by Nancy Krulik
Katie stared at Sarah. She’d never heard anybody talk that fast before.
“Katie, this is my best friend Sarah,” Emily said.
“Hi,” Katie said.
“Hello,” Sarah said. Then she turned her attention back to Emily. “Since there are lines a block long to get into any of our favorite restaurants, I brought takeout.” She plopped a bag on a nearby coffee table. “I got some sandwiches. I wasn’t sure which ones to get. So I just took a chance. And, of course, malteds from Mickey’s.”
“Oh, yum!” Emily said. “Katie, wait’ll you have one. Mickey’s malts are amazing!”
“I only brought two,” Sarah said. “I forgot your little cousin was coming.”
Katie frowned. She didn’t like being called little cousin. Younger cousin maybe. Or even shorter cousin. But she was definitely not a little kid.
“That’s okay,” Emily told Katie. “We’ll share. I’ll just go get a glass.”
As Emily walked off, Sarah asked Katie, “Is this your first Thanksgiving parade?”
Katie nodded.
“I’ve been to a bunch of them,” Sarah said. “But this year I’m actually going to be in the parade. I can hardly wait. I can just picture myself walking in the middle of Broadway, with the crowds cheering and the music playing ...”
“Wow!” Katie chimed in when Sarah stopped talking to take a breath. “Are you going to be one of those pretty girls singing on a float?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, I’m something much better,” she said. “I’m going to be a clown. I get to walk next to the balloons and throw confetti at people to get the little kids all excited. The clowns are really the stars of the parade, I mean—”
“I thought the balloons were the most important part,” Katie broke in. “Aren’t people already excited to be at a parade? Do they need clowns to get psyched up?”
Emily came back with two glasses and said, “This parade is all Sarah’s been talking about for weeks now.”
“Well, it’s a huge deal,” Sarah said. “About a thousand people tried out. And there are only fifty of us that got picked. We’re going to be seen on TV by people all over the country. And being a clown is really cool. Some of us are on stilts and some of us do gymnastics routines. Wait until you see my backflip! Just look for the clown with the purple shoes and the yellow, orange, and purple pants. That will be me.”
Katie took a huge gulp of her malted milkshake. Oooh! The cold drink made her brain freeze. What a headache!
Tweet! Tweet! Just then Parry flew by, perched on Emily’s shoulder, and kept on whistling loudly.
Aroo! Pepper howled and started running all around the apartment. Aroo! Aroo!
And Sarah just kept talking and talking. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Katie sighed. If this was how New Yorkers celebrated Thanksgiving Eve, then all Katie could think was thanks . . . but no thanks.
Chapter 14
On Thanksgiving morning, there were about a million people standing outside on either side of Central Park West, waiting for the parade. Or at least it seemed that way to Katie. She’d never seen so many people in one place before.
It was also really, really cold outside. Katie’s ears were freezing. If only she’d remembered to grab her hat and scarf. Some people had blankets wrapped around them like shawls. Some were drinking steaming mugs of chocolate. They were smart!
Since they were so near the entrance to Aunt Alison’s apartment building, Katie asked, “Mom, can I run back upstairs to get my hat?”
Katie’s mom thought for a minute. “I guess so. Uncle Charlie’s still up there working on his special mashed potatoes. He’ll let you in.”
“You won’t move or anything, right?” Katie asked nervously.
Her mom shook her head. “We’ll be here when you get back. Standing right in front of the building.”
“Okay,” Katie said. “I’ll only be a second.”
And with that, Katie left and went into the apartment building. She smiled at Stan, the nice doorman who stood in the lobby and greeted everybody as they came in or went out.
“Good morning,” Stan said. “Coming back for a hat?”
Katie nodded. “And a scarf, too.”
“Good thinking,” Stan told her. “It’s a cold one today.”
Katie began to wonder if it was as cold in Cherrydale as it was here. But then she decided that it was better not to think about Cherrydale anymore. Instead, she tried to think about those giant balloons. They were really cool. Especially the brown and white one that turned out to be a giant turkey, not a dog after all.
Katie stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the fourth floor. As the doors shut, Katie felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her neck.
Boy, she thought to herself. It’s even cold in the elevator.
But there was something weird about the wind. For one thing, there were no windows in the elevator. And no fans, either. So where was the wind coming from? Even weirder, this wind was getting stronger and stronger. And it was blowing only around Katie.
That could mean only one thing. The magic wind had followed Katie all the way to New York City! And it was ready for a switcheroo!
“Oh no!” Katie cried out.
The magic wind began to pick up speed. It blew harder and harder, circling around Katie like an icy tornado. She shut her eyes tight and tried hard not to cry.
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone. And so was Katie Carew. She’d turned into someone else. One . . . two . . . switcheroo!
But who?
Chapter 15
“Welcome to the Thanksgiving Day Parade!”
Katie heard a man’s voice blaring from a loudspeaker. Right away everyone started clapping and whistling. Not far away she could hear a marching band starting to play. Oompah-oompah went a tuba.
Slowly, she blinked her eyes open and looked around. Katie was standing in the middle of the street. Uh-oh! Her parents wouldn’t like that! And ahead of her was a huge, red, star-shaped balloon. One thing was for sure: Katie was back outside at the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Okay, so now she knew where she was. But she still didn’t know who she was.
Katie looked down. Her way-cool black and red cowboy boots were gone. Now she was wearing huge purple shoes. Clown shoes. And just above the shoes, Katie could see the bottom of her purple, yellow, and orange striped clown pants.
Katie started to get a funny feeling, and not a funny ha-ha feeling. It was a funny, oh no! feeling. Had she turned into Sarah? She felt the top of her head—yup, she was wearing a curly wig.
“Sarah, come on! What are you waiting for?” a clown with a red nose and orange hair called over to her. “We’re supposed to be starting our routine.”
That settled it. Katie was definitely Sarah. And right now, she was obviously supposed to be doing some sort of routine. The problem was, Katie didn’t have a clue what the routine was.
Katie thought for a minute. Sarah had said something about confetti. Quickly, she reached into the pocket of the wacky clown pants. Sure enough, there was a pile of it in there. Katie pulled out a handful of confetti and threw it at the crowd.
“Yay!” the people in the crowd cheered as the confetti rained down on their heads.
Well, this wasn’t so hard. Katie dipped into her other pocket and ran to the other side of the street where she tossed more confetti on a bunch of little kids. “More! More!” they shouted.
“What are you doing?” a clown with green hair shouted at Katie. “The confetti doesn’t come out until 45th street.”
“What street are we on now?” Katie asked him.
The green-haired clown looked at her strangely. “77th Street and Central Park West. What is wrong with you?”
Nothing was wrong with Katie—other than the fact that she was in a strange body, in a strange city, performing in the middle of the street in a world-famous parade.
“You’re supposed to do your backflip now,” the
orange-haired clown told Katie. “And then we go into the cartwheels.”
Uh-oh. There was one small problem. Katie had never done a backflip in her life. And every time she tried to do cartwheels, she only got about a foot off the ground and then landed right on her rear end. This was soooo not good!
Katie looked around. Everywhere she turned, there were clowns in the street flipping, dancing, and spinning around and around in cartwheels. But Katie was just standing there. She had to do something. Anything.
So Katie decided to dance. She tapped her feet on the street, trying to remember some of the tap dancing moves her mom had taught her. But tap dancing was tough in size seventy-nine purple clown shoes.
“What are you doing?” the clown with green hair asked her. “Why are you making a fool of yourself on national television?”
What? Katie gulped. She’d forgotten all about the Thanksgiving Day Parade being on TV. But when she turned her head, there was a cameraman with a big TV camera perched on his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Katie screamed at the cameramen. “The balloons are much more interesting than the clowns. Point your cameras up there.”
All of the clowns stared at her.
“Sarah, what’s wrong with you?” the orange-haired clown shouted. “We want to be on TV, remember?”
Katie gulped. She’d forgotten she was Sarah. But she remembered now. And no matter how annoying Sarah was, she didn’t deserve to look like a fool on national TV. So Katie did the only gymnastics trick she knew. She bent over, curled her head into her chest, and did a somersault in the middle of the street.
As Katie stood up, she smiled proudly. In fact, she almost took a bow. Okay, so somersaults were pretty easy. But this one had been a pretty good somersault. She hadn’t tipped to the side or anything.
The other clowns weren’t impressed. Instead they ignored her and started doing perfect cartwheels, backflips, and handstands in the street.
Katie sighed. A somersault seemed pretty babyish, considering what the other clowns were doing. So she tried a cartwheel of her own.
“One . . . two ...” Katie counted as she tipped to her side. “Three ...” She stretched out her arms and swooped down, just the way Becky Stern had told her was the correct way to do a cartwheel. Becky was awesome at gymnastics.
“Oomph!” Katie landed right on a yellow-haired clown, knocking her to the ground.
“Ouch!” the yellow-haired clown shouted.
“Out of the way!” the green-haired clown warned. He was doing front flips. Too late! He couldn’t stop himself and tripped over the yellow-haired clown.
“Whoa!” the orange-haired clown screamed as he backflipped right onto the green-haired clown.
“Hey, you’re sitting on my head,” the green-haired clown shouted.
Katie just sat on the ground in the middle of the clown pileup. They were all really angry behind their painted-on smiles.
Some people in the crowd started to laugh. But a few people began to boo. And then a few more. Boooo!
“That’s not nice,” Katie shouted back at them. “We’re trying.”
“The crowd is clearly not happy with the clown show,” Katie heard one news reporter going on. “That one clown is causing a whole lot of trouble.”
Uh-oh. Katie knew exactly who that trouble-causing clown was. It was her. Even though she was switcherooed into teenaged Sarah, Katie felt like a fourth-grade girl—one who was in big trouble. And so she did a very fourth-grade thing . . .
She started to run. Fast.
Katie had no idea where she was going. All she knew was she had to get out of there. Away from the crowds. Away from the cameras. And especially away from all those angry clowns.
Chapter 16
Katie didn’t stop running through the crowd until she spotted a path. It led right into Central Park. There were no reporters or news cameras in the park. It was the perfect place to hide.
Or was it? Katie ran just a few steps down the path and then stopped. She didn’t think being alone in Central Park was such a good idea.
From where she stood, Katie could see people lined up on the streets cheering. Balloons were flying high above the crowd. But Katie didn’t see any building that looked like Emily’s apartment. She didn’t see the big museum that was right near Emily’s building, either. In other words, she was lost!
A shiver went through her. It was really cold out. And her thin clown costume wasn’t protecting her against the wind that had just started blowing against the back of her neck.
Katie looked up. Funny. The bare tree limbs weren’t blowing at all. Neither were the brown fallen leaves on the ground. In fact, that wind didn’t seem to be blowing anywhere except on Katie. Which could mean only one thing. The magic wind had returned!
The magic wind started picking up speed. It whirled and swirled all around Katie, moving faster and faster, and growing more and more powerful, until it was like a wild tornado. Her clown wig was about to fly off. Katie grabbed on to the sides of a rock to keep from being blown away.
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone. Katie Carew was back. And so was Sarah. She was standing there, right next to Katie. And, boy, was she confused.
“What am I doing here?” Sarah asked Katie. She stopped for a second. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be alone in Central Park.”
Katie didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t just tell Sarah about the magic wind. She wouldn’t believe her if she did, anyway.
“I’m not alone,” Katie said finally. “I’m with you.”
Sarah looked at her strangely. “I shouldn’t be here, either. I’m supposed to be in the parade with the other clowns ...” Sarah stopped for a minute. “Oh no,” she said quietly. “Did I really do something as babyish as a somersault in the middle of Central Park West?”
Katie wasn’t sure where she’d done the somersault, but she knew she had done one.
“It was a good somersault,” Katie said. “Almost perfect. You didn’t tilt or anything.”
Sarah shook her head. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “I just made a complete fool of myself in front of the entire country. Everyone is going to be making fun of me.”
That made Katie feel horrible. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was being made fun of. And now that was going to be happening to Sarah. And it was all Katie’s fault.
“No one will make fun of you,” Katie said. “Clowns are supposed to be funny. And you were funny.”
But Sarah didn’t believe her. “I was weird. Really weird. I mean, who does a somersault in a parade?”
Katie didn’t know how to answer that. Sarah had just called her weird. Right to her face! But of course Sarah didn’t know she was calling Katie weird. She thought she was talking about herself. So Katie couldn’t really get mad.
“Look, I’ve got to get back to the parade,” Sarah said. “I need to catch up to the other clowns.”
Sarah leaped up and started to run out of the park. Katie sat there for a moment, watching her. And then she started to cry.
Sarah stopped running. She turned around and stared at Katie. “What are you crying about?” she asked.
“I don’t know how to get back to Emily’s,” Katie said between her cries. “I don’t even know where I am.”
Sarah sighed heavily. “All right, come on,” she said. “I’ll drop you by Emily’s building and then I’ll try to catch up with the parade.”
Katie stood up. “Th-thank you,” she said.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Tourists,” she groaned. “You guys should never go out by yourselves.”
Katie knew Sarah was right. Now if she could only convince the magic wind of that!
Chapter 17
Sarah didn’t say anything to Katie as they walked back toward the parade together. Instead, she just kept repeating the word somersault over and over again, and shaking her head. Katie really hoped the other clowns would be nice to Sarah.
&
nbsp; A few minutes later, Katie spotted the big museum that was near Emily’s apartment building. Woo-hoo! She would be back with her parents, her aunt, and her cousin any second now. And luckily, there was still plenty of parade to see.
Katie saw her cousin. She started jumping up and down and waving. “Look, Sarah! There’s Emily.”
“Well, bye now,” Sarah said. Just as she was about to take off down Central Park West, one of the news reporters recognized her.
“There she is!” one newscaster shouted out. “That’s the clown that messed up everything!”
Sarah gasped. “Oh no!”
The reporter started running toward her, with his microphone in hand.
Sarah tried to take off. But Katie grabbed the back of her clown costume. She’d just gotten one of her great ideas.
“Sarah, wait!” Katie shouted. A second later, the reporter and his news crew was shoving a microphone in Sarah’s face.
“So, what happened out there?” the news reporter demanded. “You were acting crazy in the parade, and then you just disappeared.”
“Well . . . I ...” Sarah didn’t know what to say to him.
Katie’s eyes grew wide. It was probably the first time that had ever happened to Sarah. But Katie also knew it wasn’t funny. No one wanted to be embarrassed, especially in front of a news crew.
“She was helping me!” Katie said, jumping in front of the camera. “I got lost. I’m not from around here. I was heading into Central Park.”
“Why were you going into the park?” the reporter asked Katie.
Katie couldn’t exactly tell the reporter that a magic wind had blown her in there. So instead she said, “I made a wrong turn. And Sarah was so worried about me that she left the parade to help me out.”
Sarah stared curiously at Katie. She had no idea what she was talking about. But Katie didn’t stop to explain. She just kept talking to the reporter.