Witch Switch (2 page)

“You're right, no-
body
lives there,” Kevin told her. “But ghosts do. I know it for sure.”

“How?” Suzanne wanted to know.

“My big brother Ian was walking on Elm Lane last night, and he saw a light switch on and off,” Kevin told the others. “If no one lives in the house, then how do you explain that?”

“Wow,” George murmured. “That place really must be haunted.”

Katie couldn't take it anymore. She hated thinking about ghosts and spiderwebs and rats. She walked toward the school building, leaving Suzanne, Kevin, and George behind. As she headed off, she could hear her friends talking.

“What did you have to do that for?” she heard Suzanne asking Kevin. “You know how Katie gets when you talk about scary stuff.”

“Yeah, she can be kind of a scaredy-cat,” Kevin agreed. “I guess I forgot.”

Katie frowned. Her friends might have thought she was too far ahead of them to hear what they were saying, but she could hear every word. And it made her very upset. She hated when they talked about her that way.

But how could Katie argue with them? When it came to ghosts, she
was
a scaredy-cat!

Chapter 3

“Welcome to the class 4A haunted mansion,” Katie's teacher, Mr. Guthrie, greeted the class as they entered their classroom. “Home of Cherrydale's largest collection of ghosts and goblins.”

Katie frowned. Even her teacher was getting into all this ghost stuff.

But as soon as she entered the room, Katie realized there was nothing to be afraid of in class 4A. Mr. Guthrie's ghosts weren't creepy or spooky. They were silly, happy cardboard ghosts with big smiles on their faces. They were hanging from the ceiling, taped to the walls, and pasted to the windows. A rubber skeleton was hanging from one of the light fixtures. There were goofy witches, too, with paper legs that had been folded back and forth like long black accordions. Even Slinky, the class snake, had gotten into the Halloween spirit. Mr. G. had placed a few fake spiderwebs around Slinky's glass cage. Katie bet no other classroom in all of Cherrydale Elementary School looked this cool.

“As soon as you come in, you can start decorating your beanbags,” Mr. G. told the kids. He pointed to the far corner of the room. “I've got plenty of construction paper, fake spiders, cobwebs, and other materials for you to use.”

Katie smiled. Decorating her beanbag was one of her favorite things to do in school. All of the kids in class 4A sat in beanbag chairs instead of at desks, because Mr. G. believed kids learned better when they were comfortable. Every few weeks the kids got to decorate their beanbag chairs in a new way.

Katie took a piece of black construction paper and began to cut out a triangle. She was going to turn her yellow beanbag into a big jack-o'-lantern. The triangle would be the jack-o'-lantern's nose.

“This is so much fun,” Emma Weber said as she began taping black plastic spiders around the top of her beanbag chair. “I love Halloween.”

“Me too,” Katie told her. “I can't wait to trick-or-treat on Friday.”

Emma W. sighed. “Lacey and I have to take Matthew and the twins with us when we get home from school in the afternoon,” she said.

“Oh.” Katie wasn't surprised by that. Emma and her older sister, Lacey, had to watch their three younger brothers a lot. Matthew was in first grade, so he wasn't a lot of trouble. But the twins, Timmy and Tyler, were tough. They were little toddlers who were just learning to walk. They were always getting into some kind of trouble. Emma was going to have her hands full with them—especially after they ate a lot of sugary candy.

“Well, maybe you can take your brothers in the afternoon and then come trick-or-treating with Suzanne, Jeremy, Kevin, George, and me after dinner,” Katie suggested. “We're going to have lots of fun. My mom is going to take us. And she always dresses up, too.”

Emma brightened. “That sounds like a great idea!” she exclaimed.

George taped a small plastic skeleton on his beanbag. “Do you guys know why the skeleton didn't cross the road?” he asked.

“Why not?” Andy Epstein wondered.

“Because he didn't have the guts!” George exclaimed.

The kids all laughed. All except Kadeem Carter, that is. Kadeem never laughed at George's jokes. He liked his own jokes better. “What do ghosts serve for dessert?” he asked the kids.

“What?” Mandy Banks wondered.

“Ice scream!” Kadeem shouted out, laughing.

“That's such an old joke,” George told him. “Now here's a good one: What's a witch's favorite subject in school?”

“Spell-ing,” Kadeem answered. “That joke is so old, the last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur.”

“Good one, Kadeem,” Kevin laughed.

George glared at his best friend. “Traitor,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What?” Kevin asked him. “It was funny.”

“Not as funny as
this
joke,” George assured him. “Why do witches fly on brooms?”

“Why?” Kevin asked.

“Because vacuum-cleaner cords aren't long enough,” George told him with a laugh.

Kadeem opened his mouth to tell another joke, but Mr. G. spoke first. “Let's save the scary joke-off for Friday. That's Halloween, after all. On that day we can turn 4A into ghoul school!” He let out a silly-scary kind of laugh.

The kids all giggled.

“I wish every day could be Halloween!” Kadeem shouted out.

Katie gasped. That was the scariest thing she'd heard all day. Kadeem had made a wish. And wishes could be really scary—especially when they came true.

Chapter 4

Katie knew all about wishes coming true. It all started one horrible day back in third grade. On that day, Katie had lost the football game for her team. Then she'd splashed mud all over her favorite jeans. After that, George had made fun of her and called her a mud monster.

But the worst part of the day came when Katie had let out a loud burp—right in front of the whole class. It had been so embarrassing!

That night, Katie had made a wish to be anyone but herself. There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made the wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.

The magic wind was a really powerful tornado that blew only around Katie. It was so strong, it could blow her right out of her body ...
and into someone else's
!

The first time the magic wind blew, it turned Katie into Speedy, the hamster in her third-grade class. Katie spent the whole morning going round and round on a hamster wheel and chewing on Speedy's wooden chew sticks. They didn't taste very good at all.

The magic wind came back again and again after that. Once it turned Katie into her cocker spaniel, Pepper. That had been
sooooo
strange. Katie had gone to the bathroom on a fire hydrant, eaten a half-chewed bagel off the street, and gotten into a big fight with a nut-throwing squirrel.

And that was nothing compared to the time Katie turned into Suzanne, just as Suzanne was about to go onstage for her big modeling show. Somehow Katie had managed to put Suzanne's leather pants on backward. And she'd had a really tough time walking in those high-heeled shoes. A lot of the kids from school had been there to see Suzanne model. That meant they'd seen what a mess Katie had made of things. When it was all over, Suzanne was really embarrassed—and confused. She had no idea that it hadn't been her up there on the runway. It had been Katie.