Write On! (2 page)

“I thought you wanted to be a dog trainer,” Suzanne said.

“
I
thought you wanted to be a chef,” Katie’s mother added.

“I do,” Katie told them. “And a teacher, too. I could do all those things.”

Her mother laughed. “You’ll be a dog trainer, who’s also a teacher and a chef
and
who writes books. Wow. When will you sleep?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Katie said with a giggle.

“You have time before you’re all grown up,” Mrs. Carew told her daughter. “Right now, you girls should start on homework. Why don’t you go read for a while?”

“That’s a good idea,” Katie agreed.

Suzanne didn’t say anything. She just shoved the last cookie in her mouth and washed it down with the rest of her milk.

“You go ahead,” Mrs. Carew said, picking up the empty plate. “I’ll clean up.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Katie said as she and Suzanne left the room.

“Thanks, Mrs. Carew,” Suzanne echoed.

“Let’s read for half an hour,” Katie suggested as she and Suzanne walked into her room.

“Are you kidding?” Suzanne asked her. “We can’t read now. We have more important things to do. We’ve got to get going on our website.”

Here we go again,
Katie thought.

“We don’t have to do that today,” Katie replied.

“Sure we do,” Suzanne said. “The sooner we get our site up and running, the sooner we’ll be famous.”

“Famous? Us?” Katie asked. “How?”

“Think of all the people who will visit our site. They’ll read about us and see pictures of me in all my cool clothes,” Suzanne explained.

“I don’t want to do the fashion site,” Katie reminded her.

“Well, whatever website we come up with, I’m sure thousands of people will visit it. And then they’ll recognize our names,” Suzanne told her excitedly. “We’ll be famous, and all my wishes will come true!”

Katie gulped. Wishes could be big trouble. Katie knew that better than anyone. That’s because one of
her
wishes had come true!

Katie’s troubles with wishes all started one day at the beginning of third grade. Katie had lost the football game for her team, ruined her favorite pair of pants, and let out a big burp in front of the whole class. That night, Katie had wished she could be anyone but herself.

There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made that wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.

The magic wind was a wild tornado that blew just around Katie. It was so powerful that every time it came, it turned her into somebody else! Katie never knew when the wind would arrive. But when it did, her whole world turned upside down . . .
switcheroo
!

The first time the magic wind came, it turned Katie into Speedy, her third-grade class’s pet hamster! Katie escaped from the hamster cage and wound up in the boys’ locker room! Good thing the magic wind turned Katie back into herself before the boys found out a girl had been in there!

The magic wind came back again and again after that. It changed her into all different people—Lucille, the lunch lady; Mr. Kane, the school principal; and even Katie’s third-grade teacher, super-strict Mrs. Derkman.

One time the magic wind turned Katie into her pal Emma Weber. That was awful. Katie lost Emma’s twin baby brothers! It was a good thing she found them before Emma’s mom returned from the market.

But that wasn’t nearly as bad as the time the magic wind turned Katie into Suzanne right in the middle of her best friend’s big modeling show. Katie didn’t know how to walk in high heels or twirl around on the stage. Even worse, she’d put Suzanne’s pants on backward! It was a good thing Suzanne never figured out what had really happened that day.

In fact, nobody but Katie knew about the magic wind. She figured no one would believe her even if she told them. Katie wouldn’t have believed it either, if it didn’t keep happening to her.

“So, when can we start taking pictures of me?” Suzanne demanded, interrupting Katie’s thoughts.

Katie frowned. She really didn’t want to do a fashion site. But Suzanne was never going to give in. She never did.

Then, suddenly, Katie got a great idea. “I know a way we could both be happy. We could do a fashion site, where we also tell people not to wear fur. And maybe I could say something about what it’s like to be a vegetarian.”

Suzanne considered that for a moment. “That’s not a bad idea,” she said as she picked up a paper and pencil. “Let’s write down all the things we could talk about and take pictures of.”

“Aren’t we going to read
Only Orangutans Hang from Trees
?” Katie reminded her.

“Later,” Suzanne insisted. “I’m already making a list of the outfits I want to put together.”

“But . . .”

“Come on, Katie,” Suzanne urged. “It’s only Monday. We have lots of time until Nellie Farrow’s visit. Besides, the sooner we do this website, the sooner you can save some animals.”

Katie pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil, too. Suzanne was right. It was a long time until Friday. They had plenty of time to read. She wanted to start saving animals now!

“Isn’t Nellie Farrow’s book funny, Katie?” Emma Weber asked as the girls entered class 4A on Tuesday morning. “I loved the part when they’re on the island and the boy jumps so high that he can see over the clouds.”

“That wasn’t nearly as funny as when the gym teacher made all the kids climb the ropes,” Kevin Camilleri insisted. “It was hysterical when the girl couldn’t get down.”

Emma frowned. “I felt kind of bad for her,” she said.

“Yeah, but then the jumping boy leaps up and saves her,” Kevin reminded Emma. He turned to Katie. “What’s your favorite part so far?”

Katie didn’t want to let her friends know that she hadn’t even started the book. “I like the cover,” she said finally. She didn’t mention that she hadn’t gotten
past
the cover yet.

“The cover?” Kevin said. “It’s just an orangutan in a tree.”

“I know,” Katie said. “But he’s a very funny-looking orangutan.”

“You love anything with animals,” Kevin said.

“Of course I do,” Katie agreed. “In fact, Suzanne and I are starting a website to tell people not to wear fur and to be vegetarians.”

Okay, so that wasn’t completely true. But Katie was
hoping
that was how the website would turn out.

“Your own website, wow!” Emma W. exclaimed. “That’s so cool.”

“Okay, folks, take a seat,” Mr. Guthrie interrupted the kids’ conversation. “It’s time to start our learning adventure.”

The kids plopped down in their beanbag chairs and took out their notebooks.

“Today I want to tell you all about a lumberjack who became famous way back in the 1800s,” Mr. G. said.

“What’s a lumberjack?” Andy Epstein asked.

“A lumberjack is someone who makes his living cutting down trees in the forest,” Mr. G. explained. “Now, this lumberjack’s name was Paul Bunyan. He was the biggest, strongest lumberjack ever. He was so big that when he was born, it took five storks to fly him to his mother.”

Emma W. raised her hand. “That can’t be right, Mr. G.,” she said. “Storks don’t bring babies.”

Mr. G. didn’t answer her. He just kept talking about Paul Bunyan.

Katie looked at him strangely. That was weird. Mr. G. always stopped to answer questions. But today . . .

“One day, Paul met a giant blue ox,” the teacher continued. “He named her Babe. Babe was so big, it took a crow a full day to fly from the tip of one of her horns to the other.”

A blue ox?
Katie thought to herself.
I never saw one of them in my animal books.

“Paul was really smart,” Mr. G. told the class. “One year, when there weren’t enough lumberjacks to do all the work, he brought in giant ants to help out. The ants weighed two hundred pounds apiece and could do the work of fifty men!”

“I wouldn’t want to be at a picnic with
those
ants,” Kadeem Carter joked.

Mr. G. laughed. “Me neither,” he agreed. “But they sure were a help to Paul Bunyan. Of course, even Paul made mistakes. Like one summer when there were too many mosquitoes in the woods. Paul went and got special bumblebees to destroy them. Unfortunately, the bumblebees
liked
the mosquitoes. And that made things much worse. Their babies, the bee-squitoes, had stingers on both ends.”

“Now I
know
you’re kidding,” Emma Stavros told Mr. Guthrie. “That’s impossible.”

“There’s no such thing as giant, two-hundred pound ants,” Emma W. said. “Or bee-squitoes.”

“Or giant blue oxen,” Katie added.

“No,” Mr. G. admitted. “And there was no Paul Bunyan, either. He was a character made up by lumberjacks who lived in the American wilderness.”

“Too bad they didn’t have Spider-Man back then,” Kadeem said. “Spiders eat mosquitoes!”

“Paul Bunyan was a superhero to the lumberjacks, just like Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman are superheroes to you,” Mr. G. explained. “The stories the lumberjacks made up about him were called tall tales. They were about a superhuman person who solved his problems in a funny way.”

“Like the boy in
Only Orangutans Hang from Trees
,” Kevin pointed out. “Nobody can
really
jump that high!”

“Exactly!” Mr. G. agreed.

“Those Paul Bunyan stories are really cool!” George Brennan exclaimed. “Do you know any more tall tales?”

Mr. Guthrie shook his head. “I don’t know any others . . . at least not yet. But I will on Thursday.”

The kids all looked confused.

“That’s because on Thursday, you’re all going to read your own tall tales to the class,” Mr. Guthrie continued. “I want each of you to create your own character and write a tall tale about him or her.”

“Oh, wow!” Kadeem exclaimed. “Cool.”

“I’m going to write about a guy who plants tomato seeds all over the world,” Kevin thought out loud.

Katie giggled. That made sense. Kevin was the tomato-eating king of the fourth grade.

“I could make up a guy who tells jokes that are so funny, all the wars in the world stop because the soldiers are laughing too hard to fight,” George said.

“How about a story about a mom who has a hundred kids, and they start their own country?” Emma W. suggested.

“Sounds like
your
house,” Mandy Banks teased.

“We only have five kids,” Emma W. reminded her with a laugh.

Everyone in class 4A was excited about the tall-tales project. They couldn’t wait to get started!