Vote for Suzanne

by Nancy Krulik

  Katie Kazoo,

  SWITCHEROO

  Vote for Suzanne

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Illustrations copyright © 2008 by John and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007046912

  ISBN: 978-1-4406-3922-7

  For Ian and his pals in the RSS class of 2008.

  Congrats, everyone!—N. K.

  For Daniel, our personal pick for right on

  write-in!—J&W

  Katie Kazoo,

  SWITCHEROO

  Vote for Suzanne

  by Nancy Krulik • illustrated by John & Wendy

  Grosset & Dunlap

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Twenty-five Fun Facts about the Presidents!

  About the Authors

  About the Illustrators

  Chapter 1

  “Ooh, my stomach is killing me!” George Brennan groaned as he walked onto the school playground on Wednesday morning. He was holding his tummy with both hands.

  “It’s all those candy bars,” Katie Carew told her friend.

  “Not my fault,” George insisted. “I got a ton of chocolate bars in my trick-or-treat bag.”

  “But no one said you had to eat them all last night,” Suzanne Lock, Katie’s best friend, pointed out.

  George nodded. “I know, but they were so yummy!”

  Katie knew exactly what he meant. It had been very hard to stop eating her Halloween candy. Especially the red licorice. That was her favorite.

  “I miss Halloween already,” Katie said with a sigh. She had really loved wearing her black cat costume. But now it was packed away in her costume box in the basement.

  Katie looked around the playground. Just yesterday afternoon it had been filled with kids in costumes, all lined up for the school’s Halloween parade.

  Today, the kids were all in their normal clothes again. Bo-ring!

  Well, almost all the kids were wearing their boring regular clothes. Suzanne was still wearing the crown from her fairy princess costume. She reached up and pressed a button on the crown. Bright pink lights began flashing on and off.

  Katie giggled. That was such a Suzanne thing to do. Her best friend really loved being the center of attention.

  “I like that crown,” Zoe Canter told Suzanne.

  “It’s so cool,” Miriam Chan told Suzanne.

  “It’s so yesterday,” George said, rolling his eyes.

  “George, you can be such a jerk,” Suzanne told him.

  Katie shook her head. “He’s right, Suzanne,” she said. “It is so yesterday. Halloween was yesterday.”

  Suzanne didn’t say anything. How could she argue with that?

  The kids weren’t focused on Suzanne’s crown for long. A moment later, the bell rang. It was time to go into the school.

  “I’ll see you at lunch,” Katie told Suzanne as the girls hurried into the building.

  Suzanne nodded. “Definitely.”

  Katie watched Suzanne disappear into her classroom—4B. At the beginning of fourth grade, Katie had felt bad about not being in the same class as her best friends, Suzanne and Jeremy. But now she was used to it.

  Besides, being in class 4A was a lot of fun. There was always something interesting going on. Today was no exception.

  “Good morning, Katie Kazoo,” Mr. G. greeted Katie, using the way-cool nickname George had given her back in third grade.

  Katie didn’t answer. Instead she burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. Mr. G. looked so funny in his white wig and knee-length pants.

  “You look like George Washington,” Andy Epstein told Mr. G.

  The teacher grinned. “That’s who I am. I’m the first president.”

  “Is that your Halloween costume?” Kevin Camilleri asked.

  Mr. G. shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “I’m ready for another special day.”

  Some kids might be stunned to find their teacher all dressed up like George Washington. But the kids in 4A were never shocked by the wacky things Mr. G. did. He was always full of surprises.

  “Wow! Look at this place!” Kadeem Carter exclaimed. “It’s amazing.”

  Katie glanced around. Just yesterday, the classroom had been decorated with orange pumpkins and black cat posters. But today, everything had changed. The whole room was covered in red, white, and blue.

  Fifty white stars were glued to a blue cloth taped to the ceiling. Thirteen streamers—seven red and six white—were hanging from the light fixture beneath the stars.

  “It’s like a giant 3-D American flag,” Emma Weber pointed out.

  “Exactly!” Mr. G. told her.

  “But the Fourth of July isn’t until July,” Kevin told Mr. G. “Today is November first.”

  “Right. And President’s Day isn’t until February,” Mr. G. explained. “Our new learning adventure is about something that’s coming up next Tuesday. Does anyone know what that is?”

  Katie raised her hand proudly. “It’s Election Day!”

  “Exactly,” Mr. G. said. “Election Day is always on the first Tuesday in November. And this year is special, because here in Cherrydale we all get to vote to choose a mayor.”

  “Not everyone,” Katie corrected Mr. G. “Kids aren’t allowed to vote.”

  Mr. G. didn’t answer. He just gave Katie a funny little smile. Then he turned to the rest of the class. “Hurry up and decorate your beanbag chairs, citizens,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to do today.”

  Katie couldn’t wait to get started. One of the ` 4A was that the kids got to sit in beanbag chairs instead of at desks. Mr. G. thought kids
learned better when they were comfortable.

  And the most fun thing about the beanbag chairs was decorating them every time a new learning adventure started! Katie ran over to the craft box and pulled out some silver foil and red and white construction paper. She was going to put stars and stripes all over her beanbag.

  “Hey, Mr. G., do you know which president had the biggest family?” George called out to the teacher.

  Mr. G. shook his head. “Which one?”

  “George Washington. He’s the father of our whole country!” George began to laugh at his own joke. The kids all laughed, too.

  Now Kadeem had to get a joke in. “What do you get when you cross a gorilla with our sixteenth president?” he asked.

  “What?” Mandy Banks wondered.

  “Ape-raham Lincoln!” Kadeem exclaimed. Everyone started laughing all over again.

  “Speaking of Abraham Lincoln,” George butted in, “do you know why he wore that big black top hat?”

  “Why?” Emma Stavros asked.

  “To keep his head warm!” George laughed really hard at that one.

  “Great! We’ve got an Election Day joke-off!” Mr. G. shouted happily. “Your turn, Kadeem.”

  “Do you know why George Washington slept standing up?” Kadeem asked the class.

  “Why?” Kevin wondered.

  “Because he couldn’t lie,” Kadeem answered.

  Katie grinned and looked up at the giant flag on the ceiling. One thing she knew for sure. If there were elections for best teacher, Mr. G. would get her vote.

  If kids could actually vote, that is.

  Chapter 2

  “We’re like chimps in the zoo!” Jessica Haynes exclaimed as she flipped upside down on the monkey bars in the school playground at lunchtime.

  “Ook, ook, ook!” Katie scratched her head and her armpit at the same time. That was her best upside-down monkey imitation.

  Just then, Suzanne and Mandy walked by. When Suzanne saw her friends, she climbed on the monkey bars, too.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing that wearing a dress,” Mandy told Suzanne. “Everyone will see your underpants.”

  “Not a problem,” Suzanne assured her. She lifted her skirt with one hand. “See, I’ve got shorts on underneath.”

  Katie grinned. Only Suzanne could have figured out a way to hang upside down in a dress.

  But the girls didn’t stay on the monkey bars very long. For one thing, after a while, hanging upside down gave Katie a headache. And for another, it was kind of boring.

  “I am so sick of this playground,” Jessica moaned as the girls climbed down and headed over toward the swings.

  “I know,” Mandy agreed. “We’ve been playing on the same swings, slide, and monkey bars since we were in kindergarten.”

  “We need new things, like those merry-go-rounds you spin around on until you throw up,” Jessica suggested. “My cousin calls them vomit wheels.”

  Mandy made a face. “That’s gross,” she groaned.

  “We could also use a rope swing,” Jessica suggested instead.

  “We will have all those things. Really, really soon!” Suzanne said with a smile.

  Katie had seen that smile before. It was the one Suzanne got whenever she knew something no one else did.

  “We will?” Jessica asked excitedly.

  Suzanne nodded. “I read it in the newspaper this morning. They’re building a new playground in that empty lot next to the Cherrydale Arena.”

  “Oh, wow!” Katie exclaimed. “A new playground!”

  “Yep,” Suzanne told her. “Good thing I’m grown-up enough to read the newspaper while I eat breakfast. Otherwise, you guys never would have known about it.”

  Mandy shook her head. “You’re wrong, Suzanne,” she said.

  Those were words Suzanne never liked hearing. “I am not wrong!” she exclaimed angrily. “I know what I read.”

  “Well, I know what I heard,” Mandy told her. “And on the radio they said the mayor was thinking about putting a parking lot there.”

  “Okay, he might have thought about that,” Suzanne argued. “But now he’s putting in a playground instead.”

  “He is not,” Mandy insisted.

  “Mandy, I wish you would just be quiet!” Suzanne shouted.

  Katie gulped. Suzanne had just made a wish. That could be really bad.

  “You do not wish that!” she exclaimed suddenly. “You do not wish anything!”

  Suzanne, Mandy, and Jessica all stared at her.

  Katie knew her friends thought she’d gone bananas—maybe from hanging on the monkey bars too long. But Katie wasn’t bananas, or nuts for that matter. She had a really good reason for being afraid of wishes.

  It had all started one horrible day back in third grade. Katie had lost the football game for her team. Then she’d splashed mud all over her favorite jeans. But the worst part of the day came when Katie let out a loud burp—right in front of the whole class. Talk about embarrassing!

  That night, Katie wished to be anyone but herself. There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made the wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.

  The magic wind was like a really powerful tornado that blew only around Katie. It was so strong, it could blow her right out of her body…and into someone else’s!

  The first time the magic wind appeared, it turned Katie into Speedy, the hamster in her third-grade class. Katie spent the whole morning going round and round on a hamster wheel and chewing on Speedy’s wooden chew sticks. Those tasted terrible.

  But being caged up wasn’t even the worst part. Things got really bad when she escaped from Speedy’s cage and ran into the boys’ locker room. That was when Katie landed inside George Brennan’s stinky sneaker! P.U.! Katie sure was glad when the magic wind came back and switcherooed her into herself again!

  Another time, the magic wind had turned Katie into Suzanne—right in the middle of a fashion show. Katie wound up putting on Suzanne’s pants backward and falling in her high heels. What a disaster! Suzanne had been so embarrassed—and confused. After all, she wasn’t sure how any of it had happened. Which kind of made sense, since it had been Katie up there on the runway—not her.

  The magic wind didn’t stop there. It just kept coming and coming. Just a few weeks ago, when the kids were on a field trip to the aquarium, the magic wind had changed Katie into a clown fish. She wound up swimming around in a tank filled with big sharks! Talk about a scary switcheroo!

  Katie never knew when the magic wind would come and cause more trouble. She just knew that sooner or later it would be back. And it was all because of the wish she’d made.

  That was why Katie hated when anyone made any kind of wish. But of course Katie couldn’t tell her friends about the magic wind and its switcheroos. They wouldn’t believe her even if she did. Katie wouldn’t have believed it, either, if it didn’t keep happening to her.

  Still, she had to say something. They were all staring at her. “I just meant you guys don’t have to fight over this,” she told her friends quickly.

  “Exactly,” Mandy agreed. “Because the man on the radio said there’s going to be a parking lot,” she insisted.

  “You must have heard wrong,” Suzanne told her.

  Mandy shook her head. “My ears work just fine.”

  “They should,” Suzanne told her. “They’re big enough.”

  Mandy got really mad at that. Her face turned beet red. “Oh yeah?” she demanded. “Well, your hair is all messed up from hanging upside down.”

  “Well, your…” Suzanne began.

  Before she could finish her sentence, Mr. G. came running over to stop the argument. “What’s the deal?” he asked the girls.

  “Do you know if there’s going to be a new playground in that empty lot near the Cherrydale Arena?” Suzanne asked.

  “Or a parking garage?” Mandy asked him.

  “That’s what you’re fighting over?” Mr. G. asked.

  Man
dy and Suzanne both looked down at the ground. They seemed sort of embarrassed.

  Katie didn’t blame them. It was kind of a dumb thing to argue over.

  “We weren’t fighting, exactly,” Suzanne murmured.

  “Good,” Mr. G. said. “Because fighting doesn’t solve anything. Besides, I know where you can get the answer to that question. You can ask Mayor Fogelhymer.”

  “Great idea! Let’s call and ask him!” Katie exclaimed. “Do you have the mayor’s phone number, Mr. G.?”

  Mr. G. smiled. “I can do better than that. You can ask the mayor that question in person.”

  “How?” the girls all asked at once.

  “He’s coming to school today for a special fourth-grade assembly,” Mr. G. explained. “It was supposed to be a surprise. Mayor Fogelhymer is going to talk to you dudes about Election Day.”

  Katie’s eyes opened wide. She couldn’t believe she was going to get to meet someone as important as the mayor of Cherrydale.

  “Well, I’m definitely going to ask him about the playground,” Suzanne said.

  “And I’m going to ask him about the parking lot,” Mandy said.

  Katie knew Suzanne was going to brag a lot if the mayor said she was right and Mandy was wrong. That’s what she always did.

  But this time Katie didn’t care. She really hoped Suzanne was right. A playground was so much more important than a dumb old parking lot. Everyone could see that.

  Chapter 3

  Well, maybe not everyone.

  Katie could tell that Mayor Fogelhymer was pretty uncomfortable with all the questions the fourth-graders were asking during the assembly.

  “Don’t you think kids need a playground?” Jeremy Fox asked the mayor.