Karate Katie (2 page)

“What’s with him?” Suzanne asked.

“Kevin quit the track team,” Katie explained.

“Oh. You just found out. I knew about that
yesterday
,” Suzanne boasted. “Kevin’s mother told my mother that he likes karate class better. That’s why he quit.”

“But he made a promise to be part of the track team,” George told her. “You don’t just break a promise. Now I have to run the relay without him.”

“Oh, big deal,” Suzanne said. “You can run with someone else.”

“It’s not the same,” George moaned.

Suzanne shook her head. “You whine just like my baby sister,” she told him.

Katie gulped. This was getting ugly. Suzanne got on George’s nerves even when he was in a good mood. And today, George was in a bad mood. There was no way he was going to put up with Suzanne being mean to him.

“I wish you would just shut up!” George shouted at Suzanne. “Forever!”

Katie gasped. George had just made a wish.
A really mean wish.
George had done a terrible thing.

But Katie couldn’t really be angry with him. George hadn’t known what he was doing when he said that. He was just screaming because he was angry. He had no idea about the power of wishes.

How could he? Katie hadn’t known about it, either—until the day the magic wind came along.

It had all started one really bad day last year when Katie was in third grade. She’d had a terrible day. She’d lost the football game for her team, gotten mud all over her favorite pants, and burped really loud in front of the whole class.

That night, Katie wished she could be anyone other than herself.

There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made that wish, because the very next day the magic wind came. It turned Katie into Speedy, the hamster in her third-grade classroom! Katie spent the whole morning going around and around on a hamster wheel and gnawing on chew sticks!

The magic wind came back again and again after that. Sometimes it changed Katie into other kids, like Jeremy, Suzanne, and even Suzanne’s baby sister, Heather. Other times it turned her into adults—like Cinnamon, the woman who owned the candy store in the Cherrydale Mall. What a mess
that
had been! Katie had accidentally sent candy hearts with mean messages to some of her friends at school. She’d almost ruined Valentine’s Day forever!

Another time the magic wind had turned Katie into Lucille, the lunch lady in the school cafeteria. That time, Katie had started a food fight and gotten Lucille fired. It took all the kids in school to get her hired back again.

In fact, it seemed like Katie got into trouble whenever the magic wind came. And so did the person she turned into. That was why Katie didn’t like wishes. When they came true, they really could make a mess of things!

“Go, Emma, go!” Katie shouted as the relay race began. Coach Debbie had put Emma Weber in as George’s partner in the race. Now Emma W. was running as fast as she could down the track. She held a metal baton in her hand as she ran.

Katie really cheered her two pals on! “Come on, Emma!” she shouted loudly.

Emma W. was running pretty fast. She was tied with the runner from the other team. As Emma reached the finish line, she handed the white baton over to George. He took off and ran down the track.

“Come on, George!” Katie yelled. “You can do it!” She really wanted her team to win.

“Move it, George!” Suzanne screamed toward the field. “Go faster! FASTER!”

Unfortunately, George wasn’t moving very fast at all. He hadn’t tied his shoelace very well. It came untied when he started to run. Now his sneaker kept falling off his foot.

A few moments later, a runner for the other team crossed the finish line. George was way behind.

As George crossed the finish line, Emma W. and Katie were there waiting for him.

“It’s okay,” Emma told George. “We’ll get them next time.”

“Grrr!”
George growled. “There won’t be any next time.”

Katie shook her head. “Come on, George. That’s not fair. It’s not Emma’s fault you lost the race.”

“No. It’s Kevin’s fault,” George grumbled. “I hate him.”

Katie shook her head. She knew it wasn’t Kevin’s fault at all. If George had just tied his shoelace, he might have had a chance.

But there was no sense telling George that now. He wasn’t going to listen anyway.

“Katie, it’s almost time for the long jump,” Coach Debbie called out. “You’d better start warming up.”

“Okay,” Katie called back.

“Good luck,” Suzanne told her.

Katie looked at Suzanne strangely. Her voice sounded kind of hoarse.
Uh-oh! What if George’s mean wish was coming true?

“Are you okay?” she asked Suzanne.

Suzanne nodded. “Sure, I’m fine. I’ve just got a sore throat. It’s my third one this month.”

“Are you sure?” Katie asked her.

“Stop worrying about me,” Suzanne continued. “Worry about how you’re going to beat that girl from Oakwood Elementary School in the long jump. Have you seen how tall she is?”

Suzanne wasn’t kidding. The girl from Oakwood Elementary had really long legs. And, boy, could she jump! Still, Katie had come in second place against the four people who were jumping. That was the best she’d ever placed in a track meet.

“I think I did pretty well,” Katie told Suzanne that night while the two girls were on the phone.

“You did,” Suzanne assured her. “But no matter how you did, you would have been better than George. What a klutz.”

“Why are you so mean to him?” Katie asked her.

“
I’m
mean?” Suzanne insisted. She coughed hoarsely. “How about him? Did you hear what he said to me?”

Katie sighed. How could she forget?

“Besides, he’s always blaming other people for his—” Suzanne stopped in the middle of her sentence and began coughing again.

“Are you okay?” Katie asked her.

Suzanne coughed harder. When she finally stopped, there was silence on her end of the phone.

“Suzanne?” Katie asked. “Are you there?”

The answer came back in a hoarse whisper. “I think I lost my voice,” Suzanne struggled to say.

Katie gasped. George’s wish had come true!

Katie didn’t sleep very well that night. She was really worried about Suzanne. What if she
never
got her voice back? How would she sing along with Bayside Boys songs? Or answer questions in school? Or talk on the phone? And what would Suzanne be like if she couldn’t brag all the time?

It was hard to believe. Katie really would miss hearing Suzanne’s boasting.

When Katie arrived at school the next morning, she spotted Suzanne across the school yard. A group of fourth-grade girls were standing around her. Katie rushed over to her friend. She hoped she was all right.

“How are you?” Katie asked Suzanne.

Suzanne picked up a pink heart-shaped pad. She used a bright purple pen to write a message on it.