by Nancy Krulik
It all started when Katie had been in third grade. She’d had a really awful day. She’d lost the game for her football team, ruined her new pants, and burped in front of the whole class.
That night, Katie had wished she could be anyone else but Katie Carew. There must have been a shooting star overhead or something when she made that wish, because the next day, the magic wind came.
The magic wind was a wild, forceful tornado that circled around only Katie. The magic wind was so powerful that every time it came, it turned Katie into somebody else! Switcheroo!
The first time the magic wind came, it turned her into Speedy, her third-grade class’s hamster. She’d spent the morning gnawing on chew sticks and trying to escape from Speedy’s cage.
But that had been better than the time she’d turned into Lucille the lunch lady and had to spend the whole day dishing out stinky food to kids in the cafeteria. And she had started a food fight and almost gotten Lucille fired.
Another time the wind turned Katie into mean old Mrs. Derkman. That had been awful. Katie didn’t want to be strict with her friends. But when she was nice, they wouldn’t even listen to her. Katie was amazed. She had no idea Mrs. Derkman’s job was so hard.
And then there was the time she’d turned into T-Jon, one of the singers in her favorite band, the Bayside Boys. She’d made such a mess of things that time, the band had almost broken up.
In fact, any time Katie turned into someone else, she caused them—and herself—a whole lot of trouble. That was why Katie didn’t make wishes anymore. Wishes were dangerous.
“I don’t have a Christmas list,” she told Suzanne finally. “My parents usually get me great stuff without my having to ask for anything.”
“You’re lucky,” Suzanne told her. “My parents need all the help they can get.”
Chapter 5
“I’m hungry,” Katie said after she and Suzanne had been shopping for a while. Katie was carrying two bags. One had Pepper’s present in it. The other held a little toy roller coaster. Katie had bought that for her grandma. Katie’s grandmother loved roller coasters. “You want to go to the food court?” she suggested.
Suzanne grinned. “I have an idea. How about we get something at Cinnamon’s Candy Shop?”
“Ooh, yummy!” Katie squealed. “I love her gingerbread!”
“I can’t believe my mom didn’t want me to have that pink sweater,” Suzanne moaned as the girls turned and headed toward the candy store. “It would have been the perfect thing to wear to the Christmas Extravaganza.” She looked at Katie. “You’re so lucky. It doesn’t matter what you wear Christmas Eve. You’re just going to put an apron over it anyway when you serve food at the shelter. But I have to look good. So many people will be seeing my outfit.”
Katie frowned. It wasn’t like Suzanne was going to be onstage at the Extravaganza. No one was going to be looking at her. “Suzanne, you don’t have any Christmas spirit,” Katie told her.
“How can you say that?” Suzanne demanded. She pointed to her reindeer-shaped earrings. “See. I do too have spirit.”
“Christmas isn’t just about reindeer and Santa Claus and presents, you know,” Katie insisted. “It’s about being nice, and helping people, and . . .”
“Sure, sure, sure,” Suzanne interrupted. “But everybody likes presents. And you have to admit that it’s fun seeing all the pretty lights and decorations.”
Katie didn’t know what to say. Suzanne was right. She did like presents and lights. But that didn’t make the way Suzanne had been acting any better.
“Look, even Mrs. Derkman agrees with me,” Suzanne continued. She pointed toward the hardware store. At that very moment, the teacher was walking out of the shop with a pile of Christmas lights in her arms. Mr. Derkman followed behind her, carrying a family of plastic elves.
“Hello,” Mrs. Derkman called out to the girls.
“Hello, Mrs. Derkman,” Katie said.
“Wow, look at all those lights!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Your house is going to be the most beautiful in the whole neighborhood.”
“That’s the idea,” Mrs. Derkman said. “In our old neighborhood, we were the only house that put up lots of decorations.” She stopped for a minute and sighed. “Of course, that’s different now.”
“You mean Mr. Brigandi’s house?” Katie said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Derkman said. “Although I think his decorations are so tacky. Ours are much more tasteful.”
Katie looked at the bright red and green elves Mr. Derkman was carrying in his arms. They looked kind of tacky, too.
“I noticed that your parents put up very few lights,” Mrs. Derkman mentioned to Katie.
“We always decorate our house the same way,” Katie said. “Blue and white lights on our trees and around our window sills.”
“Very traditional,” Mrs. Derkman replied. “But maybe you’d all like to try something new this year. I’d be glad to give your parents some lessons on the fine art of Christmas decorating.”
Decorating lessons? Somehow Katie couldn’t imagine her parents taking lessons on how to decorate. She wondered if Mrs. Derkman would make them write a term paper on the proper way to hang a wreath or something.
“I think they like our house the way it is,” Katie said.
“I’m just letting you know I’m here if you want some help,” Mrs. Derkman replied.
“Uh, Snookums?” Mr. Derkman interrupted.
“Yes, Freddy Bear?” Mrs. Derkman replied.
Katie tried hard not to laugh. The Derkmans’ pet names for each other were so mushy.
“These elves are getting very heavy. I think we need to head to the parking lot,” Mr. Derkman said.
“Okay, dear. Let’s go.” Mrs. Derkman looked at the girls. “I’ll see you both tomorrow night. It’s Christmas Eve, the night of the big contest.”
“I won’t be there,” Suzanne told her. “I’m going to the Cherrydale Christmas Extravaganza.”
“Sorry you’ll miss all the fun,” Mrs. Derkman said. “You’ll have to come by and see our trophy one day.”
Katie sighed. Mrs. Derkman was so certain she would win the contest. Maybe she shouldn’t be so confident. After all, she had some pretty stiff competition at Mr. Brigandi’s house.
Chapter 6
“Come on, Katie,” Suzanne said as soon as the Derkmans had gone. “Let’s get going to Cinnamon’s. I can’t wait to try the gingerbread!”
Katie followed Suzanne into the store.
“Hi, girls,” Cinnamon said, greeting Katie and Suzanne as they came through the door. The candy-store owner was dressed in a red dress with white trim. She had on a red-and-white Santa hat.
“Hi, Cinnamon,” Katie answered.
“Have you girls come in for a treat?” Cinnamon asked.
“Of course,” Suzanne replied. “Do you have any more of your home-baked gingerbread cookies? We really love them.”
“I think there may be a few in the back,” Cinnamon said. “Let me go check.”
As Cinnamon went into the back room to look for the cookies, Katie and Suzanne wandered around the store. Cinnamon’s Candy Shop always smelled good. But this year it smelled doubly delicious. Katie took a deep breath. The sweet scent of chocolate mixed in the air with nutmeg, gingerbread, cinnamon, and minty candy canes.
“I love it in here,” Katie said. “It smells just like Christmas.”
Just then, a tall man with gray hair popped out from behind the candy canes. “I know what you mean,” he told Katie. “I wish I could bottle this smell and cover my whole house with it.”
Katie grinned. “Hi, Mr. Brigandi.”
“Hi, girls,” Mr. Brigandi replied.
“Your house looks really pretty this year,” Suzanne told him. “You have a lot of extra lights and new decorations.”
“I thought it was time to make some changes,” Mr. Brigandi replied. “Especially with the new competition on the block.”
“The Derkmans’ house is pretty
incredible,” Suzanne agreed. “They’ll be tough to beat.”
“Oh, I’ll win the contest,” Mr. Brigandi assured her. “I always do.”
“Mrs. Derkman thinks she’s going to win,” Katie told him. “She’s working hard on her decorations. I just saw her buying a whole bunch of Christmas lights at the hardware store.”
“The Derkmans are buying more lights?” Mr. Brigandi asked curiously. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark blue jacket.
“Oh yeah,” Suzanne said. “And little plastic elves, too. We saw them.”
Mr. Brigandi’s face turned beet red. He frowned. “Elves, huh?” he harrumphed. “They think they can beat me with a bunch of elves? Ha! They’ve got another thing coming!”
“I didn’t say they were going to beat you,” Katie assured him. “I just meant that they want to win, too.”
Mr. Brigandi handed Katie the candy cane he was holding. “I’ve got to run,” he said as he dashed out of the store.
“I wonder where he’s going in such a hurry,” Suzanne said as she went over to look at some Christmas-tree-shaped chocolates.
“Probably to get more decorations for his house,” Katie replied. “Did you see how angry he got when he heard the Derkmans had bought those elves?”
“I bet when the Derkmans see what Mr.
Brigandi does at his house, they’ll go out and buy more decorations, too,” Suzanne said.
“And then Mr. Brigandi will buy more, just so his house can have more decorations than the Derkmans’ house,” Katie added.
“And then the Derkmans will buy more . . .” Suzanne began.
“Grown-ups can be such babies sometimes!” Katie declared.
Chapter 7
“This traffic is terrible!” Katie’s mom groaned as she drove home from the mall that evening. “We haven’t moved in fifteen minutes.”
Katie looked out the window. There were cars for as far as she could see. That was very strange. Usually the trip from the mall took only ten minutes. But they’d already been in the car for almost half an hour.
Katie felt bad for her mom, who had been working so hard all day. She just wanted to go home and put up her feet. But she was stuck in traffic instead.
“I know how to cheer you up,” Katie told her. She began to sing. “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la.”
Mrs. Carew loved Christmas carols. She couldn’t resist singing along. “’Tis the season to be jolly,” she chimed in. “Fa la la la la la la la la.”
Katie and her mom kept singing their favorite carols. It was a good thing they knew a lot of them. They sang “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as well as “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls,” and “The Little Drummer Boy” before they finally turned the corner onto their own street.
“Oh my goodness! Look at this,” Mrs.
Carew exclaimed. “All this traffic was coming from our block!”
It was true. There were a lot of cars driving down their street. Crowds of people were walking on the sidewalks. Many of those people had cameras. They were taking pictures of Mr. Brigandi’s house and the Derkmans’ house.
“We have tourists on our block,” Katie said, amazed. She remembered what it was like to be a tourist. After all, she’d been one during her European vacation. But she’d taken pictures of palaces, churches, and art museums. She hadn’t taken photos of people’s homes. “This is so weird,” she added.
There were so many people standing outside the Derkmans’ house that Mrs. Carew had to honk her horn several times to get them to move away from the driveway so she could pull her car in.
Mrs. Carew scrambled out of the car. “Let’s just get inside,” she said, hurrying into the house. Katie followed close behind her mother.
“Arooo. Arooo.” Katie heard Pepper’s cries the minute her mother opened the door.
“Pepper, what’s wrong?” Katie asked. She bent down and petted his little head.
“Ruff ! Ruff !” the chocolate-and-white cocker spaniel barked.
“He’s been barking ever since the Christmas lights went on next door,” Katie’s father said. “He’s not happy about all the strangers in the neighborhood.”
“I think he’s trying to protect the house,” Katie told her father. “That’s his job.” She smiled at Pepper. “You’re a good boy,” she told him.
Pepper rubbed up against Katie and wagged his brown, stubby tail.
“These crowds are really loud,” Mrs. Carew said. “This whole Christmas decorating thing is getting out of hand.”
“I know,” Katie’s dad agreed. “First the Derkmans put up those elves. Then Pete Brigandi came home and built a maze of giant plastic candy canes on his lawn. He’s letting kids walk through the maze. It’s brought people from all over the place to our block.”
Katie frowned. She felt kind of responsible for that. If she and Suzanne hadn’t told Mr. Brigandi about the Derkmans’ new decorations, he never would have built the candy-cane maze.
“If these people don’t go home soon, we won’t get any sleep,” Mrs. Carew said. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The store is going to be very busy with last-minute shoppers. I need my rest.”
“Aroo!” Pepper barked in agreement. “Ruff !”
Katie sighed. Christmas was supposed to be a time for peace on Earth. But there wasn’t any peace on Katie’s block tonight!
Chapter 8
The smell of Christmas cookies filled the air in Katie’s house on Christmas Eve. All the kids in Katie’s cooking club were gathered there, baking cookies and then wrapping them in pretty green or red cling wrap.
“George, stop eating all the cookies,” Miriam Chan said.
George shook his head. “You can get rich by eating snacks, you know,” he told her.
“How?” Miriam demanded.
“By eating fortune cookies!” George joked. He laughed. Everyone else laughed, too.
“Well, these aren’t fortune cookies,” Katie said. “And Miriam’s right. We need all the cookies we can get for the kids at the shelter.”
“All right, I’ll stop eating and start wrapping,” George agreed, wiping a crumb from his mouth.
“Okay, everyone, here comes another batch of cookies, fresh out of the oven,” Mr. Carew said. He placed the baking sheet on the counter.
Katie laughed. Her dad was wearing her mother’s apron. It was pink and green. On the front it said, “Kiss the Cook.”
“You look funny, Daddy,” Katie giggled.
“Yeah, that apron is definitely not your style, Mr. Carew,” Emma W. laughed.
“You don’t think so?” Mr. Carew teased. He spun around like a model on a runway. “I think I’m making a fashion statement.”
“It’s a good thing Suzanne isn’t here,” Kevin told him. “She’d definitely have a few statements to make about your fashion.”
Katie frowned when Kevin mentioned Suzanne. She missed having her at the cooking club meeting. It wasn’t as much fun without her.
“I can’t imagine what happened to your mother,” Mr. Carew wondered aloud. “I thought she’d be home to help by now.”
“She probably got stuck in traffic again,” Katie said.
“I hope she makes it home in time for the contest judging,” Mr. Carew said. “I think Pete Brigandi has some real competition this year.”
“I’ll say,” George agreed. “Who knew Mrs. Jerkman would be so into Christmas. When she was our teacher, she never let us do anything fun.”
Katie frowned. Even though Mrs. Derkman wasn’t their teacher anymore, it was obvious George still didn’t like her. Not that Katie blamed him. Mrs. Derkman had been kind of mean to George.
“Who judges this contest?” Jeremy asked.
“It’s always two people from our block association,” Katie explained.
“This year it’s Sam Hanson and Sonia Diaz,” Mr. Carew told the kids.
“What if they pick their own houses as the winners?” George asked suspiciously.<
br />
Mr. Carew shook his head. “The judges aren’t allowed to win the contest. We keep everything fair and square around here.”
“Except the cookies,” Katie giggled. “They’re round, not square.”
“And they’re tasty, too!” George said, reaching for another cookie.
“GEORGE!” the kids all shouted at once.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Carew came bursting through the front door. She had a big frown on her face. “I have had it!” she shouted angrily. “The traffic on this street is out of control!”
Pepper raced out of the kitchen to greet her. Mr. Carew followed close behind. At the sight of her husband, Mrs. Carew began to laugh. “Oh, you look so funny!” she giggled, pointing to the apron.
“Everyone’s a fashion critic,” Katie’s dad said. But he wasn’t angry. He was just glad he could make his wife smile.
Katie’s parents walked back toward the kitchen together. “Mmm. It smells yummy in here,” Mrs. Carew said, complimenting the kids.
“We’re almost finished wrapping the cookies,” Katie told her mom. “We’ll be ready to go over to the shelter right after the contest.”
“I can’t wait for that Christmas contest to be over,” Mrs. Carew said with a sigh.
“I thought you liked Christmas decorations,” Jeremy said.
“I do,” Mrs. Carew assured him. “But this year’s contest is too much. You won’t believe what’s going on out there. There are about a hundred people. There’s even a news van!”
Katie gasped. A news van! Everyone raced for the door, with Pepper barking at their heels.
Chapter 9
“Wow!” Katie gasped as she stepped out of the house and onto her front lawn. “Look at all this.”
Katie lived on a quiet little block in a quiet little town. But looking around, she could be in New York City. That’s how crowded her street was. There were people everywhere!
“Yikes!” Jeremy exclaimed.
“I’ve never seen this many people in one place before,” Emma W. said. “It looks like all of Cherrydale is here.”
