I Hate Rules! 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

  Chapter 13

  For Trina—N.K.

  For Babette—J&W

  Text copyright © 2003 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2003

  by John and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset &

  Dunlap, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 345

  Hudson Street, New York, NY, 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a

  trademark of Penguin Putnam Inc. Published simultaneously in

  Canada. S.A.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09862-2

  ABCDEFGHIJ

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  “Ouch!”

  Katie Carew groaned when George Brennan tagged her. George was a lot bigger than Katie. Sometimes he tagged too hard.

  “Gotcha, Katie Kazoo!” George shouted, using the special nickname he’d given her. “Now you’re part of the chain.”

  Katie frowned. She was always the first one tagged when they played Train Tag. Katie wasn’t a very fast runner.

  But she wasn’t a bad sport, either. She linked her arm through George’s without complaining. Together, they ran after Miriam Chan.

  “You’re tagged!” George cheered as he bashed into Miriam’s side.

  Miriam rubbed her arm where George had tagged her. “How come you guys never go after Jeremy or Kevin?”

  “Because they’re too fast,” George explained. “Join the train.”

  Miriam slipped her arm through Katie’s. “Now who should we try to tag?” she asked.

  George looked around the playground. Jeremy Fox was there. So was Mandy Banks. They were both really fast. George couldn’t catch them on his own—never mind when he was running with Miriam and Katie.

  Then Suzanne Lock strolled onto the playground. She was wearing cowboy boots and a skirt. That wasn’t a great outfit for running. She’d be an easy catch. “Let’s get Suzanne!” George answered.

  George took off in Suzanne’s direction. He pulled Katie and Miriam behind him.

  “Gotcha!” Miriam and George cried out as they reached Suzanne.

  “Join the train,” Katie added.

  “No, thank you,” Suzanne answered.

  “What do you mean, ‘No thank you’?” George demanded to know. “We tagged you, so you have to join the train.”

  “No I don’t,” Suzanne told him. “Train Tag is for kids.”

  “We are kids,” George reminded her.

  “Well, I’ve got more grown-up things to do.” Suzanne reached into her pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “I have to make a call.”

  “Hey! Whose is that?” Miriam asked.

  “Mine,” Suzanne answered.

  Katie had seen that phone before. It really belonged to Suzanne’s dad. But Katie didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to embarrass her best friend.

  “How come you brought your cell phone to school?” Miriam asked.

  “You never know when you might need to call someone,” Suzanne told her.

  “Hey, Katie Kazoo. You know what you get when you mix a telephone with a pair of scissors?” George asked.

  “What?” Katie asked.

  “Snippy answers!”

  Katie giggled. She loved when George told jokes.

  Suzanne didn’t. Instead of laughing, she pulled a headset from her backpack. “I can talk on the phone and still use my hands,” Suzanne explained. She plugged the headset into the phone.

  “My mom has one of those in her office,” Miriam told her. “You look really grown up, Suzanne.”

  Suzanne smiled.

  Just then, Katie’s other best friend, Jeremy Fox, came running over. “Hey! Mrs. Derkman is going to make us line up any minute. We don’t have much time left to play. Come on!”

  “You guys go ahead,” Suzanne said. “I’ll just stay here with my phone.”

  But before the kids could go back to their game, Mrs. Derkman blew her whistle. “Class 3A,” the teacher called out, “let’s line up.”

  “Boy, that math homework was really hard,” Katie whispered to Jeremy as they got in line.

  “It took a long time,” Jeremy agreed.

  George looked at them both strangely. “Math homework? We had math homework?”

  “You didn’t do it?” Katie asked.

  George turned red in the face. “I . . . uh . . . I guess I forgot.”

  “Oh man,” Jeremy moaned. “This stinks.”

  “Why?” Katie asked him. “George forgot his homework. Not you.”

  “I know,” Jeremy agreed. “But George, you were supposed to be in the four-square championship at recess. You’re the best four-square player in our whole class.”

  George smiled. “I’m the king. I’m going to destroy the kids in 3B.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “No you’re not. You’re not even going to be there. You know the rule. If you forget your homework, you have to do it at recess.”

  George didn’t look so happy anymore. “Mrs. Derkman has too many rules,” he moaned as he got into line.

  Chapter 2

  Katie walked into the classroom and hung her jacket on the third hook from the left.

  Then she placed her homework in the bin on Mrs. Derkman’s desk.

  Finally, she sat down at her desk and began to copy the spelling words on the board.

  Katie did the same thing every morning. Mrs. Derkman had very strict rules about how you behaved in her classroom.

  George sniffed at the air as he put away his coat. “Ooh. Do you have tuna fish again, Manny? Or did you just forget to shower?”

  A few kids chuckled. Mrs. Derkman did not. “If you have a question, George, please raise your hand,” she said.

  George sat down quietly and pulled out his notebook.

  Just then a small piece of paper landed on Katie’s desk. It was a note from Suzanne. Katie read the note and scribbled an answer.

  “Kevin, pass this to Suzanne?” Katie whispered as she folded the paper. Kevin sat between Katie and Suzanne.

  “No way,” he whispered back. “I’m not getting in trouble.”

  Katie frowned, but she understood. Mrs. Derkman didn’t like kids passing notes in class. It wasn’t Kevin’s note. Why should he risk it?

  Katie waited until Mrs. Derkman was looking the other way. Then she tossed the note to Suzanne.

  Katie almost hoped Suzanne wouldn’t write back. If Mrs. Derkman caught the girls writing notes, she was sure to do something mean. Something absolutely horrible. Something . . .

  “Suzanne, give me that note,” Mrs. Derkman ordered.

  Oh no! Mrs. Derkman had seen them.

  Suzanne looked at Katie and bit her lip. She didn’t move. It looked like she was frozen.

  “Suzanne, you heard me.” Mrs. Derkman held out her hand.

  Suzanne stood up. She walked slowly toward the front of the room. All the kids were staring. All except Katie. She couldn’t even look at her.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Derkman said when Suzanne handed her the note. “Please go back to your seat.”

  Katie breathed a sigh of relief. That wasn’t so bad.

  But Mrs. Derkman wasn’t finished. She opened the note and began to read it . . . out loud!

  “My mother bought me these horrible pink flowery under
pants. They’re for babies.” Mrs. Derkman read Suzanne’s words.

  Suzanne buried her head in her arms.

  “Do you have to wear them?” Mrs. Derkman continued, reading Katie’s part of the note.

  “I’m wearing them right now.” Mrs. Derkman said, as she read what Suzanne had just written.

  The teacher looked at Suzanne and Katie. “I don’t think that was so important that it couldn’t wait until lunch. Do you girls?”

  At first no one in the class said anything. Then, a few of the boys started to giggle. Soon, everyone was laughing really hard.

  “Pink flower underpants,” Manny Gonzalez howled. “Real stylin’, Suzanne!”

  “I see England, I see France, I see Suzanne’s flower underpants,” George began to chant.

  Suzanne looked like she was about to cry. “I wish I could hide under a big rock,” she moaned quietly.

  Katie looked up at the ceiling. What if a giant rock really did come falling down? What if it landed right on Suzanne’s head?

  But no rock fell from the sky. In fact, nothing happened at all. Katie breathed a sigh of relief. Suzanne had been lucky. Her wish hadn’t come true.

  Katie knew all about wishes that came true. She knew you had to be careful what you wished for. Not all wishes turned out great.

  It had all started one really bad day. Katie had ruined her favorite jeans and burped in front of the whole class. Katie had wished that she could be anyone but herself.

  There must have been a shooting star flying overhead or something when Katie made her wish because the very next day, a magic wind blew. It was like a tornado that stormed just around Katie. The wind turned Katie into Speedy, the class hamster! That had been awful. Katie had been completely naked—except for Speedy’s fur, of course.

  Luckily, Katie had changed back into herself before anyone realized who was really chomping on Speedy’s chew sticks. Unluckily, the magic wind returned. That time it turned Katie into Lucille, the school’s lunch lady. She’d had to serve the kids gloppy egg salad and old milk. Blech!

  Even that wasn’t as bad as the time the magic wind turned Katie into Suzanne’s baby sister, Heather. Eating cafeteria food tasted good compared to sucking smelly baby formula from a bottle.

  The weirdest thing the magic wind ever did was turn Katie into Jeremy Fox. That had been a real mess. Katie hadn’t known whether to go to the boys’ room or the girls’ room. Even worse, she’d almost lost Jeremy as a friend.

  The magic wind hadn’t been back for a while. But Katie had a feeling it wasn’t through with her yet. She couldn’t be sure when the wind would come, or who it would turn her into next.

  That’s why Katie didn’t make wishes anymore. You never knew what could happen if they came true.

  Chapter 3

  Miriam Chan sat down at the cafeteria table beside her best friend, Mandy Banks. “Come on, let’s do ‘I Wanna Send a Letter,’” she said before she even unpacked her lunch.

  Mandy swallowed a bite of her egg salad sandwich and nodded. Then the two girls stood up and began playing a new clapping game.

  “Mail a letter to a boy from camp, camp, camp.

  Seal the envelope with a stamp, stamp, stamp.

  He’s the one I always miss, miss, miss,

  So I seal it with a kiss, kiss, kiss.

  Hope he gets it in a snap, snap, snap,

  And sends a note to make me clap, clap, clap.”

  Everyone watched as Miriam and Mandy played their new game. The girls stamped their feet when they said ‘stamp,’ missed when they said ‘miss,’ blew kisses, snapped their fingers, and clapped their hands.

  “Hey, can you teach me that?” Katie asked when the girls finished.

  “Sure. I’ll show you after lunch,” Mandy agreed.

  “Me too?” Zoe Canter asked.

  “Of course,” Miriam said. “We can do it while we watch the four-square championship.”

  “I think my mother used to play a game like that,” Suzanne told the others. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “ I’ll call her and find out.”

  But before Suzanne could dial her mother, George grabbed the phone from her hands. He raced to the other side of the table and began to push numbers on the phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Suzanne cried.

  “It doesn’t matter,” George replied. “I’m just calling anyone.”

  “It better not be long distance,” Suzanne told him.

  George ignored her. “Hello,” he said to the person who answered the phone. “Is your refrigerator running?” When the person on the other end said yes, George started giggling. “Then you’d better catch it!” he exclaimed.

  George tossed the phone to Katie. “You’ve got to hear this, Katie Kazoo!” he shouted.

  Katie reached up and caught the phone. She could hear the woman screaming on the other end. “You shouldn’t make phony phone calls,” Katie told George.

  “Especially on my phone,” Suzanne added.

  Just then, Mr. Kane, the principal, walked over to their table. “What have you got there, Katie?” he demanded.

  Katie gulped. He sounded really mad. “It’s a phone,” she said quietly.

  “I can see that,” Mr. Kane said. “It’s against the rules for students to bring cell phones to school.”

  “This isn’t . . .” Katie was about to say that the phone wasn’t hers. Then she looked at Suzanne. She seemed like she was about to cry. Katie just couldn’t tell Mr. Kane that the phone belonged to Suzanne. Suzanne had had a bad enough day—with her flower underpants and all.

  Mr. Kane took the phone from Katie’s hands. “You’ll get this back at the end of the day.”

  “Yes sir,” Katie said quietly. She turned to sit back in her seat.

  But Mr. Kane wasn’t finished. “You broke the rules, Katie,” he continued. “You’ll have to miss recess today. You can spend the time thinking about why we have rules in school.”

  Mr. Kane walked away. Katie could feel her face getting redder and redder. Everyone was staring at her.

  And it wasn’t even her fault.

  The worst part was now she wouldn’t get to learn Mandy and Miriam’s clapping game. Everyone would know it but her.

  “I hate rules!” Katie declared angrily.

  Chapter 4

  Katie sat at the empty cafeteria table and looked toward the window. The sun was shining brightly. She could hear the other kids playing outside. They sounded like they were having a lot of fun.

  The weather was so nice that Mrs. Derkman had gone to sit on the steps just outside the cafeteria door. That way, she could be outside and still make sure George and Katie didn’t get out of their punishment.

  Katie took a big, angry bite from a carrot stick. This whole thing was so unfair!

  “Hey, Katie Kazoo, how come you can’t eat carrots with fingers?” George shouted. He was sitting at a table all the way on the other side of the room.

  “Why?” Katie answered.

  “Because carrots don’t have fingers!” George laughed hard at his own joke.

  Katie didn’t laugh at all. She was too mad. This was all George’s fault. “Which end of a carrot is the left end?” George tried another joke.

  “I don’t know.”

  George smiled. “The end you don’t eat!”

  Katie scowled.

  “Come on! That one was funny,” George said.

  Katie shook her head. There was no way she was going to laugh at any of George’s jokes today. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing math?” she asked before he could tell her another one.

  “Oh yeah,” George replied. He looked around the table. “I guess I forgot my math book.”

  Katie couldn’t believe it. “You’d better get that book. Mrs. Derkman will really be mad if you don’t do the homework,” Katie warned.

  George couldn’t argue with that. “I’ll be right back!” Quickly he dashed out of the cafeteria and ran toward room 3A.

>   Now Katie was all alone. She looked up at the clock on the wall. There were still fifteen minutes of recess to go.

  Just then, Katie felt a warm breeze nip at the back of her neck. Uh-oh! Mrs. Derkman must be coming back inside. She was going to be really mad that George had left.

  Katie turned quickly toward the door. Mrs. Derkman wasn’t there. In fact, the door was closed. But the wind was still blowing on the back of Katie’s neck. And it wasn’t blowing anywhere else in the room.

  Katie gulped. She knew what that meant. This was no ordinary wind. This was the magic wind!

  The magic wind began spinning faster and faster all around Katie. Her red hair whipped wildly around her head. She shut her eyes tightly, and tried not to cry. As the fierce tornado swirled, she held on to the table and struggled to keep her feet on the floor.

  And then it stopped. Just like that. No warning. But Katie wasn’t surprised. The magic wind never gave any warning. It didn’t follow any rules.

  Katie was glad that the tornado was over. But she was also very afraid. After all, whenever the wind stopped blowing, Katie turned into someone else.

  Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked around. Right across from her was the huge mural she and her friends had painted on the cafeteria wall. It was a picture of unicorns riding skateboards over a rainbow.

  Okay, so now she knew where she was. But she still didn’t know who she was.

  Katie looked at the tables and chairs in the cafeteria. They suddenly seemed small to her. She glanced down at her hands. They were really big . . . and kind of hairy! Yuck! the nails were all chewed down.

  Who was she?

  Before Katie could figure it out, George came racing back into the cafeteria. “Hey, Katie Kazoo . . . he began. Then he looked around, surprised. He didn’t see his friend anywhere.

  “Hi, Mr. Kane,” he said. “Where did Katie go?”

  Chapter 5