Authors: Nancy Krulik

Doggone It! (2 page)

BOOK: Doggone It!

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“Well, I’d better get to work. I have a whole house to unpack.” Mrs. Derkman smiled at Katie. “We’ll talk later,
neighbor.”

“Yes, Mrs. Derkman,” Katie answered quietly.

As Mrs. Derkman headed toward her new house, Jeremy strapped on his helmet and walked over to his bike.

“I . . . well . . . I gotta get home,” he said nervously.

“Don’t you want to play ball or something?” Katie asked him.

Jeremy looked at Mrs. Derkman and her husband. They were on their front porch, watching the movers. “Not today, Katie,” Jeremy told her. “Maybe we can play tomorrow . . . at my house.”

As Jeremy rode off, Katie smiled at Suzanne. “I’ll go get my jump rope. We can make up some new rhymes or something.”

Suzanne picked up her rope. “Uh, I have to be getting home,” she told Katie nervously. “It’s getting late.”

Katie looked at her friend. “Late for what?”

“Um, um ... I just have to go,” Suzanne said.

Katie looked down at Pepper. “At least
you
still want to play with me, don’t you, boy?” she asked, scratching the spaniel between the ears.

Crash!
One of the movers dropped a heavy box on the lawn. The loud noise scared Pepper. He turned and ran inside as fast he could.

Next door, Mrs. Derkman was yelling at the movers. She sounded angry and impatient—just the way she did when the kids in class 3A wouldn’t listen.

“This is a nightmare!” Katie exclaimed.

Chapter 3

“Would you like some more carrots?” Katie’s mother asked at dinner that night.

“No thanks,” Katie mumbled.

“But you’ve hardly eaten a thing,” Mrs. Carew said. “I made all your favorites—veggie burgers, carrots, and mashed potatoes.”

Katie sighed. Veggie burgers were her favorite. But she didn’t feel much like eating.

“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.

“Well, I’ll have some more carrots—and potatoes, too,” Katie’s dad said, patting his stomach. “This is a great dinner.”

Katie’s mother smiled. “Speaking of dinner, I was thinking we should invite the Derkmans for a barbecue tomorrow. They’ve probably been too busy unpacking to cook.”

Katie gulped. Mrs. Derkman? Eating at her house? How horrible was that?

“No!” Katie shouted out suddenly.

Her mother looked surprised. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

Katie sighed. Didn’t her mother understand
anything?
“Mom, Mrs. Derkman is my teacher. I can’t have dinner with her.”

“Katie, that’s silly. The Derkmans just moved in. We should be neighborly,” her mother said firmly.

“There are a gazillion houses.” Katie moaned. “Why did they have to pick the one right next door to us? I wish . . . ”

Katie was about to say that she wished anyone else in the whole world had moved in next door, but she stopped herself. Katie knew better than to make wishes like that. It was too dangerous.

Katie had learned all about wishes after one really bad day at school. She’d lost thefootball game for her team, ruined her favorite jeans, and burped in front of the whole class. That day, Katie had wished that she could be anyone but herself.

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

The magic wind was a really wild storm that seemed to blow only around Katie. The magic wind was really powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it was able to turn Katie into somebody else.

The first time the magic wind came, it changed Katie into Speedy, the class hamster. She’d spent a whole morning running around trying to keep from getting stepped on.

Luckily, Katie had changed back into herself before anyone realized who the class hamster really was.

The magic wind didn’t only turn Katie into animals. Sometimes it turned her into grown-ups, like Lucille, the school lunch lady, and Mr. Kane, the principal.

Other times, the magic wind turned Katie into other kids, like Suzanne’s baby sister, Heather, or Becky Stern, the new girl in school. Once it had actually switcherooed her into Jeremy Fox. Katie didn’t like being a boy at all. She wasn’t even sure which bathroom she was supposed to go into!

That’s why Katie didn’t make wishes anymore. When they came true, things never turned out the way she hoped they would. The truth was, Mrs. Derkman was her neighbor, and there was nothing Katie could do.

But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

Chapter 4

Slurp.
Katie was fast asleep when she felt a wet lick on her face. She opened her eyes slowly and came face-to-face with Pepper. As soon as Katie opened her eyes, the spaniel’s brown stubby tail began wagging wildly.

Katie glanced at the clock on her wall. It was only 7:15. “Didn’t anybody tell you it’s Sunday?” she moaned to her dog.

Pepper answered with a big, soggy lick to her nose.

“Okay, okay,” she giggled. “You win. Let’s go play.”

Just then, Katie heard someone singing loudly outside. Whoever it was had a terrible voice—high and screechy, like fingernails on a blackboard.

Pepper growled.

“Who could that be?” Katie wondered aloud as she put on her clothes. Quickly, she brushed her teeth and raced outside to find out what was going on.

Whoa! What a surprise!

When Katie and Pepper walked out into Katie’s front yard, they discovered Mrs. Derkman working in her garden. The teacher was wearing a huge straw hat and a pair of overalls. Her hands were covered with green gardening gloves. And as if that weren’t weird enough . . .

Mrs. Derkman was singing at the top of her lungs.

“Noah, he built them, he built them an arky-arky,” the teacher screeched.

Katie couldn’t believe that this was the same Mrs. Derkman who was her teacher. Mrs. Derkman never wore anything other than neat dresses and sensible shoes. And she never—
ever
—sang out loud.

“Made it out of hickory barky-barky . . . ” Mrs. Derkman croaked.

Katie choked back a laugh.

“Ruff! Ruff!”
Pepper came racing over to Katie with a yellow tennis ball in his mouth. He wanted to play.

“Okay, boy,” Katie said with a smile. She took the soggy ball and flung it across the lawn. “Fetch!”

Unfortunately, Katie’s aim wasn’t very good. The ball flew into Mrs. Derkman’s garden. Pepper leaped right into the flowerbed and caught the ball in his mouth.

“Oh, no! Not my pansies!” Mrs. Derkman waved her arms wildly. “Get out of here, you rotten dog!”

Pepper cocked his head curiously to the side. He’d just caught the ball in the air. Usually somebody said “good dog” after he did that. Sometimes he even got a treat.

But Mrs. Derkman certainly wasn’t about to give Pepper a treat.

Katie walked over to Mrs. Derkman’s house. “Sorry about that,” she said shyly.

“My new flowerbed.” Mrs. Derkman moaned. “Katie, could you please keep this dog on your lawn from now on?”

“His name is Pepper,” Katie told her.

Mrs. Derkman took a deep breath. “Okay, could you please keep Pepper on your lawn?”

Katie nodded. “I’m sorry about your flowers.”

“It’s okay,” Mrs. Derkman said. “Just please keep
Pepper
out of my garden. I’ve planted a new strawberry patch and some tomato plants. They have to be treated very tenderly. Don’t they, Sven?”

Sven?
Katie looked around. “Who are you talking to?” she asked her teacher curiously.

Mrs. Derkman laughed. “Sven,” she said, pointing to the big stone troll standing in the middle of the garden. “We’ve had him for years. I found him when I was visiting Norway, and I just fell in love with him.”