Any Way You Slice It (6 page)

Katie gulped. Oh no! The brown spice. It must have been the cinnamon and sugar mixture set out for the coffee!

Katie could feel a tear fall from her eye and settle into Louie’s moustache. Suddenly, she forgot that she was supposed to be a grown man. She felt very much like the eight-year-old girl she was inside. And so she did a very kid-like thing. She ran into the storeroom, slammed the door, and started to cry.

“Everything’s ruined!” she blubbered, as she sat down on one of the cardboard boxes in the storeroom.

Kaboom!
The cardboard box collapsed beneath her.

Katie cried harder. Her rear end hurt. Her feet hurt. Her hands were covered with flour, and she was very, very tired.

And for what? When word got out about how bad that last pizza had been, Louie would be out of business. He would have to retire and move away.

Suddenly, without any warning, a fierce wind blasted through the storeroom. The breeze circled around Katie ferociously, like a tornado. Katie shut her eyes tight and grabbed on to a nearby cabinet to keep from being blown away.

The magic wind was back!

There was no way to predict when the wind would come . . . or when it would stop. So Katie wasn’t really surprised when the wind died down without any warning.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked around. She was still in the storeroom. She felt her face. No moustache. She looked at her hands. They were small, with chipped red nail polish and no flour in the fingernails.

She was Katie Carew again.

And Louie was himself, as well. “What happened?” he moaned. “How did I get in here?”

“Don’t you remember?” Katie asked nervously. There was no way she was going to be able to explain about the magic wind to Louie.

“Well, I sort of do,” he said. “I mean, I think I remember making a pizza for the contest and . . . ” He stopped midsentence and jumped up. “The contest! I’ve got to get out there!”

Quickly, Katie followed Louie out of the storeroom. Carolyn and Neal were still at the table, chowing down on the pizza Katie had made. Finally, Carolyn leaned back in her chair. “That’s it for me,” she said slowly. “That cinnamon pizza did me in, Louie.”

Louie looked confused.

Katie almost started crying again.

“Hey, then I’m the winner!” Neal cheered. “I’m the pizza king of Cherrydale!”

The photographers’ cameras started flashing. A news reporter shoved a microphone into his face. Everyone was cheering.

Everyone but Katie, that is. She was busy staring at Louie. The pizza chef was holding the cinammon and sugar shaker in his hands.

He looked very confused.

The next morning, Katie tried to stay in bed as late as she could. She didn’t want to wake up and face the bad news, so she pretended not to feel Pepper’s wet nose on her cheek when he tried to wake her up to play. She covered her ears with her pillow so she couldn’t hear her mother’s cheerful singing as she cooked breakfast. And she didn’t move a muscle when she heard the phone ring in the kitchen.

Katie wasn’t getting out of bed. No way. She didn’t want to see anyone. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Katie’s dad said, as he walked into her room and opened the blinds.

“It’s Sunday. I don’t have to wake up,” Katie moaned.

“You’ve already had two phone calls,” her father told her.

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“They were from Louie,” Katie’s dad continued. “He wants you to come down to his store. He said he has something important to say to you.”

Katie frowned. Louie wanted to tell her that he was going out of business.

“I’ll see you downstairs at breakfast,” Katie’s dad said. “Mom will drive you to the mall when she goes to work.”

 

 

Katie wasn’t the only kid Louie had called that morning. By the time she and her mother arrived at Louie’s Pizza Shop, Suzanne, Jeremy, Becky, George, Kevin, and Ian were already there. They were all sitting at the counter. Suzanne, Jeremy, Becky, and Ian were eating pizza. George and Kevin were eating Italian ices.

“I need a break from pizza,” George told Louie.

“Katie, there you are!” Louie gave her a big smile.

He’s so brave
, Katie thought sadly.

“I have something to tell all of you—especially you, Katie,” Louie announced.

Katie gulped. Louie was blaming her for everything. Well, why not? It was her fault, wasn’t it?

“Louie, I never meant for . . .” Katie began. But before she could finish her sentence, the phone rang.

Louie reached for the phone. “Louie’s Pizza Shop,” he said into the receiver. Then he listened to the caller. “No. Not at all. Just come whenever you want,” he told the person on the other end.

Louie hung up the phone and grinned. “That’s what I wanted to tell you about.”

“What?” Katie asked sadly. “Was that the movers coming to get everything?”

“The movers?” Louie asked. “Why would I need movers?”

“Aren’t you retiring?” Katie asked him.

“No way,” Louie assured her. “That contest was a brilliant idea, Katie. The phone’s been ringing all morning. People want deliveries; they want me to cater parties. That call was from a woman asking if she needed a reservation to get a table here!”

“But the cinnamon pizza?” Katie asked. “Wasn’t that awful?”

Louie shook his head. “I don’t know what made me do that,” he said. “But it was great. Did you know that Carolyn Evans is the food reviewer for the
Cherrydale News
? She wrote a whole article about my pizza. It’s in today’s paper!”

He handed Katie the newspaper. Sure enough, there was a picture of Carolyn eating Louie’s pizza.

“Read the last paragraph,” Louie said, handing the paper to Katie.

“The best part of the contest was the dessert pizza Louie served,” Katie read aloud from the article. “It was sweet and tangy. I’d never had anything like it before. It made losing the contest easier for me to bear. I recommend it to anyone who likes pizza and dessert.”

Katie looked up at Louie. “Wow!” she exclaimed.

“I’m adding a dessert pizza to the menu,” Louie told the kids. “I think I’ll call it the Katie Special.”

Wow! A pizza named for her. Katie smiled proudly.

“I’ve got one in the oven,” Louie said. “We can celebrate.”

“I’d love a slice!” George exclaimed.

“I thought you were taking a break from pizza,” Becky said.

“I did. I didn’t eat any all morning,” George responded, laughing.

Katie giggled.

As Louie opened the oven door, Katie prepared to feel the heat from the oven. Instead, she felt a cool breeze on the back of her neck.

Oh no! Was the magic wind back? Was it going to turn her into someone else? Right here in front of her friends?

“I’m so glad they finally turned the air-conditioning on in the mall,” Suzanne said. “It sure gets hot in here.”

Katie sighed with relief. It wasn’t the magic wind at all. She was going to be able to sit here and enjoy a Katie Special dessert pizza with her friends. She was Katie Carew and she was going to stay that way.

At least for now.

Here’s what you do:
Split each English muffin in half lengthwise so that you have six round pizza doughs. Place the muffin halves on the cookie sheets. Use a spoon to cover each piece of bread with tomato sauce.

Sprinkle oregano over the sauce. Pile your favorite toppings on each piece. Top each pizza with two tablespoons of shredded mozzarella cheese. Ask an adult to preheat the oven to 325º F. Then have the adult place the cookie sheets in the oven. Bake your pizzas until the cheese is bubbly (about ten minutes). Ask the adult to remove the pizzas from the oven.

Enjoy!