Authors: Nancy Krulik

Witch Switch (5 page)

BOOK: Witch Switch

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The kitten sure was fast. Its black paws padded speedily along the ground. Katie followed close behind. She really wanted to make sure the little cat had a good meal.

Katie was watching the cat so carefully that she didn't even realize where she was going. Before she knew it, Katie was on Elm Lane.

Katie gasped as she watched the cat turn off from the sidewalk and make its way over to an old house with a crooked chimney, rotting shingles, and dead rosebushes.

Katie knew what house this was.

The cat had gone right to the haunted house Kevin had warned the kids about yesterday! Oh, no!

The kitten stood perfectly still at the side of the house, next to an old rusty railing. The window nearest the cat was slightly cracked, and a spider had begun to spin its web in the corner.

Katie really wanted to run away! But she knew she couldn't do that. She had to save the kitten. She had to get to it before the ghosts inside captured it.

Just then, a light went on in one of the upstairs windows. Katie gulped. That was just like what Kevin's big brother, Ian, had seen. The kitten had awakened the ghosts. And now they were coming after her!

At that very moment, a woman with a pointy chin, a long nose, and wild black and gray hair stuck her head out of the window. “Scat, you cat!” she shouted in an old, crackly voice.

Katie was so scared, she could barely breathe. Ian Camilleri had been wrong. Ghosts weren't the scariest things inside the haunted house. There was something far worse in there.

There was a witch living in the haunted house on Elm Lane.

“AAHHHH!” Katie shouted out. She dropped the sandwich in fear.

The kitten lifted its head and looked around. Then, suddenly, the black cat darted across the yard and ran off . . .
crossing right in front of Katie's path.

Oh, that was bad. Really bad. But Katie didn't have time to think about it now. She turned and ran toward home. She had to get out of there before the Witch of Elm Lane spotted her!

Chapter 9

“Kevin, you were right!” Katie shouted as she raced toward Kevin, George, and Jeremy on the playground the next morning. “That old house
is
haunted.”

“I told you. Ian saw the ghosts,” Kevin told her.

Katie shook her head excitedly. “No, it's haunted by a
witch
. She lives there, and I saw her!” Katie's voice started to shake when she thought about the pointy-faced, gray-haired woman. “She was so scary.”

“No way!” Kevin gasped. “You went to the haunted house?”

Suddenly, the kids who were busy playing nearby stopped what they were doing and circled around Katie.

All but Suzanne, that is. Katie watched as her best friend turned away, pretending to look in her backpack for something. Suzanne was obviously angry thatâfor onceâshe wasn't the center of attention.

But Katie didn't care. This was huge. And she wanted everyone to know about it!

“Yeah,” Katie continued. “I went to the house. Yesterday, after school.”

“Whoa, Katie Kazoo, that totally rocks!” George cheered.

“But that place is so scary,” Jeremy said, sounding amazed. “And you're usually such a ...” He stopped himself before he could say something that might hurt Katie's feelings.

“A scaredy-cat?” Katie finished his sentence. She smiled at the surprised look on Jeremy's face. He didn't realize that she had heard her friends call her that. “Well, I guess I'm not, huh?”

“No way,” Miriam Chan told her. “Not if you went to Elm Lane alone.”

“I did,” Katie assured her. “All by myself. And I saw the witch in person.”

Now the crowd around Katie was getting bigger and bigger. It seemed like everyoneâeven some fifth-gradersâwanted to hear her story.

“She poked her head outside of a window while I was there,” Katie continued. “And she yelled really loudly.” Katie shivered. “The Witch of Elm Lane has a voice that is all crackly and very creepy!”

Miriam shivered. “The Witch of Elm Lane,” she repeated. “That sounds so scary.”

“She
is
scary,” Katie assured.

“What did the witch look like?” a fifth-grade girl named Rachel asked her.

“She has wild black and gray hair with cobwebs in it,” Katie told her. “Her chin's pointy, her nose is long, and her face is covered with witch dust!”

“Whoa,” Rachel said with a shiver. “She sounds awful.”

“Oh, she is,” Katie assured her.

“You must have been really scared, Katie,” Zoe Canter said.

Katie nodded. “I was. But not as scared as the black cat in her yard,” she told her. “That kitten ran away so fast when the witch screamed that I couldn't even see her paws moving. It was just a big blur.”

“Wow! You went near a witch
and
a black cat! You are really brave,” Isobel, another fifth-grader, said, complimenting her.

Katie smiled proudly. No one had ever called her brave before. But now a
fifth-
grader had. She could hardly believe it.

Katie hadn't felt very brave yesterday afternoon. And she certainly hadn't gone to Elm Lane on purpose. She had just been trying to take care of the stray kitten.

But the other kids didn't know that. And Katie wasn't going to tell them. She wanted them to think she'd just been really brave and gone to the house on purpose.

So she told them a part of the story that she knew would impress them even more.

“And that's not all,” Katie continued, standing tall. “While I was near the haunted house, that black cat ran right in front of me!”

“I can't believe you, Katie!” Suzanne shouted out suddenly.

Katie looked surprised. Suzanne had been listening to her story, after all.

“You let that black cat cross your path. Now you're going to have bad luck!” Suzanne said with a scowl.

“Gosh, Suzanne, why are you getting so upset about it?” Jeremy asked. “It's not
your
problem.”

“Yes, it is!” Suzanne told him. “Katie's my partner in the Halloween parade. And now we're going to lose the contest!”

“Come on, Suzanne, you're being silly,” Emma W. told her. “Black cats don't really bring bad luck. That's just a silly superstition.”

Suzanne didn't think so. “I am never going to forgive you for this, Katie. In fact, I'm not even talking to you!” she said as she stormed away angrily.

Katie frowned as Suzanne walked away. She hadn't meant to upset Suzanne. She had just wanted to give the kitten some food. But now Suzanne was really mad at her. Katie hated when her friends were angry. Maybe the cat had been bad luck, after all.

“
I
think that cat brought you good luck,” Jeremy said, interrupting Katie's thoughts. “I've been trying to get Suzanne to stop talking for years!”

Katie sighed. Suddenly, having the other kids think she was brave didn't seem all that important. She just wanted Suzanne to stop being mad at her. Katie started to walk toward Suzanne so she could apologize. But a fifth-grader named Benjamin stopped her.

“I can't believe a
fourth-
grader would be brave enough to do all that,” he told Katie. “I think you're lying.”

The other fifth-graders nodded in agreement.

“No, I'm not,” Katie insisted. “I really did see the witch.”

“Prove it,” Benjamin demanded. “Go back there today after school. I'll come with you. I want to see this witch.”

“Me too,” Rachel said.

“That
would
be kind of cool, Katie Kazoo,” George added.

“I really want to go, too,” Kevin said. “My brother would be really impressed if I saw a witch. Even
he's
never seen one of those.”

Katie really didn't want to go back to the house on Elm Lane. But she knew she had to. Otherwise, the kids would all think she was lying.

And they would call her a scaredy-cat again. Especially Suzanne. She was really mad at Katie. She'd be glad to be able to say something mean about her.

Katie really didn't want that to happen.

“Okay,” she told the kids. “Meet me here after school. I'll take you there this afternoon.”

Chapter 10

“Okay, Katie, let's see if you really are brave enough to talk to a witch,” Benjamin dared Katie later that afternoon. He had been walking right beside her ever since they'd left school. There was no way he was letting her chicken out of going to the haunted house.

Now there was a whole crowd of fourth-and fifth-graders walking behind them.

“I . . . uh ... I didn't say I'd talk to her,” Katie insisted. “I don't even know if she'll be home.”

“Of course she will,” Benjamin insisted. “Witches don't go out during the daytime.”

“That's vampires,” George said, correcting him. He rolled his eyes. “Sheesh. Everyone knows that.”

“We're almost there,” Isobel noted excitedly as the group of kids turned the corner. “Elm Lane's the next block.”

Katie walked a few more feet. Then the crooked chimney came into view. The kids could see it over the old trees with the dead leaves.

Katie gulped. The house was scarier than she had remembered.

CRASH!

The group heard the sound of breaking glass coming from one of the cobweb-covered windows. Katie's heart started to pound wildly. The witch
was
home. And she sounded mad.

“Oh, man, I just realized my mom wanted me home early,” Rachel said.

“Yeah, look at the time,” Isobel agreed, looking at her wrist.

“How do you know what time it is?” George asked her. “You don't even have a watch on.”

BOOK: Witch Switch

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