Katie giggled. “I like it.”
“Maaa. Maaaa,” Maybell bleated. Obviously she liked it, too.
Chapter 12
“Katie, where have you been?” Suzanne demanded a little while later when she spotted Katie at the band shell dancing to the music of Downhill Slide. Their music teacher, Mr. Starkey, was the drummer. And he was awesome.
“I was . . . I . . . uh . . . I made a new friend,” Katie said finally. There. That was the truth, sort of.
“Your new friend isn’t entered in the Junior Miss Candy Apple Contest, is she?” Suzanne asked.
Katie shook her head. “No.”
Suzanne looked relieved. “You sure missed a lot of excitement. Some goat went nuts, and it was terrible.”
“Terrible?” Katie asked. She hadn’t thought things were that bad.
“The milking contest had to be canceled,” Suzanne went on. “Everyone had their cameras out, ready to take pictures of me milking a goat, and then the goat took off. Once all the chicks got loose, people had to settle for taking pictures of the chicks instead of me.”
“I’m sure they were all disappointed,” Katie said with a laugh.
“Oh, definitely,” Suzanne agreed. “How often do you get a picture of a fashion model milking a goat?” She stopped and turned her head as something caught her eye. “Oh, look, there’s another candy apple stand,” Suzanne said. “I’m going to buy another.”
“How many have you eaten already?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know. Three. Maybe four,” Suzanne replied. “They’re delicious. You want one?”
“No, thanks,” Katie said. “I want some funnel cake.” She went over to the snack stands. “One funnel cake, please,” she said to the man behind the counter. Then she noticed Kadeem and Andrew. They were sitting on a bench nearby.
“Oh . . . please don’t say the word cake,” Andrew said to Katie.
Andrew still had purple berry juice all over his shirt and pie crumbs in his hair. He had undone the top button on his jeans, and he was clutching his stomach.
“Andrew’s not feeling so great,” Kadeem told Katie.
“Too much pie?” she asked Andrew and Kadeem.
“Definitely don’t say pie!” Andrew moaned.
“Not enough pie,” Kadeem corrected Katie. “Or he might have won.”
“Those other guys were a lot taller and a lot bigger. And the guy who took first place has been in a lot of eating contests. He won a hot dog contest in New York once.”
“Ooooh,” Andrew said, doubling over. “Don’t say hot dogs.”
Just then, Suzanne wandered over with a shiny, red candy apple. “I think this is the sweetest candy apple I’ve ever tasted,” she said loudly. Then she took a huge bite.
“Oooooh,” Andrew said. He got up from the bench. “I need a bathroom.”
“Was it something I said?” she asked Katie.
“More like something Andrew ate,” Katie assured her.
“All that pie,” Suzanne said knowingly.
“Exactly,” Katie agreed. “I’m going over to see how my mom and grandma are doing. You want to come?”
Suzanne nodded. “Definitely. I want to see everything at the fair,” she said loudly and then looked around to make sure lots of people had heard her. “I have real county fair spirit! And that’s the kind of spirit you need if you’re going to represent the fair as Junior Miss Candy Apple!”
Katie laughed. Suzanne was definitely one of a kind.
“You girls are just in time,” Katie’s grandmother greeted Suzanne and Katie. “They’re about to taste our jam.”
Katie’s mom crossed her fingers. “Wish us luck.”
Katie crossed her fingers, too.
As the two judges walked over to the table, Suzanne gave them a big smile. “Hi, judges,” she said. “I guess you’re here to taste this delicious jam.”
“Yes, we are,” one of the judges said.
“Is this the only contest you judge?” Suzanne wondered.
“No. We also judge the cake contest,” the other judge told her.
“Oh, just another food contest,” Suzanne said. She stopped smiling. “Never mind then.”
The judges didn’t say anything as they tasted the blueberry jam. Then they put down their spoons and moved on to the next contestant.
“Did they seem to like it?” Katie’s mother asked.
“I couldn’t tell,” Katie’s grandmother replied.
“Do you think we should have gone with batch twenty-eight?” Katie’s mom wondered.
“Too late now,” her grandmother said.
As Katie stood there with her mom and grandmother, she could tell they were both nervous. They had worked so long to make the perfect jam. Everyone else looked nervous, too, waiting to see who would win that blue ribbon.
The judges pulled out their packet of ribbons. They walked past Katie’s mom and grandma to a table to the right and handed a white ribbon to two gray-haired ladies who had made strawberry jam.
“Okay, that means we didn’t come in third,” Katie’s mom said.
“Or second,” Katie’s grandmother added. “They just gave the red ribbon to that guy who made the boysenberry jam.”
Katie had never heard of a boysenberry jam before. She wondered if there was such a thing as girlsenberry jam, too.
But there was no time to ask. Because at just that moment, the judges started walking back toward where Katie’s mom and grandma were standing.
“They’re coming this way,” Katie’s mom said excitedly.
Katie crossed her fingers tighter. “Please . . . please . . . please . . . ,” she whispered quietly.
“And the blue ribbon goes to the blueberry jam!” one of the judges announced. He handed Katie’s grandma a blue ribbon.
“YESSSS!” Katie, her mom, and her grandma all screamed at once.
Suzanne just stood there biting her candy apple. She looked bored—until the fair photographer appeared at the table. “I’d like to get a picture of the winners with their jam,” she said.
“Come on, Katie,” Katie’s mom said. “You helped, too. You should be in the picture. This is a family affair.”
Suddenly, Suzanne was very interested. “I’m practically one of the family,” she told the photographer as she pushed her way into the photo right between Katie and her grandma. “Come on, everyone. Say candy apple!”
Chapter 13
“Make a basket, win a balloon!” A carnival barker in a red-and-white-striped Cherrydale County Fair shirt was shouting. Suzanne had gone off to fix her hair and put on more glitter. That left Katie to wander around on her own.
“Come on, girlie,” the barker at the get-a-Ping-Pong-ball-in-the-milk-bottle booth called to Katie. “Three tries for a dollar.”
“No, thank you,” Katie said. She wasn’t very good at carnival games. And she really wasn’t interested in winning the little rubber doll prizes at the Ping-Pong ball booth.
Katie didn’t want to spend her money trying to win plastic rings at the duck pond booth or felt hats at the water balloon–race booth, either. In fact, there wasn’t a prize at the midway Katie would have wasted her money trying to win, except for the stuffed animals at the balloon-dartboard booth.
But it looked as if nobody had won one, because she didn’t see a single person walking around with a big stuffed bear or cat.
Just then, Katie ran into Jeremy. “Hi, Katie,” Jeremy greeted her.
“Hi. Guess what! My mom and grandma just won first prize for their jam!” Katie said excitedly. She smiled at his big felt hat. “Oh! You won a water balloon race!” she added happily.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “I wanted to win a stuffed animal, but it’s impossible. I think that dartboard game is rigged.”
“Hey, try your luc
k again, kid!” the guy behind the balloon-dartboard booth shouted to Jeremy. “We got big prizes here!”
“Yeah, I know. But what are the chances of me winning one? Zero?” Jeremy said. Then he faced Katie again. “That guy just stands around shouting all day.”
Katie looked at all the giant prizes hanging from the ceiling of the balloon-dartboard booth. They sure were cute.
“I’m going to go see how Kevin and his tomatoes are doing,” Katie told Jeremy. “You want to come?”
Jeremy shook his head. “I’m going to try to knock down those milk bottles with a baseball. They have inflatable shark prizes there. It’s not a stuffed bear, but it’s something.”
“Okay, well, good luck,” Katie said. “See you later.”
As Katie exited the midway, she turned left. But a minute later she realized she had definitely gone the wrong way. There were no mechanical bulls here. No rides. No games. No people. And no tomatoes. In fact, there wasn’t anything here except big crates and boxes and two huge garbage dumpsters.
This was not where Katie wanted to be. It was a very creepy feeling being all alone by the garbage area. And those dumpsters really stunk—even worse than the goats had smelled earlier. Quickly, Katie turned around and started to retrace her steps.
Katie shivered a little. She wished she had a warmer jacket with her, but the day had been so warm before, she hadn’t bothered to bring one.
It was getting windy, too. Katie wrinkled her nose, expecting the gross smell of the garbage to following her in the wind.
But Katie didn’t smell anything. That was because the wind wasn’t blowing around the dumpsters or the crate boxes or anywhere else. In fact, the only place the wind was blowing was around Katie.
Katie knew that could only mean one thing. This wasn’t any ordinary wind. This was the magic wind.
“Not again!” Katie shouted at the magic wind. “You were just here. Can’t you leave me alone?”
But the magic wind didn’t hear anything Katie said. Or if it did hear, it didn’t care. It picked up speed and started circling around Katie like a wild tornado. Around and around the wind blew. The wind was so powerful, Katie felt like it was lifting her way off the ground. She shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry.
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone.
But so was Katie Kazoo. She had turned into someone else. One . . . two . . . switcheroo.
But who?
Chapter 14
Katie sniffed at the air. The stench of garbage dumpsters was completely gone. It had been replaced with the scent of popcorn, candy apples, and funnel cakes.
Slowly she opened her eyes and looked around. There were the knock-down-the-milk-bottles game booth and the booth where you blew up a balloon with a water gun. Wow! This time the magic wind had been so powerful it had swept Katie right off her feet and carried her back to the midway.
Okay, so now Katie knew where she was. But she didn’t know who she was.
Katie looked down. Her red high-top sneakers had been replaced by brown boots. And she wasn’t wearing her sweater and skirt anymore. Now she was wearing brown shorts. Yuck! Her legs were so hairy—almost like a goat’s. But there were only two of them. And they were definitely human legs.
Katie was also in a red-and-white-striped official Cherrydale County Fair shirt and a name tag that read GILBERT. Which had to mean that the magic wind had switcherooed her into Gilbert. But who was Gilbert?
Just then, a big guy who was also wearing a fair T-shirt stomped over to Katie. “Yo, Gil! What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“Huh?” Katie murmured.
“I haven’t seen one mark here at the dartboard booth in the past ten minutes,” the big guy said. “We should have customers swarming to this booth. Now start calling, or I’ll send you to the boneyard.”
Katie gulped. She didn’t understand anything the big guy had just told her.
Still, she had figured one thing out. Obviously, this Gilbert guy was a carnival barker. Which meant now Katie was a carnival barker. And it was her job to get people to come throw darts at the balloons in her booth.
“Pop a balloon! Win a prize!” Katie shouted. “Win a stuffed toy! Four darts for a dollar!”
“That’s more like it!” the big guy said and walked away. But no one stopped at Katie’s booth. So she shouted a little louder. “Come on, folks. Throw some darts, win a bear!”
A teenage boy and his girlfriend stopped at Katie’s booth.
“Which bear do you want, Shana?” he asked.
“Oh, the blue one, Frank,” she answered.
“You got it,” Frank said. He handed Katie a dollar. “Give me four darts, please.”
“Sure,” Katie said.
“Frank’s a really talented dart thrower,” Shana told Katie. “Get ready to give me that blue teddy bear!”
Katie smiled and handed Frank four darts. His first three shots missed completely. But the fourth one . . .
“Hey! That one hit the red balloon,” Frank told Katie. “I’m sure of it. So how come it didn’t pop?”
Katie was thinking the same thing. It sure looked like the dart had hit the balloon. But she had to be wrong. After all, the balloon didn’t pop. And like Gilbert had told Jeremy earlier, if the dart had hit the balloon, it would have popped for sure. Wouldn’t it?
“Want to try again?” she asked.
“Are you kidding? No one can win at this game. Come on, Shana, let’s try something else,” Frank said.
As they walked away, Katie pulled the darts from the board. “Pop a balloon! Get a bear!” she shouted.
“If you don’t start earning some alfalfa soon, Carl is gonna kill you.” The guy in the booth next to her patted the money pouch he wore around his waist. “I’ve been raking in the green, and all I’m giving away is plastic jewelry.”
Katie looked at him strangely. Alfalfa? What does that mean?
“He’s not kidding,” the guy across the way at the ski ball booth agreed. “You better fill that possum gut by the end of the day.”
Possum gut? Katie was really confused. She didn’t see any possums anywhere. Maybe they were off eating some of that alfalfa. This job wasn’t nearly as easy as Katie had thought. You practically had to learn a whole new language just to work here.
“Possum gut?” Katie asked.
“Yeah, you know, your cash register,” he said, looking at Katie as if she’d lost her mind. “Which had better be filled with alfalfa by the time Carl gets back.”
Katie nodded. She guessed alfalfa meant money. After all, that was what people usually put in a cash register.
“Gil, I thought Carl was gonna fire you on the spot before,” the skee ball guy told Katie.
Katie didn’t need a dictionary to figure out what that meant. Obviously, Carl was the big guy who had come by to yell at her. The skee ball guy was right. Carl had been pretty angry.
Katie looked around the booth. There were plenty of balloons tacked onto the board. So there were lots of chances for someone to win. The only thing was, when you looked closely, you could see the balloons hadn’t been blown up all the way. Katie thought they would look so much prettier if the balloons were blown up really big.
Katie reached under the counter and yanked out a bag of fresh balloons. She pulled a yellow one from the bag and blew it all the way up. She knotted the end nice and tight and pinned it to the board. Then she did the same with an orange balloon.
A few minutes later, there were ten bright, new, shiny balloons pinned to the board—and Katie was completely out of breath. Now she’d better get customers and put some alfalfa in her possum gut. Otherwise, Carl would send her to the boneyard—wherever that was.
“Pop a balloon, win a prize!” Katie shouted loudly to a tall man who was carrying a little girl on his shoulders. “
Come on, pal, be a hero. Win a teddy bear for the little girl.”
“Please, Uncle Joe,” the little girl said. “I need a new teddy bear.”
“You need one, Ella?” Uncle Joe asked.
“Well, I want one, anyway,” Ella said.
“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” The man lowered Ella to the ground and plunked a dollar on the counter.
“Here ya go,” Katie said in her best carnival barker voice as she handed him four darts.
Joe picked up a dart and aimed. Then he let the dart go. It sailed across the booth, heading for the board. And then . . .
Pop!
All the air rushed out of the green balloon.
“You did it!” Katie shouted. She jumped up and down and clapped her hands with glee. Oops. That didn’t sound like a real carnival barker. Katie smiled. “Um . . . I mean . . .WE HAVE A WINNER!” she said.
“I want the yellow bear,” Ella said.
“Here you go,” Katie said, taking the bear
off the shelf. “Now, who’s going to be the next winner?”
A teenage girl said she’d try. On her third dart, a balloon popped. Off she went with a blue kitten.
The next thing Katie knew, there was a line at her booth. Balloons were popping. Prizes were practically flying off the shelves. She had to blow up more balloons. And the possum gut was filling up with dollar bills. Katie was really proud of herself.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
“GIL, WHAT’S GOING ON HERE???”
Just then, Carl came bounding over to Katie’s booth. And he did not look happy.
Chapter 15
“Who changed the balloons?” Carl asked Katie.
“I did,” Katie answered proudly.
“Excuse us, folks,” Carl said. “This booth is closed for a few minutes. Go try another game.” Then Carl grabbed Katie by the arm. “Are you nuts?” Carl asked once he was sure no customers could hear him. “Nobody is supposed to pop those balloons. The way they are now, they pop too easily.”
All's Fair (9781101610893) Page 4