Bad Rap Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  For the kids at the Rodeph Sholom Day School. Thanks for the inspiration—N.K.

  To Shane, a most rocking and talented friend—J&W

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Text copyright © 2005 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2005 by

  John and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Krulik, Nancy E.

  Bad rap / by Nancy Krulik ; illustrated by John & Wendy.

  p. cm.—(Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo ; 16)

  Summary: When Katie and Suzanne learn that their favorite band, the

  Bayside Boys, will perform in Cherrydale, they think their biggest problem

  is how to get tickets, but Katie magically turns into one of the Boys and

  causes the band to break up.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09860-8

  [1. Bands (Music)—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction.] I. John & Wendy. II. Title.

  PZ7.K9416Bad 2005

  [Fic]—dc22 2004017661

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  “And I dream of you when I awake!” Suzanne Lock sang out wildly as she danced around her friend Katie Carew’s room.

  “When I awake,” Katie joined in, using her hairbrush like a microphone.

  Katie’s cocker spaniel, Pepper, howled loudly. Katie giggled. “That’s it, Pepper, sing along!”

  “That was ‘Dreams’ by the Bayside Boys,” Joey G., the radio DJ, announced as the song came to an end. “Thanks for spending your Sunday afternoon with me, Joey G., on Cherrydale’s number-one radio station.”

  “I think ‘Dreams’ is my favorite Bayside Boys song,” Suzanne told Katie. She flopped down onto the bed and tried to catch her breath.

  “I love every song on their CD. It’s like they’re singing just to me,” Katie sighed.

  “Hey, that rhymes!” Suzanne exclaimed. “You sound just like T-Jon!”

  Katie smiled. T-Jon did all the raps on the Bayside Boys’ songs. He was so awesome. Suzanne had given her a real compliment!

  “I can’t decide which of the Bayside Boys I like the best,” Suzanne said. She looked up at the poster on Katie’s bedroom wall. “I mean, Fizzy’s got that amazing braided hair. And T-Jon dances really well. And I love his sunglasses. But when Ace sings, I get all tingly. I’m glad he’s the lead singer.”

  Katie shrugged. “I like Spike the best. He seems really nice. And I like the way he spikes his hair up in the front.”

  Suzanne laughed. “That’s just like you, Katie. Hardly anybody likes Spike the best.”

  “That’s okay,” Katie told her. “I think he’s cool.”

  “Sure he is,” Suzanne agreed. “All the Bayside Boys are cool.”

  “I’ve got a special surprise for all you Bayside Boys fans out there!” Joey G. suddenly announced.

  Instantly, Katie and Suzanne stopped talking. They stared anxiously at the radio.

  “The Bayside Boys are coming to Cherrydale!” the DJ said.

  “AHHHHH!” Suzanne screamed. “Dreams do come true!”

  “Shhhh!” Katie told her. “We have to find out when!”

  Suzanne quieted down.

  “Ace, Fizzy, Spike, and T-Jon will be at the Cherrydale Arena this Saturday night to tape a cable TV special. Tickets will go on sale tomorrow morning at nine a.m.—but only at the arena’s box office. You’ve got to be there in person to score your seats.”

  “Oh, wow!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Katie, we have to get tickets for that show.”

  “We can’t,” Katie told her sadly.

  “What? Are you crazy? Of course we can. I have allowance money saved up,” said Suzanne.

  “So do I,” said Katie. “But money isn’t the problem.”

  “Then what is?” Suzanne asked her.

  “Tomorrow is Monday,” Katie reminded her best friend. “We’ll be in school at nine o’clock.”

  Tears welled in Suzanne’s eyes. “You’re right. This is awful . . .” She brightened suddenly. “Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Katie asked excitedly.

  “Unless your mom can get the tickets for us. She doesn’t go to school.”

  “That’s true,” Katie agreed. “Let’s go ask her.”

  The girls raced down the stairs at top speed. Pepper ran after them, barking loudly at their heels.

  “MOMMMMM!” Katie shouted. “I need you!”

  “It’s an emergency,” Suzanne added.

  Mrs. Carew came running out of the kitchen. “What’s wrong, girls?” she asked nervously.

  “The Bayside Boys are coming to Cherrydale,” Suzanne blurted out.

  “But we’ll be in school tomorrow morning when the tickets go on sale,” Katie explained.

  “They’re going to sell out,” Suzanne said.

  “You have to go and get tickets for us,” the girls finished together.

  Mrs. Carew took a deep breath. “Oh,” she said. “Is that all?”

  “Is that all?” Suzanne gasped. “Mrs. Carew, this is the most important thing that’s ever happened to us.”

  Katie’s mother laughed.

  “Mom, tickets go on sale tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Can you stop at the Cherrydale Arena and buy them for us?”

  Mrs. Carew shook her head. “Sorry, girls. I have to be at work early tomorrow morning. I won’t have time to get the tickets.”

  “How about Dad?” Katie asked hopefully.

  “He’s working, too,” Mrs. Carew reminded Katie.

  Suzanne thought for a moment. “My dad’s out of town. But my mom will be around. We can ask her to get the tickets.” She raced for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Katie asked her.

  “Home. I have to talk to my mom!” Suzanne exclaimed.

  “Why don’t you just call her from here?” Katie asked.

  Suzanne shook her head. “This is a big favor. I want to ask her in person.”

  Ten minutes later, Katie’s phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Katie shouted, hoping it was Suzanne.

  “Hello?” Katie said into the phone.

  It was Suzanne. And she didn’t sound happy.

  “My mom has to take Heather to some dumb old baby music class,” Suzanne told Katie angrily. “She didn’t think getting tickets for the Bayside Boys concert was an important enough reason for her to miss it.”

  “But it is important,” Katie said. “So important.”

  “I know that, and you know that,” Suzanne sighed. “But my mom doesn’t know that. I can’t believe the Bayside Boys are going to be right here in Cherrydale and we won’t get to see them. It’s just not fair!”

  Katie and Suzanne stayed on the phone for a little while, but neither girl said much. There wasn’t anything to say. The fact was, they weren’t going to the Bayside Boys concert.

  And that really stunk!

  Chapter 2

  The next morning
on the playground, everyone was talking about the Bayside Boys concert.

  “I can’t believe my mom wouldn’t let me miss school to go get tickets,” Jessica Haynes moaned.

  “I know what you mean,” Zoe Canter agreed. “This is so sad.”

  “Even my big sister Lacey wants to go to that concert,” Emma Weber said. “But she’s got a math test this morning. There’s no way my parents would let her miss that to go buy tickets.”

  Katie sighed. “I really wanted to see the Bayside Boys up close, especially Spike.”

  “It’s just plain dumb,” Suzanne told the girls.

  “What is?” Katie asked her.

  “It’s dumb that the tickets went on sale today. All the Bayside Boys’ fans are kids. And kids are in school on Monday mornings,” Suzanne explained.

  “Hey, that’s right!” Mandy Banks exclaimed. “You know, I bet the concert won’t sell out. At least not this morning!”

  Katie’s face brightened. “That means we can go get tickets after school.”

  “I was thinking the same thing!” Suzanne agreed. “Meet me here after your band practice.”

  “Okay, but I have to go back to my classroom and sign out with Mr. Guthrie before I can go home,” Katie reminded her.

  “That’s all right,” Suzanne said. “But hurry! We don’t want to miss out on getting tickets!”

  Katie turned to Emma W. “Do you want to come with us?” she asked, not wanting to leave her new friend out.

  Emma frowned. “I can’t. It’s my turn to help my mom with the twins this afternoon.”

  “Oh,” Katie replied. “That’s too bad. But maybe ... ”

  Before Katie could finish her sentence, Becky Stern came running onto the playground. Well, not running, actually. She was doing cartwheels across the yard!

  “Hey, everyone!” Becky greeted the girls as she landed right beside them. “I have the best news!”

  “We already know,” Suzanne told her. “The Bayside Boys are coming to Cherrydale. Katie and I are going to buy tickets this afternoon.”

  “Forget it,” Becky told her. “They’ll be sold out by then. There are already a thousand people lined up outside the Cherrydale Arena waiting for the ticket booth to open. I heard it on the news.”

  Katie frowned. So much for great ideas.

  “If the show’s going to sell out, why are you so happy?” Emma W. asked Becky.

  Becky smiled. “Because I already have my tickets,” she told her.

  “That’s impossible!” Suzanne exclaimed. “They don’t go on sale for another twenty minutes!”

  “I didn’t buy my tickets,” Becky boasted. “I got them for free.”

  “How did you do that?” Zoe Canter asked.

  “The Bayside Boys record all their CDs at a studio in Atlanta. My dad used to play golf with the man who owns the studio,” Becky bragged in her soft, Southern accent. “My dad’s friend can get tickets to any Bayside Boys show he wants. He promised me two tickets to the show.”

  “Wow,” Jessica said. “You’re so lucky.”

  “Two tickets?” Suzanne piped up curiously. “Who are you taking to the show with you?”

  Becky shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet,” she told her. She smiled. “It could be anyone.” Then she turned and walked away.

  Suzanne’s eyes got very small. Katie could tell she was angry. “It could be anyone,” she said, imitating Becky’s accent. “Oooh. Blechy Becky is such a snob.”

  “You’re just jealous, Suzanne,” Mandy said.

  “No, I’m not,” Suzanne told her. “Why would I be? Katie and I are going to get tickets to that show, too.”

  “We are?” Katie asked her, surprised. “How are we going to do that?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Suzanne said. She watched as Becky stopped to tell some of the other girls about her tickets. “But we will. We have to.”

  Chapter 3

  As Katie walked into class 4A, she was wondering what plan Suzanne had for getting tickets to the concert. But she didn’t have much time to think about that. There was a bigger question waiting for her in the classroom.

  In fact, there were lots of questions waiting for the kids as they entered the classroom. Katie’s teacher, Mr. Guthrie, had decorated the whole room with cardboard question marks. They were hanging from the ceiling, stuck to the walls, and on all the classroom windows. There was even a big question mark over Slinky the snake’s cage.

  “What’s this all about?” Kadeem Carter asked Mr. Guthrie.

  “Not what,” Mr. Guthrie told him mysteriously. “Who.”

  “What?” Kadeem asked again.

  “Who,” Mr. Guthrie repeated.

  Huh? Katie was getting confused!

  Mr. Guthrie smiled at his class. “Take your seats, everyone. We’re about to start a new learning adventure!”

  Katie smiled. Most teachers would just say that the class was starting a new unit. But not Mr. Guthrie. He thought of learning as a big adventure. Emma W. and Katie moved their beanbag chairs next to each other and sat down. All the kids in class 4A sat in beanbag chairs. Mr. Guthrie thought kids learned better when they were comfortable.

  “What do you think Mr. G. is up to this time?” Emma W. whispered to Katie.

  “It could be anything,” Katie told her.

  The kids didn’t have to wait long to find out. Just then, Mr. Guthrie stood up and wrote three words on the blackboard.

  WHO AM I?

  George Brennan raised his hand high. “Finally, a question I can answer,” he joked. “You’re Mr. Guthrie.”

  “Correct,” Mr. Guthrie laughed. “But actually, Who Am I? is the name of your new assignment.”

  Now everyone in the class was confused.

  “Let me explain,” Mr. Guthrie said. “Each of you will pick a famous person to research. Then, in two weeks, you will give an oral report, pretending to be that person. You have to dress up like him or her. And when you talk, you should try to sound like that person. Try to use some quotes that the person you choose actually said. Then the rest of the class will have to guess who you are.”

  “Do we have to pick a person from history? Can it be a movie star or an athlete?” Mandy Banks asked.

  “You can choose anyone you want—as long as there’s enough information on that person for you to do your report,” Mr. Guthrie told her.

  “I know just who I want to be!” George exclaimed. “I want to be . . .”

  “Don’t tell,” Mr. Guthrie said, holding up his hand. “That’ll ruin the guessing part of the report.”

  “This is so cool,” Kevin Camilleri said.

  Katie didn’t think it was so cool. She didn’t want to become anyone else. Not even for a report.

  That was because Katie knew better than anyone what it was like to become somebody else. She’d done that too many times already.

  It had all started one day at the beginning of third grade. Katie had lost the football game for her team, ruined her favorite pair of pants, and let out a big burp in front of the whole class. It was the worst day of Katie’s life. That night, Katie had wished she could be anyone but herself.

  There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made that wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.

  The magic wind was a wild tornado that blew just around Katie. It was so powerful that every time it came, it turned her into somebody else! Katie never knew when the wind would arrive. But whenever it did, her whole world was turned upside down . . . switcheroo!

  The first time the magic wind came, it turned Katie into Speedy, class 3A’s hamster! It was pretty bad having nothing but chew sticks and hamster food to eat all morning. Luckily, the magic wind came and turned Katie back into herself in time for lunch.

  The magic wind came back again and again after that. It turned Katie into all sorts of people—Mr. Kane, the school principal; Genie the Meanie, her camp counselor; and Mr. Starkey, her band teacher! Once, it even turned Katie into her old t
eacher Mrs. Derkman. Katie had come very close to having to kiss Mrs. Derkman’s big, hairy husband, Freddy Bear. How gross would that have been?

  The wind had also changed Katie into other kids—like Becky, Emma W., and Suzanne. Being Suzanne had been really bad. Katie had turned into her right in the middle of Suzanne’s modeling show. Katie was no model. It had been a disaster.

  Then there was the time the magic wind had changed Katie into her dog, Pepper. She’d spent the afternoon peeing on fire hydrants and eating a half-chewed bagel right off the sidewalk. Then this mean squirrel started throwing acorns at her head. After that, Katie decided that a dog’s life wasn’t as easy as people thought.

  Being somebody else caused Katie nothing but trouble. That was why she definitely didn’t want to do this Who Am I? project. But she couldn’t tell Mr. Guthrie that. Not without explaining about the magic wind. And she didn’t think Mr. G. would believe her. Katie wouldn’t have believed it, either, if it didn’t keep happening to her.

  So Katie was going to have to pick a person for her project. But who? She glanced into her backpack. The book she was reading was right on top. It was called Aesop’s Fables.

  Hmmm . . . Katie really liked the stories in the book. But she didn’t know much about Aesop himself. All it said on the book jacket was that he was an author who had lived thousands of years ago in Greece.

  Katie thought for a moment. Since being a writer was on her list of things she might want to be when she grew up, it might be fun to learn about a writer who was as famous as Aesop.

  Katie just hoped the magic wind never turned her into Aesop. She didn’t want to live in a time when there were no TVs, stereos, or Bayside Boys concerts!

  Chapter 4

  As soon as school was over, Katie grabbed her book bag and her clarinet and raced to the playground. Suzanne was waiting for her.

  “Do you want to come to my house, or should I go to yours?” Suzanne asked her.