Doggone It!
Table of Contents
Dedication
Copyright Page
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
For the real Pepper ... ARO00000!
Text copyright © 2003 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright
© 2003 by John and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by
Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, NY, 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP
is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Published
simultaneously in Canada. S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krulik, Nancy E. Doggone it! / by Nancy Krulik ; illustrated by John & Wendy. p. cm.—(Katie Kazoo, switcheroo ; 8) Summary: When strict Mrs. Derkman moves next door to third-grader Katie Carew, scares her friends away, and insists she keep her dog, Pepper, on a leash, Katie finds a non-magical solution to the problem. Includes steps for teaching a dog to sit and stay.
[1. Neighbors—Fiction. 2. Dogs—Fiction. 3. Teachers—Fiction.
4. Magic—Fiction.] I. John & Wendy, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.K944Dn 2005
[Fic]—dc21
2003005213
eISBN : 978-1-101-14198-4
http://us.penguingroup.com
Chapter 1
“Are they here yet?” Jeremy Fox asked, as he rode his bike up to Katie Carew’s house early Saturday morning.
Katie was sitting on the front porch with her dog, Pepper. Waiting.
“Nope.” Katie told her best friend. “And I’ve been sitting here all morning.”
“You still don’t know anything about the new neighbors?” Jeremy plopped down beside her. “I thought your parents met them already.”
Katie shook her head. “My mom won’t even give me a hint about what they’re like. She thinks it’s better if I’m surprised.”
“That’s so not fair,” Jeremy said.
“I hope they have a lot of kids,” Katie thought out loud.
Just then, Katie’s other best friend, Suzanne Lock, came skipping rope around the corner. As she reached Katie’s house, Suzanne put down her jump rope and glared at Jeremy. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Waiting for Katie’s new neighbors.”
Suzanne turned to Katie. “I thought we were going to meet your new neighbors together.”
“We are,” Katie assured her other best friend. “Jeremy wants to see them, too.”
“Three’s a crowd,” Suzanne complained.
“So leave,” Jeremy told her.
Katie shook her head. She liked both of her best friends so much. It was too bad they couldn’t like each other. “Come on, you guys,” she said. “This is a really important day. There’s a new family moving in next door.”
“I hope they have a teenage girl,” Suzanne told Katie. “Then we can find out about the newest music and clothes before anyone else. Teenagers know all about that kind of stuff.”
Jeremy scowled. “Who needs another teenage girl around here? I’d rather have a couple of new boys in the neighborhood.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “Maybe they’ll put up a basketball hoop over their garage.”
“Girls play basketball, too,” Katie reminded him.
“Yeah,” Suzanne added. “Ever hear of the WNBA?”
“You’re right,” Jeremy admitted. “But we just got a new girl in the neighborhood.”
“You mean Becky?” Katie asked him. Becky Stern had moved to Cherrydale from Atlanta about two months ago. But she already had so many friends that it was weird to think of her as the “new girl.”
“Becky, your girlfriend,” Suzanne added with a giggle.
Jeremy turned beet red. “She is not my girlfriend,” he insisted. “Take that back.”
But Suzanne wouldn’t give in. “Jeremy and Becky sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” she sang. “First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes little Jeremy in a baby carriage. Sucking his thumb, wetting his pants, doing the hootchie-cootchie dance!”
Now Jeremy was really mad. “She is not my girlfriend,” he insisted.
“She wishes she was,” Suzanne told him. “Everyone knows it.”
“That’s not my problem,” Jeremy said. He blushed again.
“I wonder if the new family will have a dog,” Katie said, quickly changing the subject. “Pepper would like that.”
“Arf!” At the sound of his name, the chocolate-and-white cocker spaniel looked up at Katie and smiled.
“See?” Katie asked. She kissed her dog on the head. “He’d love a four-legged friend.”
“Yeah, but what if the new family has a cat?” Suzanne asked. “That wouldn’t be so great.”
“Why not? Pepper can be friends with a cat.”
Jeremy shook his head at that. “A cat and a dog? I don’t know, Katie.”
“Pepper’s not like other dogs,” Katie insisted. “He’s special.”
Before anyone could argue with that, a huge white moving van came rumbling down the street.
“They’re here!” Katie yelled excitedly.
Suzanne stood up and fixed her hair. “How do I look?” she asked.
The kids all watched as two big men got out of the van and began to unload the new neighbors’ belongings. Before long there were chairs, tables, lamps, and a big wooden bed on the front lawn.
“I don’t see any toys,” Katie said nervously.
“They’re probably packed away in boxes,” Jeremy reasoned.
Just then, a red car pulled into the driveway beside the house.
“That’s the new family!” Katie cheered. “Let’s go meet them.” She started to run over toward the car.
Katie didn’t get very far. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared, as a woman with dark, short hair and small, round glasses got out of the car. She looked really familiar.
Frighteningly familiar!
“It can’t be . . . ” Suzanne began.
“I think it is,” Jeremy told her. He looked again. “Oh yeah. It’s her, all right.”
“Oh no!” Katie cried out. “This is awful!”
Chapter 2
There was no doubt about it. The woman who had gotten out of the car was Mrs. Derkman, Katie’s third-grade teacher—strict Mrs. Derkman, the teacher with the most rules in the whole school.
“Suzanne, can you believe how horrible this is?” Katie exclaimed.
Suzanne didn’t answer. She just stood there with her mouth wide open as Mrs. Derkman walked toward the kids.
“You bought the house next to mine?” Katie asked in disbelief.
“Didn’t your mother tell you?” Mrs. Derkman replied.
“I um ... she . . . I think she wanted it to be a surprise,” Katie stammered.
“And we are definitely surprised!” Jeremy said.
“I can tell.” Mrs. Derkman laughed. “Suzanne, please close your mouth before a bug flies down your throat.”
“Barbara, which of these boxes goes in the bathroom?” Mr. Derkman called to his wife.
Barbara? Katie had never thought of Mrs. Derkman as someone with a first name before.
“Well, I’d better get to work. I have a whole house to unpack.” Mrs. Derkman smiled at Katie. “We’ll talk later, neighbor.”
“Yes, Mrs. Derkman,” Katie answered quietly.
As Mrs. Derkman headed toward her new h
ouse, Jeremy strapped on his helmet and walked over to his bike.
“I . . . well . . . I gotta get home,” he said nervously.
“Don’t you want to play ball or something?” Katie asked him.
Jeremy looked at Mrs. Derkman and her husband. They were on their front porch, watching the movers. “Not today, Katie,” Jeremy told her. “Maybe we can play tomorrow . . . at my house.”
As Jeremy rode off, Katie smiled at Suzanne. “I’ll go get my jump rope. We can make up some new rhymes or something.”
Suzanne picked up her rope. “Uh, I have to be getting home,” she told Katie nervously. “It’s getting late.”
Katie looked at her friend. “Late for what?”
“Um, um ... I just have to go,” Suzanne said.
Katie looked down at Pepper. “At least you still want to play with me, don’t you, boy?” she asked, scratching the spaniel between the ears.
Crash! One of the movers dropped a heavy box on the lawn. The loud noise scared Pepper. He turned and ran inside as fast he could.
Next door, Mrs. Derkman was yelling at the movers. She sounded angry and impatient—just the way she did when the kids in class 3A wouldn’t listen.
“This is a nightmare!” Katie exclaimed.
Chapter 3
“Would you like some more carrots?” Katie’s mother asked at dinner that night.
“No thanks,” Katie mumbled.
“But you’ve hardly eaten a thing,” Mrs. Carew said. “I made all your favorites—veggie burgers, carrots, and mashed potatoes.”
Katie sighed. Veggie burgers were her favorite. But she didn’t feel much like eating.
“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.
“Well, I’ll have some more carrots—and potatoes, too,” Katie’s dad said, patting his stomach. “This is a great dinner.”
Katie’s mother smiled. “Speaking of dinner, I was thinking we should invite the Derkmans for a barbecue tomorrow. They’ve probably been too busy unpacking to cook.”
Katie gulped. Mrs. Derkman? Eating at her house? How horrible was that?
“No!” Katie shouted out suddenly.
Her mother looked surprised. “What do you mean ‘no’?”
Katie sighed. Didn’t her mother understand anything? “Mom, Mrs. Derkman is my teacher. I can’t have dinner with her.”
“Katie, that’s silly. The Derkmans just moved in. We should be neighborly,” her mother said firmly.
“There are a gazillion houses.” Katie moaned. “Why did they have to pick the one right next door to us? I wish . . . ”
Katie was about to say that she wished anyone else in the whole world had moved in next door, but she stopped herself. Katie knew better than to make wishes like that. It was too dangerous.
Katie had learned all about wishes after one really bad day at school. She’d lost thefootball game for her team, ruined her favorite jeans, and burped in front of the whole class. That day, Katie had wished that she could be anyone but herself.
There must have been a shooting star flying overhead or something when she made that wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.
The magic wind was a really wild storm that seemed to blow only around Katie. The magic wind was really powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it was able to turn Katie into somebody else.
The first time the magic wind came, it changed Katie into Speedy, the class hamster. She’d spent a whole morning running around trying to keep from getting stepped on.
Luckily, Katie had changed back into herself before anyone realized who the class hamster really was.
The magic wind didn’t only turn Katie into animals. Sometimes it turned her into grown-ups, like Lucille, the school lunch lady, and Mr. Kane, the principal.
Other times, the magic wind turned Katie into other kids, like Suzanne’s baby sister, Heather, or Becky Stern, the new girl in school. Once it had actually switcherooed her into Jeremy Fox. Katie didn’t like being a boy at all. She wasn’t even sure which bathroom she was supposed to go into!
That’s why Katie didn’t make wishes anymore. When they came true, things never turned out the way she hoped they would. The truth was, Mrs. Derkman was her neighbor, and there was nothing Katie could do.
But that didn’t mean she had to like it.
Chapter 4
Slurp. Katie was fast asleep when she felt a wet lick on her face. She opened her eyes slowly and came face-to-face with Pepper. As soon as Katie opened her eyes, the spaniel’s brown stubby tail began wagging wildly.
Katie glanced at the clock on her wall. It was only 7:15. “Didn’t anybody tell you it’s Sunday?” she moaned to her dog.
Pepper answered with a big, soggy lick to her nose.
“Okay, okay,” she giggled. “You win. Let’s go play.”
Just then, Katie heard someone singing loudly outside. Whoever it was had a terrible voice—high and screechy, like fingernails on a blackboard.
Pepper growled.
“Who could that be?” Katie wondered aloud as she put on her clothes. Quickly, she brushed her teeth and raced outside to find out what was going on.
Whoa! What a surprise!
When Katie and Pepper walked out into Katie’s front yard, they discovered Mrs. Derkman working in her garden. The teacher was wearing a huge straw hat and a pair of overalls. Her hands were covered with green gardening gloves. And as if that weren’t weird enough . . .
Mrs. Derkman was singing at the top of her lungs.
“Noah, he built them, he built them an arky-arky,” the teacher screeched.
Katie couldn’t believe that this was the same Mrs. Derkman who was her teacher. Mrs. Derkman never wore anything other than neat dresses and sensible shoes. And she never—ever—sang out loud.
“Made it out of hickory barky-barky . . . ” Mrs. Derkman croaked.
Katie choked back a laugh.
“Ruff! Ruff!” Pepper came racing over to Katie with a yellow tennis ball in his mouth. He wanted to play.
“Okay, boy,” Katie said with a smile. She took the soggy ball and flung it across the lawn. “Fetch!”
Unfortunately, Katie’s aim wasn’t very good. The ball flew into Mrs. Derkman’s garden. Pepper leaped right into the flowerbed and caught the ball in his mouth.
“Oh, no! Not my pansies!” Mrs. Derkman waved her arms wildly. “Get out of here, you rotten dog!”
Pepper cocked his head curiously to the side. He’d just caught the ball in the air. Usually somebody said “good dog” after he did that. Sometimes he even got a treat.
But Mrs. Derkman certainly wasn’t about to give Pepper a treat.
Katie walked over to Mrs. Derkman’s house. “Sorry about that,” she said shyly.
“My new flowerbed.” Mrs. Derkman moaned. “Katie, could you please keep this dog on your lawn from now on?”
“His name is Pepper,” Katie told her.
Mrs. Derkman took a deep breath. “Okay, could you please keep Pepper on your lawn?”
Katie nodded. “I’m sorry about your flowers.”
“It’s okay,” Mrs. Derkman said. “Just please keep Pepper out of my garden. I’ve planted a new strawberry patch and some tomato plants. They have to be treated very tenderly. Don’t they, Sven?”
Sven? Katie looked around. “Who are you talking to?” she asked her teacher curiously.
Mrs. Derkman laughed. “Sven,” she said, pointing to the big stone troll standing in the middle of the garden. “We’ve had him for years. I found him when I was visiting Norway, and I just fell in love with him.”
Katie looked at the troll. It had a pointy red hat and a creepy smile on its face. It definitely wasn’t loveable!
“I talk to Sven all the time,” Mrs. Derkman continued. “It’s a kind of game I play to pass the time while I’m working in the garden.”
How weird is that? Katie wondered to herself.
“I love gardening!” Mrs. Derkman told Katie. “I spend every hour I can out here with my
little babies.” Mrs. Derkman ran her hand lovingly over one of her pansies.
“It seems like a lot of work,” Katie said.
Mrs. Derkman nodded. “It is. But I don’t mind. My plants are worth it. I water them and fertilize them. They especially love when I sing to them.”
For a minute, Katie thought her teacher was going to burst into song once again. Luckily, at just that second, Mr. Derkman came out onto the porch. He was wearing a red flannel bathrobe. His long, hairy legs stuck out from under the robe.
“Hi, Katie,” Mr. Derkman said, waving. He looked down at Pepper. “Cute dog. He’s a cocker spaniel right?”
Katie nodded.
“I had a beagle when I was growing up,” Mr. Derkman recalled. “Barbara, isn’t it wonderful to have a cute dog living right next door?”
Mrs. Derkman rolled her eyes. “Wonderful,” she said sarcastically.
Mr. Derkman held out a big mug. “Snookums, your coffee is ready,” he told his wife.
Mrs. Derkman stood and wiped some dirt from her overalls. “Okay, Freddy Bear,” she said. “I’ll be right in.”
Snookums? Freddy Bear? Katie couldn’t wait to tell the kids at school about this!
On second thought, they’d probably never believe her.
Chapter 5
The moment Katie walked onto the playground on Monday morning, she was surrounded by the other kids from class 3A.
“Suzanne told us Mrs. Derkman moved in next door to you,” Zoe Canter said. “Is it true?”
Katie nodded.
“I told you so,” Suzanne told the kids. “I was right there with her when Mrs. Derkman drove up.”
“Hey, I was there, too,” Jeremy announced. “I was there first.”
“Jeremy you’re such a good friend,” Becky Stern said. She smiled brightly at him.
Jeremy blushed.
“Oh, Katie!” Miriam Chan exclaimed. “I’m so sorry.
“What’s it like living next door to a teacher?” Becky asked.