JOHN & WENDY’S
art has been featured in other books for children, in magazines, on stationery, and on toys. When they are not drawing Katie and her friends, they like to paint, take photographs, travel, and play music in their rock
’
n
’
roll band. They live and work in Brooklyn, New York.

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