Oh, Baby! Read online

  Jeremy was being silly. But what he said gave Katie a great idea. She knew how to prove that her friends weren’t lying—without having to to tell anyone about the magic wind.

  “Sorry, Jeremy, I gotta go,” Katie said. She raced off down the block.

  “Some best friend you are!” Jeremy groaned angrily as he watched her run.

  Chapter 10

  The minute she got home, Katie darted upstairs to her room. “Don’t you want a snack?” her mother called after her.

  “No, thanks,” Katie shouted back. “I’ve got too much to do.”

  Katie spent the rest of the afternoon in her room working on her plan to save Jeremy and Suzanne. She didn’t even want to take the time to eat dinner, but her mother made her.

  “You must have an awful lot of homework,” Katie’s mother said as she piled stir-fried tofu and broccoli onto Katie’s plate. Katie’s mom and dad were both having meat-loaf, but Katie was a vegetarian. She had decided a few months ago that she was never, ever going to eat anything that had had a face.

  Katie shrugged and shoveled her food into her mouth. She chewed as fast as she could. “There! All done,” Katie said, showing her parents her empty plate. “May I be excused?”

  Katie’s mother looked surprised. Usually Katie had to be forced to finish her broccoli. (Just because she was a vegetarian didn’t mean she loved every vegetable!)

  “It was very good,” Katie assured her mom.

  “I’m glad. I guess you can be excused.”

  “Thanks!” Katie yelled as she ran back up the stairs toward her room.

  “This plan had better work,” she said to Pepper as she flopped down and opened the big book on her bed. “It’s the only chance Suzanne and Jeremy have.”

  The next morning, as Katie arrived at school, she saw Suzanne and Jeremy standing by themselves on the blacktop. Suzanne was kicking angrily at the ground. Jeremy kept fiddling with his glasses.

  A bunch of other kids were standing by a tree, pointing at Jeremy and Suzanne. Katie walked right past her two best friends, and joined the group of giggling third graders.

  “Man, those two are such jerks!” Kevin declared.

  “Yeah, they were just jealous that you got to see Tornado,” Mandy told him.

  “They’re big liars,” Miriam added.

  “Maybe they’re not lying,” Katie interrupted.

  All the other kids stared at her.

  “Give me a break,” Manny declared. “Just because they’re your best friends doesn’t mean you have to take their side, Katie. Heather can’t talk.”

  “I know,” Katie agreed. “But that doesn’t mean they didn’t hear her say something.”

  Manny looked around. “Huh?” he asked. “That’s impossible.”

  “Wanna bet, wise guy?”

  Manny looked around some more. “Who said that?” he demanded.

  “I did.”

  “Who said that?” Manny repeated.

  “Hello! Down here!”

  George looked down. “I think it’s coming from your backpack,” he said.

  “Yeah, right,” Manny said. He turned to see if anyone was standing behind him.

  “Don’t turn your back on me,” the voice said. “I want to see your face for a change.

  That made George laugh. “Hey, that’s pretty good. Get it? A backpack always faces your back!”

  Now Manny was confused. “Backpacks can’t talk,” he insisted. But he stared down toward his pack anyway.

  “It sure sounds like your backpack was talking to you, Manny,” Katie said.

  “That’s impossible,” Manny declared. “There’s no one in there.”

  “Come see,” the voice said. “Take a peek inside!”

  Now Manny was getting nervous. So were the other kids.

  “Go check the backpack,” Katie said sweetly.

  “Not me,” Manny replied in a small, scared voice.

  “Why?” Katie asked him. “Are you chicken?”

  Manny didn’t answer.

  “I’ll check it,” George said bravely. “Come on, Kevin.”

  Kevin shook his head. “Leave me out of this,” he said. “That backpack’s haunted or something.”

  Katie started to laugh. “You guys are such babies,” she said.

  She bent down and unzipped the pack. George stood beside her and looked inside. “Nothing in here but your lunch and your math worksheet,” he assured Manny. “Ooh. I think you got number five completely wrong!”

  Manny blushed. “See, I told you there was no one in there,” he said.

  “But the the backpack was talking, right?” Katie asked Manny. “You heard it.”

  Manny nodded slowly.

  “Or at least you thought you heard it,” Katie added. “Just like Jeremy and Suzanne thought they heard Heather talk.”

  “This is different,” Manny said. “I really did hear the backpack talk. We all did.”

  Katie started to laugh. “Nope. You heard me talk,” she said. “That’s my voice.”

  “No way,” Kevin told her. “You weren’t talking.”

  “Yes, I was,” Katie insisted. “I was talking without moving my lips. I made it seem like the voice was coming from the backpack. But it was really coming from me.”

  “Wow!” George exclaimed.

  “It’s called ventriloquism,” Katie continued. “I played the same trick on Jeremy and Suzanne. It wasn’t Heather talking. It was me.”

  Katie bit her lip. That wasn’t a complete lie. She really was talking for Heather that afternoon. Of course, that’s because she had been Heather.

  “Wow!” George exclaimed. “That’s so cool. How did you learn to to do that?”

  “My mother bought me a book on ventriloquism for Christmas last year. I’ve been practicing forever to get it right.”

  “Can you do some more?” Miriam asked. Katie smiled. “Sure.”

  For the next few minutes Katie made Mandy’s math notebook whisper, George’s sneaker sing, and Miriam’s pocketbook cry.

  “I guess we owe Jeremy and Suzanne an apology,” Kevin admitted. Katie watched from far away as the other kids went over to talk to Suzanne and Jeremy. Suzanne glanced over at Katie angrily. Jeremy was so mad he wouldn’t even look in her direction.

  Katie was suddenly very glad she’d learned ventriloquism. It seemed like she was going to be spending a lot of time talking to herself.

  Chapter 11

  At lunchtime, Katie sat all by herself in the back of the cafeteria. But Suzanne found her anyway. She came storming over with a really angry look on her face.

  “I can’t believe you did that to us!” Suzanne shouted at Katie.

  “I’m sorry,” Katie apologized. “But I did warn you not to bring everyone to hear Heather talk.”

  “Oh, I’m not mad about that,” Suzanne told her. “I’m totally over it. All the kids know I wasn’t lying.”

  Katie looked surprised. “You’re really over it?”

  “Sure. But I’m still mad at you.”

  “Why?” Katie asked.

  “I thought we were best friends. We’re supposed to tell each other everything.”

  Katie gulped. Had Suzanne found out her secret? Did she know about the magic wind?

  “How come you didn’t tell me you were a ventriloquist?” Suzanne demanded. “We could have been playing tricks on people all this time.”

  Katie smiled. What a relief. Suzanne didn’t know about the wind after all. “I practiced my ventriloquism all last night. I wanted it to be perfect today,” Katie told her.

  “It worked,” Suzanne told her. “Everyone was totally impressed.”

  “Then you’re really not upset with me?” Katie asked.

  Suzanne shrugged. “Nah. I guess it was a pretty funny joke. Besides, you’re the one who had to go tell Mrs. Derkman that you fooled Jeremy into writing a fake article for the 3A Times.”

  “That was pretty awful,” Katie admitted. “Mrs. Derkman was really angry.”


  “What’s your punishment?” Suzanne asked.

  “She’s making me write a one-page report about some old ventriloquist named Edgar Bergen.”

  Suzanne wrinkled her nose. “Extra homework!” she declared. “That’s really bad.”

  Just then, Jeremy walked over. “Hey, guys,” he said as he put down his tray. He looked curiously at Katie. “How come you’re sitting all the way over here?”

  Katie blushed and stared at the floor. “I figured you’d be mad at me,” she said.

  Jeremy nodded. “I was. But I’ll forgive you ... if you do something for me.”

  “Anything,” Katie told him.

  “Teach me how to be a ventriloquist. I know a few people I want to play tricks on!” Jeremy said.

  Katie grinned. “It’s a deal.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t know you could do that,” Jeremy said.

  Katie thought about all the times the magic wind had turned her into someone else: Speedy the hamster. Lucille the lunch lady. Baby Heather.

  “I guess there are a lot of things you guys don’t know about me,” she admitted finally.

  “Like what?” Suzanne asked.

  Katie grinned. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out!” she teased. Then she looked down at Jeremy’s sandwich.

  “Aren’t you gonna eat me?” the sandwich seemed to say.

  “Hey, that’s really good!” Jeremy admitted. “Show me how you did that.”

  As Katie gave her two friends their first ventriloquism lesson, she felt happy inside. It was nice to have things back to normal again.

  At least for a little while.

  Talk like Katie !

  Here are some of the ventriloquism tricks that Katie taught Jeremy and Suzanne. Practice them at home. Then see if you can fool your friends!

  It’s easy to say these letters without moving your lips: A, C, D, E, G, H, I, J, K, L, N, O, Q, R, S, T, U, X, Y, Z. But most words have other sounds in them, too. Like the letter B—you can’t say that without moving your lips, can you?

  So just how do ventriloquists say words like “banana” or “bubble”? Here’s their secret: instead of makingaBsound, they use a D sound. The trick is to quickly slur over the D sound so it sounds sort of like a B.

  These are some other ventriloquist tricks:

  • To say a word with a P sound, use a T sound instead.

  • If you want to say the letter F, make a TH sound, like the one you hear in “thanks.”

  • If you need to make a V sound, say TH like in the word “there.”

  • To make a W sound, try using an 00 sound, like in the word “boot.”

  Just remember, it will take a while before the words sound right. It takes a lot of practice to learn to talk without moving your lips. Try to practice in front of a mirror. That way you can see how well you’re doing.

  When you’re ready, try putting on a ventriloquist show! Any puppet will do—even a sock puppet.

  (Just wash the sock first. Nobody wants a sock puppet that smells like feet!)

  If you’re making your puppet speak, be sure to look right at him. That way it will seem like the puppet is talking, not you. If you make your puppet tell a joke, be sure to laugh when the audience does. After all, the joke was funny, wasn’t it?

  Here are some of George Brennan’s favorite jokes. You can use them in your act, or you can make up a few of your own.

  What cat can’t you trust?

  A cheetah!

  What’s the difference between the North Pole and the South Pole?

  The whole world!

  What’s the difference between here and there?

  The letter T!

  Why did the rooster run away from the fight?

  Because he was chicken!

  Why do hummingbirds hum?

  Because they don’t know the words!