I'm Game (3 page)

Read I'm Game Online

Authors: Nancy Krulik

BOOK: I'm Game
2.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Guess what? My dad is going to be on
Tick, Tock, Clock
!” Katie said proudly. Then using her new vocabulary word, she added, “He just bought a trivia book to help him.”
Mr. Carew leaned back in his chair. “I don’t really
need
the book,” he told Louie. “I’m already a whiz at the kinds of questions they ask on the show.”
“I love
Tick, Tock, Clock
,” Louie told Katie’s dad. “Do you think you’ll wind up with green goo all over you?”
“Oh, I doubt that will happen,” Katie’s dad replied. “I’m going to just zip through the questions. I’ve got tons of information floating around in my head. Go ahead, ask me anything.”
“Okay,” Louie said. “How about . . . What was the name of the first pizza parlor in North America?”
“Lombardi’s,” Mr. Carew answered. “In New York City. It opened in 1905.”
“Wow, you
are
good!” Louie exclaimed.
“I told you,” Mr. Carew agreed. “I’m going to win. I can feel it.”
Chapter 6
When Katie arrived at school on Wednesday morning, it looked as though the entire fourth grade were being attacked by skinny black snakes. Everyone was wearing black rubber bracelets.
Jeremy was wearing nine of them. So were George and Kevin.
Kadeem was wearing eight bracelets, just like Mandy and Becky.
Suzanne’s striped ones really stood out, though.
“Wow, your bracelets are cool,” Jessica Haynes told Suzanne. “How many do you have?”
Suzanne frowned. “Six,” she said slowly. Then her face brightened suddenly. “But mine are extra-special. I made them myself. Katie has one, too. I made it for her.”
Katie held up her wrist. Once again, Suzanne had them all beat. And once again she was bragging about it.
Suzanne wasn’t the only one bragging these days.
That evening, Katie and her dad sat outside on the front porch. Katie had the trivia book on her lap.
“What is the national bird of the United States?” she asked her father.
“That’s easy! The bald eagle,” Mr. Carew replied. “Although some people once wanted our national bird to be a turkey!”
Katie giggled. That was a funny thought.
“But I’m no turkey,” her dad said. “I’m a trivia
genius
.”
Katie frowned slightly. She didn’t like when anyone bragged—not even her dad.
“Hey there,” Katie’s next-door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Derkman, greeted them.
Katie sat up tall as the Derkmans walked across the lawn toward her house. When Mrs. Derkman had been Katie’s third-grade teacher, she’d always told the kids to sit up straight. Mrs. Derkman wasn’t Katie’s teacher anymore. But Katie still sat up straight when she saw her.
“So, are you getting ready for the big show on Friday?” Mr. Derkman asked Katie’s dad.
“I’m testing him,” Katie said proudly. “He’s doing great!”
“I’m a cinch to win,” Mr. Carew boasted. “Haven’t missed one yet.”
“Are you going to practice the stunts?” Mrs. Derkman asked.
“Nah. That won’t be necessary,” Katie’s dad assured her.
Katie hoped her dad was right. He didn’t even know
how
to roller-skate, never mind ride a unicycle.
“Try me,” her father said.
Mrs. Derkman thought for a moment. “Here’s one I learned when we took a trip to Australia,” she said. “What is the largest species of kangaroo?”
“The red kangaroo,” Mr. Carew said confidently.
Mrs. Derkman looked impressed. “Correct,” she said.
“I’ve got one,” Mr. Derkman said. “Who do mosquitoes bite more—kids or adults?”
Katie thought she knew the answer to that one. After all, she got bitten by mosquitoes all the time.
“Adults,” her dad answered.
“Right,” Mr. Derkman told him.
Katie would have been wrong. But her dad wasn’t. He’d done it again!
“I’m telling you, I can’t lose,” Mr. Carew boasted.
“Daddy!” Katie exclaimed, embarrassed.
“I hope you’re right,” Mr. Derkman told him. “The whole neighborhood will be cheering you on. Everyone’s going to be watching you on Friday night.”
“Doesn’t that make you nervous, Daddy?” she asked. “There are going to be millions of people all over the country listening to everything you say. Millions and millions of them. And they’re going to be looking right at you when you try to give an answer. I’d be a wreck if I had to do that.”
“Um, no, I won’t be . . . well . . .” Mr. Carew told her. “I mean . . . I hadn’t really thought about it that way before. I’ll just focus on the questions.”
Katie frowned. Suddenly her dad sounded kind of nervous.
“That’s exactly right. Just keep studying,” Mrs. Derkman assured Katie’s dad. “Don’t worry about anything else. You know this stuff.”
Katie smiled at Mrs. Derkman. When she wasn’t being a very strict third-grade teacher, she could be kind of nice.
Mr. Carew nodded. But he didn’t seem nearly as excited as before. He was obviously thinking about how many people would be watching him. Katie never should have brought it up. She felt awful. She had to do something to make sure her father could get his confidence back.
But what?
Chapter 7
Katie’s dad spent the whole night walking around the house memorizing facts. He was starting to make Katie and her mom a little crazy.
 
When Katie woke up in the morning and went downstairs for breakfast, she found her dad sitting at the kitchen table with his trivia book and a giant mug of coffee. His eyes were all red, and he hadn’t shaven yet.
“Hawaii is made up of twenty islands,” he mumbled. “Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone. China has the most people in the world.”
He sounded like a zombie.
Things were pretty crazy at school, too. Everyone was arguing about whose rubber bracelets were the best. The boys all had plain black ones. The girls were all copying Suzanne and wearing black bracelets with colored ribbons wrapped around them.
Suzanne had created a rainbow on her arms. Bracelets with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet ribbons ran up and down both of her arms.
Katie was still wearing the one bracelet Suzanne had made for her. She had been so busy helping her father study for
Tick, Tock, Clock
she hadn’t had time to buy any more.
“I think it’s a lucky bracelet for me,” Katie told Suzanne that afternoon as the girls stood together in the cafeteria lunch line. “I got a 98 on my math quiz today. And yesterday, when I was practicing on my clarinet, I played
Yankee Doodle
all the way through without hitting one wrong note.”
Suzanne smiled. “Glad I could help.”
“You must be having
lots
of good luck with all those bracelets you are wearing,” Katie told her friend.
“Not exactly,” Suzanne admitted. “It’s been kind of the opposite, actually. The spelling worksheet I handed in this morning was a mess. Every time I started to write something down, the rubber part of the bracelets would tear the paper.”
Katie nodded. Suzanne wasn’t the only one having problems with her bracelets. All morning long the little black bands of rubber had been causing trouble for people.
During math, Mr. Guthrie scolded Kadeem for playing with his bracelets instead of paying attention.
In physical education, George dropped the ball because having so many bracelets made it hard for him to move his wrist.
The worst was at lunch . . .
“Ouch!” Becky Stern shouted from the lunch line. She turned around and stared at a rubber bracelet on the floor and then at a group of boys behind her.
“Which one of you hit me with that bracelet?” she demanded.
“Not me,” George assured her.
“It wasn’t me,” Kevin added.
“Me neither,” Kadeem said.
“Well, it was one of you,” Becky insisted. “And I’m going to get you back,” she said. She took off one of her pink and black bracelets and shot it at George.

Other books

Tall Cool One by Zoey Dean
Because of Ellison by Willis, M.S.
PODs by Michelle Pickett
Lies in Blood by A. M. Hudson
An Orphan's Tale by Jay Neugeboren
Warriors of Camlann by N. M. Browne
Girl With a Past by Sherri Leigh James
All Gone by Stephen Dixon