Bad Rap (2 page)

The next morning on the playground, everyone was talking about the Bayside Boys concert.

“I can’t believe my mom wouldn’t let me miss school to go get tickets,” Jessica Haynes moaned.

“I know what you mean,” Zoe Canter agreed. “This is so sad.”

“Even my big sister Lacey wants to go to that concert,” Emma Weber said. “But she’s got a math test this morning. There’s no way my parents would let her miss that to go buy tickets.”

Katie sighed. “I really wanted to see the Bayside Boys up close, especially Spike.”

“It’s just plain dumb,” Suzanne told the girls.

“What is?” Katie asked her.

“It’s dumb that the tickets went on sale today. All the Bayside Boys’ fans are kids. And kids are in school on Monday mornings,” Suzanne explained.

“Hey, that’s right!” Mandy Banks exclaimed. “You know, I bet the concert won’t sell out. At least not this morning!”

Katie’s face brightened. “That means we can go get tickets
after
school.”

“I was thinking the same thing!” Suzanne agreed. “Meet me here after your band practice.”

“Okay, but I have to go back to my classroom and sign out with Mr. Guthrie before I can go home,” Katie reminded her.

“That’s all right,” Suzanne said. “But hurry! We don’t want to miss out on getting tickets!”

Katie turned to Emma W. “Do you want to come with us?” she asked, not wanting to leave her new friend out.

Emma frowned. “I can’t. It’s my turn to help my mom with the twins this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Katie replied. “That’s too bad. But maybe ... ”

Before Katie could finish her sentence, Becky Stern came running onto the playground. Well, not running, actually. She was doing cartwheels across the yard!

“Hey, everyone!” Becky greeted the girls as she landed right beside them. “I have the best news!”

“We already know,” Suzanne told her. “The Bayside Boys are coming to Cherrydale. Katie and I are going to buy tickets this afternoon.”

“Forget it,” Becky told her. “They’ll be sold out by then. There are already a thousand people lined up outside the Cherrydale Arena waiting for the ticket booth to open. I heard it on the news.”

Katie frowned.
So much for great ideas
.

“If the show’s going to sell out, why are you so happy?” Emma W. asked Becky.

Becky smiled. “Because
I
already have my tickets,” she told her.

“That’s impossible!” Suzanne exclaimed. “They don’t go on sale for another twenty minutes!”

“I didn’t
buy
my tickets,” Becky boasted. “I got them for free.”

“How did you do that?” Zoe Canter asked.

“The Bayside Boys record all their CDs at a studio in Atlanta. My dad used to play golf with the man who owns the studio,” Becky bragged in her soft, Southern accent. “My dad’s friend can get tickets to any Bayside Boys show he wants. He promised me two tickets to the show.”

“Wow,” Jessica said. “You’re so lucky.”

“
Two
tickets?” Suzanne piped up curiously. “Who are you taking to the show with you?”

Becky shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet,” she told her. She smiled. “It could be anyone.” Then she turned and walked away.

Suzanne’s eyes got very small. Katie could tell she was angry. “It could be anyone,” she said, imitating Becky’s accent. “Oooh. Blechy Becky is such a snob.”

“You’re just jealous, Suzanne,” Mandy said.

“No, I’m not,” Suzanne told her. “Why would I be? Katie and I are going to get tickets to that show, too.”

“We are?” Katie asked her, surprised. “How are we going to do that?”

“I don’t know yet,” Suzanne said. She watched as Becky stopped to tell some of the other girls about her tickets. “But we will. We
have
to.”

As Katie walked into class 4A, she was wondering what plan Suzanne had for getting tickets to the concert. But she didn’t have much time to think about that. There was a bigger question waiting for her in the classroom.

In fact, there were
lots
of questions waiting for the kids as they entered the classroom. Katie’s teacher, Mr. Guthrie, had decorated the whole room with cardboard question marks. They were hanging from the ceiling, stuck to the walls, and on all the classroom windows. There was even a big question mark over Slinky the snake’s cage.

“What’s this all about?” Kadeem Carter asked Mr. Guthrie.

“Not
what
,” Mr. Guthrie told him mysteriously. “Who.”

“What?” Kadeem asked again.

“Who,” Mr. Guthrie repeated.

Huh?
Katie was getting confused!

Mr. Guthrie smiled at his class. “Take your seats, everyone. We’re about to start a new learning adventure!”

Katie smiled. Most teachers would just say that the class was starting a new unit. But not Mr. Guthrie. He thought of learning as a big adventure. Emma W. and Katie moved their beanbag chairs next to each other and sat down. All the kids in class 4A sat in beanbag chairs. Mr. Guthrie thought kids learned better when they were comfortable.

“What do you think Mr. G. is up to this time?” Emma W. whispered to Katie.

“It could be anything,” Katie told her.

The kids didn’t have to wait long to find out. Just then, Mr. Guthrie stood up and wrote three words on the blackboard.

WHO AM I?

George Brennan raised his hand high. “Finally, a question I can answer,” he joked. “You’re Mr. Guthrie.”

“Correct,” Mr. Guthrie laughed. “But actually,
Who Am I?
is the name of your new assignment.”

Now
everyone
in the class was confused.

“Let me explain,” Mr. Guthrie said. “Each of you will pick a famous person to research. Then, in two weeks, you will give an oral report, pretending to be that person. You have to dress up like him or her. And when you talk, you should try to sound like that person. Try to use some quotes that the person you choose actually said. Then the rest of the class will have to guess who you are.”

“Do we have to pick a person from history? Can it be a movie star or an athlete?” Mandy Banks asked.

“You can choose anyone you want—as long as there’s enough information on that person for you to do your report,” Mr. Guthrie told her.

“I know just who I want to be!” George exclaimed. “I want to be . . .”

“Don’t tell,” Mr. Guthrie said, holding up his hand. “That’ll ruin the guessing part of the report.”

“This is so cool,” Kevin Camilleri said.

Katie didn’t think it was so cool. She didn’t want to become anyone else. Not even for a report.

That was because Katie knew better than anyone what it was like to become somebody else. She’d done that too many times already.

It had all started one day at the beginning of third grade. Katie had lost the football game for her team, ruined her favorite pair of pants, and let out a big burp in front of the whole class. It was the worst day of Katie’s life. That night, Katie had wished she could be anyone but herself.

There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made that wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.

The magic wind was a wild tornado that blew just around Katie. It was so powerful that every time it came, it turned her into somebody else! Katie never knew when the wind would arrive. But whenever it did, her whole world was turned upside down . . . switcheroo!

The first time the magic wind came, it turned Katie into Speedy, class 3A’s hamster! It was pretty bad having nothing but chew sticks and hamster food to eat all morning. Luckily, the magic wind came and turned Katie back into herself in time for lunch.

The magic wind came back again and again after that. It turned Katie into all sorts of people—Mr. Kane, the school principal; Genie the Meanie, her camp counselor; and Mr. Starkey, her band teacher! Once, it even turned Katie into her old teacher Mrs. Derkman. Katie had come very close to having to kiss Mrs. Derkman’s big, hairy husband, Freddy Bear. How gross would
that
have been?

The wind had also changed Katie into other kids—like Becky, Emma W., and Suzanne. Being Suzanne had been really bad. Katie had turned into her right in the middle of Suzanne’s modeling show. Katie was
no
model. It had been a disaster.

Then there was the time the magic wind had changed Katie into her dog, Pepper. She’d spent the afternoon peeing on fire hydrants and eating a half-chewed bagel right off the sidewalk. Then this mean squirrel started throwing acorns at her head. After that, Katie decided that a dog’s life wasn’t as easy as people thought.

Being somebody else caused Katie nothing but trouble. That was why she definitely didn’t want to do this
Who Am I?
project. But she couldn’t tell Mr. Guthrie that. Not without explaining about the magic wind. And she didn’t think Mr. G. would believe her. Katie wouldn’t have believed it, either, if it didn’t keep happening to her.

So Katie was going to have to pick a person for her project. But who? She glanced into her backpack. The book she was reading was right on top. It was called
Aesop’s Fables.

Hmmm
. . . Katie really liked the stories in the book. But she didn’t know much about Aesop himself. All it said on the book jacket was that he was an author who had lived thousands of years ago in Greece.

Katie thought for a moment. Since being a writer was on her list of things she might want to be when she grew up, it might be fun to learn about a writer who was as famous as Aesop.

Katie just hoped the magic wind never turned her into Aesop. She didn’t want to live in a time when there were no TVs, stereos, or Bayside Boys concerts!

As soon as school was over, Katie grabbed her book bag and her clarinet and raced to the playground. Suzanne was waiting for her.

“Do you want to come to my house, or should I go to yours?” Suzanne asked her.