It's Snow Joke Read online

  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

  For Amanda, my actress—NK

  For Stefan, we’d tell you why, but it’s

  a secret; we promised not to tell—J&W

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  Text copyright © 2006 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2006 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

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006002434

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09980-3

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  Chapter 1

  “Okay, now all the forager ants can start searching for food!” Mr. Guthrie told the kids in class 4A.

  Katie Carew giggled as she began looking along the windowsills for the treats Mr. G. had hidden around the room.

  Katie’s fourth-grade class was studying animal behavior. Some classes might read books about how ants lived. But that wasn’t the way Mr. G. taught. In his class, the kids were pretending that they were ants in a colony. They were all wearing wire antennae on their heads. And they had each been given an antlike job.

  “Okay, once you forager ants have gathered the food, bring it back to the center of the room,” Mr. G. said. “Then the queen, the nursery worker ants, and the ants that are in charge of cleaning up waste can have a snack. But remember, anybody who is a patrol ant will have to wait. You can’t eat while you’re guarding the colony.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair!” George Brennan shouted out. He was a patrol ant. “I want a snack, too.”

  “You’ll get one,” Mr. G. assured him. “But you can’t leave your post. Suppose a bird was coming near the anthill. You’d have to warn the others.”

  George frowned, but he stayed at his post near the classroom door.

  “Hurry up, forager ants,” Mandy Banks said. She adjusted the gold crown on her head. “It takes a lot of energy for me to lay enough eggs to keep this ant colony going!”

  Katie giggled. Mandy sure loved being the queen ant.

  “Once everyone has eaten, the ants who are on clean-up patrol should get rid of the waste—which means picking up all the candy wrappers and throwing them in the trash,” Mr. G. told the kids.

  “In a real ant colony, getting rid of waste means getting rid of dead bodies,” Kadeem said. “I read about that on the Internet.”

  “Ooo, yuck,” Emma Weber groaned. She was one of the ants who was supposed to clean up. “I think I just lost my appetite.”

  “More for me,” Emma Stavros, a forager ant, told her. She popped a snack-size chocolate bar into her mouth.

  “Man, I wish I was a forager ant,” George groaned from the doorway.

  Katie stared at him. “Don’t say that!” she exclaimed loudly.

  The kids all stared at her.

  “What’s with you?” Kevin Camilleri asked.

  Katie gulped. She hadn’t meant to shout. It was just that Katie hated wishes. She knew how much trouble they could cause when they came true.

  Chapter 2

  It had all started last year, when Katie was in third grade. She had had a miserable day. First she had lost a ball game for her team.

  Then she’d fallen into the mud and ruined her new jeans.

  Worst of all, she’d let out a giant burp, right in front of the whole class. The kids had really teased her about that.

  It had been one of the most embarrassing days of her life. And that night, Katie wished to be anyone but herself. There must have been a shooting star flying overhead, because the very next day the magic wind came.

  The magic wind was like a powerful tornado that blew just around Katie. It was so strong that it could turn Katie into somebody else! One, two . . . switcheroo!

  The first time it happened, the magic wind had turned Katie into Speedy, the third-grade class hamster! Katie spent the whole morning going round and round on a hamster wheel and gnawing on chew sticks!

  The magic wind had come back many times after that. Sometimes it changed Katie into other kids, like her friend Jeremy Fox. Other times it turned her into grown-ups she hardly knew, like Cinnamon, the woman who owned the candy store in the Cherrydale Mall. What a mess that had been! Katie had accidentally sent candy hearts with mean messages to some of her friends at school. She’d almost ruined Valentine’s Day forever!

  Another time, the magic wind had turned Katie into Lucky, Jeremy’s kitten. She’d had to lick herself clean—which meant swallowing pieces of kitten fur. Blech. Even worse, Katie’s own dog, Pepper, had chased her up a tree.

  That was why Katie didn’t like wishes coming true.

  “I . . . um . . . just meant that you shouldn’t wish for a different job, George,” Katie said, trying to explain her outburst. “Every ant helps the colony.”

  “That’s exactly right, Katie!” Mr. G. said, his antennae bouncing up and down. “No ant would ever wish to be anyone else.”

  Katie sighed. Ants were smarter than they looked.

  Chapter 3

  “That was so much fun,” Kevin Camilleri said as he and the other kids in class 4A left the school building at the end of the day.

  “So is this,” Kadeem Carter added as he held out his tongue and tried to catch some of the snow that had just started to fall.

  “Mr. G. had so many treats for us to find,” Katie agreed.

  “And eat,” George reminded her. He rubbed his belly. “Those Peppermint Patties were really good, weren’t they, Katie Kazoo?”

  Katie grinned. She loved when George called her by the way-cool nickname he had given her back in third grade.

  “I didn’t want to give up that crown,”


  Mandy admitted. “It was awesome being queen for a day.”

  “You guys are so lucky,” Jeremy Fox said. “We’re studying animal behavior, too. But we’re doing research projects in the library.”

  Katie gave her friend an understanding smile. Jeremy was in the other fourth-grade class—4B. His teacher, Ms. Sweet, was very, very nice. But she wasn’t as interesting as Mr. G. The kids in class 4A definitely had more fun than the kids in 4B.

  “Searching for candy is way more fun than writing note cards on how sharks live,” Becky Stern remarked as she stuck out her tongue to catch a few snowflakes.

  Suzanne Lock shook her head. “Well, I think writing reports is very grown-up,” she told the kids. “I love doing research. I’m an expert now on how animals hide from their enemies. They do it by blending in with their background. It’s called camouflage. C-A-M-O-U-F-L-A-G-E.”

  “We know how to spell, Suzanne,” Jeremy groaned.

  Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Anyway, it’s very interesting. I think the stuff you guys do in 4A is for babies.”

  Katie scowled. Suzanne was one of her best friends, but sometimes she could be mean—especially when she was feeling jealous . . . like now.

  “Why is writing reports grown-up?” Kevin asked her. “We did reports back in kindergarten—on dinosaurs, remember? Sounds like you guys did baby stuff today.”

  Suzanne stuck out her tongue. But not to catch a snowflake. She stuck it out at Kevin. Kevin stuck his tongue out at Suzanne.

  Katie frowned. Now everyone was acting like babies. “I’m sure we’ll have to write a report soon, too,” Katie assured Suzanne. “We just got to do something different today, that’s all.”

  “Hey, you guys,” George interrupted. “Maybe it will snow really hard.”

  “Cool!” Kadeem cheered. “You think school will be closed tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know,” Katie told him. “It has to snow an awful lot for that to happen.”

  “If it snows hard, I’ll get to wear my new parka. It has white fur around the hood,” Suzanne boasted.

  Katie stared at her in surprise.

  “Relax, it’s fake fur,” Suzanne assured her. “I’ve got white snow pants, too. And white boots. When I wear it all together, I can pretend I’m a polar bear blending in with the snow. That’s camouflage.”

  “We know, Suzanne,” Kevin told her.

  “I hope we get lots and lots of snow,” Jeremy remarked. “I want to take out my snowboard. I’m getting pretty good on it.”

  “I’ll bet you’re great!” Becky Stern told him. She smiled widely.

  Jeremy blushed and turned away. “It’s cold out here,” he said. “I’m going home.”

  That afternoon, Katie sat in her room and tried to do her homework. But it was hard. She kept looking out the window at the snow. It sure would be nice to get a chance to go sledding.

  Brrriiing.

  “Katie, can you get the phone?” her mother called up to her. “I’m busy.”

  Katie hurried down the stairs to the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said.

  “Katie Kazoo, you’ll never guess who this is!”

  Katie smiled. She knew exactly who it was. The voice on the other end of the phone was one of the most famous voices in the whole world. It belonged to Rosie Moran, a famous child actress.

  Katie had met Rosie last year when Rosie was filming a movie in Cherrydale. Since then they’d been sending each other postcards and e-mails all the time.

  Rosie didn’t know it, but Katie had almost ruined her career. It hadn’t really been Katie’s fault. The magic wind had turned her into Rosie, and Katie had to act out a scene in the movie, instead of Rosie. And Katie was no actress. She was terrible!

  “Hi, Rosie,” Katie said happily. “How are you?”

  “I’m great. And you’re never going to believe this!” Rosie exclaimed. “I’m at the Pine Mountain Ski Resort!”

  “Pine Mountain!” Katie shouted into the phone. “That’s right near here!”

  “I know!” Rosie squealed back. “I’m filming a movie called Diamonds on Ice. It’s about a group of jewel thieves. There are a lot of snow scenes in the movie. We couldn’t film them in Hollywood, so we came here!”

  “Wow. Your school is on break already,” Katie said. “You’re so lucky.”

  “Katie, you’re missing the point,” Rosie told her. “I’m right near you. Maybe this weekend, you could come to Pine Mountain. You could go skiing while I’m on the set. And then we could hang out together.”

  “Oh, that sounds awesome!” Katie said excitedly. “Let me just ask my mom.”

  “Ask me what?” Mrs. Carew wondered as she carried a big basket of laundry down the hall.

  “It’s Rosie Moran!” Katie told her mom. “She’s making a movie at Pine Mountain. She wants to know if I can come visit this weekend.”

  Mrs. Carew thought for a moment. “I have to work at the bookstore on Sunday,” she said. “But I don’t see any reason why we can’t go to Pine Mountain on Saturday.”

  “Yipee!” Katie shouted right into the phone.

  Rosie giggled. “I guess that means you can come.”

  Chapter 4

  By the next morning, there was a beautiful blanket of white snow on the ground. But not enough for school to be closed. So Katie put on her red boots, her thick pink parka, her wide wool scarf, her hat, and her mittens, and headed off to school.

  When she got to the playground, she saw that everyone else was all bundled up, too. She could hardly tell who was who. Nobody’s faces were showing.

  But Katie just had to find Jeremy. She had something really important to ask him. Finally she spotted his yellow parka near the slide in the middle of the yard.

  “Jeremy, hi!” Katie called out as she raced to catch up with him.

  “Hi,” Jeremy replied. “What’s up?”

  Katie looked around, making sure no one—especially Suzanne—was near. “Do you have a soccer game tomorrow?” she asked him.

  Jeremy shook his head. “The game’s on Sunday this week.”

  “Oh, good!” Katie exclaimed. “Do you want to come to Pine Mountain with me tomorrow? You could bring your snowboard!”

  Jeremy looked down. “I . . . um . . . I know I kind of told everyone I was a great snow-boarder, but I don’t really know how to ride that thing,” he admitted. “I mean, I can go down little hills in the park and stuff, but on a ski slope . . .”

  “That’s okay,” Katie assured him. “You don’t need to bring your board. We can ski instead. I’ve never been skiing. We can take a class together.”

  Jeremy’s face brightened. “That sounds like a great idea,” he agreed.

  “Then afterward we’ll hang out with Rosie Moran,” Katie continued. “She’s at Pine Mountain filming a movie.”

  “You sure she won’t mind if I come with you?” Jeremy asked.

  Katie shook her head. “No. Rosie likes you. She likes everyone from our school.”

  Jeremy laughed. “Well, almost everyone. She wasn’t too crazy about Suzanne Superstar!”

  Katie giggled, remembering the last time Rosie was in town. The kids were all going to have tiny parts in her movie. But Suzanne had renamed herself Suzanne Superstar and tried to get herself a really big role. Instead, she’d gotten herself thrown off the set!

  “That’s kind of why this has to stay a secret,” Katie explained. “I bet Suzanne would want to come with us if she knew Rosie was making another movie.”

  “Okay. I promise I won’t say anything,” Jeremy assured her. He looked around quickly. “Don’t worry. There’s no one around to hear us.”

  But someone was nearby, and had heard. Suzanne was under the slide the whole time. She was all in white and she did blend in with the snow—just like a polar bear.

  A polar bear with a very angry face!

  Ding-dong.

  “I’ll get it,” Katie shouted excitedly as the doorbell rang early on Saturday mor
ning. “It must be Jeremy!”

  But when Katie opened the door, it wasn’t Jeremy’s face staring back at her. It was Suzanne’s.

  “Hi, Katie,” Suzanne said.

  “Suzanne, what are you doing here?” Katie gasped.

  “I’m going with you to Pine Mountain,” she said simply.

  “What?” Katie asked her.

  “I said I’m going with you today,” Suzanne repeated.

  “How did you know about Pine . . .” Katie began.

  “My mother called your mother and asked if I could spend the day with you. And your mother said yes.”

  “B-b-but . . .” Katie stammered. Suzanne sure worked fast. Katie’s mom hadn’t even had time to tell her.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you want me to go with you?” Suzanne asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “Uh . . . sure,” Katie said. “It’s just that we’re going to see Rosie Moran, and you and Rosie don’t always get along.”

  “Oh, I bet we’ll get along fine,” Suzanne told her as she walked into the house. “It won’t be like last time. I’m sure Rosie isn’t jealous of me anymore.”

  Katie frowned. Rosie jealous of Suzanne? That wasn’t exactly the way Katie remembered it. But there was no point in arguing with her. Suzanne would never admit that she was jealous of anyone.

  Just then, Jeremy came hurrying up the walk. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I couldn’t find my other boot.” He stopped for a minute and stared at Suzanne. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

  “Going to Pine Mountain,” she answered triumphantly. “With you and Katie.”

  Chapter 5

  “Katie Kazoo!” Rosie Moran shouted the minute Katie entered her trailer. The actress leaped up out of her makeup chair and hugged her friend.

  Katie was amazed. Rosie had really grown. She was the same age as Katie, but now she was at least three inches taller. Her face, however, looked exactly the same. But her hair . . . Katie began to giggle.