by Nancy Krulik
“You’re going to be in a competition?” Jeremy asked. He sounded really impressed.
Kevin nodded. “Uh-huh. It’s on Sunday. I’m competing against other yellow belts.”
“You’re going to beat them up?” Kadeem Carter asked excitedly.
“It’s called sparring,” Kevin corrected him. “And you wear a lot of padding and a helmet. So no one actually gets hurt.”
“Oh.” Kadeem didn’t sound so excited anymore.
“But I’m going to break a wooden board, too,” Kevin told him. “And I’m going to do a few karate forms.”
“That sounds really neat,” Katie said.
“It sounds really dumb,” George muttered.
“You’re dumb,” Kevin shouted back.
“No way! You are,” George argued loudly.
Katie pulled on the straps of George’s backpack. “Come on, George,” she said. “Show me how to do that math problem.”
“Fine,” George said with a huff. “I don’t feel like listening to Karate Kevin anymore, anyway. He’s such a bragger! I can’t stand him!”
Katie sighed. She didn’t know whether Kevin could use karate to break a piece of wood. But he’d sure used it to break up his friendship with George.
Chapter 5
At lunchtime, Katie sat down at a table beside Suzanne. Emma W. and Jessica Haynes sat across from them.
“How’s your throat?” Emma W. asked Suzanne.
Suzanne picked up her purple pen. It hurts a little, she wrote.
“Ms. Sweet has been so nice to Suzanne,” Jessica told the girls. “She said that since Suzanne couldn’t talk, she is going to teach us how to spell in American Sign Language. It’s the language some deaf people use to talk to each other. Ms. Sweet has a chart that shows us how to make all the letters with our hands.”
“That’s cool,” Emma W. said. “Maybe you could teach Katie and me how to do sign language, too. We can all sign to one another. It will be like our secret code!”
Suzanne scribbled a new note on her pad. It won’t be too secret. The kids in our class are all learning how to do it. Of course, no one else in your class will, so it could be your secret.
Katie laughed. Suzanne had figured out a way to brag, after all.
As Katie took a bite of her peanut butter sandwich, she looked over at the next table. Kevin was sitting there with Manny and Jeremy. He was throwing cherry tomatoes up in the air and catching them with his mouth.
Usually, George would be sitting next to Kevin. But today, George was at another table, with Kadeem and Andrew.
Of course, that didn’t mean George couldn’t hear what Kevin was saying at his table. Everybody could hear Kevin. He was talking really loudly.
“My karate teacher said I should break a thin board at the competition,” Kevin said between tomatoes. “But I told him, ‘No way!’ Why should I take the easy way out? I can break a thick board. I’m real ly strong.”
“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” Jeremy asked him. “You could hurt your foot or something.”
“Not if you know how to do it right,” Kevin boasted. “And I know how. But my teacher is still making me break a thin board.”
“Hey, Kevin,” Kadeem called out. “Why did the Karate Kid cross the road?”
“Why?” Kevin asked.
“To break the board on the other side,” Kadeem answered. He chuckled at his own joke.
George wasn’t about to let Kadeem have the last laugh. “What do you get when you mix a blue belt and a black belt?” he shouted out.
“What?” Jeremy asked.
“A bruise belt!” George laughed. “Get it? You get all black and blue!”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “That would never happen, George,” he said. “In a tournament, you spar with kids who are at the same level you are. I’ll be sparring with other yellow belts. Of course, I’m going to be better than they are.”
Uh-oh. Katie knew George was going to be angry at Kevin for ruining his joke. George took his joking very seriously.
Just then, George leaped up from his seat. He began to wave his arms and legs around wildly. “YAHHHHH!” he shouted. He stuck his tongue out and made a goofy face. “Look at me! I’m Karate Kevin.”
All the kids started to laugh.
“You’re just jealous, George!” Kevin shouted. “I’m going to be the champion of this tournament. You never win at anything. I heard what happened at that track meet. Everybody did.”
Wow! Katie couldn’t believe Kevin had just said that. It was really mean.
“That’s not true,” Katie said, defending George. “He wins at joke-offs all the time.”
“Hey!” Kadeem argued. “I win some of those, too.”
“I know,” Katie admitted. She knew that when it came to class 4A’s joke competitions, George and Kadeem were both really funny. “But George also wins sometimes,” Katie continued. “So Kevin was wrong.”
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Kevin told her. “But I’m also strong!” He jumped up and kicked his leg, karate-style.
“Stop bragging,” Katie warned him. “It’s not nice.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed. “Besides, we don’t have time to talk about karate anymore. We only have a half-hour recess after lunch today. And we’re going to play soccer, remember?”
“It’s 4A against 4B,” Kadeem added.
“I don’t have time for soccer,” Kevin said, sounding very stuck-up. “I have to practice my karate forms during recess.”
“But you have to play,” Mandy reminded him. “You’re our goalie.”
“Let someone else play goalie,” Kevin suggested.
“You’re always goalie,” Mandy reminded him. “No one else has had any practice at it.”
“We planned this game two days ago,” Kadeem said angrily. “How come you waited until today to tell us you didn’t want to play?”
“Yeah,” Andrew Epstein agreed. “If you had told us earlier, then someone else could have practiced being goalie.”
“Sorry,” Kevin said. “I guess I didn’t think about it.”
“All you think about these days is karate,” Emma S. told him.
“Karate is the most important thing in the world to me,” Kevin explained.
Now all of the kids in class 4A were angry with Kevin. He was letting them down.
“We’ll win anyway,” Andrew assured Kadeem. “We don’t need Karate Kevin.”
“That’s right,” George agreed. He raised his leg and made a wobbly kick in the air. “We’re kicking him off the team. Later for you, Karate Kevin.”
Chapter 6
At the end of the school day, the kids in class 4A went home feeling awful. They had lost the soccer game at recess . . . badly. The score was seven to one. Everyone was blaming Kevin.
But Kevin didn’t care. He stood on the steps of the school kicking his legs out, pretending to break wooden boards.
“You should be practicing catching soccer balls,” Andrew told him. “That would have helped us today.”
Kevin ignored him.
“I think Kevin’s a secret weapon,” Kadeem said.
“Are you nuts?” George asked. “We lost because of him.”
“I meant he was a secret weapon for the other team!” Kadeem explained.
The other kids all laughed. Even Katie. Usually she hated it when her friends made fun of someone. But Kevin deserved it. He’d really let his team down . . . again.
Just then, Becky Stern, Jeremy Fox, and Jessica Haynes walked out of the school. They did not look sad. Why should they? Their class had won the soccer game.
“Where’s Suzanne?” Katie asked Jessica. Usually, Jessica and Suzanne left school together.
“She went home after recess,” Jessica explained. “She was coughing a lot. Ms. Sweet sent her to the nurse’s office.”
“Her mom picked her up and took her to the doctor,” Becky continued.
“I hope she’s not very sick. Maybe he can give her some medicine to b
ring her voice back,” Emma W. suggested.
Katie doubted that. She was pretty sure the problem Suzanne had wasn’t something that could be cured by a doctor.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” Mrs. Carew said to Katie at dinnertime.
Katie shrugged and picked at the vegetarian lasagna on her plate. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“Did anything bad happen at school?” her mom asked.
“We lost a soccer game to class 4B,” Katie told her.
“Is that all?” Katie’s dad asked. “When I was in school, my team always lost. It never stopped me from eating.”
Losing a soccer game wouldn’t really keep Katie from eating, either. Actually, it was Suzanne that Katie was so upset about.
Brrring. Just then the phone rang.
“I’ll get it,” Katie said. She leaped up from the table so fast, she almost tripped over Pepper, who had been sitting at her feet.
Mrs. Carew shook her head. “No. I’ll get it. You keep eating.”
Katie sat down and placed a forkful of lasagna in her mouth. Then she reached down and slipped a slippery lasagna noodle into Pepper’s mouth. The grateful cocker spaniel chewed it up in no time.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Katie heard her mother say. “Is Suzanne okay about it?”
Katie gulped. It must be Suzanne’s mother on the phone. What awful news was she telling her? Was it that the doctor had said Suzanne would never speak again? That wasn’t news. Katie already knew that.
“That was Mrs. Lock,” Mrs. Carew told Katie as she sat back down at the dinner table. “Suzanne just got back from the doctor’s office. She has another sore throat. And she can’t talk, either.”
“I know,” Katie said. “She went home right after recess. It’s awful. George made that wish and ...”
“George?” Mrs. Carew asked. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“Well, he made a wish that Suzanne would shut up and . . .” Katie began.
Mrs. Carew shook her head. “Katie, I assure you, this has nothing to do with an argument between Suzanne and George,” she said. “Suzanne has a sore throat because her tonsils are infected. She’s going to have an operation to have her tonsils taken out.”
“Her tonsils?” Katie asked.
“Yes,” Mrs. Carew said. “The doctor is operating tomorrow morning. She’ll be in a little pain for a while, but then she’ll be good as new.”
“Suzanne’s going to have an operation?” Katie asked. She was so relieved. “That’s great!”
Her parents looked at her strangely.
“Great?” Mr. Carew asked, surprised.
Oops.
“I mean, it’s great that she’ll be able to talk again after her tonsils come out,” Katie said. “You know how Suzanne loves to talk.”
“Almost as much as I love to eat,” Mr. Carew laughed. “Can I have some more lasagna, please?”
Katie giggled. Then she took a big bite of her own lasagna. Suddenly, she was hungry, too.
Chapter 7
“Pass five basil leaves, please,” Becky Stern said.
“Here you go,” Mandy Banks replied as she passed a bowl of fresh basil leaves across the counter in Katie’s kitchen.
“Mmm . . .” Katie’s mother sniffed at the air as she stirred the tomato sauce that was cooking in a pot on the stove. “I’m so glad you kids formed a cooking club. My house always smells so good on Saturdays.”
“And we always eat well on Saturdays,” George told her. “This tomato sauce is going to be awesome!”
“I know,” Katie said. She looked down at her cookbook. “We need to grind some fresh pepper.”
Woof! Woof! Katie’s dog barked at the sound of his name.
“No, silly,” Katie giggled. “Not you.”
“I can’t believe Kevin is missing the cooking club meeting when we’re making tomato sauce,” Emma W. said as she peeled the skin from a juicy red tomato.
“He’s probably practicing karate today,” Jeremy said. “Karate’s more important to him than anything.”
“Even tomatoes?” Emma asked. She didn’t sound so sure. Kevin loved tomatoes.
“Maybe Kevin just didn’t want to be around us,” Katie said quietly.
“Oh, come on. We’re the ones who don’t want to be around him,” George replied.
“That’s what I mean,” Katie told him.
“Huh?” George asked.
“We were all kind of rotten to Kevin yesterday,” Katie admitted.
“No way. He was rotten to us! He made us lose the soccer game! And he made me lose the relay race,” George insisted.
Katie knew that it was George’s loose shoelace that had made him lose that race. She also knew that having a different goalie wouldn’t make a soccer team lose by six points. But she wasn’t going to tell George that. He’d just argue with her about it anyway.
“Maybe we were all wrong,” Katie said finally.
“We were kind of mean,” Emma W. agreed.
“I guess we didn’t have to keep calling him Karate Kevin,” Jeremy added.
“He didn’t have to keep bragging about being so strong,” George argued back.
“Or being better than everyone else in his karate class,” Becky said.
“No, he didn’t. But we’ve all bragged before,” Katie said. She turned to Becky. “Do you remember when you learned to do that backflip in gymnastics class? You talked about that for weeks.”
Becky blushed. “Well, how about that time you taught Pepper how to roll over? All you kept saying was how smart your dog was.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Katie agreed. “We all brag sometimes.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by that tournament after my soccer game tomorrow,” Jeremy said slowly. “You know, to cheer Kevin on.”
“I think I’ll go, too,” Becky said quickly. “I could meet you there, Jeremy. We can sit together.”
Jeremy blushed.
Katie sighed. Poor Jeremy. Becky was always embarrassing him. She had a huge crush on Jeremy. But Katie knew he didn’t like Becky . . . at least not that way.
“We should all go,” Katie said.
“Not me,” George insisted.
“Come on, George. He’s your best friend,” Katie reminded him.
“Not anymore,” George told her.
“We’re all going to be there,” Katie told George. “If you don’t go, there won’t be anyone around for you to hang out with anyway.”
“Fine!” George finally said. “I’ll go. But only to see him lose.”
“Whatever,” Katie said with a sigh. “Just as long as you are there.”
Chapter 8
It was hot and stuffy inside the karate gym. By the time Katie got there, a lot of her friends were already seated in the bleachers that surrounded the orangey-brown hardwood floor where the tournament was taking place.
“Here, Katie, I saved a seat for you,” Emma W. shouted out. She scooted over a bit so Katie could sit between her and Jeremy.
Becky was seated on Jeremy’s other side. Farther down the row were George, Andrew, and Manny.
“Sorry I’m late,” Katie said. “My mom was busy talking to Mrs. Lock. I had to wait a while until she got off the phone before we could drive over here.”
“I was really surprised when you told me she was getting her tonsils out,” Emma told Katie. “How is she feeling?”
“Better, I guess,” Katie replied. “She still can’t talk, but her parents bought her a pair of purple glow-in-the-dark pajamas to wear in the hospital. That made her pretty happy.”
“Hey, check it out!” Jeremy interrupted. “The grown-up black belts are putting on a show before the tournament begins.”
“KEEYAH!” A shout rang out through the gym. A man in a karate uniform with a black belt raised up his arm slowly and then quickly brought his hand down onto a pile of cement blocks.
“That had to hurt,” Manny said as the cement blocks crumbled in half.<
br />
But the man with the black belt didn’t seem to be hurting. In fact, he was smiling proudly.
Katie and her friends watched as another grown-up black belt stood in the center of the gym. Five other black belts stood in front of him. Each of them was holding a thick wooden board.
“KEEYAH!” the man shouted. He leaped up into the air. His arms were spread out wide. So were his legs. In a single movement, he managed to break two boards with his feet, two with his hands, and one with his head.
“Wow!” Andrew exclaimed. “Do you think Kevin can do something like that?”
“No way,” George said.
“He’s only a yellow belt,” Katie reminded Andrew and George. “But maybe someday he will be able to.”
George frowned, but he didn’t say anything.
“Where is Kevin anyway?” Andrew asked.
Katie looked down at the group of kids in white uniforms. She spotted Kevin sitting with a group of boys and girls who, like him, had bright yellow belts tied around their waists.
“There he is,” Katie said, pointing toward the yellow belts.
“He’s such a big shot,” George groaned. “Look how he’s holding that piece of wood.”
“All the kids are holding pieces of wood,” Emma pointed out. “They need them for the tournament.”
“Do you really think he can break that wooden board with his foot?” Jeremy asked the others.
“Yes,” Katie answered.
“No,” George answered at the same time.
Katie sighed. George was being a real pain. She turned her eyes toward the gym floor, and watched as one black belt grabbed his opponent by the arm and flipped him upside down.
“That was so cool!” Katie exclaimed. She stood up and began to move toward the end of the row.
“Where are you going?” Emma asked her.
“To the phone,” Katie replied. “I have to call Suzanne. I promised to call her and fill her in on what’s going on. You know how she hates missing anything! I can’t wait to tell her about the guy who broke the cement blocks.”
