Flower Power (5 page)

“It’s the new substitute,” Katie said. “He doesn’t know how to control us. Not the way Mr. G. does.
He’s
the best teacher. Everyone is always well behaved for
him
. But today, with Mr. Goodstein, everyone is being bad.”

“Well, that’s going to stop right now!” Mr. Kane said as he opened the door and stormed into the room.

Katie smiled. She had let Mr. Kane know what a great teacher Mr. G. was. The principal would never let him leave. George’s plan was working!

“It was awesome,” Kevin told Jeremy and Suzanne after school that afternoon. “I thought that sub’s face was going to explode when George and Kadeem started their joke-off.”

“But Katie Kazoo was the real hero,” George insisted. He smiled at her. “Because of you, Mr. Kane went into our classroom and saw what was happening.”

“Now he knows for sure Mr. G. is the only teacher for class 4A,” Kevin added.

“Everything went as planned,” George agreed.

“We had some action in our class, too,”
Suzanne boasted. “Miriam hit Manny Gonzalez in the face with a rubber band. She just missed his eye.”

“Miriam didn’t do it on purpose,” Jeremy corrected Suzanne. “The rubber band just popped out of her mouth while she was talking to him.”

“I think she did it to remind everyone that she has braces now,” Suzanne said. “Like
that’s
anything to brag about.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes and sighed. “Hey, Katie, you want to come over and play tag this afternoon?” he asked.

“George and I are going to play,” Kevin said.

“So are Jessica and I,” Suzanne added.

Katie shook her head sadly. She would have liked to play with her friends. But she had something else she had to do. “I’ve got to go write a hundred-word paper on ‘why I should behave in school.’ Mr. Kane is making me do it.”

“Wow. Bummer,” Jeremy said.

“But it’s worth it to keep Mr. G.,” George reminded her.

I sure hope so
, Katie thought to herself as she started walking home alone.

The road to Katie’s house was very quiet. No one seemed to be around this afternoon. Suddenly she felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her neck. Katie shivered. If only she had worn a jacket.

But now Katie noticed that the wind didn’t seem to be blowing anywhere else. Not in the trees. Not in the grass. Just on her.

“Oh, no!” Katie shouted. “Go away, magic wind!” She started to run.

It was no use! The magic wind didn’t stop blowing. In fact, it blew faster and faster, spinning wildly like a tornado around Katie. She closed her eyes tight to keep from crying.

And then it stopped. Just like that.

Katie Kazoo had turned into someone else. One, two, switcheroo.

But who?

Katie didn’t know where the magic wind had blown her, but wherever she was, it sure smelled clean. Kind of like her house when her mom and dad scrubbed it really, really well before company came.

Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked around. The first thing she saw was a long hallway with lots of doors. There was a big, cheerful painting of jungle animals on the wall.

There were other people in the long hallway. Most of them were in green or blue loose-fitting outfits. They had stethoscopes swung around their necks. Katie figured they
were doctors and nurses. Was she in some sort of hospital? It sure looked that way.

Okay, so now she knew
where
she was. But she still didn’t know
who
she was. Had the magic wind switcherooed her into a doctor? Or a nurse? Katie hoped it hadn’t turned her into a patient who was getting a shot. Katie hated needles!

She looked down at her feet. Instead of the light brown cowboy boots she’d worn to school, Katie was now wearing red shoes. Gigantic, rubbery, red shoes.
Clown
shoes! And she had on a polka-dot clown suit with a frilly white collar.

That didn’t make any sense at all. What was a clown doing in a hospital?

Just then, a woman walked over toward Katie. “The kids are ready for you, Mr. Guthrie,” she said.

Mr. Guthrie? Her teacher? Katie looked around to see if he was standing behind her. But he wasn’t. In fact, the only two people
who were standing here were the woman and Katie.

Katie gulped. The woman was definitely talking to her. Did that mean that she’d turned into her teacher…in a clown suit? What was Mr. G. doing dressed as a clown? It was so weird.

Or maybe not. Mr. G. loved dressing up. So putting on a clown suit was a really Mr. G. thing to do.

“The new clown suit is great,” the woman continued saying to Katie. “I am so glad it was ready for you in time for this party.”

Was
this
the suit Mr. G. had been talking about? Not a businessman suit. A
clown
suit. Was Mr. G. leaving Cherrydale Elementary School to become a clown?

“It was so nice of you to come here on a weekday,” the woman continued. “I know you usually do these shows for the kids on Saturdays, but I’m glad you made an exception this one time. Darnell would have been so sad if he left the hospital without saying good-bye to G-Man the Clown.”

Okay, now it all was starting to make sense. Mr. G. performed for sick kids. Katie smiled broadly. But coming today was an
exception!
That meant everything would be back to normal by tomorrow. What a relief! Wait until the kids in 4A learned that Mr. G. wasn’t leaving school at all. He was just putting on a clown show for some sick kids in the hospital…

Gulp!
Except Mr. G. wasn’t the one putting on the show at all. Katie was. Today Katie was G-Man the Clown! But she didn’t know anything about clowning around. That was George’s department.

Today, though,
Katie
was going to have to be funny—fast! There was a whole lot of sick kids waiting for her to cheer them up.

“Hello, boys and girls,” the woman in the blue outfit said as she and Katie walked into a sunroom. “Look who’s here! It’s G-Man the Clown!”

“Yeah!” the kids cheered.

Katie stared at them. She wasn’t sure what to do. Then she thought about George and Kadeem. They always made people laugh with their jokes. That was it. Katie would tell a joke.

“Hey, do you guys know this one?” she asked. “If April showers bring May flowers, what do pilgrims bring?”

The kids all looked at her strangely.

“Turkey?” one little girl in a wheelchair asked.

“Cranberry sauce?” a small boy with a cast on his leg said.

“You told that one wrong, G-Man the Clown,” a skinny boy laughed. “It’s supposed to be, ‘What do May flowers bring?’ Then you answer, ‘Pilgrims!’”

Oops.
Katie blushed. She’d messed that one up badly. Poor Mr. G. She’d only been here a few minutes and already she was goofing up his clown act.

She thought for a minute. What else besides telling jokes did George do to be funny? Suddenly she spotted a pitcher of water on the table. That was it!

Katie walked over and poured herself a cup of water. Then she took a drink, held the water in her mouth, pursed her lips, and…

“Cough! Cough! Cough!”
Instead of becoming a water fountain by spitting the water out—Katie took all that water
in.
And
it went down the
wrong
pipe.
“Cough! Cough! Cough!”

“What’s he doing?” a small girl in a wheelchair asked.

“Are you making fun of us, G-Man?” a boy in a blue bathrobe asked. “We can’t help being sick.”

That made Katie feel terrible. She would never make fun of someone for being sick. Ever!

A tall boy with very, very short hair—so short that you could see his scalp underneath—frowned. “This is the worst going-away party ever!” he sighed.

A nurse came over and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “Darnell, relax. G-Man the Clown is just getting started. You know he’d never let you down.”

Katie sighed. G-Man wouldn’t let Darnell down. But Katie sure was. She coughed really hard as the last bit of water went down.

Clank!
Just then, a big silver horn fell off of her clown suit. Katie jumped with surprise.
Her big clown shoe landed right on the black ball at the end of the horn.
HONK!

Then the most amazing thing happened. The kids laughed. Hard. They thought Katie had done that on purpose. And they loved it! Katie stepped on the horn again.
Honk!

Then Katie thought about other funny things a clown might do.
Hmmm.
There was a big plastic flower in her shirt pocket. It would be funny to smell a plastic flower. After all, everyone knew plastic flowers only smelled like…well…plastic. She picked the big plastic flower from her shirt pocket, bent her head, and…

Squirt!
A big rush of water hit her in the eye. The kids laughed even harder at the sight of that.

Katie had had no idea that there was water inside the plastic flower. The shock of it threw her off balance. She tripped over one of her huge rubber clown shoes and…
Splat!
She landed right on her rear end—and on top of the horn.
Honk!

And the kids just kept on laughing and laughing!

“G-Man the Clown has a new act,” Katie heard one of the nurses say.

“Must be a special show to celebrate Darnell getting well,” a doctor replied. “He and Mr. Guthrie are very close.”