Witch Switch 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 6

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chatper 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  About the Illustrators

  To Mandy and Ian, who are full of

  all sorts of tricks and treats!—NK

  For Cristina, keeper of the

  skeleton keys to Halloween—J&W

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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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: 2005033370

  eISBN : 978-1-101-50035-4

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  Chapter 1

  The big orange and black sign was the first thing Katie Carew and her best friend Suzanne Lock saw as they walked onto the school playground on Monday morning.

  “I can’t wait for Halloween!” Katie exclaimed. “Trick-or-treating is the best way to celebrate a holiday.”

  “You say that about going caroling at Christmas,” Suzanne reminded her. “And the Fourth of July fireworks, and Easter egg hunts, and ...”

  “I guess I just like holidays,” Katie said with a giggle.

  “Have you decided what you’re going to dress up as this year?” Suzanne asked.

  Katie nodded excitedly. “I’m going as a chocolate brown and white cocker spaniel.”

  “You’re going as Pepper, again?” Suzanne said with a sigh. Pepper was Katie’s cocker spaniel. “You did that last year.”

  “I know,” Katie said. “And it was a lot of fun. Pepper loved seeing me dressed like that. Besides, this year I’m doing something different. I’m going to carry around a big cardboard bone.”

  “You should think of something more original,” Suzanne told her. “You’ll never win a prize at the Halloween parade with a costume like that.”

  “Well, do you have a better idea?” Katie asked.

  Suzanne nodded. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “We could go as witches.”

  Katie frowned. “What’s so original about being witches on Halloween?” she asked.

  “Not just any witches,” Suzanne explained. “We could go as Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.”

  Katie eyed her suspiciously. “And you’d be Glinda, right?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Suzanne said with a smile. “After all, I’m the one who has a glittery pink and white tutu. I got it from my grandmother last Christmas, remember?” Suzanne explained. “You don’t have anything like that. You never even took a dance class.”

  Suzanne hadn’t taken that many dance classes, either. She’d tried studying ballet back in second grade, but she’d only lasted a few weeks. Still, her grandmother kept sending her things like tutus and ballet-slipper necklaces. That was the only reason Suzanne had that tutu, and Katie knew it.

  “Besides, it’ll be more fun to be the Wicked Witch of the West,” Suzanne continued. “You could paint your face and arms all green. And you could wear a fake nose ... one with a wart on it.”

  Katie considered that for a minute. It might be kind of fun to use some really gross green face paint for Halloween. She could wear her mother’s black cape and carry a straw broom. “Okay,” she agreed finally. “We’ll go as witches. And maybe we could dress Heather up as a munchkin.”

  Suzanne shook her head crossly. She obviously had no desire to spend Halloween with her one-year-old sister. “My mother is going to take her trick-or-treating while we’re in school,” she told Katie.

  “It was just an idea,” Katie said.

  “Besides, we don’t need a munchkin,” Suzanne continued. “You and I are definitely going to win the best costume prize at this year’s Halloween parade!”

  Chapter 2

  Katie and Suzanne weren’t the only ones who were talking about Halloween that morning. Everyone was buzzing with excitement about it. As the girls headed inside the school building they caught up with George Brennan and Kevin Camilleri.

  “In my old neighborhood a lot of kids had two costumes,” George told Kevin. “They would wear one costume in the afternoon to go trick-or-treating. Then they would switch costumes and go back to the same houses at night. That way they could get twice as much candy.”

  “Your old neighborhood sounds like fun,” Kevin said.

  George shrugged. “It was okay. But it’s better here.”

  Katie smiled kindly at him. George had moved to Cherrydale last year, at the beginning of third grade. Before that, his family had moved around a lot. She knew he was happy to be in one place for a while.

  “Well, I know where I won’t be trick-or-treating this year,” Kevin said. “That old house on Elm Lane.”

  Suzanne shuddered. “That place gives me the creeps. The wooden shingles are all rotting, and the chimney looks like it’s going to fall off any minute.”

  “How about those spiderwebs in the windows?” George reminded her. “And I think there are rats in the yard.”

  “That house is awful,” Katie agreed.

  “I hear it’s haunted!” Kevin exclaimed.

  Suzanne shook her head. “There’s no such thing as a real haunted house, Kevin! It’s just an old abandoned house.”

  “It’s not abandoned. Someone lives there,” Kevin argued.

  “No, they don’t,” Katie insisted, agreeing with Suzanne. “There hasn’t been anybody in that old house for a long, long time. Not since the olden days, like when our parents were kids.”

  “You’re right, no-body lives there,” Kevin told her. “But ghosts do. I know it for sure.”

  “How?” Suzanne wanted to know.

  “My big brother Ian was walking on Elm Lane last night, and he saw a light switch on and off,” Kevin told the others. “If no one lives in the house, then how do you explain that?”

  “Wow,” George murmured. “That place really must be haunted.”

  Katie couldn’t take it anymore. She hated thinking about ghosts and spiderwebs and rats. She walked toward the school building, leaving Suzanne, Kevin, and George behind. As she headed off, she could hear her friends talking.

  “What did you have to do that for?” she heard Suzanne asking Kevin. “You know how Katie gets when you talk about scary stuff.”

  “Yeah, she can be kind of a scaredy-cat,” Kevin agreed. “I guess I forgot.”

  Katie frowned. Her friends might have thought she was too far ahead of them to hear what they were saying, but she could hear every word. And it made her very upset. She hated when they talked about her that way.

  But how could Katie argue with them? When it came to ghosts, she was a scaredy-cat!

  Chapter 3

  “Welcome to the class 4A haunted mansion,” Katie’s teacher, Mr. Guthrie, greeted the class as they entered their classroom. “Home of Cherrydale’s largest collection of ghosts and goblins.”

  Katie frowned. Even her teacher was getting into all this ghost stuff.

  But as soon as she entered the room, Katie realized there was nothing to be afraid of in class 4A. Mr. Guthrie’s ghosts weren’t creepy or spooky. They were silly, happy cardboard
ghosts with big smiles on their faces. They were hanging from the ceiling, taped to the walls, and pasted to the windows. A rubber skeleton was hanging from one of the light fixtures. There were goofy witches, too, with paper legs that had been folded back and forth like long black accordions. Even Slinky, the class snake, had gotten into the Halloween spirit. Mr. G. had placed a few fake spiderwebs around Slinky’s glass cage. Katie bet no other classroom in all of Cherrydale Elementary School looked this cool.

  “As soon as you come in, you can start decorating your beanbags,” Mr. G. told the kids. He pointed to the far corner of the room. “I’ve got plenty of construction paper, fake spiders, cobwebs, and other materials for you to use.”

  Katie smiled. Decorating her beanbag was one of her favorite things to do in school. All of the kids in class 4A sat in beanbag chairs instead of at desks, because Mr. G. believed kids learned better when they were comfortable. Every few weeks the kids got to decorate their beanbag chairs in a new way.

  Katie took a piece of black construction paper and began to cut out a triangle. She was going to turn her yellow beanbag into a big jack-o’-lantern. The triangle would be the jack-o’-lantern’s nose.

  “This is so much fun,” Emma Weber said as she began taping black plastic spiders around the top of her beanbag chair. “I love Halloween.”

  “Me too,” Katie told her. “I can’t wait to trick-or-treat on Friday.”

  Emma W. sighed. “Lacey and I have to take Matthew and the twins with us when we get home from school in the afternoon,” she said.

  “Oh.” Katie wasn’t surprised by that. Emma and her older sister, Lacey, had to watch their three younger brothers a lot. Matthew was in first grade, so he wasn’t a lot of trouble. But the twins, Timmy and Tyler, were tough. They were little toddlers who were just learning to walk. They were always getting into some kind of trouble. Emma was going to have her hands full with them—especially after they ate a lot of sugary candy.

  “Well, maybe you can take your brothers in the afternoon and then come trick-or-treating with Suzanne, Jeremy, Kevin, George, and me after dinner,” Katie suggested. “We’re going to have lots of fun. My mom is going to take us. And she always dresses up, too.”

  Emma brightened. “That sounds like a great idea!” she exclaimed.

  George taped a small plastic skeleton on his beanbag. “Do you guys know why the skeleton didn’t cross the road?” he asked.

  “Why not?” Andy Epstein wondered.

  “Because he didn’t have the guts!” George exclaimed.

  The kids all laughed. All except Kadeem Carter, that is. Kadeem never laughed at George’s jokes. He liked his own jokes better. “What do ghosts serve for dessert?” he asked the kids.

  “What?” Mandy Banks wondered.

  “Ice scream!” Kadeem shouted out, laughing.

  “That’s such an old joke,” George told him. “Now here’s a good one: What’s a witch’s favorite subject in school?”

  “Spell-ing,” Kadeem answered. “That joke is so old, the last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur.”

  “Good one, Kadeem,” Kevin laughed.

  George glared at his best friend. “Traitor,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “What?” Kevin asked him. “It was funny.”

  “Not as funny as this joke,” George assured him. “Why do witches fly on brooms?”

  “Why?” Kevin asked.

  “Because vacuum-cleaner cords aren’t long enough,” George told him with a laugh.

  Kadeem opened his mouth to tell another joke, but Mr. G. spoke first. “Let’s save the scary joke-off for Friday. That’s Halloween, after all. On that day we can turn 4A into ghoul school!” He let out a silly-scary kind of laugh.

  The kids all giggled.

  “I wish every day could be Halloween!” Kadeem shouted out.

  Katie gasped. That was the scariest thing she’d heard all day. Kadeem had made a wish. And wishes could be really scary—especially when they came true.

  Chapter 4

  Katie knew all about wishes coming true. It all started one horrible day back in third grade. On that day, Katie had lost the football game for her team. Then she’d splashed mud all over her favorite jeans. After that, George had made fun of her and called her a mud monster.

  But the worst part of the day came when Katie had let out a loud burp—right in front of the whole class. It had been so embarrassing!

  That night, Katie had made a wish to 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 class. Katie spent the whole morning going 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 came back again and again after that. Once it turned Katie into her cocker spaniel, Pepper. That had been sooooo strange. Katie had gone to the bathroom on a fire hydrant, eaten a half-chewed bagel off the street, and gotten into a big fight with a nut-throwing squirrel.

  And that was nothing compared to the time Katie turned into Suzanne, just as Suzanne was about to go onstage for her big modeling show. Somehow Katie had managed to put Suzanne’s leather pants on backward. And she’d had a really tough time walking in those high-heeled shoes. A lot of the kids from school had been there to see Suzanne model. That meant they’d seen what a mess Katie had made of things. When it was all over, Suzanne was really embarrassed—and confused. She had no idea that it hadn’t been her up there on the runway. It had been Katie.

  Something awful always happened when Katie switcherooed into someone else. Like the time the magic wind turned Katie into Emma W. That time, Katie had actually lost Timmy and Tyler. Emma could have gotten into big trouble if Katie hadn’t found the boys just before the magic wind returned and switcherooed her back into herself.

  That was why Katie didn’t make wishes anymore. When they came true, they really made a mess of things.

  Especially a wish like Kadeem’s. As much as Katie loved Halloween, she didn’t want Kadeem’s wish to come true. She didn’t want every day to be Halloween. Then the holiday wouldn’t be special anymore.

  Katie looked up at the big blackboard in the front of the room. Mr. G. was busy writing the date and the WFT—“Word for Today”—on the board.

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 27 WFT: PETRIFY

  Katie didn’t have to wait for Mr. G. to write down the definition of that word. She already knew all about being petrified. That was exactly how she felt every time the magic wind came.

  Chapter 5

  “So what candy is your mom giving out this year for Halloween?” Suzanne asked Katie later that afternoon as the girls walked toward Katie’s house. They were going to start planning their costumes.

  “I’m not sure. I think she bought some bubble gum and those little chocolate bars,” Katie replied.

  “You’re so lucky,” Suzanne told her. “My mom gives out pencils. Hardly anyone comes to my house to trick-or-treat.”

  “Mew. Mew.”

  Just as the girls reached Katie’s house, they noticed something moving in one of the bushes! A little black kitten poked its head out from between the leaves and scampered quickly across a nearby lawn.

  “Oh, look at that kitty,” Katie cooed. “It’s so tiny.”

  “Whose cat is it?” Suzanne asked.

  “I don’t know,” Katie replied. “I’ve never seen it before.” A look of concern crossed her face. “It’s not wearing a collar. Do you think it could be a stray?”

  “Who knows?” Suzanne replied. “Come on. Let’s go inside. Maybe we can get your mom to take us to the mall right now. We’ve got to get going on those costumes.”

  “Suzanne, how can you think about costumes when that poor little kitty is probably all alone in the world? I’m going to get her some milk.”