Doggone It!

Table of Contents

 

 

For the
real
Pepper ...
ARO00000!

 

Text copyright © 2003 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright

© 2003 by John and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by

Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, NY, 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP
is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Published
simultaneously in Canada. S.A.

 

 

Krulik, Nancy E. Doggone it! / by Nancy Krulik ; illustrated by John & Wendy. p. cm.—(Katie Kazoo, switcheroo ; 8) Summary: When strict Mrs. Derkman moves next door to third-grader Katie Carew, scares her friends away, and insists she keep her dog, Pepper, on a leash, Katie finds a non-magical solution to the problem. Includes steps for teaching a dog to sit and stay.

[1. Neighbors—Fiction. 2. Dogs—Fiction. 3. Teachers—Fiction.
4. Magic—Fiction.] I. John & Wendy, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.K944Dn 2005
[Fic]—dc21
2003005213

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-14198-4

“Are they here yet?” Jeremy Fox asked, as he rode his bike up to Katie Carew’s house early Saturday morning.

Katie was sitting on the front porch with her dog, Pepper.
Waiting.

“Nope.” Katie told her best friend. “And I’ve been sitting here all morning.”

“You still don’t know anything about the new neighbors?” Jeremy plopped down beside her. “I thought your parents met them already.”

Katie shook her head. “My mom won’t even give me a hint about what they’re like. She thinks it’s better if I’m surprised.”

“That’s so not fair,” Jeremy said.

“I hope they have a lot of kids,” Katie thought out loud.

Just then, Katie’s other best friend, Suzanne Lock, came skipping rope around the corner. As she reached Katie’s house, Suzanne put down her jump rope and glared at Jeremy. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Waiting for Katie’s new neighbors.”

Suzanne turned to Katie. “I thought we were going to meet your new neighbors together.”

“We are,” Katie assured her other best friend. “Jeremy wants to see them, too.”

“Three’s a crowd,” Suzanne complained.

“So leave,” Jeremy told her.

Katie shook her head. She liked both of her best friends so much. It was too bad they couldn’t like each other. “Come on, you guys,” she said. “This is a really important day. There’s a new family moving in next door.”

“I hope they have a teenage girl,” Suzanne told Katie. “Then we can find out about the newest music and clothes before anyone else. Teenagers know all about that kind of stuff.”

Jeremy scowled. “Who needs another teenage girl around here? I’d rather have a couple of new boys in the neighborhood.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “Maybe they’ll put up a basketball hoop over their garage.”

“Girls play basketball, too,” Katie reminded him.

“Yeah,” Suzanne added. “Ever hear of the WNBA?”

“You’re right,” Jeremy admitted. “But we just got a new girl in the neighborhood.”

“You mean Becky?” Katie asked him. Becky Stern had moved to Cherrydale from Atlanta about two months ago. But she already had so many friends that it was weird to think of her as the “new girl.”

“Becky, your
girlfriend,”
Suzanne added with a giggle.

Jeremy turned beet red. “She is not my girlfriend,” he insisted. “Take that back.”

But Suzanne wouldn’t give in. “Jeremy and Becky sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” she sang. “First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes little Jeremy in a baby carriage. Sucking his thumb, wetting his pants, doing the hootchie-cootchie dance!”

Now Jeremy was really mad. “She is not my girlfriend,” he insisted.

“She wishes she was,” Suzanne told him. “Everyone knows it.”

“That’s not my problem,” Jeremy said. He blushed again.

“I wonder if the new family will have a dog,” Katie said, quickly changing the subject. “Pepper would like that.”

“Arf!”
At the sound of his name, the chocolate-and-white cocker spaniel looked up at Katie and smiled.

“See?” Katie asked. She kissed her dog on the head. “He’d love a four-legged friend.”

“Yeah, but what if the new family has a cat?” Suzanne asked. “That wouldn’t be so great.”

“Why not? Pepper can be friends with a cat.”

Jeremy shook his head at that. “A cat and a dog? I don’t know, Katie.”

“Pepper’s not like other dogs,” Katie insisted. “He’s special.”

Before anyone could argue with that, a huge white moving van came rumbling down the street.

“They’re here!” Katie yelled excitedly.

Suzanne stood up and fixed her hair. “How do I look?” she asked.

The kids all watched as two big men got out of the van and began to unload the new neighbors’ belongings. Before long there were chairs, tables, lamps, and a big wooden bed on the front lawn.

“I don’t see any toys,” Katie said nervously.

“They’re probably packed away in boxes,” Jeremy reasoned.

Just then, a red car pulled into the driveway beside the house.

“That’s the new family!” Katie cheered. “Let’s go meet them.” She started to run over toward the car.

Katie didn’t get very far. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared, as a woman with dark, short hair and small, round glasses got out of the car. She looked really familiar.

Frighteningly
familiar!

“It can’t be . . . ” Suzanne began.

“I think it is,” Jeremy told her. He looked again. “Oh yeah. It’s her, all right.”

“Oh no!” Katie cried out. “This is awful!”

There was no doubt about it. The woman who had gotten out of the car was Mrs. Derkman, Katie’s third-grade teacher—
strict
Mrs. Derkman, the teacher with the most rules in the whole school.

“Suzanne, can you believe how horrible this is?” Katie exclaimed.

Suzanne didn’t answer. She just stood there with her mouth wide open as Mrs. Derkman walked toward the kids.

“You
bought the house next to mine?” Katie asked in disbelief.

“Didn’t your mother tell you?” Mrs. Derkman replied.

“I um ... she . . . I think she wanted it to be a surprise,” Katie stammered.

“And we are
definitely
surprised!” Jeremy said.

“I can tell.” Mrs. Derkman laughed. “Suzanne, please close your mouth before a bug flies down your throat.”

“Barbara, which of these boxes goes in the bathroom?” Mr. Derkman called to his wife.

Barbara?
Katie had never thought of Mrs. Derkman as someone with a first name before.