I Hate Rules!

by Nancy Krulik

  Katie didn’t say anything after that.

  Mr. Ditherspoon looked at the students lined up before him. “There are going to be a lot of changes here,” he told them. “For starters, there are new hair rules.” Mr. Ditherspoon walked over to Caleb Connor, a sixth-grader who always wore big spikes in his hair. “You may not wear hair gel to school anymore. No one can. And girls with long hair must wear braids.”

  Katie didn’t like the sound of that. Her hair was sometimes knotty and kind of curly. That made it really hard to braid.

  “There will be no more T-shirts with words and pictures on them, either. Also, no more glitter—on your clothes or your faces. I want plain clothes and clean skin in my school.”

  Suzanne looked very upset.Everything she wore had glitter on it. With this new rule, she wouldn’t have any school clothes at all.

  “Okay, I want all of you to walk silently to class,” Mr. Ditherspoon said as he opened the school doors. “Your teachers will fill you in on the rest of my new rules.”

  “You mean there are more?” George blurted out.

  Mr. Ditherspoon glared at him. “I’ll be watching you, Mr. Brennan,” he growled.

  Katie walked into her classroom, hung up her coat, put her homework on the pile, and sat at her desk. She pulled out a pencil and her notebook. But before she could begin her work, Mrs. Derkman pulled the pencil from her hand.

  “This pencil point is too long,” Mrs. Derkman said. She held up a ruler. “Mr. Ditherspoon doesn’t want any pencil point to be more than one quarter inch long.” She picked up Katie’s notebook. “And from now on, every student must have plain black-and-white notebooks.”

  Katie looked down. She loved her notebook. On the cover, it had a picture of a puppy and a kitten in a basket. She didn’t want a plain black-and-white notebook.

  But that was the rule.

  At lunchtime, Katie slowly slid her tray along the line. When it was her turn, she smiled at Lucille the Lunch Lady. “I’ll have the peas, the mashed potatoes, a glass of milk, and some rice pudding.”

  Lucille shook her head. “Sorry. You can’t have dessert unless you eat the whole meal. And today we have hamburgers.”

  “But I don’t eat meat,” Katie told her.

  “Then you don’t eat pudding, either,” Lucille told her. “That’s Mr. Ditherspoon’s rule.”

  Katie sighed. “Just the peas, the potatoes, and the milk, then.” She took her tray and walked toward her class’s table.

  “Move over,” she whispered to Jeremy. Katie wasn’t sure if they were still allowed to talk at lunch. Nobody else seemed to be saying anything.

  Jeremy slid his chair over and made room for Katie. He took his fork and began to mush his peas together with his mashed potatoes.

  Just then, Mr. Ditherspoon appeared at his side. “What are you doing with those peas?” he asked.

  “Mixing them with my potatoes,” Jeremy explained.

  “You can’t do that.”

  Jeremy pushed his glasses up on his nose nervously. “But I always eat them that way,” he said quietly.

  Mr. Ditherspoon glared at Jeremy. “There’s only one way to eat at this school. And that’s my way. If you want that dessert, you have to eat the hamburger, then the peas, then the mashed potatoes. There will be no mixing foods at my school!”

  “Yes, sir,” Jeremy mumbled quietly. He picked up his burger and took a bite.

  “And make sure you chew each bite twenty-three times . . . exactly,” Mr. Ditherspoon told him.

  Jeremy chewed.

  Katie looked around at her friends’ sad faces. This was all her fault. If she hadn’t gotten rid of all the rules at school, Mr. Kane would still be the principal. Things were really horrible now. And there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

  Chapter 10

  When Katie got home, she ran right up to her room and slammed the door. She was in a terrible mood. This had been the worst day ever. Katie’s chocolate-and-white cocker spaniel, Pepper, scratched at her door. But Katie didn’t open it. She didn’t want to see anyone. Not even Pepper.

  The phone rang downstairs. “Katie, it’s for you,” her mom called out.

  Katie frowned. She really didn’t feel like talking to any of her friends. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Suzanne,” her mother answered. “She says it’s important.”

  Katie ran downstairs and took the phone from her mother. “What?” she asked in a grumpy voice.

  “Hello to you, too,” Suzanne teased.

  “I’m sorry,” Katie apologized. “I’m just in a bad mood. Today was awful.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Suzanne agreed. “And it’s going to get worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We might have Mr. Ditherspoon as our principal forever,” Suzanne said.

  “I thought he was just a substitute,” Katie told her.

  “He is,” Suzanne agreed. “But my mom says the PTA is thinking about recommending him as our new principal.”

  “What about Mr. Kane?”

  “There’s going to be a big school board meeting on Friday. They might fire Mr. Kane,” Suzanne told Katie.

  “We have to stop them!” Katie exclaimed.

  “Forget it, Katie. This is the school board. They’re not going to listen to kids,” Suzanne told her.

  “I’m not so sure about that. Remember, that’s what you said when Mr. Kane fired Lucille,” Katie reminded her. “But we got her job back for her.”

  It was true. Mr. Kane had fired the lunch lady after she’d gotten into a foodfight with some of the kids. Of course, it had actually been Katie who had gotten into the foodfight, but Mr. Kane didn’t know that. He didn’t know about the magic wind. The kids had saved Lucille’s job by refusing to eat the cafeteria food until Mr. Kane hired her back.

  “That’s true,” Suzanne said. “But I have no idea how we can get Mr. Kane back. Do you?”

  Katie thought about it for a minute. Then she smiled. “I think I do. Will you help me?”

  “Sure,” Suzanne agreed. “I’ll do anything to be allowed to wear glitter again!”

  Chapter 11

  As Katie walked into the school board meeting, her stomach was very jumpy. Some people might say she had butterflies in her tummy. But Katie thought they felt more like elephants. A whole herd of elephants . . . stampeding!

  “Are you scared?” Jeremy whispered to Katie as they took their seats.

  “Are you?” Katie asked.

  Jeremy nodded. “I’ve never spoken in front of this many grown-ups before.”

  Katie looked over to where Suzanne was sitting with her parents. Even she looked nervous.

  The meeting seemed to drag on forever. Lots and lots of grown-ups gave long speeches about how awful Mr. Kane’s no-rules day was.

  Mr. Kane didn’t say anything. He just sat in the front of the room, looking very confused. Every now and then he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

  “Does anyone else have anything to say before we vote?” the head of the school board, Mr. Rosen, asked finally.

  Katie raised her hand shyly.

  “Yes?” Mr. Rosen pointed toward Katie.

  Katie gulped. Everyone was staring at her. It was really scary. But Katie knew she had to say something. She had to save Mr. Kane.

  Katie walked up to the front of the room. “My name is Katie Carew,” she said. “I’m in class 3A, and I like Mr. Kane.”

  “That’s very nice, Katie,” Mr. Rosen said. “But, as grown-ups, we have to make sure school is a place where you can learn.”

  “But we learned a lot that day,” Katie said.

  “What could you possibly have learned on a no-rules day?” Mr. Rosen asked.

  “We learned that rules are really important.” Katie stopped and thought about Mr. Ditherspoon’s pencil point rule. “Well, at least most rules,” she added.

  “Really?” Mr. Rosen said with surprise.

  Katie nodded. “We even came
up with some rules of our own.” She turned toward Jeremy and Suzanne. They stood up, too.

  “I think it’s important to do your homework,” Katie began. “And there shouldn’t be any fighting in school, either.”

  “Kids should be able to wear what they want,” Suzanne continued. “But no one should be allowed to make fun of someone else’s outfit.”

  “Or their drawings,” Katie added. “You shouldn’t make fun of anyone for any reason.”

  “There have to be rules in sports,” Jeremy said. “And I think new kids should be paired up with a buddy on their first day of school. Then they could have a friend right away.”

  “We should have a student government at school,” Katie told the school board. “I think kids would follow rules more easily if they got to make some of them.”

  Katie looked over at Mr. Kane. He didn’t seem so nervous anymore. He seemed proud. The principal stood up and began to clap. Soon most of the parents in the room were on their feet and clapping, too.

  Mr. Rosen smiled at the kids. “Well, I guess you did learn something that day,” he began.

  “Mr. Kane is very smart,” Katie told him.

  “Yes, he is.” Mr. Rosen agreed. He turned toward Mr. Kane. “There’s no way we could possibly fire you now.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Kane said.

  “But I do have one question,” Mr. Rosen continued. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about your plan?”

  Mr. Kane gulped. He fiddled with his tie. He looked at his shoes. What could he say? He had no idea what had happened that day.

  “Mr. Kane couldn’t have told anyone,” Katie quickly said. “It had to be a surprise. Otherwise, we never would have learned the lesson ourselves.”

  Everyone started clapping again.

  “Good one, Katie,” Suzanne whispered.

  “Grown-ups love when you say stuff like that.”

  Chapter 12

  The meeting didn’t last much longer. When it was over, Mr. Kane walked over to Katie, Suzanne, and Jeremy.

  “I don’t how to thank you kids,” he said. “I’m not quite sure what happened this week. But I am glad it turned out this way. You had some great ideas.”

  Katie smiled. She thought so, too.

  “So who wants ice cream?” Mr. Kane asked. “My treat!”

  Talk about a great idea!

  As Katie walked outside with her friends and her parents, she felt a breeze hit the back of her neck. Her smile turned to a frown. This was awful. She didn’t want to turn into anyone else. She just wanted to stay Katie Carew—and have a big rocky road ice cream cone.

  “Whoa, it’s getting cold!” Suzanne zipped the front of her sparkly black jacket. “Feel that wind.”

  Katie smiled brightly. It wasn’t the magic wind after all. It was just a plain, old wind. One that could blow on anyone.

  “I think it feels wonderful!” she said.

  Chapter 13

  Class 3A’s Favorite Playground Games!

  George is the king of Four Square. Suzanne loves to play Statue Tag. Jeremy’s favorite game is soccer, but he’s always ready to play Poison. Now you and your friends can play these games too. Here’s how.

  Four Square (a game for four players)

  You will need: Chalk, a kickball

  You can draw a four square court on any playground. Draw a large square, sixteen feet wide by sixteen feet long. Now divide it into four smaller squares of equal size. The smaller squares should be four feet wide by four feet long. (You can get a grown-up to help you with this part.)

  One player stands in each square. One square is called the king. The other squares are called the queen, the prince, and the princess. The king is the highest-ranking square. The princess is the lowest-ranking square.

  To start the game, the king serves the ball by bouncing it in his square and then hitting it to any of the other players. That player has to let the ball bounce, and then hit it to any other player. Then that player has to hit the ball to another player.

  Keep going until one of these things happens:*A player hits the ball before it bounces in her square.

  *A player does not hit the ball.

  *A player hits the ball out of bounds. (The ball has to land in someone’s square.)

  If anything like that happens, the player who made the mistake has to move to the princess square. The other players move up to fill the empty squares.

  At the end of recess, the player in the king’s box is the winner.

  Statue Tag (a game for ten or more players)

  You will need: chalk Use the chalk to make a starting line. Then choose one player to be it. It must stand about fifty feet away from the line with her back to the other players.

  It counts to ten. While she’s counting, the other players run or walk toward her. As soon as it reaches ten, she turns around.

  That’s when all the other players stand still like statues. Anyone caught moving (even a little, teensy bit) has to go back to the starting line.

  Then it turns around and begins to count to ten again.

  As soon as any player is close enough to tag it, he should. Just be sure her back is turned, because if she sees you moving, you have to go back to the starting line.

  The first player to tag it, becomes the new it.

  Poison (a game for five or more players)

  You will need: a pot

  The players all join hands, making a circle around the pot. One player is chosen to be the leader. He tries to push or pull the other players so that one of them knocks a foot against the pot.

  As soon as any player touches the pot, he becomes poison. All the other players have to run away from him. The player who is poison has to try and catch one of the other players. That person becomes the new leader, and the game begins again.