I'm Game

by Nancy Krulik

  “Um. I think I do something with computers,” Katie told him.

  Bob Ritchey looked at her strangely. The audience’s laughter grew louder. Katie’s mother looked puzzled.

  Katie was so embarrassed, she didn’t hear anything the third and final contestant, Arthur Somebody, said about himself. She was too busy thinking about how silly she’d just made herself look.

  Or her dad look, actually. And that was worse!

  “Okay, contestants, you know the rules,” Bob Ritchey said. “When you know the answer, hit the button. But be sure you really know it; otherwise, things can get really messy!” Bob Ritchey pointed to the stunt wheel. The audience laughed. They knew what that meant.

  “Okay, here’s your first question,” Bob said. “Which is heavier, milk or cream?”

  Hmm . . . Katie thought. Cream felt heavier than milk when you drank it. She reached for the buzzer.

  Suddenly, she noticed a camera with a red light. It was pointed right on her.

  Katie was on TV!

  All she could do was stare at that red light.

  She was frozen.

  Beep. Elaine pressed her buzzer. “Milk,” she shouted.

  “You’re right!” Bob Ritchey cheered. “Next question. How many points are there on the Statue of Liberty’s crown?”

  Katie knew that one! She’d read it in her dad’s book. She reached for her buzzer and . . .

  Beep. Elaine hit her buzzer first.

  “Seven, Bob,” she said.

  “Right again, Elaine,” Bob Ritchey replied. “Let’s see if you can make it three for three. Where is the red light on a traffic light located—on the top or on the bottom?”

  Beep. This time it was Arthur who pushed his buzzer first.

  “The bottom,” Arthur said confidently.

  Bob Ritchey sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. That’s wrong,” he said. “A red light is always located on top.” He smiled at the audience. “But you still have a chance to stay in the game. All you have to do is . . .”

  “Beat the Tick Tock Clock!” the audience shouted out in one voice.

  “We’ll find out what your challenge is as soon as we come back from this commercial break,” Bob Ritchey told Arthur.

  At that moment, the red light turned off. Katie breathed a sigh of relief.

  Well, at least I didn’t answer anything wrong, she thought to herself.

  Of course, she hadn’t answered anything right, either.

  Chapter 12

  The wheel stopped on the picture of the snake when Arthur spun it. That meant Arthur had to wiggle his way through a slimy, greasy maze on his belly. He put on a yellow slicker that made him look like a banana.

  The Tick Tock Clock started to count down.

  “Come on, Arthur, slide!” Bob Ritchey shouted excitedly. “You can do it!”

  Arthur was sliding all over the place on his belly. “Whoa!” he shouted as he tried to push himself uphill on the part of the maze that was like a slide. “Whoa!”

  “Only five more seconds!” Bob Ritchey warned.

  “Whoops!” Arthur exclaimed as he slid backward.

  “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one!” the audience shouted.

  The buzzer sounded.

  “I’m sorry, Arthur,” Bob Ritchey said. “But the Tick Tock Clock has spoken. I’m afraid you’re out of the game.”

  Arthur struggled to stand up and shake Bob’s hand. “Whoa!” he shouted again as he slipped and landed back on his belly again.

  Bob Ritchey laughed and walked back over to where Katie and Elaine were standing.

  “Okay, we’re down to you two,” he said. “Here’s your next question: What bird moves the fastest?”

  Before Katie could even think, she heard Elaine’s buzzer ring.

  “The ostrich, Bob,” Elaine said proudly.

  “You’re right,” Bob Ritchey cheered. He turned to Katie. “Come on, Dave. You have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Katie frowned. He wasn’t kidding. Couldn’t she get at least one question right? Her dad was looking like a fool in front of everybody.

  “What does Popeye eat to get strong?” Bob Ritchey asked.

  Katie smiled. She knew that one. Instantly she slammed her hand down on the buzzer. Beep.

  Suddenly, all the cameras turned in Katie’s direction. The red lights were all focused on her. She stared at them and smiled. Her lips felt glued together.

  “Do you have an answer, Dave?” Bob Ritchey asked.

  “Um . . . spaghetti!” Katie blurted out.

  Immediately, the studio audience started laughing.

  “Sorry, that’s wrong,” Bob Ritchey told Katie. “The correct answer is spinach! Popeye eats spinach to get strong.”

  Katie bit her lip. She couldn’t believe it. She had given the wrong answer to the world’s easiest question! Even Suzanne’s baby sister would have known that one! Katie wanted to crawl offstage.

  “But don’t worry, Dave,” Bob Ritchey continued. “You can still stay in the game. As long as you can beat the . . .”

  “Tick Tock Clock,” the audience chanted.

  Then an alarm clock went off. “Oh, we’re out of time.” Bob Ritchey turned and smiled into the camera. “Dave’s challenge will have to wait until Monday.”

  Chapter 13

  “Okay, Bob, that’s a wrap,” one of the people with the headsets called out.

  The stage lights turned off. Bob Ritchey headed backstage. Elaine looked at Katie and said, “Gee, I guess you were really nervous.”

  Katie couldn’t even answer. It was like she was frozen in place.

  As the audience began filing out of the studio, Katie watched her mother jump out of her seat and hurry backstage. Katie knew her mother was worried about her. After all, she’d disappeared half an hour ago.

  But there was nothing Katie could do about that. She was stuck inside her father’s body and she couldn’t get out until the magic wind came back.

  Katie raced off the stage in embarrassment and headed for a nearby bathroom. She stood there for a moment, alone by the sink, and stared into the mirror.

  How could she have said “spaghetti”? Now people all over the country would think her dad wasn’t very smart. She sure had made a mess of things this time.

  Suddenly, Katie felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her neck. She looked up to see if maybe she was standing beneath an air-conditioning vent.

  But she wasn’t. And there was no fan, either.

  Which could mean only one thing!

  The magic wind grew stronger now, spinning around and around, circling Katie like a wild tornado.

  And then it stopped.

  Just like that.

  The magic wind was gone. Katie Carew was back . . .

  But where was her dad? He was probably pretty upset right now. Katie raced out of the bathroom to look for him.

  Mr. Carew was still standing on the stage. As Katie came near him, he blinked his eyes a few times and scratched his head.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked her. Then he looked around at the empty stage. “Come to think of it, what am I doing here?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Katie asked him nervously.

  “I remember someone putting makeup on me,” Mr. Carew said. “And I sort of recall having a microphone attached to my shirt. But after that, it’s all kind of fuzzy.”

  “You were playing the game,” Katie told him.

  “Oh,” Mr. Carew replied. He frowned. “How’d I do?”

  “Not too well,” Katie admitted. “You have to do a stunt on Monday’s show to stay in the game.”

  “Oh, no! That’s it. I’m finished . . .” Mr. Carew began. Then he stopped and looked at Katie curiously. “I seem to remember saying that Popeye ate spaghetti. Did I really do that?”

  Katie nodded sadly.

  “Why would I say that?” he wondered. “I know the answer’s spinach.”

  “You were really nervous, Daddy,” Katie
told him. “Anybody would be. When those cameras swing around and the red lights stare at you, it’s really scary!”

  “You sound like you know exactly what it’s like,” Mr. Carew said.

  Katie didn’t answer him. What could she say?

  “Katie! There you are!” Katie’s mom exclaimed as she came running onto the stage. “Where did you disappear to?”

  “I . . . um . . . I kind of got lost when I went backstage to find Daddy,” she told her mom.

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re safe,” her mother said, giving her a hug. Then she turned to Katie’s dad. “You’ll do better on Monday, honey,” she said.

  “I don’t know how that happened,” Mr. Carew said, shaking his head.

  “It’s okay, Daddy. You’re going to stay in the game,” Katie assured him. “And you’re going to come back and win!”

  “How am I going to do that?” Mr. Carew asked her. “All the stunts look so hard.”

  Katie smiled brightly. She had just gotten one of her great ideas!

  “Just leave everything to me,” she assured him.

  Chapter 14

  “Okay, Mr. C., now lift your left leg up and put it in front of your right leg,” George Brennan shouted as he watched Katie’s dad try to roller-skate. “And don’t forget to glide.”

  “I c-c-can’t,” Mr. Carew said nervously. Both his arms spun like pinwheels at his sides. “I’ll fall.”

  “No, you won’t,” George assured him. “You just have to balance.”

  Mr. Carew slowly lifted his left leg off the ground. He moved it about two inches in front of his right leg and tried to glide. But then his skates seemed to keep on moving while the rest of him didn’t.

  Splat! He fell backward on his rear end.

  “That’s okay, Daddy,” Katie assured him. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Sure you will,” George agreed. But he didn’t sound nearly as certain as Katie.

  Neither did any of the other kids gathered at the playground on Saturday. Instead of their usual cooking club meeting, Katie, George, Jeremy, Kevin, Suzanne, and Becky were helping Mr. Carew practice for his next appearance on Tick, Tock, Clock.

  The kids didn’t know which of the six stunts the wheel would land on Monday night, so they were trying to get Mr. Carew ready for all of them. Right now, he was trying to do the Tick, Tock, Clock chicken stunt.

  “Maybe he should try without skates first,” Becky Stern called from a branch on a tree at the edge of the playground.

  “That’s an idea,” Mr. Carew agreed. He began to open the laces on his skates.

  “Okay.” Katie turned to Suzanne. “Do you have the hat for Daddy?”

  Suzanne nodded. “I used extra-strong glue to attach the bowl to this baseball cap,” she told Katie proudly. “It won’t ever come off.”

  Mr. Carew looked at the hat. “Oh, no. That’s my lucky baseball cap!” Katie’s dad exclaimed.

  Suzanne shrugged. “Sorry. It was the first one I saw in your front closet.”

  “It’s all right,” Katie assured her dad. “You’ll be able to buy plenty of hats when you win.”

  “I guess,” her dad replied as he placed the hat on his head.

  “Now remember, Daddy, the idea is to catch five Ping-Pong balls in that bowl,” Katie told him. “I wanted to use raw eggs like they do on the show, but Mommy wouldn’t let me.”

  “Ping-Pong balls are fine,” her dad assured her.

  “You guys ready down there?” Becky called from her spot in the tree.

  “Do you have your stopwatch on?” Katie asked Kevin.

  He nodded.

  “Okay!” Katie shouted up to Becky. “Start throwing them.”

  Becky started throwing the Ping-Pong balls down from the tree. Katie’s dad ran around the playground, trying to catch them in the bowl on the top of his head.

  “Time!” Kevin called out. “How many have you got in there, Mr. Carew?”

  Katie’s dad took the hat off of his head. “One,” he said sadly. “On the show you have to catch five to stay in the game.”

  “Yeah, but on the show you’ll have to catch real eggs,” Katie reminded him. “They won’t bounce out of the bowl the way Ping-Pong balls do.”

  “I guess,” Mr. Carew said, brightening slightly.

  “My turn!” Jeremy shouted. He walked over to a nearby picnic table and placed a plastic bowl on the table. There was green Jell-O in it.

  “I put a jelly bean in the bowl,” Jeremy told Katie’s dad. “All you have to do is find the jelly bean. But you can’t use your hands.”

  “And just to be sure you don’t, we’re going to tie your hands behind your back,” Suzanne said. She took out a piece of pink ribbon and used it to tie up Mr. Carew’s hands.

  “Okay,” Mr. Carew said. He started to stick his face into the bowl.

  “No, see, that’s where everybody goes wrong,” Jeremy told him. “You don’t shove your whole face in the bowl. That makes it hard to breathe. You should use your tongue and mouth to lick up the goo as fast as you can.”

  “That’s a good tip,” Katie said.

  “Thanks,” Jeremy answered. “I got the idea watching my cat, Lucky.”

  “I hope I’m lucky on Monday,” Mr. Carew groaned before he started slurping up the Jell-O.

  Chapter 15

  Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.

  Katie’s heart was pounding really hard as she sat in the television studio on Monday night.

  Her mom squeezed her hand. “I’m so nervous,” her mom said.

  Her dad had worked really hard all weekend. He’d even moved a few feet on the roller skates. But if the stunt wheel landed on the unicycle, he was done for.

  “Okay, Dave, are you ready?” Bob Ritchey asked Katie’s dad once the show started.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Mr. Carew answered. After all the exercise that he’d gotten, Mr. Carew had had two good nights of sleep.

  Katie’s dad spun the wheel. Around and around it went and came to a stop on the bowl of goo.

  “He’s good at this!” Katie whispered excitedly to her mother.

  Bob Ritchey waved his hands and the curtain behind him opened. A table and chair appeared on the stage. Behind them was the Tick Tock Clock.

  “That bowl on the table is filled with green goo,” Bob Ritchey told Katie’s dad. “Somewhere in the bottom of that bowl is a jelly bean. You have to find that jelly bean . . . with your tongue!”

  Katie’s dad looked out into the audience and winked at Katie. “No problem, Bob,” Mr. Carew said happily. “I can do this one with my hands tied behind my back!”

  And that’s exactly what happened. Mr. Carew managed to find that jelly bean—with six seconds to spare.

  “Mmm. A red one. My favorite,” he mumbled, holding the jelly bean between his teeth and smiling for the camera.

  “Yeah, Daddy!” Katie cheered excitedly as the rest of the audience applauded.

  “Great job, Dave,” Bob Ritchey congratulated him. “Now let’s see how you do with the next questions.”

  Katie’s dad stood up, wiped off his face, and went back behind the wooden stand. He placed his hand on the buzzer and got ready to play.

  “Bronco, whip, freeze, stoop, and maze are all types of what game?” Bob Ritchey asked.

  Elaine reached for her buzzer. But Katie’s dad was faster. He buzzed in first.

  “Tag,” he said.

  “Right, Dave!” Bob Ritchey cheered. “You’re off to a good start today. Let’s try another one. Which can go longer without water—a camel or a rat?”

  Katie’s dad slammed down his buzzer once again. “A rat,” he said confidently.

  “Right again, Dave,” Bob cheered. “Now, what state is known as the Land of Enchantment?”

  This time Elaine hit her buzzer first. “New Mexico,” she said.

  “Right, Elaine.” Bob Ritchey smiled into the camera. “Well, folks, it looks like we’ve got an exciting game going here,” he to
ld the audience.

  Chapter 16

  “I’m sorry your dad didn’t win on Tick, Tock, Clock last night,” Jeremy said as he walked to school with Katie the next morning. “That Elaine was really, really smart.”

  “Thanks to you, he found that jelly bean really fast and stayed in the game,” Katie replied.

  “Your dad sure answered a lot of questions after that,” Jeremy added. “I thought he was going to win.”

  “Elaine only beat him by two points,” Katie said proudly. “It was really close. And anyhow, he got a great prize for coming in second,” Katie continued. “A huge TV.”

  “So he can watch Tick, Tock, Clock, right?” Jeremy asked.

  “Every night,” Katie assured him with a grin. “He got a new baseball hat, too. It says Tick, Tock, Clock. He hasn’t taken it off since they gave it to him. I think he may have slept in it.”

  “So now he has a new favorite hat to replace the one Suzanne glued to the bowl,” Jeremy remarked.

  As she walked onto the playground, Katie noticed that things had changed at school, too. For once, everyone seemed to be getting along. No one was showing off or bragging about how many bracelets they had.

  Katie was glad of that. Between Tick, Tock, Clock and all those rubber bracelets, she’d definitely had enough of bragging.

  “I think it’s going to be a good day,” she told Jeremy happily.

  Just then, Suzanne strolled onto the playground. “Hi, everybody,” she said, waving her hand in the air.

  Katie looked over. Suzanne was wearing a small metal ring on each of her thumbs.

  “Wow, those are cool!” Miriam Chan said, complimenting Suzanne. “Where did you get them?”

  “At Hot Stuff,” Suzanne said. “They just got them in.”

  “I know,” George said as he held up his hands. “I’ve got four of them.”

  “Well, I’m getting more after school,” Suzanne told him.

  “Then we’ll see each other at the store,” George replied. “Because I’m getting more rings, too.”

  Katie shook her head. “Oh, no,” she groaned. “Here we go again.”