by Nancy Krulik
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “That’s just because your moms knew each other when they were kids,” she explained. “You guys probably wouldn’t have become friends if it weren’t for that.”
George pulled a bag of potato chips from his lunch bag. “Do you know why best friends are like potatoes?” he asked jokingly.
“No, why?” Katie said.
“Because they’re always there when the chips are down!” George started to laugh. “Get it?”
Katie smiled. She was glad George was trying to make everyone laugh. “That was funny,” she told him.
Suzanne put her arm around Katie. “Katie’s like that,” she told the others. “She’s always on my side.”
Jeremy moved closer toward Katie. “No, she’s always on my side,” he argued.
Katie could feel the tears starting to build up in her eyes. This just wasn’t fair. “Look, you guys, I like both of you. I don’t want to have to choose. I wish I could just cut myself in half,” she said.
George started to laugh.
“What’s so funny about that?” Katie demanded.
“Nothing.” George shrugged. “It’s just that I was thinking, if you cut your left side off, you’d be all right.” He laughed again.
But for once Katie didn’t laugh with him. She felt like nothing was going to be alright ever again. Quickly she turned and ran back into the hall. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she mumbled as she darted away.
Katie walked into the girls’ room and looked around. There was no one else there. It was nice to be alone. Maybe she could just stay in the bathroom until lunch was over. That way she could keep away from Suzanne, Jeremy, and everyone else in her class.
Katie looked at her watch. It was 12:05. Lunch was over at 1:00. That meant she would have to stay in the girls’ room for fifty-five minutes. That was a very long time. What could she do in the bathroom for fifty-five minutes? Katie looked at her watch again. Make that fifty-four minutes. The hands on her watch had just moved to 12:06.
Well, for starters, she could wash her face and hands. Katie turned on the water and held her hands under the faucet.
Suddenly Katie felt a light wind blowing on her back. She looked up toward the bathroom window. It was closed. So was the door. The wind wasn’t coming from outside. It was only blowing in the girls room. Katie gulped as she looked around her. The wind didn’t even seem to be blowing anywhere else in the room—just around Katie.
The wind grew stronger and stronger, swirling around her like a tornado. For a minute Katie was sure it was going to lift her right off the ground—like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She closed her eyes and grabbed on to the sink, trying to keep herself from flying away.
Katie was really scared. She knew what trouble this kind of wind could cause. This wasn’t the first time Katie had been trapped in a strange, magical windstorm. It had happened to her twice before, once when she’d turned into Speedy, and once when she’d turned back into herself. This wind could only mean one thing.
Katie Carew was becoming somebody else!
But who?
Or what?
After a few seconds, the wind stopped. Everything was quiet—and different. There was a really bad stink in the air. Not a bathroom stink, though. It smelled more like spoiled milk.
“Ow!” Katie yanked her hand from the sink. The cool plaster had suddenly turned really hot.
Where was she?
She slowly opened her eyes and looked nervously toward the mirror. It was time to find out just who she’d changed into.
But as Katie’s eyelids fluttered open, she discovered there was no mirror in front of her. There was no sink, either. Katie wasn’t even in the bathroom. She was in the cafeteria! She’d just burned her hand on the hot lunch counter.
A really bad smell began to waft up from the table.
“Yuck! What stinks?” Katie said aloud.
She looked down at a stack of disgusting gray hamburgers. Beside the burgers was a pile of old slices of American cheese. One of the slices was covered in green mold. Spoiled cheese and bad hamburgers—Katie felt sick.
Beads of sweat began to form on her forehead. Katie raised her hand to wipe them away. That’s when she saw that her hands were much larger than usual—the size of adult hands. She was also wearing clear plastic gloves that made her big hands feel hot and sweaty.
Katie ran her gloved hands over her dress. The dress was mostly white, but there were brown gravy stains all over it. Some of the stains looked like they’d been there for a while. Others looked as though they’d just landed on the dress today.
As Katie reached up to wipe a bead of sweat from her cheek, she felt a sharp pain in her lower back—the kind her mother complained about when she’d spent too many hours standing up at work. Katie’s feet really hurt, too. As she looked down, she was amazed to see just how huge her feet had become. Her white shoes looked like big boats on the ends of her legs!
“Excuse me,” a fourth-grade boy said to Katie. “Can I have a hot dog and a carton of milk?”
That’s when Katie realized what had happened to her.
Katie Carew had turned into Lucille the lunch lady!
Chapter 4
Now what? Katie thought nervously. I can’t do this. I don’t want to touch that disgusting meat.
“What’s going on up there?” a sixth-grade girl shouted from the back of the line.
“The lunch lady is so slow,” someone else said.
Katie felt like crying. She wasn’t used to having kids yell at her. She didn’t think being Lucille would be very much fun, but there was nothing she could do about it now.
Katie’s only hope was that she had only been stuck inside Speedy’s body for a little while. Maybe that’s how it would work with
Lucille’s body, too. Maybe the magic wind would change Katie back into herself pretty soon. She sure hoped so.
“Come on! Move it!” a sixth-grader shouted.
The kids were getting really mad. Katie wished she could just run away and hide, but there was nowhere for her to go. Katie had no choice. She was Lucille. She had to do what Lucille would do.
She had to serve disgusting food to kids.
“Oh man, not hot dogs again,” a fifth-grade boy named Carlos moaned as he stared at a bucket of hot dogs swimming around in boiling water. “We had those yesterday, and three days before that.”
“I know how you feel,” Katie agreed. “I’m pretty sick of these hounds with Mississippi mud myself. Would you rather have a wimpy instead?”
Hounds with Mississippi mud? Wimpy? Katie was shocked as the weird words left her mouth. She’d never even heard those words before. But somehow she just seemed to know that a hound with Mississippi mud was a hot dog with mustard, and that a wimpy was a hamburger.
It must be some sort of lunchroom code that only lunch ladies know, Katie thought to herself.
“Who are you calling wimpy?” Carlos demanded in an angry voice.
Katie blushed. “Nobody. Wimpy means hamburger.”
“Huh?” Carlos asked her.
“Oh, never mind.” Katie replied in her best lunch lady voice. “Just move along.”
A sixth-grade boy named Malcolm was next in line. “What’s the sandwich today?” he asked her.
“Hen fruit,” Katie answered. Oops! There was that lunchroom lingo again. “Uh, I mean egg salad,” she explained quickly.
“Blech!” Malcolm exclaimed. “I hate egg salad.”
Katie sighed. These kids were so mean. They were acting as though she’d cooked the food or something. She knew she had nothing to do with this menu. Lunch ladies weren’t chefs. They just served what they were given. It wasn’t like she was having a whole lot of fun serving the stuff, either. It was awful standing back there behind the counter, having to stare at rotting fruit and sniffing the scent of boiled hot dogs, overcooked baked beans, and egg salad all day long.
But Katie couldn’t argue with Malcolm. She only had to serve the food
. He actually had to eat it. Katie smiled at him and nodded her head. “I don’t like egg salad very much, either,” she said as she pointed to the egg salad tray. “Especially this egg salad. It’s all gloppy. Too much mayonnaise.”
“Like always,” Malcolm moaned.
“You know where this egg salad belongs?” she asked Malcolm as she picked up a huge scooper full of the yellow-white glop.
“Where?” Malcolm said.
Katie gave him a naughty smile. “In the garbage!” she announced. Then she hurled the egg salad toward the garbage can.
Malcolm stared at her with surprise. He’d never seen Lucille the lunch lady throw food in the garbage before. Nobody had.
Katie watched as the big ball of egg salad soared in the direction of the trash can. Unfortunately, Katie’s aim was not very good. The egg salad landed right on top of George’s tray.
Katie gulped. Maybe I should’ve worked on my throwing with Jeremy yesterday, she thought to herself. Katie looked nervously at George. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or not.
A big smile flashed across George’s face. “Food fight!” he announced loudly. George shot a big glob of strawberry yogurt right at Kevin. The yogurt landed on a pile of tomato slices inside Kevin’s lunch box.
Katie gasped. George shouldn’t have done that. He knew how Kevin felt about tomatoes. Kevin was going to be really mad that George had ruined some of them!
A fifth-grader named Stanley was sitting at the next table. He began to laugh. “Looks like your lunch is gone,” Stanley told Kevin. “You can’t eat it now.”
Kevin nodded. “I know. But there are lots of things you can do with a tomato!” He picked up a yogurt-covered tomato slice and flung it right at Stanley. The round slice landed in the middle of the fifth-grader’s shirt. “Bulls-eye!” Kevin called out excitedly.
After that, it seemed like everyone in the entire cafeteria started throwing food. Stanley tossed his jelly sandwich toward the table where class 3A was sitting. It landed right on Jeremy’s face. Suzanne began to giggle as Jeremy wiped grape jelly from his glasses. Jeremy threw a glob of mashed potatoes at Suzanne. Suzanne rolled a piece of hot dog bun into a little ball and threw it at Jeremy.
Mandy was so busy watching Suzanne and Jeremy that she didn’t notice a hot dog with mustard flying towards her. It landed right on her head. “Oooh! Gross!” she shouted out. The hot dog slid onto the floor below, but the mustard stayed in Mandy’s hair.
Miriam started giggling. Mandy grinned and shook her head wildly—splashing yellow mustard all over Miriam.
Miriam picked up a slice of salami and threw it at Mandy. Mandy ducked. The salami landed on Zoe’s nose.
George laughed so hard he fell off his chair and landed on the floor. Zoe picked up her milk and poured it over George’s head. George wiped the milk from his eyes, smiled, and licked his lips. “Mmmm!” he exclaimed. “Chocolate. My favorite!”
The kids were going wild! They launched lunchmeat. They flung frankfurters. They heaved hamburgers. Everyone and everything was covered with food. The teachers tried to stop the food fight, but they couldn’t. The lunchroom was a mess.
Katie looked up. A canned peach was flying straight at her head. She ducked. The bright orange fruit smacked into the wall behind her and slid toward the floor.
“Look out!” Katie cried as she scooped up two huge handfuls of green Jell-O. “Here comes a Jell-O bomb!” She reached back and threw the glop across the room. The slimy Jell-O flew through the air and landed with a splat . . . right in the middle of Mr. Kane’s forehead.
Katie had just slimed the school principal!
“Lucille!” Mr. Kane shouted in a very angry voice as he wiped the gooey green stuff from his eyes. “I’ll see you in my office in fifteen minutes!”
The entire lunchroom froze. All eyes were on Katie.
Oh no! Katie had totally forgotten she was the lunch lady. She was in big trouble now. “Yes, sir,” Katie told the principal, in Lucille’s low, grown-up voice.
“As for you students,” Mr. Kane continued, “you will be spending the rest of your day cleaning this cafeteria.”
Chapter 5
As Katie walked down the hall, she felt a little sick. She had never been called down to the principal’s office before—ever. Katie had never done anything bad in school in her whole life. Until now.
Katie knew Mr. Kane was going to give her a terrible punishment. She guessed it wasn’t going to be something easy, like having to stay after school or writing a long apology note. This was going to be some sort of grown-up punishment. After all, Mr. Kane thought he was punishing Lucille the lunch lady, not Katie Carew from class 3A.
Suddenly Katie felt a gentle wind nip at the back of her neck. She looked behind to see if someone had just opened a door or a window. No one was there.
Katie wasn’t surprised when the calm wind began to get stronger. She wasn’t shocked when it started blowing wildly around her like a tornado, either. She knew what was about to happen. Katie was going to change into someone else.
“Please, please, please let me turn back into me,” she cried to the wind. “I just want to be Katie Carew. Nobody else.”
The wind kept blowing harder and harder. Katie closed her eyes and held on tight to one of the lockers.
After a few minutes, the tornado stopped. The wind just disappeared, leaving no marks or traces in the hall. Not even one piece of paper was out of place. Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked down. Lucille’s gravy-stained white dress was gone. Black jeans and a white sweater had taken its place. Those were the clothes Katie had worn to school that morning. Katie checked her reflection in a nearby classroom window. An eight-year-old girl with red hair, green eyes, and a line of freckles on her nose looked back at her from the glass.
Katie Carew was back!
As Katie smiled at her reflection, she heard Mr. Kane’s voice coming from his office.
“Lucille! I don’t know what’s gotten into you!” the principal yelled.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into me, either, Mr. Kane,” Lucille said. “Come to think of it, I don’t even know how I wound up here in your office.”
Katie was surprised to hear the lunch lady’s voice. How had she gotten to Mr. Kane’s office so quickly? Did she know what had happened in the cafeteria? Did she remember that Katie had been inside her body?
“One minute, I’m in the cafeteria, handing out food. The next minute I’m standing here,” Lucille continued. “I can’t really remember anything in between.”
“Handing out food?” Mr. Kane demanded. “Is that what you call slinging Jell-O across the cafeteria?”
“No sir,” Lucille answered.
“Are you saying you didn’t throw food in the cafeteria?” Mr. Kane asked her.
“No. I think I did throw food.”
“You think you threw food?” Mr. Kane repeated.
Lucille shrugged. “I’m pretty sure I did . . . I think. I don’t know. You saw me throw it, right?”
Mr. Kane nodded.
“So I must have,” Lucille continued. “It’s all very strange. I guess I just wasn’t myself today.”
“I can’t understand what would make you waste perfectly good food,” Mr. Kane continued.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it ‘perfectly good food,’ ” Lucille argued. “It’s terrible food. We need to give those kids fresh fruits and vegetables, and there need to be more choices on the menu. I can understand why the kids treated the food like garbage. It is garbage. Now if I were in charge . . . ”
That made Mr. Kane more angry than ever. “Well, you’re not in charge,” he told Lucille in a furious voice. “In fact, as of right now, you don’t even work here anymore!”
Wow! Lucille had been fired! Now Katie felt really guilty. The food fight wasn’t Lucille’s fault. Katie wished she could run into Mr. Kane’s office and tell him that it was her fault, but she knew the principal wouldn’t believe her. A girl who turned into a lunch lady
when a magical wind blew on her? Katie shook her head. Nobody would ever believe a story like that.
Quickly, Katie hurried back to the cafeteria. The least she could do was help the other kids clean up.
Chapter 6
That afternoon, Katie sat in her room with the door closed. She didn’t feel very much like going out to play. Even if she did feel like playing, there’d be no one to play with. Most of the kids from school were grounded because they’d been in the food fight.
Still, Katie bet that none of the other kids felt as bad as she did. All they had lost was an afternoon of TV or a trip to the playground. Katie had made Lucille lose her job.
Katie began to cry. As soon as he saw Katie’s tears, Pepper jumped up on the bed and sat beside her. He stuck out his big, red tongue and licked her face. But even a big, sloppy, wet, dog-kiss couldn’t cheer up Katie. She used the back of her hand to wipe Pepper’s slobber from her cheek. Pepper lifted his back paw and scratched at his floppy ear.
Just then there was a knock at the door. “Katie, Suzanne is on the phone,” her mother said.
Katie walked downstairs to the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Hi, Suzanne,” she said.
“Hey,” Suzanne answered. “Where were you during the food fight today?”
“I . . . um . . . er . . . I was in the bathroom,” Katie stammered. She hated lying to her friend, but she just couldn’t tell her what had really happened.
“I can’t believe you missed the whole thing,” Suzanne continued. “It was amazing. Food was flying all over the place. I don’t think I’ll ever get the tomato juice off of my sweater. Kevin hit me in the back with a really squishy one!”
“Did it hurt?” Katie asked her.
“Nah,” Suzanne said. “It was too mushy to hurt. It just sort of slid down my back. Besides, I got Kevin back—big time! I poured a container of grape juice over his head! His whole face turned purple. He looked like a space alien.”
