by Nancy Krulik
Katie shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry.
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone.
So was Katie Kazoo. She’d been turned into someone else. One, two, switcheroo!
But who?
Chapter 10
“I want something that will stand out when I walk down the runway. I want to be the model everybody remembers.”
Katie knew that was Suzanne talking, even before she opened her eyes. She would recognize her best friend’s voice anywhere.
But of course she hadn’t gone anywhere. If Suzanne was talking, then Katie was still in Sparkle’s Salon. So now Katie knew where she was. But she still didn’t know who she was.
Slowly, Katie opened her eyes. She looked down. Instead of seeing her red high-top sneakers, Katie’s eyes fell on a pair of glittery gold platform shoes.
Katie looked at her hands. Her nails were painted blue. And she was holding a pair of scissors.
That could only mean one thing! The magic wind had switcherooed Katie into Sparkle, right before Suzanne’s haircut!
At the moment, Suzanne was standing in a gold glittery robe in the middle of the salon. She was smiling broadly. Katie sighed. Suzanne wouldn’t be so happy if she knew who her new stylist really was!
Once, Katie had gotten gum in her hair and tried to cut it out herself. That was all she knew about cutting hair. And it had been a big mistake. If Suzanne didn’t like her hairstyle, she was going to get very, very mad. Katie had to find some way to get out of cutting Suzanne’s hair. She just had to!
“You know, Suzanne,” Katie said quickly. “I don’t think you need a haircut. Your hair looks pretty spectacular the way it is.”
Suzanne smiled. “I know,” she agreed. “But pretty spectacular isn’t good enough for this runway show. I want my hair to look incredibly spectacular!”
Katie sighed again. Once Suzanne decided on something, there was no way to stop her. Katie was going to have to cut Suzanne’s hair.
“Um, okay,” Katie said slowly.
“So what are you going to do?” Suzanne asked.
“It’s going to be a surprise,” Katie said. To both of us, she thought.
Katie held the scissors in the air and looked at Suzanne’s head. She had no idea where to start.
At just that moment the salon door opened and two women came in. Katie gulped. They must have appointments with Sparkle, too.
“You’re way too early,” Katie told them. “Why don’t you go home?”
The women looked at Katie oddly.
“That’s okay,” one of them said. “We don’t mind waiting. It will be fun to see what you do with this girl’s hair.”
Katie frowned as the two women sat down. Oh, great. Now she had an audience.
Suzanne sat there, looking in the mirror at both her reflection and Katie’s.
“Don’t look in the mirror!” Katie insisted nervously. “I can’t cut your hair if you’re staring at me.”
Suzanne looked puzzled. “Why not?” she asked.
“I . . . I just . . . um . . . I want you to be surprised,” Katie stammered. She turned Suzanne’s chair around so she couldn’t see the mirror anymore.
“But I want to see,” Suzanne insisted.
“I wanted to see, too, but you wouldn’t let me, remember?” Katie reminded her.
“What are you talking about?” Suzanne sounded really confused.
Oops. No wonder Suzanne was confused. She didn’t know that it was her best friend who was cutting her hair. Suzanne thought Katie was Sparkle.
“I mean, I never let any of my really special clients see my work before it’s done,” Katie explained. “I like them to be surprised.”
“Oh, okay,” Suzanne said with a smile. She obviously liked being called a “really special client.”
Phew. That was a close one.
Slowly, Katie held up the scissors. She made a snip here and a cut there. Then a snip at the bottom. And a cut near the top.
Snip. Cut. Snip. Cut.
Katie smiled. The two women watching weren’t making faces. Maybe this wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be. And Suzanne’s hair didn’t look bad. Not at all.
Chapter 11
At least, it didn’t look bad to Katie. Suzanne, on the other hand, had a very different reaction.
“Aaaaahhhh!” she shouted the second Katie spun her chair around so she could look in the mirror. “What have you done to me?”
“Don’t you like it?” Katie asked her.
“Like it? I hate it!” Suzanne exclaimed. “The left side is longer than the right side. The bangs are all choppy, and there are these two pieces sticking out over my right ear.”
Katie studied Suzanne’s head. Funny, she hadn’t noticed any of those things before.
At first, neither of the other customers said a word. The women just stood there with their mouths open. But then, they began talking at once.
“I . . . um . . . I just remembered. I have to feed my cat,” one woman said after catching a glimpse of Suzanne’s zigzagging bangs. She ran out of the shop.
“And I . . . well . . . I have to go home and . . . um . . . wash my hair,” the other customer added nervously.
“But you’re in a hair salon,” Katie reminded her. She pointed to the sinks in the back of the shop. “Sparkle . . . I mean . . . I can wash it here.”
The woman didn’t answer. She just headed for the door.
Now Katie and Suzanne were the only ones left in the shop. At least for the moment.
“My mother is going to be here any minute,” Suzanne shouted. “She’s going to go bonkers.”
“Suzanne, please, be quiet,” Katie pleaded with her. “Sparkle’s . . . I mean, I’m losing all my customers.”
“I don’t care!” Suzanne exclaimed loudly.
Katie couldn’t believe how mean her friend was being. Katie had tried her best to give her a good haircut. Hair cutting was really hard. But Suzanne didn’t care about that. All she cared about was herself.
Suddenly Katie felt tears building up in her eyes. But she couldn’t let Suzanne see her cry. Katie was pretty sure real hairstylists never cried. “Ex-excuse me,” Katie stammered unhappily. “I . . . um . . . I have to go find some extra-strength hair spray to hold your hair in place.”
“I don’t want my hair to stay this way!” Suzanne shouted.
Katie barely heard her. She was already on her way to a supply closet that was in the back of the salon.
Katie’s tears started to fall the minute the door slammed behind her. She felt terrible about everything that happened.
As Katie thought about Suzanne’s uneven hair and the customers who had run out of the store, she felt a cool breeze on the back of her neck. She looked around. There were no windows in the closet. And no fans, either. And yet the breeze kept blowing. But only around Katie.
That could only mean one thing. This was no ordinary wind. This was the magic wind!
The magic wind grew stronger and stronger, circling around Katie like a wild tornado. It almost knocked her off her platform shoes. Katie shut her eyes tight.
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone. Katie Kazoo was back!
So was Sparkle. And boy, was she confused!
“Wh-where am I?” Sparkle asked, shaking her head slightly and looking around.
“You’re in your supply closet,” Katie replied. “Don’t you recognize it?”
“I do,” Sparkle said. “But why am I in here?”
“You needed to get away from Suzanne,” Katie explained. “She was mad, and she was screaming, and I—I mean, you—couldn’t take it anymore, so you ran off. You said you were looking for hair spray.”
“Why was Suzanne mad?” Sparkle asked Katie.
“The haircut wasn’t what she wanted,” Katie said.
“The haircut?” Sparkle asked. She was totally confused. “I cut Suzanne’s hair?”
Before Katie could say an
other word, she heard a loud voice coming from outside the supply closet.
“Where is she?” a woman demanded. “Where’s Sparkle?”
Katie knew that voice. “That’s Suzanne’s mom,” she told Sparkle.
“I’d better go talk to her,” Sparkle said. “Although I’m not sure what I’m going to say.”
“There’s the person who ruined my hair! There she is!” Suzanne shouted as Sparkle and Katie came out of the supply closet.
“I didn’t ruin anything!” Katie shouted.
Suzanne stared at Katie. “Not you,” she said. “Sparkle.”
Oops. “I meant your hair’s not ruined,” Katie said.
“Yes, it is,” Suzanne said. “And my modeling show is in two hours. I don’t have time to get it fixed.”
“Of course you do,” Sparkle said. “I can fix anything. Just sit back down in the chair and—”
“I think you’ve done quite enough,” Mrs. Lock said. “We’re leaving.” She took Suzanne by the hand. Then she turned to Katie. “Aren’t you coming?”
Katie looked around. The salon was empty. Katie felt awful. After all, this was her fault. She had to do something to make Sparkle feel better.
“No,” Katie told Mrs. Lock. “I need a haircut. My mom is working at the bookstore. She’ll come by and pay for my cut when Sparkle is finished.”
“Katie, you’re nuts,” Suzanne said. “You could wind up looking like a witch.”
Katie shook her head. “I’m sure I’ll look just fine.” Katie sat down in the salon chair and swallowed hard. “Okay, Sparkle. Let’s get started,” she assured the stylist.
But she wasn’t really so sure. Sparkle was kind of a weird lady. What if she did something weird to Katie’s hair—something even weirder than what Katie had done to Suzanne’s?
Chapter 12
Sparkle was like a magician with scissors. She gave Katie a trim and added some cool, new, layered bangs. At first, Katie felt a little sad that her dad wouldn’t be at the concert and would have to wait to see her new hairstyle. But by the time she arrived at Suzanne’s modeling school to see her runway show, Katie was in a good mood.
“Oh, Katie, there you are!” Mrs. Lock exclaimed. “You have to make Suzanne change her mind!”
“About what?” Katie asked.
“She’s refusing to go on because of her hair,” Mrs. Lock said. “I’ve tried talking to her, but it’s no use.”
Katie wasn’t sure what she could say that would make Suzanne feel any better. But she knew she had to try.
“Where is she?” Katie asked.
“Backstage,” Mrs. Lock said. “You can’t miss her.”
That was the truth. There were at least twenty girls backstage, but Suzanne was the only one with a brown paper bag on her head. She was also the only one crying.
“Hi, Suzanne,” Katie greeted her.
“Hi, Katie,” Suzanne said between sobs.
“Are you almost ready?” Katie asked. “You go on in a few minutes.”
“Oh no!” Suzanne said. “I’m not going on. I can’t let anyone see me.”
Katie sighed. “Yeah. You’re right,” she said finally.
“I am?” Suzanne asked. She sounded surprised.
Katie nodded. “It’s not like you’re a real model or this is a real runway show or anything.”
“I am a real model!” Suzanne declared. She took the paper bag off her head.
“No, you’re not,” Katie said. “A real model would go on no matter what. She would make it work. But you . . .”
“I can make this work. I can make anything work.” Suzanne picked up a comb and started smoothing down her hair. “You’d better leave, Katie. I have only a couple of minutes before my big moment!”
“I don’t know what you said to Suzanne,” Mrs. Lock told Katie after the runway show. “But it worked. She looked great up there.”
“I know,” Katie agreed.
“Oh! There she is,” Mrs. Lock exclaimed. She scooped up Heather and hurried over to Suzanne. Katie followed close behind.
A large crowd of modeling students had gathered around Suzanne. Some were about the same age as Suzanne and Katie. Some of them looked like teenagers. But they were all talking about the same thing—Suzanne’s hair!
“I love your asymmetrical cut,” one of the teenagers said to Suzanne.
“My what cut?” Suzanne asked her.
“Asymmetrical,” the girl said. “It means when the sides aren’t even. It’s the newest thing. I saw it in a magazine.”
“Oh,” Suzanne said. “Of course. I made a special request when I went to the salon. I said exactly what I wanted.”
Katie choked back a laugh. That wasn’t quite the way it had happened.
“What salon?” another teenage girl asked.
“Sparkle’s Salon,” Suzanne said. “In the mall. It’s brand-new. I discovered it.”
The teenage girls pulled out their cell phones. “I’m calling her right now!” one of them declared.
“I’m definitely going to that salon,” another teen agreed.
“Sparkle is clearly a genius,” her friend added.
“Sparkle’s not the genius,” Suzanne insisted. “I am. I’m the one who asked her for something that would make me stand out.”
But the teenage girls weren’t listening to Suzanne anymore. They were too busy calling for appointments at Sparkle’s Salon.
Katie walked over and smiled at Suzanne. “You were a hit.”
Suzanne nodded. “I know,” she said. “But they’re all thinking it was Sparkle who came up with this haircut. And it wasn’t Sparkle who did it at all.”
Katie laughed. Suzanne had no idea just how true that statement really was. And she never would. The magic wind was Katie’s secret.
Chapter 13
Katie was definitely glad when Monday rolled around. It had been kind of a lonely weekend without her dad home. They always made breakfast together on Sunday mornings while Katie’s mom slept late. But not this Sunday. And Katie had to watch the baseball game on TV by herself. The Cherrydale Porcupines had really whipped the Surreytown Tigers. But no one was around for Katie to cheer with.
There would be plenty of cheering today, though. The boys were all set for their kite-flying contest. Katie didn’t care whose kite could fly higher and longer. She just wanted all the arguing and secret keeping to be over.
“You better wrap your kite in a trash bag,” Manny told George, Kadeem, and Kevin. “Our kite is going to make yours look like garbage.”
“No way!” Kadeem shouted. “Our kite rocks!”
“Meet the clown kite,” George said. He held their kite up for everyone to see.
Katie giggled. The kite was funny. The boys had decorated it with a red pom-pom clown nose and big googly eyes. The tail was a long green and purple ribbon.
Jeremy and Manny’s kite was smaller. It was decorated with superhero stickers, and it had two tails made from long red, white, and blue ribbons.
“Are you ready to fly your kite?” Jeremy asked the boys from 4A.
“The real question is, are you ready to lose the kite fight?” George asked Jeremy.
“We’re not going to lose,” Jeremy said confidently.
“Stop the arguing, dudes,” Mr. G. told the kids. “Let’s get these kites in the air.”
“Are you all ready?” Ms. Sweet asked Jeremy, Manny, Kadeem, George, and Kevin.
The boys nodded.
“Good,” Ms. Sweet said with a smile. “Then let the kite flying begin!”
The boys didn’t have to be told twice. Jeremy took off running with the superhero kite while Manny held the string. Almost immediately, the superhero kite took flight.
At the same time, Kadeem ran with the clown kite while George unrolled the string. Kadeem let go. The clown kite flew into the air.
“Ours is higher!” Kadeem shouted excitedly.
“No way,” Manny shouted. He loosened a little more string so the superhero
kite could fly higher.
George unrolled more string, too. The clown kite flew higher, too.
Katie looked up and watched as the kites moved back and forth in the wind. They drifted closer to each other until . . .
Suddenly their strings got all tangled up. Both kites fell to the ground!
“Oh no!” Jeremy cried out.
“You did that on purpose,” George told Manny and Jeremy.
“We did not,” Manny said. “You flew your kite too close to ours,” he told George, Kadeem, and Kevin.
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Kevin said with a frown. “We can’t fly our kites anymore.”
“Yes, you can,” Suzanne piped up.
The kids all turned around to look at her.
“All you have to do is untangle the strings and start over,” she said.
“But they’re just going to get all tangled again,” Jeremy told her.
Suzanne shook her head. “You just have to do this like a fashion show.”
“A kite fashion show?” George asked her. “There’s no such thing.”
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean you were modeling kites, George,” she explained. “I just meant that in a fashion show, everyone takes a turn walking down the runway. When one person finishes, the next one goes.”
“You mean take turns,” Manny said.
Suzanne nodded. “Exactly.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?” Kevin asked.
“Because then it wouldn’t have been a Suzanne idea,” Katie told the boys.
The kids all laughed. That was true. Suzanne definitely had her own way of saying things.
“How will we know who wins the contest if the kites don’t fly at the same time?” Manny asked.
“Dudes, you’re all winners,” Mr. G. assured the boys. “You made kites that are designed to fly high for a long time.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Jeremy said.
“We’re the kings of kites,” George agreed with a smile.