Write On! (3 page)

Read Write On! Online

Authors: Nancy Krulik

BOOK: Write On!
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Chapter 4
“Katie! Wait up!” Suzanne shouted as she spotted Katie leaving the school later that day.
Katie stopped and turned around. “Hey, Suzanne!” she called. “What’s up?”
Suzanne raced up to Katie. “My mom said we could borrow her digital camera—if we took the pictures at my house,” she said, taking a deep breath.
Katie had no idea what Suzanne was talking about. “Huh?”
“You know. The
pictures
,” Suzanne said. “For our fashion website.”
“You mean our fashion
and animal-rights
website,” Katie corrected her.
Suzanne put her hands on her hips. “Whatever,” Suzanne said. “Anyway, why don’t we work at my house today?”
“I can’t,” Katie told her. “I have homework to do.”
“So do I,” Suzanne said. She made a face. “
Math
. I’m in no hurry to get started.”
“Well, I am,” Katie said. “Mr. G. wants us to write a tall tale. I have to work on it. It’s due on Thursday.”
“Thursday?” Suzanne asked. “That’s not until the day after tomorrow.”
“But I have to come up with a character and a story and . . .”
“That won’t take you long,” Suzanne assured her. “You can do it tomorrow after your cooking class.”
“I don’t know, Suzanne . . .” Katie began.
Suzanne looked at her. “My mom said we could try making some of your vegetarian recipes in our kitchen,” she said. “Then we could take pictures of the food for the website. Just think of all the animals you could save if people ate vegetables.”
Katie thought about that. It was an important thing for her to do. “Okay,” she said finally.
The girls began to walk in the direction of Suzanne’s house. But before they could get very far, Katie stopped again. “Wait a minute,” she said suddenly. “I still have to read
Only Orangutans Hang from Trees
. If I don’t start today, I’ll never finish by Friday.”
“You don’t have to,” Suzanne told her.
“What do you mean? Of course I have to,” Katie replied. “Nellie Farrow is coming on Friday.”
“So what?” Suzanne said. “She’ll never know if you read her book or not. We’ll just sit in the back of the room and be very quiet.”
“But . . .”
“Oh, come on, Katie,” Suzanne pleaded. “More people will check out our website than will ever read Nellie’s book. A website is more fun than a book any day.”
Katie didn’t know if that was true. She loved reading books. And lots of other kids she knew did, too.
Still, working on the website
would
be a lot more fun than doing homework. “Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s go to your house. I have a great recipe for vegetarian lasagna.”
“Mmm . . . that sounds good. We’ll definitely do that,” Suzanne agreed. “After I model my outfits, of course.”
Katie sighed. “Of course.”
The next morning everyone in class 4A was buzzing about their tall tales. They all seemed to be having a great time writing stories about superhuman characters that did really hysterical things.
Everyone but
Katie
, that is. She hadn’t even started her story yet. Not that she hadn’t tried. It was just that when she got home from Suzanne’s house, she had been really tired. Not one idea had popped into her head.
So, when the other kids were all discussing their homework assignments, Katie just sat on her beanbag quietly. She couldn’t even talk about the website she and Suzanne were planning. So far, all they’d done was take pictures of Suzanne wearing different clothes. No one would be interested in that.
Katie had hoped that they could make the vegetarian lasagna, but Mrs. Lock didn’t have any spinach or tomato sauce in the house. So Katie’s part of the website didn’t even get started.
“Did you finish
Only Orangutans Hang from Trees
?” Emma W. asked as she plopped down next to Katie.
Finish?
She hadn’t even started!
“No, not yet,” Katie said.
“Oh, then I won’t tell you anything. It’s a total surprise!” Emma exclaimed. “Nellie Farrow is an amazing author. I wish I knew how she comes up with her ideas.”
“So do I,” Katie said.
“Is your dad still away on business?” Emma asked, changing the subject.
Katie nodded. “He won’t be home until Saturday. That means I have to spend tonight at the mall with my mom. She’s working late.”
“Would you want to come to my house instead? My mom said I could invite a friend to dinner,” Emma told her.
Katie knew that would be so much fun. But she couldn’t go. She had her cooking class right after school. And then she needed to write her tall tale.
Katie scowled. If it wasn’t for her homework, she would be able to have dinner at Emma’s tonight. And maybe Emma’s fifteen-year-old sister, Lacey, would let her listen to some of her new CDs, like she did the last time Katie was over.
But
no
. Instead of having all that fun, tonight Katie was going to be stuck in the back office of the Book Nook, writing. That stupid story was spoiling everything!
Writing was no fun!
Right then and there Katie decided that she didn’t want to be an author after all. Writing was too hard.
Instead, she would just grow up to be a dog-training teacher who cooked.
Chapter 5
That evening, Katie sat in the back office of the Book Nook, staring at a blank sheet of paper. She was waiting for a story to pop into her head. But she couldn’t think of anything . . . except how mad she was that she couldn’t think of anything.
Grrr.
It wasn’t fair. The Book Nook was filled with books written by people with great ideas for stories. Some of the authors had come up with
lots
of ideas. Katie couldn’t even think of one.
Then, suddenly, Katie
did
get an idea. A really great idea. There had to be tall-tale books in the store. She could read a few of them. Then she could use one of those ideas for
her
story!
Katie dashed out of the office and ran to the children’s section of the store. She couldn’t wait to find the tall-tale books. If she could find a good story and write it down fast enough, maybe she could still go to Emma’s house for dinner.
Katie looked at the shelves. There were biographies, chapter books, picture books, and even a few pop-up books. Finally, she spotted the tall-tale books. They were all the way up on the top shelf.
She looked around for a ladder. There wasn’t one anywhere. Still, she was going to reach those books somehow. Maybe if she jumped . . .
Boing!
Katie leaped up as high as she could. Her fingers brushed against the bottom of one of the tall-tale books. But she couldn’t grab it.
Boing!
She jumped again, reaching up her arm really, really high. This time she was able to grab the spine of one of the books and . . .
CRASH!
A whole row of tall-tale books flew off the shelf! One of them hit Katie right in the head.
Ouch.
All of the customers in the store turned around. A few started toward Katie to help her.
“It’s okay, folks,” Mrs. Carew said as she hurried over. “I’ll take care of her.”
Katie blushed. This was so embarrassing. She wanted to hide under the pile of books.
“Katie, are you all right?” Mrs. Carew asked her.
“I’m fine,” she murmured.
“What were you looking for?” Mrs. Carew asked her.
“Um, just a book.”
Mrs. Carew picked up one of the books that had fallen to the floor. “Oh, tall tales. These are funny.” She looked at her daughter. “You finished your homework already? That was fast.”
Katie shook her head. “Not exactly. I . . .” Katie stopped. Suddenly, borrowing a story from someone else didn’t seem like such a great idea.
“What is your homework assignment?” Katie’s mom asked her.
“I’m supposed to write a story.”
Mrs. Carew looked at the book again. “A tall tale?” she asked.
Katie nodded. “But I didn’t have any ideas. So I thought maybe if I read a few, I could . . .”
“You wanted to use one of
these
stories?” Mrs. Carew asked. She sounded surprised . . . and disappointed.
“Sort of,” Katie admitted. “I didn’t know what else to do. The story is due tomorrow, and I couldn’t come up with anything.” Katie looked down at the ground.
Mrs. Carew shook her head. “I’m sure you can come up with something. I think your mind is full of all kinds of stories.”
“It’s not,” Katie insisted.
“Sure it is,” Mrs. Carew told her. “You’re very good at writing stories.”
“Not
this
kind of story,” Katie replied. “I don’t know anything about lumberjacks like Paul Bunyan.”
“You don’t have to write about a lumberjack,” Mrs. Carew said. “Your main character should be the kind of person you’re familiar with. Really great authors write about things they know.”
Katie considered that for a moment. “Well, I could write about a red-haired girl with X-ray eyes,” she said. “And she could have a cocker spaniel. I could make him the fastest digging dog in the history of the world,” she told her mom.

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