I'm Game (6 page)

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Authors: Nancy Krulik

BOOK: I'm Game
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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.

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