Free the Worms!

by Nancy Krulik

  At just that moment, Katie felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her head. Almost instantly, her whole snake body grew cold—just like the breeze.

  Katie began wiggling back over to the beanbag chair, hoping to curl up inside and warm up. But before she could squirm more than a few inches, the wind picked up speed, blowing harder and harder. In a second it became a powerful tornado that was blowing just around Katie.

  The magic wind was back. And as scary as that wild wind felt, Katie was glad it had arrived. Once she was back in her own skin, she’d get Slinky back in his cage before Mr. G. returned to the classroom.

  Katie braced her snake body against the magic wind. She didn’t have to try not to cry—she knew she couldn’t. There was nothing she could do but wait for the tornado to be over.

  And in a few seconds, it was. The magic wind was gone.

  And Katie Kazoo was back!

  The first thing she did was wiggle all of her fingers and toes.

  She sniffed the air—with her nose.

  “Oh yeah!” Katie cheered. She shook her arms and legs and did a happy dance. It was so nice not to be a snake anymore.

  Then Katie heard footsteps in the hallway. Mr. G.!

  “Come on, Slinky,” Katie said. “It’s time to go home to your cage.”

  When Katie looked down at the ground, she didn’t see Slinky. He was gone!

  Quickly, Katie got down on her hands and knees and started looking around the corners of the room for Slinky. It was as if he’d just disappeared by magic.

  Magic! Oh no! Had the magic wind blown him away?

  It must have. There was no other explanation.

  Which meant Slinky could be just about anywhere in the whole world. That magic wind was really strong.

  Poor Slinky. He was in a new place, all by himself. He was probably really scared. And even hungrier.

  Katie was scared, too. How was she ever going to explain this to Mr. G.—or to the other kids in her class? It was all her fault that Slinky had disappeared. They were going to be mad at her forever!

  This was s-s-sooo not good!

  Chapter 10

  “Hi, Katie,” Mr. G. said as he walked into the classroom. “Almost finished with your drawing?”

  Katie frowned. She was finished, all right.

  Mr. G. looked at her curiously. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Slinky, he . . . uh . . .” Katie stammered nervously. “W-w-well, I was drawing him, but his face was hidden by that branch. I wanted to get a better look so I . . .”

  “So you took him out of his cage,” Mr. G. said, finishing her sentence. “Katie, you’re not supposed to do that.”

  “I know,” Katie said sadly. “I’m really sorry.”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Mr. G. told her, sounding a little angry and disappointed. “Right now, I want you to put Slinky back in his cage.” He looked around the room. “Where is he?”

  Uh-oh! Now Mr. G. was going to be really mad!

  “Th-that’s just it,” Katie stammered. “I don’t know. I’ve been looking all over for him.”

  “What do you mean?” Mr. G. asked her.

  “Well, after I took him out of his cage, he kind of slithered over to that table leg,” Katie told her teacher. “He started rubbing his body on the wood. And then his skin popped open and he crawled out.”

  “Slinky was shedding right before your eyes,” Mr. G. said. “That must have been very interesting to see.”

  “It was really tight and itchy,” Katie said.

  Oops. There was no way a fourth-grade girl could know something like that.

  “I mean, um . . . er . . . he looked like he was very itchy. After that, I only turned away for a few seconds. Honest,” Katie continued, tears welling in her eyes. “But when I looked down again, he was gone. Now he’s probably far away, scared and all alone.”

  “Snakes aren’t all that fast,” Mr. G. assured her. “He’s around here somewhere. A snake couldn’t just disappear.”

  Yes, he could, Katie thought to herself. But she really wanted to believe Mr. G. was right.

  “There has to be a way to coax Slinky out of hiding,” Mr. G. continued, thinking out loud. “We just have to figure out what it is.”

  Katie sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. After all, Slinky wasn’t going to come running at the sound of his name like Pepper did. For one thing, Slinky couldn’t hear. And for another, he didn’t have any legs to run on.

  Then, suddenly, Katie got one of her great ideas! “Slinky’s very hungry,” she told Mr. G.

  Her teacher looked at her curiously.

  “I mean, he must be,” Katie corrected herself quickly. “We haven’t fed him yet. And it takes a lot of energy to shed your skin. What with all that scratching and wriggling and all.”

  “True,” Mr. G. said.

  “I bet he’d come out for a worm,” Katie suggested.

  Mr. G. shot Katie a curious look. “I thought you didn’t think we should feed the worms to Slinky,” he said.

  Katie nodded. “That’s what I used to think. But now I understand that Slinky has to eat the kind of food that will keep him healthy. He’s not like humans. We can choose from all sorts of foods and still stay healthy.”

  Mr. G. smiled. “Exactly.”

  “But I don’t want to be the one to feed Slinky the worm,” Katie admitted. “I just couldn’t do that.”

  Mr. G. nodded understandingly. “I’ll feed it to him. As soon as we find him,” he added as he went up on the shelf and grabbed one of the containers of worms.

  Mr. G. opened the lid of the container to let the scent of the worms into the air.

  Katie imagined Slinky sticking out his long, forked tongue to get a good whiff.

  Katie stood there beside her teacher, waiting for Slinky to slither out.

  She waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  But nothing happened.

  “This is all my fault,” Katie cried out. “Slinky is gone forever!”

  Mr. G. shook his head and grinned. “Not exactly,” he said. “Look over there.”

  Katie looked in the direction Mr. G. was pointing. At first she didn’t see anything. But then she noticed something funny. Kadeem’s backpack was lying open on the floor. And it was moving.

  “He’s in there!” Katie shouted out excitedly. “He’s in the backpack!”

  “Putting out the worms was a great suggestion, Katie,” Mr. G. said. “He must have picked up their scent.”

  “With his tongue,” Katie added.

  “Exactly,” Mr. G. agreed. He bent down and gently pulled Slinky from Kadeem’s backpack. “Now let’s get this guy back in his cage and feed him.”

  Katie turned her back when Mr. G. put a worm in Slinky’s cage. She looked down at the floor and tried not to picture Slinky swallowing his prey.

  A few minutes later, Katie watched as her teacher pinned Slinky’s shed skin onto the bulletin board.

  “Our little guy is growing up,” Mr. G. joked. “He’s gone up a size.”

  Katie giggled, picturing Slinky in a T-shirt and jeans—the kinds of things she and her mother went shopping for when Katie grew to a new size.

  “Snakes are definitely lucky,” Katie told her teacher.

  “Why?” Mr. G. asked.

  “They don’t have to wait on line at a store to try things on,” she answered with a laugh. “And their new skin is always a perfect fit.”

  Chapter 11

  “Hey, Katie, where have you been?” Suzanne asked at the end of the school day. “I’ve been waiting outside the school for you forever!”

  Katie laughed. Actually, it had only been fifteen minutes since the bell had rung. As usual, Suzanne was exaggerating.

  “I was cleaning Slinky’s cage,” she told Suzanne.

  Suzanne made a face. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because he deserves it,” Katie replied. “He had a tough day.”

&nbs
p; “How tough can a snake’s day be?” Suzanne asked her.

  “Slinky shed his skin today,” Katie explained. “You have no idea how exhausting that can be.”

  “And you do?” Suzanne chuckled.

  Katie didn’t answer. What could she say?

  “Well, anyway, you missed everything,” Suzanne went on.

  “What’s everything?” Katie asked.

  Suzanne grinned. She really loved being the person who was in the know. “Well, for starters, the band broke up.”

  “Broke up?” Katie repeated. “But they just got together.”

  Suzanne shrugged. “And now they’re apart.”

  “Was this all over that name thing?” Katie wondered.

  Suzanne nodded. “Fourth-grade boys are such babies.”

  Katie sighed. “I sure wish I could help get the band back together.”

  “Well, you can’t,” Suzanne told her.

  Katie looked at her strangely. Suzanne seemed almost happy about that.

  “At least we still have the Bayside Boys,” Suzanne said. “They’ll always be our favorite group.”

  “I wonder how they got their name,” Katie said.

  “Oh, I know that. I read all about it on their website,” Suzanne boasted. “They all grew up as boys in San Francisco. That’s a city located on a bay. So they’re the Bayside Boys.”

  “That makes sense,” Katie said.

  “It’s a good name,” Suzanne told her. “It really catches your attention.”

  Katie sure wished she could help the boys come up with a name like that. Maybe she could have helped them to keep their band together.

  But Slinky had needed her, too.

  Slinky!

  Suddenly Katie had another one of her great ideas.

  “Do you want to go to my house and look at the Bayside Boys website?” Suzanne asked Katie.

  Katie shook her head. “I can’t,” she told her. “I have something really important to do at home.”

  “More important than the Bayside Boys?” Suzanne asked.

  Katie nodded. “Believe it or not, yes,” she said.

  When Katie arrived at school the next morning, there was a lot of tension on the playground. George was standing all by himself near the big tree glaring at Kevin. Jeremy was sitting on the bench, glaring at George. And Kevin was over by the swings glaring at Jeremy and George.

  Katie walked over to Jeremy first. “I have a surprise for you guys,” she told him.

  “What guys?” Jeremy asked her.

  “You and George and Kevin. The band,” Katie said.

  “There is no band,” Jeremy told her. “We broke up.”

  “Oh yeah, Suzanne mentioned that,” Katie admitted. “But I didn’t believe her.”

  “Well, you should have,” Jeremy said.

  Katie didn’t answer. Instead she took Jeremy by the hand and pulled him over to where George was standing. “Hi, George,” she said.

  “Hi, Katie,” George replied. He ignored Jeremy.

  “I have a surprise for the band,” Katie said.

  “There is no band,” George and Jeremy said at once.

  “Nice harmony,” Katie told them. “That will come in handy when you’re singing.”

  George and Jeremy scowled at each other. But Katie paid no attention.

  “Kevin!” she called across the playground. “Come here.”

  Kevin didn’t move. He obviously didn’t want to be near George and Jeremy.

  Katie took both Jeremy and George by the hands and pulled them across the blacktop.

  “Stop it, Katie,” Jeremy said.

  “I don’t want to talk to them,” George insisted.

  But Katie didn’t stop until she reached where Kevin was standing.

  “Hi, Katie,” Kevin said, ignoring George and Jeremy.

  “Hi,” Katie replied. “I have a surprise for the three of you.”

  The boys all watched as Katie reached into her backpack. “Here it is,” she told them as she pulled out three T-shirts. “Tada!”

  “Wow!” Jeremy exclaimed.

  “Those are so cool!” Kevin added.

  “Amazing,” George agreed.

  Katie grinned. She knew the T-shirts were awesome. She’d spent all yesterday afternoon decorating them in red, white, yellow, and black. And she’d taken a really long time writing the new band name she’d come up with on the front.

  “Slinky and the Worms,” Jeremy read. “I like that.”

  “Yeah, it’s funny,” George agreed.

  “No one will forget it,” Kevin added.

  “So now you guys can be a band again,” Katie told the boys.

  This time the boys didn’t argue with her.

  “We’ll wear these at every gig we play,” Jeremy promised her.

  “Definitely,” George and Kevin agreed.

  Katie grinned. The band was back together.

  “There’s just one thing,” Kevin pointed out.

  “What?” George asked him.

  “Which one of us is Slinky?” Kevin wondered. “I mean, I’d much rather be a snake than a worm.”

  “Yeah, well, so would I,” Jeremy said.

  “Slinky’s not even your class pet,” George told Jeremy. “You guys have a guinea pig.”

  “So what?” Jeremy asked. “I still think Slinky’s cool.”

  “I think he’s cooler,” George told him.

  Oh, no. It was starting all over again. Katie had to do something, and fast!

  “Why don’t you guys take turns being Slinky?” Katie suggested.

  “Yeah, we could do that,” Jeremy said.

  “Sure,” Kevin agreed.

  George slipped on his T-shirt. “Katie Kazoo,” he said. “You know what?”

  “What?” Katie asked him.

  “You rock!” George exclaimed.

  Katie grinned. “Rock on, dudes,” she said.

  “Rock on!” Kevin, George, and Jeremy answered all at once. “Rock on!”

  Surpring Snake Facts!

  1. There are 2,267 known species of snakes in the world today.

  2. Snakes are deaf, but they do feel vibrations in the ground they are resting on. (Surprise! That means a cobra can’t really hear a snake charmer’s flute. The snake moves because of the vibrations the music makes.)

  3. Snakes can open their jaws so wide that they are able to swallow prey that is bigger than their heads.

  4. The smallest snakes are Brahminy blind snakes. They only grow to about two inches long.

  5. The largest snake, the anaconda, can grow as long as thirty-eight feet.

  About the Author

  NANCY KRULIK is the author of more than 150 books for children and young adults, including three New York Times bestsellers. She lives in New York City with her husband, composer Daniel Burwasser, their children, Amanda and Ian, and Pepper, a chocolate and white spaniel mix. When she’s not busy writing the Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo series, Nancy loves swimming, reading, and going to the movies.

  About the Illustratiors

  JOHN & WENDY’S art has been featured in other books for children, in magazines, on stationery, and on toys. When they are not drawing Katie and her friends, they like to paint, take photographs, travel, and play music in their rock ’n’ roll band. They live and work in Brooklyn, New York.