I'm Game 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

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  For Mandy and Ian—NK

  For Andrea, the Queen of

  the Roller Derby—J&W

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

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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 (USA) Inc. S.A.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2005037078

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09985-8

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  “Hurry up, Daddy, it’s starting!” Katie Carew shouted. She turned on the television set in the living room just as the familiar theme music began to play.

  “Welcome to Tick, Tock, Clock, the game show that pits speed against smarts!” the show’s star, Bob Ritchey, said.

  “Did I miss anything?” Mr. Carew asked as he leaped onto the couch beside Katie.

  “Just the song,” Katie assured him. She knew her dad hated missing even a minute of his favorite TV game show.

  Katie liked Tick, Tock, Clock a lot, too. The questions they asked were usually too hard for her, but she liked watching what happened when the contestants answered incorrectly. They had to do all kinds of weird things in order to stay in the game, like fill a bucket with milk—using only their cupped hands to carry the milk across the stage.

  Or search around with their mouths in a big bowl of goo to find a jellybean.

  Or catch water balloons on a spoon while they rode on a unicycle.

  Or slither through a maze on their bellies like a snake.

  The hardest part was that the contestants had to finish their stunt before the Tick Tock Clock buzzed. If they didn’t, they were out of the game.

  “Name the capital of New York State,” Bob Ritchey asked the contestants.

  “Albany,” Katie’s father replied right away. He smiled confidently. “That was an easy one.”

  Katie smiled proudly at her dad. “You’d win if you were on the show,” she said.

  Mr. Carew grinned. “Probably. When it comes to answering questions, I’m the champ.”

  “Here at home you are,” Katie’s mom teased as she sat down on the couch. “But I’ll bet it’s not that easy when you’re playing against two other people and you have those TV cameras staring at you.”

  Mr. Carew shrugged and listened to Bob Ritchey’s next question.

  “Whose picture is on the one hundred dollar bill?” Bob asked the contestants.

  “Benjamin Franklin,” Katie’s father shouted out.

  The contestant on TV said, “President Kennedy.”

  “Sorry, that’s incorrect,” Bob Ritchey told the woman on TV. “The correct answer is Benjamin Franklin.”

  Mr. Carew nodded. “Told ya,” he said.

  Katie and her parents watched as the contestant spun a big wheel. There were six pictures on the wheel: a snake, a bowl of green goo, a chicken, a unicycle, and a cow with a milk pail.

  “I wonder what stunt she’ll get,” Katie said.

  The wheel went round and round and finally stopped on the picture of a chicken.

  Bob Ritchey grinned. “You know what that means,” he said to the audience as he handed the woman a pair of roller skates, a raincoat, and a rain hat. The rain hat had a glass bowl attached to it.

  Katie giggled as the woman put on the hat. “Boy, she looks funny.”

  Bob Ritchey pointed up. There were three large cardboard chickens swaying overhead from the ceiling.

  “Those are the Tick, Tock, Clock chickens,” Bob explained to the woman. “As soon as I say ‘go,’ they will start laying eggs. You have one minute to skate around and catch five eggs in the bowl on the top of your head.” He paused and smiled at the camera. “On your mark. Get set. Go!”

  Suddenly an egg fell from one chicken and then another. It was hard to tell which chicken would lay the next egg. The woman started skating, trying to catch them in her hat.

  She wasn’t very good at it. She kept missing. Raw eggs splattered on the floor. Egg slime sloshed all over her.

  “No wonder they gave her a raincoat,” Mrs. Carew noted.

  “This is a really hard stunt,” Mr. Carew said.

  Katie turned and smiled at her dad. “It would be so great if you could be on the show. I’m sure you would win lots of prizes.”

  “I know,” Mr. Carew replied sadly. “But Tick, Tock, Clock is filmed in Hollywood. There’s no way I can ever be on it.”

  Katie frowned. That just didn’t seem fair.

  Chapter 2

  “Woohoo!” Mr. Carew shouted the next morning. He was reading the newspaper at the breakfast table. “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?” Katie and her mom asked him at the same time.

  “Tick, Tock, Clock,” Mr. Carew replied. “The show is going on a tour. They will be filming in different cities all over the country. And on Friday they’re going to be here!”

  “In Cherrydale?” Katie’s mother exclaimed. “This Friday?”

  “Daddy, you have to get on the show!” Katie cried out.

  “This article gives a phone number you can call to try out,” Mr. Carew told her.

  “How can you try out over the telephone?” Katie asked her dad.

  “It says here that there will be four questions you have to answer,” Mr. Carew read. “If you answer four correctly, then you may be picked to be on Tick, Tock, Clock.”

  “Call right away!” Katie shouted. “I’ll bet half of the people in Cherrydale are calling that phone number right now.”

  Mr. Carew leaped up and ran to the phone.

  “Katie, please go get your backpack,” Mrs.
Carew said. “I’ll drive you to school on my way to work.”

  “But I want to see if Daddy can answer those four questions,” Katie pleaded.

  “Sorry,” her mom said. “We’ve got to get going or I’ll be late.”

  Katie frowned, but she hurried upstairs. Her chocolate and white cocker spaniel, Pepper, nipped at her heels as she ran.

  “Wouldn’t it be so exciting if Daddy got to be on TV?” Katie asked Pepper as she slipped her math worksheet into her homework folder.

  Pepper smiled and wagged his tail excitedly. Katie grinned. Sometimes she was sure that her dog understood everything she said.

  “See you later,” Katie told Pepper. Then she raced back to the kitchen. “Mom, I’m ready,” she said.

  Her mother was standing at the kitchen door. “Shhh . . .” she whispered. Mrs. Carew pointed to the phone. “Daddy’s answering those questions for the test.”

  Katie could hardly believe it!

  “Madagascar,” Katie’s father said into the phone.

  Katie crossed her fingers and her toes. She hoped it was the right answer.

  “Yes!” Mr. Carew shouted suddenly.

  Katie grinned.

  “That’s the third one he got right,” Mrs. Carew whispered to Katie. “One more to go!”

  Katie’s heart beat hard as her father listened to the last question. “How do cows sleep?” he repeated. “Hmm . . . standing up?”

  Katie bit her lip nervously.

  Was that the right answer?

  Suddenly, a huge smile spread across Katie’s father’s face. “Wow!” he shouted excitedly. “That’s great. Okay. Friday evening at six thirty. I’ll be there.”

  After he hung up the phone, Katie’s dad hugged her mom. “I don’t believe it. I made it!” he shouted. “This is incredible. I’m going to be on Tick, Tock, Clock!”

  “I guess wishes do come true,” Mrs. Carew said with a smile.

  Katie gulped. Her mother was right. Wishes did come true. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always so great when they did.

  Chapter 3

  Katie knew all about wishes—especially the kind that came true. One of her wishes had come true—and it kept on coming true over and over again.

  It had all started one horrible day back in third grade. Katie had lost the ball game for her team. Then she’d splashed mud all over her favorite jeans. But the worst part of the day came when Katie let out a loud burp—right in front of the whole class. It had been so embarrassing!

  That night, Katie made a wish that she could be anyone but herself. There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made the wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.

  The magic wind was a really powerful tornado that blew only around Katie. It was so strong, it could blow her right out of her body . . . and into someone else’s!

  The first time the magic wind blew, it turned Katie into Speedy, the hamster in her third-grade classroom. Katie spent the whole morning running round and round on a hamster wheel and chewing on Speedy’s wooden chew sticks. They didn’t taste very good at all.

  The magic wind had come back many times after that. Each time it turned her into somebody new—her best friends, Jeremy and Suzanne, her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Derkman, and even Pepper. That had been really weird—Katie had to go to the bathroom by lifting her leg up on a fire hydrant.

  The switcheroo never lasted very long. It went as suddenly as it came, which was a good thing. Because every time Katie turned into somebody else, that person seemed to land in big trouble!

  Chapter 4

  Katie couldn’t wait to tell her friends all about her dad being on TV. But when she got to the school playground, everyone was clustered around George.

  “George, those are so cool,” she heard Mandy Banks say. “Where did you get them?”

  Katie walked over to where a group of fourth-graders were standing. Everyone was staring at something, but Katie couldn’t get close enough to see what it was.

  “What’s so cool?” she asked her best friend Suzanne Lock.

  Suzanne sighed. “George got some rubber bracelets. Everyone’s going nuts over them. I don’t know why.”

  Katie shrugged. Suzanne was never excited about anything that made someone else the center of attention.

  “You look happy,” Suzanne said, noticing the big smile on Katie’s face.

  “The greatest thing happened!” Katie told her. “My dad’s going to be on Tick, Tock, Clock! He found out this morning.”

  “No way!” Suzanne exclaimed.

  “Really,” Katie assured her. “They’re going to be filming in Cherrydale and my dad is going to be one of the contestants.”

  “Wow! Your dad’s going to be on TV!” Suzanne shouted, loud enough for the other kids to hear.

  Suddenly, the fourth-graders turned away from George. They all looked at Suzanne and Katie.

  Katie was impressed. Suzanne really was something.

  “What show is your dad going to be on, Katie?” Jeremy Fox asked.

  “Tick, Tock, Clock,” Suzanne answered before Katie could say anything. “He just found out this morning. And I was the first person Katie told.”

  Katie sighed. Suzanne was obviously trying to make Jeremy think that Katie liked her better. And that wasn’t true.

  “Where did you get those?” Katie asked George.

  “At the skateboard park,” George replied. “But you can also buy them at Hot Stuff in the mall.”

  Katie knew the store. If there was anything new and cool to buy, Hot Stuff had it!

  “Maybe your dad should wear one for luck when he’s on Tick, Tock, Clock,” George suggested to Katie.

  “Oh please, George,” Suzanne said, rolling her eyes. “Why would Katie’s father want to wear a stupid piece of rubber on his wrist?”

  “I think they’re cool,” Kevin said. “I want to get some.”

  “Me too,” Emma Weber said.

  Suzanne scowled and walked away.

  Katie felt kind of bad for her friend. Usually it was Suzanne who set trends at Cherrydale Elementary School. She wasn’t happy that everyone wanted to get bracelets like George’s.

  Chapter 5

  “Hey there, Katie!” Mr. Carew greeted his daughter as he walked into the back office of the Book Nook bookstore late that afternoon.

  Katie’s mom was the manager of the Book Nook. Katie often came to the mall after school to do her homework in the back office while her mom worked.

  “Daddy, what are you doing here?” Katie asked as she looked up from her math sheet.

  “I left work early. I want to do a little research,” he explained.

  Katie knew what research was. She did research projects in school. You had to look up all kinds of facts and then write a paper about them.

  “Are you writing a report?” Katie asked her father.

  Mr. Carew shook his head. “Actually, I wanted to buy a book of facts so I can study for the show.”

  “What kind of facts?” Katie asked him.

  “All kinds. Facts about places, people, sports, science, medicine, history, and all the other things they ask questions about on Tick, Tock, Clock.”

  Just then Katie’s mother entered the office. She was holding a thick book.

  “Here you go, honey,” Mrs. Carew told her husband. “This is the best trivia book we have.”

  “What’s trivia?” Katie asked.

  “Interesting facts that most people don’t know,” her mom explained. She opened the book and read a fact. “Did you know that sneezes travel out of your mouth at about one hundred miles per hour?”

  Katie made a face. “That’s gross,” she said.

  “But it’s a fact,” her mom replied. “And this book is full of them!”

  “Soon my mind will be full of them, too!” Katie’s dad added with a grin as he took the book from his wife.

  A little while later when Katie and her father went to Louie’s Pizza Parlor, they found Suzanne sitting a
t a table. Suzanne was concentrating on something she was holding in her hands. She didn’t even notice Katie and her dad.

  “Hello, Suzanne,” Katie said, waving a hand in front of her friend’s face.

  “Oh, hi, Katie. Hi, Mr. Carew,” Suzanne replied, looking up. “Sorry. I was making something.”

  “What?” Katie asked her.

  Suzanne held up a black rubber bracelet. It was just like George’s, except it had a thin strip of pink ribbon twisted around it. Now the bracelet had pink and black stripes, like some sort of funky candy cane.

  “That’s so pretty,” Katie told her.

  “I’ve already made seven of them,” Suzanne replied. “That’s two more bracelets than George has.”

  Katie sighed. Suzanne always had to be better than everyone else.

  “This one is for you,” Suzanne said, handing Katie the finished bracelet. “Because you’re my best friend.”

  “Wow! Thanks,” Katie said sincerely as she slipped it on her wrist.

  Just then, Louie walked over to the table. “Hi, everyone. What’ll it be?”

  “Do you have the broccoli and mushroom pizza today?” Katie asked hopefully. “I want my dad to try it.”

  “I’ve got one coming out of the oven in a minute,” Louie assured her.

  “Guess what? My dad is going to be on Tick, Tock, Clock!” Katie said proudly. Then using her new vocabulary word, she added, “He just bought a trivia book to help him.”

  Mr. Carew leaned back in his chair. “I don’t really need the book,” he told Louie. “I’m already a whiz at the kinds of questions they ask on the show.”

  “I love Tick, Tock, Clock,” Louie told Katie’s dad. “Do you think you’ll wind up with green goo all over you?”

  “Oh, I doubt that will happen,” Katie’s dad replied. “I’m going to just zip through the questions. I’ve got tons of information floating around in my head. Go ahead, ask me anything.”