by Nancy Krulik
The kids all stared at her again.
“How do you know that?” Kevin asked her.
Oops, again. “I . . . um . . . I mean, you don’t look like someone who is a joiner,” Katie corrected herself. “You look like someone who likes to do things on his own.”
“I meant a furniture maker,” Kevin explained to Katie. “The guy who was making his own wooden chairs without using any nails. Don’t you Pilgrims call them joiners?”
Katie had no idea. But it sounded good. She nodded slowly and reached for her glass of water. But the stiff stays in the clothes made it tough for her to reach.
Oops, again and again! Katie knocked Mandy’s water glass over.
“Oh no!” Mandy shouted, jumping up to keep from getting wet.
“Excuse me,” Katie apologized.
The angry Pilgrim man raced over to the table and handed Mandy a cloth napkin. “I believe Patience Mitchell doth mean to say Pray, pardon me. Isn’t that so, Patience?”
Katie nodded. “Pray, pardon me,” she repeated quietly.
“Everything about you is so arsy-varsy today, Patience,” the Pilgrim man said.
Katie started to giggle as she picked up her knife and fork. Arsy-varsy?
“Pray, what is so funny?” the Pilgrim demanded.
“Arsy-varsy,” Katie repeated. “It sounds so weird.”
“It means backward,” Andy said. “I learned that at the candlemaker’s house.”
“Patience!” the Pilgrim man continued in a stern, angry voice. “I need thee to come outside. Now.”
Uh-oh. That did not sound good. But Katie didn’t argue. She just stood up and followed him outside to the back of the groaning board.
“Patience, what is wrong?” the Pilgrim man demanded.
Katie looked at him strangely. “Nothing.”
“Pilgrims don’t eat with silverware. They use their hands,” he said.
“That’s gross,” Katie said. She covered her mouth with her hand. But it was too late. The words had already escaped.
“That’s it!” the Pilgrim whispered angrily, making sure no visitors were around. “Be gone. And do not return to Good Morrow Village.”
“But ...” Katie began.
“No buts,” the Pilgrim man told her. And with that he walked away, leaving Katie standing all alone.
A tear fell down her cheek. Patience had lost her job. And it was all Katie’s fault. This was sooo not good.
Chapter 11
“I’ll bet I can get to the end of this maze before you can!”
As she left the groaning board, Katie heard a familiar voice. It belonged to Suzanne. And it was coming from the giant corn maze.
“No way, Suzanne,” a second voice shouted. “I’m a lot faster than you are.”
The second voice was Jeremy’s. Katie rolled her eyes. Apparently her two best friends were still arguing.
“But I’m a lot smarter than you are,” Suzanne said. “I’m going into the maze. I dare you to go in, too.”
“I never say no to a dare,” Jeremy answered.
Katie frowned. Jeremy and Suzanne weren’t supposed to be in the maze at all. They were supposed to be at the groaning board eating lunch. If their teacher, Ms. Sweet, realized they were missing, they would be in big trouble. Just like Katie was going to be, as soon as Mr. G. noticed that she had disappeared.
Maybe Suzanne and Jeremy didn’t realize it was lunchtime. After all, there were no clocks on the walls of the little houses in the village.
“I should tell them it’s lunchtime,” Katie murmured to herself. “There’s no reason all three of us should be in trouble.”
Katie quickly ran into the maze after her friends. And then she stopped suddenly.
Whoa! It was kind of creepy in the maze. The corn stalks were so high, they towered over Katie’s head, even though at the moment she was Patience, and as tall as a grown-up. Everywhere Katie looked, she saw green corn stalks. It was hard to tell which way to turn. How was she ever going to find Suzanne and Jeremy in this thing?
“Jeremy! Get out of my way. Stop blocking me everywhere I walk.”
Katie smiled at the sound of Suzanne’s voice. That was how. All she had to do was follow the arguing.
“You’re blocking me,” Jeremy shouted back.
Katie turned to her right, following the sounds of the voices. And a moment later, she was face-to-face with her two best friends.
“Hi!” she greeted them. “Boy, are you guys going to be in trouble.”
Jeremy and Suzanne looked at Katie strangely. It was like they had no idea who she was. Which, of course, they didn’t. After all, Katie wasn’t Katie anymore. She was Patience Mitchell.
“Oh. I mean, good morrow,” Katie corrected herself. “You two best get to the groaning board. Your teachers will be looking for you.”
“It’s lunchtime?” Jeremy asked.
Katie nodded.
“We’re supposed to be with the rest of the fourth grade now,” Suzanne said. “This is all your fault, Jeremy.”
“My fault?” Jeremy shouted. “You’re the one who dared me to go through this maze.”
“Well, you’re the one who took the dare,” Suzanne said.
“It doesn’t matter who started it,” Katie said. “What matters is that you get to the restaurant.”
“She’s right,” Jeremy said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Suzanne nodded. “Yeah. But how do we get out of here?”
“I think we go to the left,” Jeremy said.
“I think it’s the right,” Suzanne told him.
Katie sighed. “Since none of us are sure, why don’t we compromise and go straight?”
But going straight didn’t lead them out of the maze. In fact, it just got them more lost.
“Now what?” Suzanne asked.
“How should I know?” Jeremy replied. He started walking toward the left.
“Where are you going?” Suzanne asked.
“I’m solving this maze,” Jeremy answered.
“Well, wait for me,” Suzanne said.
“And me,” Katie added. “I don’t want to be stuck in here all alone.”
Jeremy and Suzanne gave Katie funny looks. Katie frowned. That hadn’t sounded like a grown-up at all. But right now, Katie didn’t feel like a grown-up. She felt like a fourth-grade girl. A scared fourth-grade girl. This corn maze was creepy.
“I think if we turn to the right, we’ll be almost there,” Suzanne said after the three of them had walked for a while.
“Okay,” Jeremy agreed. “And then we should take that turn over there.”
A few minutes later, a smile broke out on Suzanne’s face. “Look! There’s the exit!”
“I knew I could get us through this maze,” Jeremy told her.
“What do you mean you?” Suzanne shouted.
“Stop it!” Katie shouted suddenly.
Jeremy and Suzanne both stared at her.
“You both solved the maze,” Katie said. “Together. Not everything is a contest.”
“It is to her,” Jeremy said.
“It is to him,” Suzanne said at the exact same time.
“Well, right now, you both have to get to lunch,” Katie said. “And fast.”
“She’s right,” Jeremy said.
“See you later!” they shouted to Katie as they ran off together.
With that, they were gone. And Katie was left all alone. Suddenly, she felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her neck. She pulled her waistcoat tighter around her.
But a waistcoat wasn’t any match for this breeze. This was no ordinary wind. This was the magic wind. It was back! And it was only blowing around Katie.
The magic wind grew stronger and stronger, circling around Katie like a wild tornado. It almost knocked her out of her boots. Katie shut her eyes tightly and tried not to cry.
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone. Katie Kazoo was back!
So was Patience M
itchell. And, boy, was she confused.
Chapter 12
“What happened?” Patience asked, rubbing her eyes for a minute. She looked over at Katie. “I remember thee. The young maid who eats no meat.”
“Exactly,” Katie said. She was happy Patience hadn’t remembered her as the girl who didn’t like her dolls.
“But why art thou here?” Patience asked.
Uh-oh. Katie wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that one. “Well . . . I was . . . uh . . . looking for the groaning board,” she said quickly. “I have to meet my class.”
There. That was at least half the truth. Katie did have to get back to the fourth-graders.
“Oh,” Patience said. She thought for a minute. “Why am I here?” she asked Katie.
“I think you were going through the corn maze,” Katie told her.
Patience thought about that for a minute. “Oh. Now I remember. Miles James told me to be gone!”
Katie frowned. That made her really sad. After all, she’d been the one to get Patience in trouble.
“Maybe you can get your job back,” she suggested to Patience.
Patience shook her head. “No. I think not.”
“I’m really sorry,” Katie told her.
“Thank you,” Patience replied.
Suddenly, Katie’s stomach rumbled. She was hungry. The rest of the kids were probably almost finished eating. And Mr. G. would be worrying about her by now.
“Can you help me find the groaning board?” she asked Patience.
“For certain,” Patience told her.
The fourth-graders were already eating dessert by the time Katie and Patience arrived at the groaning board. Mr. G. came running over. The Pilgrim, Miles James, was right behind him.
“Katie, where have you been?” Mr. G. asked her.
“I . . . um . . . I got lost,” Katie said. That was sort of the truth. She’d been lost in the maze for a while, anyway.
“Jeremy and I were lost, too,” Suzanne said. “But we found our way out of the maze without any help.”
“Well, we had a little help,” Jeremy admitted. “Patience was with us in the corn maze.”
Suddenly, Katie got one of her great ideas. She knew just what to say to help Patience get her job back!
“Patience helped me, too. I never would have found the groaning board without her,” Katie told Miles James. “She’s helped a lot of people today.”
Miles looked from Katie to Patience, and then over to Jeremy and Suzanne.
“Patience is a wonderful person,” Katie continued. “She taught Jeremy and Suzanne the real meaning of the first Thanksgiving.” Katie turned to Mandy. “The Pilgrims and the Wampanoags realized they could all survive by working together and getting along. Jeremy and Suzanne got out of the corn maze by doing the same thing.”
“How do you know what happened in that maze?” Suzanne asked Katie. “You weren’t there.”
Whoops. “Um . . . I . . . well . . . I could guess what happened,” Katie said. “You and Jeremy are both here. And you’re sitting next to each other without fighting.”
“That’s true,” Ms. Sweet, Jeremy and Suzanne’s teacher, said. “And they’ve been arguing all week.”
“But now they even called off the corn-shucking contest,” Mandy announced. “Suzanne just told me.”
“We’ll probably get it done faster if we just work together,” Suzanne said.
Katie grinned.
Ms. Sweet smiled, too. “You are an excellent teacher, Patience,” she said.
Patience smiled. “Thank you,” she replied quietly.
“Right now she should go to her cottage and teach doll making,” Miles said.
Patience looked at him. “Then I’m not ...”
“Thou art not banished,” Miles said.
Katie smiled. She didn’t have to speak Pilgrim to know what that meant. Patience had her job back.
Hooray! Oops. She meant Huzzah!
Chapter 13
Less than a week after her trip to the Good Morrow Village, Katie and her family were driving through New York City traffic in a modern day car. There were brightly lit signs flashing everywhere she looked. If the moon weren’t in the sky, it would be easy to think it was daytime instead of night. That’s how bright it was.
Usually, the city lights seemed magical to Katie. But tonight, Katie couldn’t help being sad. Right now, her friends were eating delicious corn on the cob at the bonfire by the high school. Katie had spent hours helping to shuck corn last night. But now, here she was eating soggy french fries in the backseat of the car. It just didn’t seem fair.
While they drove through Central Park, Katie’s mom said, “We’re almost there. I can’t wait to see them blow up the balloons. Alison said we can watch everything from their apartment window.”
“We’re lucky,” Katie’s dad said. “People wait in line for hours to see the balloons being blown up. All we have to do is look out the window.”
Katie frowned. Watching people spend hours watching other people blowing up balloons didn’t sound like a lot of fun. Not as much fun as a bonfire and corn on the cob, anyway.
Well, at least she would get to hang out with Emily. Emily was Katie’s favorite cousin. She treated Katie like a friend instead of like a younger cousin. Emily was really cool. She had the greatest clothes and she got to wear makeup. Maybe if Katie was lucky, Emily would let her try her lip gloss and eye shadow.
Katie forced a smile to her lips and tried to make it stick.
“Okay, we’re here!” Katie’s dad announced as he parked the car on the street near Emily’s house. Katie could see the big museum building on one side of the street and Central Park on the other.
Woof! Woof! Pepper leaped excitedly for the car door.
“Not so fast,” Katie’s mom said to the dog as they walked down the street to their relatives’ apartment building. “Outside, you need to be on a leash in New York City.” She reached up and attached a leash to Pepper’s collar.
Suddenly Pepper didn’t seem so happy anymore. Katie didn’t blame him. But then, as soon as they got off the elevator and rang an apartment doorbell, Pepper perked up. So did Katie. It was hard not to feel happy once the door opened and you were being hugged and kissed by some of your favorite people in the world.
“Katie, I think you’ve grown a foot since I saw you,” Aunt Alison said.
“Just an inch or two,” Katie told her.
“Well, you look much more grown-up,” Aunt Alison said.
Katie smiled at her aunt. It was amazing just how much she looked like Katie’s dad. They both had the same wavy hair, dark eyes, and big smile. It was like they were the boy and girl versions of the same person.
“I have some really cool clothes for you,” Emily added. “I put them away after I outgrew them. I think they’ll fit you now.”
Katie smiled—for real this time. New clothes that came from New York City. Wait until Suzanne heard about this!
Tweet! Suddenly a loud, shrill whistle came from the back of the apartment. Pepper’s ears shot up. He ran toward the whistle and then stopped and looked around.
Emily started to giggle. “Oh no, Pepper,” she said. “No one’s calling you. That was just Parry.”
“Parry?” Katie repeated. “Who’s that?”
Emily smiled. “He’s my new parakeet. He’s really cute. He whistles a lot.”
As if to prove it, Parry whistled again. Pepper’s ears perked up, and he started running all around again, looking for who was calling him.
“That bird is going to make Pepper crazy,” Katie’s uncle Charlie said with a laugh. His chubby belly bounced up and down when he laughed.
Katie didn’t think it was funny. Poor Pepper. He really thought someone was calling for him to come. Parry was teasing him.
“Katie, come over here,” Emily said, pointing to a window. “You gotta see this.”
“Okay,” Katie said. She turned to her dog. “Pepper, come,” she calle
d sweetly.
Pepper stood there for a minute, making sure this wasn’t another trick. Then he wagged his tail, and raced over to Katie.
“Look,” Emily said.
Katie peered down at the street from the window. There were more people on the street than Katie had ever seen in her whole life. They were walking up and down the streets, looking at the balloons, and snapping pictures. Some kids sat on their dad’s shoulders just so they could see. But Katie had no problem seeing all the action.
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “Those balloons are huge in person.”
“It takes something like ten people holding on to the ropes to walk a balloon through the parade,” Emily told her.
“Oh, look, there’s a snowman balloon,” Katie said excitedly. “And that balloon on the end is a big red star.”
“I like to look at the ones that are only partly blown up, and try to guess what they’re going to be,” Emily said. “Like that white and brown one over there. What do you think that will be?”
Katie looked down. All she saw was a huge pile of brown and white cloth lying flat in the middle of the street. It didn’t look like much of anything. At least not yet.
“Well, it’s the same colors as Pepper, so maybe it will be a dog,” Katie suggested.
Ding-dong. Just then, the doorbell rang. Katie looked up. Who else was coming to her cousin’s house to watch the balloons being blown up? Her mom hadn’t mentioned any other surprises.
“Emily, Sarah’s here,” Uncle Charlie called from the door.
Emily’s friend Sarah burst into the room, and started talking right away. “It’s crazy out there,” Sarah said. “There are like a million people in the streets. And you can’t get near any of the restaurants. I don’t think anybody out there is actually from around here. They’re all tourists and none of them know where they’re going. Why do they all have to come here? We have enough people in this city already, and ...”
Sarah stopped talking as soon as she spotted Katie sitting by the window with Emily. “Oh, sorry,” she apologized. “You must be Emily’s cousin from out of town. I didn’t mean anything bad about tourists. I just ...”
