Write On! (5 page)

On Friday morning, the fourth-graders of Cherrydale Elementary School piled into the auditorium for the big Nellie Farrow assembly. Everyone was very excited.

Well,
almost
everyone. Suzanne was acting really bored, rolling her eyes and yawning. “I don’t know what the big deal is,” Katie heard her say. “Nobody reads books for fun anymore. When people want to have a good time, they go on their computers. Books are
so
uncool!”

But that wasn’t true at all. Katie knew lots of people who loved reading books. She was one of them. And she really wished she’d taken the time to read Nellie Farrow’s.

Katie spotted Nellie right away. The author was seated on a big rolling chair on the auditorium stage. Her hair was tied back in a long brown braid. She wore round-framed glasses and a long, flowing dress. She had a huge smile on her face. Nellie and Mr. Kane, the school principal, were busy chatting.

“There she is!” Emma W. whispered excitedly to Katie. “I can’t wait to meet her and ask her to sign my book.

Katie looked at the book in her friend’s hands. “We’re allowed to do that?”

“Sure,” Emma told her. “I asked Mr. Guthrie. He said he thought Nellie would be happy to sign books for kids who loved to read as much as we do.”

Wow!
Katie wanted an autographed book. She turned and headed toward the door of the auditorium.

“Where are you going?” Emma asked her.

“Back to the classroom,” Katie told her. “I want to get my book, too.”

Class 4A was empty when Katie entered the room. The only one there was Slinky. He didn’t seem to notice Katie at all.

Katie hurried over to her backpack. She unzipped the front pouch. But before she could reach in and get the book, Katie felt a strange draft on the back of her neck.

The draft grew colder and stronger, becoming a breeze and then a full-fledged wind. Katie gulped. This was no ordinary wind. This was the magic wind. It was back! And it was going to turn her into somebody else. It swirled harder and harder, until it became a tornado, spinning just around Katie. She closed her eyes tight and grabbed onto her beanbag, hoping it would keep her from blowing away.

Not now!
Katie thought.

And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone. And so was Katie Carew.

The question was, who had the magic wind turned her into this time?

Katie sat there for a minute, afraid to open her eyes. She wasn’t sure where or who she was. All she knew was that she could hear lots of kids talking. Okay, so now she knew she wasn’t alone in her classroom anymore. But where was she? Slowly, she opened her eyes.

Unfortunately, that didn’t help much. Everything around her was blurry. She could
sort of
make out some rows of chairs with people in them. But that was all.

“Okay, boys and girls, settle down.” Katie heard a man’s deep voice. It sounded like Mr. Kane’s.

“I want you to give a warm, Cherrydale Elementary School welcome to Nellie Farrow!” Mr. Kane continued.

Katie heard all the kids clapping and cheering wildly. Mr. Kane placed a microphone in her hands. “Whenever you’re ready, Nellie,” he told her.

Nellie?
Oh, no! Was it possible? Had the magic wind switcherooed Katie into Nellie Farrow?

Slowly, Katie reached up and touched her face. Sure enough, Nellie’s round glasses were resting on her nose. That explained why everything was so blurry. Katie didn’t need glasses. But Nellie Farrow did. It was hard for Katie to see through Nellie’s thick lenses.

The kids quieted down quickly. They all sat there, waiting for Katie to say something about
Only Orangutans Hang from Trees
.

But what could Katie say? She didn’t write the book. She hadn’t even read it!

This was all Suzanne’s fault. If Suzanne hadn’t made Katie work on the website, she would have read the book. It was Pepper’s fault, too. If he had just let her read last night, she would have been able to . . .

No.
Katie couldn’t really blame Suzanne or Pepper. It was her own fault she hadn’t read the book. And now Nellie Farrow’s speech was going to be ruined.

Unless . . . what if Katie read the book right now?

“I’m going to read out loud a few pages from the first chapter, and then we can talk about them,” she suggested.
There. That sounded like something a real author would say.

Katie looked down at the book in her hand and tried to read. But she was looking at the words through Nellie Farrow’s glasses. She couldn’t read them at all. She reached up and took the glasses from her face.

“Don’t do that!” Jeremy Fox shouted from the front row.

“Huh?” Katie asked. “Why not?”

“You shouldn’t take off your glasses if you need to wear them,” Jeremy said, pointing to his own frames. “Not even if you want to look good in front of an audience. Besides, glasses are cool.”

“Um . . . well,” Katie stammered. “Some people take their glasses off to read, you know.”

“But
you
don’t,” Jeremy said. “We saw a picture of you reading to a class of kids. You had your glasses on then.”

Katie sighed. She didn’t want the kids to think that Nellie Farrow was embarrassed to be wearing glasses. She would have to wear them. Even though it meant she couldn’t see the book in front of her.

So, now how was she supposed to read anything?

“You know what?” Katie said finally. “You guys don’t need me to read this book to you. You’ve already done that. Why don’t you just ask me some questions about what it’s like to be a writer?”

Katie figured she could answer questions about that. After all, she was an author, too.
At least sort of.

The kids had plenty of questions for Nellie Farrow.

“Where do you get your ideas?” Emma W. asked.

“From things in my life,” Katie told her, remembering what she and her mom had talked about. “That’s where all the best authors get their ideas.”

“You mean you actually got stuck on a deserted island for three weeks?” Kevin asked excitedly.

“Well . . . uh, no,” Katie said.

“Did you leap across the desert on one foot with a parrot on your shoulder?” Manny Gonzalez asked.

Katie frowned. What kind of weird book was this, anyway?

“No, of course not,” Katie said. “At least I don’t
think
I did.”

“But that’s in the book,” Kevin reminded her. “And you said . . .”

“Well, not
everything
is from my life,” Katie stammered. “Just some stuff.”

“Did you at least get stuck on the top of a rope during gym class?” Kadeem asked.

“Um . . . sure,” Katie answered. That one at least
sounded
like it could have happened.

“Which is your favorite chapter in the book?” Jessica Haynes asked.

“Uh . . .
four
,” Katie said quickly, picking any number.

“Why?” Jessica said.

Katie gulped. She had no idea why. But she was going to have to say something. Everyone was staring at her, waiting for an answer.

Katie looked down at the book in her lap. She squinted hard, trying to see through Nellie’s thick lenses, searching for chapter four. Maybe the chapter title would tell her what it was about.

If she could just hold the book a little farther away . . . Katie stretched her arms out as far as they would go. The words got a little clearer. But her hands were getting sweaty. So sweaty that the book slipped right out of her fingers.

“Oops,” Katie said as she got up and tried to reach for the book. But her balance was off because she couldn’t see. Katie tripped over the wheel on her rolling chair.
Thud.
She fell flat on her face.

The kids all giggled.

“Here, let me help you,” Mr. Kane said quickly, reaching for the book.

“No, that’s okay,” Katie assured him. She reached out and tried to get the book herself. But as she grabbed for it, the skirt of her long dress got caught in the wheels of the chair. The chair went rolling across the stage, pulling Katie with it.

“Whoa!” Katie shouted. She reached out her foot and used it as a brake to stop the rolling chair. Sure enough, the chair came to a quick stop—right on top of Nellie Farrow’s copy of
Only Orangutans Hang from Trees
.

When Katie reached over to pull the book out from under the chair, the cover snapped in two. Pages of the book went flying all over the place.

The kids laughed even harder.

“She’s funnier than the clown I had at my fifth birthday party,” George joked.