by Nancy Krulik
“I signed up for arts and crafts,” Katie told Rainbow. “Then volleyball and archery. What activities are you going to?”
“I’m going on a nature hike,” she said.
“It’s three hours long, so I won’t be back until dinnertime.”
“Sounds like fun,” Katie said.
Rainbow reached into her pocket. “I was saving this to give to Rocky for his dinner,” she said pulling out a granola bar. “But since I won’t be here, can you give it to him?”
“Sure,” Katie said. “I’ll leave it for him before I go for afternoon swim.”
“Perfect!” Rainbow said. Then she started running toward the lake. “Last one to the lake is a rotten egg!” she shouted.
Chapter 8
Grrrowl.
Katie’s stomach rumbled as she walked from the volleyball courts to the archery targets that evening. Volleyball sure could make a girl hungry. And there was still an activity period to go before dinner.
Just then, Katie remembered Rainbow’s granola bar, the one for Rocky. She pulled it from her pocket and looked at it for a minute. It was a big bar for such a little raccoon. Katie was sure he wouldn’t mind sharing it with her.
Quickly Katie ripped the paper off and took a bite of the granola bar. Mmm. That was good. All chewy and honey-flavored. Maybe just one more bite . . .
A moment later, the entire granola bar was gone. Katie had eaten the whole thing. There was nothing left for Rocky.
“That wasn’t a very nice thing for me to do,” Katie murmured quietly. She felt pretty bad. She was also pretty thirsty. She should probably stop at her cabin and get a drink of water before going to archery.
Katie was just a few feet from the Bumblebee cabin when she spotted Rocky. He was sleeping high up in a tree, far from the reach of any humans.
Just seeing Rocky made Katie feel guilty about having eaten his snack. He was really going to have to search hard for food tonight. And it was all her fault.
Katie was too ashamed to even look at Rocky. Feeling sad, she began to walk up the stairs to her empty cabin.
Before she could get very far, a cool breeze began blowing against Katie’s neck. She looked around her. The leaves in the trees were completely still. So were the wildflowers that grew all around her bunk. The wind wasn’t blowing on them.
In fact, the wind wasn’t blowing anywhere, except around Katie! Oh no! This was no ordinary wind. The magic wind had followed Katie all the way to Camp Cedar Hill.
The magic wind grew stronger, circling wildly around Katie like a fierce tornado. It picked up speed, blowing harder and harder. WHOOSH! Katie was sure it would blow her away. She shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry.
And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone. And so was Katie Carew.
She’d turned into somebody else. One, two, switcheroo!
But who?
Katie opened her eyes slowly. The sunlight seemed very, very bright to her all of a sudden. It was almost blinding. She blinked a few times and then used her front claws to scratch an itch on her ear.
Wait a minute. Katie didn’t have claws. She had fingers and toes . . . or at least she used to. Now she had claws! Sharp ones!
Katie looked down. Sure enough, her red sneakers were gone. That made sense since her feet were gone, replaced by paws.
Raccoon paws!
Oh no! The magic wind had turned her into Rocky!
Katie gulped. It had been fun having a raccoon for a pet, but she didn’t want to be one. Especially not one that was as hungry as Rocky was. Katie’s tiny raccoon tummy rumbled with hunger.
Now Katie really wished she’d saved that granola bar. But now there was no granola bar in sight. At least she didn’t think so. It was hard for Katie to see anything. Her little raccoon eyes were meant to see in the dark, not the sunlight. The light made her head hurt.
And she was kind of sleepy. She wasn’t supposed to wake up until nighttime. Well, actually, Rocky wasn’t supposed to wake up until then. But since Katie was Rocky . . .
Katie couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t think about anything but how hungry she was. Her little raccoon belly was completely empty.
Katie picked her head up for a moment and sniffed at the air. Mmmm . . . something smelled really good. Sweet, like berries.
She turned her head in the direction of the scent. Sure enough, there was a mulberry bush a few feet away. Quickly she shinnied down the tree trunk and scurried over to the mulberries.
One by one, Katie used her raccoon paws to pick the berries off the bush and smush them up. Katie didn’t really know why she was doing that. She had a feeling it had something to do with checking that there wasn’t anything sharp or dangerous in the food, but she couldn’t be sure. It was just some raccoon thing.
Mmm . . . the mulberries tasted delicious. Katie swallowed the mushed berries and licked every bit of the sweet juice from her front paws. She didn’t want to leave a drop.
The berries were heavenly, but they weren’t very filling. She needed something bigger to eat. Just then she spotted some grubs crawling around a rotting log. She just had to eat them.
Katie stopped for a minute. Grubs. Yuck. Why was she so eager to eat disgusting, wormlike bugs?
Because she was a raccoon. That’s why. And even though eating squiggly, wiggly bugs wasn’t something Katie would ordinarily do, they were definitely on Rocky’s menu. Quickly Katie scurried over to the log and scooped up a handful of grubs. She used her front paws to squish them up. Then she popped them in her mouth.
Katie sighed. You couldn’t be a vegetarian when you were a raccoon.
They ooey-gooey grubs slimed straight down Katie’s throat. To her raccoon tongue, they actually tasted pretty yummy. Maybe there were some more inside the log. Katie reached in with one of her front paws and felt around.
No. No more grubs. But the inside of the log did feel kind of soft. And it was dark in there. Katie was feeling tired. She thought about crawling inside the log and taking a nap . . .
Suddenly there was a slight shift in the breeze. Katie lifted up her little raccoon head and sniffed at the air.
Mmm. Something sure smelled good. Kind of sweet and creamy. Like cookies. She sniffed at the air again. The smell was coming from the Bumblebee bunk.
There was food in there. Good food.
Katie just had to have it!
Chapter 9
The door to the cabin was shut. But Katie wasn’t giving up. Whatever was inside that cabin was too good.
Katie used her teeth to pull at the bottom of the door. It opened just a crack. But that was enough for Katie to slip her little raccoon paw in and pull the door open a little wider. She snuck right inside.
The cabin was empty. Perfect. No one to shoo her away. It was just the snack and her.
But where was the food? Whoever had been sneaking it into the cabin was smart enough not to leave it out for all to see.
Katie padded around the cabin for a moment, sniffing the air as she moved.
It wasn’t in her cubby—she already knew that. And one good sniff of Chelsea’s side of the cubby let her know there was no food in there, either—although that strawberry lip gloss sure smelled sweet.
But Katie didn’t want shiny lips. She was looking for food. And as she passed by Alicia’s cubby, she knew she’d found it.
The sweet smell of peanuts and sugar was coming through plain and clear. There was definitely some sort of candy in that cubby. It was in the bottom shelf. Perfect! Katie wouldn’t even have to climb to get it!
She reached her paw into the cubby and began to yank Alicia’s clothes out of the way. Her raccoon claws finally landed on something hard. There, hidden inside Alicia’s green-and-white Camp Cedar Hill T-shirt was a half-eaten pack of cookies.
Oh yeah! Supper time!
Quickly Katie climbed inside the shirt and took a cookie in her front paws. She opened her raccoon jaws wide. But before she could even take one bite, the
cabin door swung open.
“AHHH!” From inside her T-shirt dining room, Katie could hear Chelsea’s screams.
“That T-shirt!” Chelsea yelled. “It’s moving all by itself. It’s a ghost! The evil camper ghost! Alicia wasn’t making it up!”
Katie remembered how scared of ghosts Chelsea was. She wanted to show her that she wasn’t a ghost at all. She was just a little, hungry raccoon.
Katie struggled to climb out of the shirt. But the more she rolled and wriggled to get free, the more she got tangled in Alicia’s big camp T-shirt.
“The ghost is going crazy!” Chelsea cried out.
“Chels, calm down,” Katie heard her counselor’s voice. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
Suddenly Katie heard a loud whirring noise. Chelsea screamed again. Her hair dryer was in her left hand. A blast of hot air shot right at Katie.
“What are you doing?” Shannon shouted.
“I’m trying to blow it out of here!” Chelsea shouted.
“You’re blow-drying a ghost?” Shannon asked, amazed.
“I thought you said there were no such things as ghosts?” Chelsea demanded.
“There aren’t,” Shannon said. “I just meant that . . .”
At just that minute, Katie managed to poke her little raccoon head out of the neck of the shirt.
“AHHH!” Now it was Shannon’s turn to scream. “It’s a raccoon! I hate raccoons!”
Shannon could scream even louder than Chelsea. The loud shouts, the whirring of the hair dryer, and all that hot air were making Katie very scared. Her baby raccoon heart was beating fast. She dropped the cookie, wriggled out of the shirt, and jumped up on top of one of the beds.
“Get out! Get out!” Shannon screamed, picking up a broom and trying to shoo Katie to the door. Katie leaped out of the way of the swinging broom and scrambled across the floor, knocking over a trash can as she ran.
“Get out! Get out!” Shannon shouted again.
Katie gulped. Her counselor was swinging the broom wildly. She didn’t care if she hit Katie or not.
Of course, Shannon didn’t know she was Katie. She thought she was a raccoon. Not that that made it any better.
Katie had to get out of there, and fast! She leaped up onto a top bunk and looked for a way to escape.
There was only one way out—through the windows. But they weren’t open. And she had no time to figure out how to open the latch with her paws. So Katie escaped the only way she knew how.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. In an instant Katie had used her sharp raccoon claws to tear a hole in the screen window. A hole just big enough for a raccoon to slip through.
And in a moment Katie was free!
But Shannon was right behind her.
“Raccooooon!” she shouted out.
“Raccooooon!”
Luckily, Katie spotted the hollow log where she’d been snacking a few minutes before. She leaped into the hole and pulled her head down low.
It was cool and damp inside the log. And if Katie wasn’t mistaken, there was something crawling up and down her leg. It was gross in there. But at least she was safe.
At least for now.
A few moments later Katie heard voices outside her log.
“I’m not sure where that raccoon went, but it better not show up again,” Katie heard Shannon say.
“Yeah, it better not,” Chelsea echoed. “I’m just glad it wasn’t a ghost. But it sure disappeared like one.”
“It’s probably hiding in a tree or a hollow log,” someone answered Shannon. Katie thought she sounded like Carrie, the nature counselor. “The thing is, raccoons won’t usually go near people unless they’re sick or frightened,” Carrie explained to Shannon and Chelsea. “That’s why I always tell kids to stay away from them. If a kid gets bitten by a raccoon, it means a trip to the hospital.”
“This raccoon did seem a little crazy,” Shannon said. “It wasn’t acting like a normal raccoon.”
Katie frowned. That was for sure. Maybe because this raccoon was actually a ten-year-old girl!
“Don’t worry, I’ll catch it,” Carrie assured her. “I’ll put a little peanut butter in this trap, and sooner or later the raccoon will come out to get it.”
“You won’t hurt the raccoon, will you?” Chelsea asked her.
“Oh, no,” Carrie told her. “I wouldn’t hurt any animal. This is a humane trap. The raccoon just gets stuck in this little cage. Then I’ll take it far out in the woods.”
After a few more minutes, Katie heard footsteps moving away from the hollow log. When she was certain everyone was gone, she poked her little head out of the log.
Sure enough, the smell of peanut butter was wafting through the air. But this time Katie was too smart to go after it. She knew where the peanut butter was hidden. It was in that little cage.
She couldn’t get caught in that. After all, Katie wasn’t really a raccoon. She was a fourth-grade girl in a raccoon’s body. Suppose she was stuck in that cage when the magic wind came back to turn her into Katie again?
The real Katie would never fit in that tiny cage.
And the real Rocky wouldn’t like it very much in there, either.
Chapter 10
Katie hopped out of the log and scampered up to a branch on a nearby tree—well out of the reach of any traps or counselors. She needed time to think.
Katie knew she had to get away from there before Shannon and the kids came back. But if she ran off into the woods, she was liable to get lost.
What if she got lost in the woods forever, walking around and around in circles and never finding her way back to camp? She could be stuck here forever. She’d never see Cherrydale again.
Suddenly Katie was very homesick.
If Katie were a human she might have started to cry. But raccoons didn’t cry. They could, however, feel scared and alone. And that was exactly how Katie felt.
Just then Katie felt a cool breeze blowing on her back. Her whiskers twitched slightly. There was a change in the air.
It was actually getting kind of chilly. Now that was weird for summer. Katie leaped out of the tree and started back toward the hollow log. At least she would be warmer there.
But a log was no match for this wind. This was the magic wind. And before Katie could crawl into the hole in the log, it began blowing wildly—only around Katie! The tornado circled fiercely now. She shut her little raccoon eyes and dug her claws into the log, holding on tight—trying not to get blown out into the deep, dark woods.
And then it stopped. Just like that.
Katie Carew was back. And so was Rocky. He was standing a few feet from her, with his head up in the air.
Katie watched as he sniffed at the air for a moment and then began running toward the smell of the peanut butter.
“Rocky, no!” she shouted out. “It’s a trap!”
The sound of Katie’s voice startled Rocky. He jumped slightly and scampered up a tree—away from the trap.
Rocky was safe now. But Katie knew that wouldn’t last long. Sooner or later the smell of that yummy peanut butter would be too much for him. He would come down and try to get it. And then he would be trapped.
Katie couldn’t bear the thought of Rocky being stuck in a cage—even if it was just for a little while. Wild animals didn’t belong in cages—ever.
She glanced over at Rocky. He looked so confused, as if he had no idea what had been happening to him.
Which of course he didn’t. The people (and animals) Katie turned into never did.
But if Rocky was confused now, imagine how he would feel if Carrie took him someplace where he’d never been before. He would be lost and alone.
Maybe forever.
That wasn’t fair at all! Katie was going to have to find a way to get Rocky to a safe place where he would be happy.
But how?
This mess was too big for Katie to fix on her own. She knew that. She would need assistance.
There was only one person who
could help her: someone who wasn’t afraid of animals. Someone who liked animals almost as much as she did.
Quickly Katie ran off toward the nature shack. There wasn’t a moment to spare.
“I know we were wrong,” Katie apologized to Carrie after she explained about leaving food for Rocky.
“Yes, you were,” Carrie told her.
“But he was so tiny and all alone,” Katie said. “Like he was lost or something. We just wanted to take care of him.”
“Well, we’ll get Rocky,” Carrie said. “And I’ll take him where he’ll be safe and away from us.”
“You can’t put him in a cage,” Katie pleaded. “That would be like punishing him. He didn’t do anything wrong. Rainbow and I did.”
“We have to get him out of here, Katie,” Carrie insisted. “We have to make sure the campers stay safe.”
“There has to be another way,” Katie tried again.
Carrie thought for a minute. “Maybe there is,” she said. “Come with me.”
That evening Katie found herself hiking through the dark woods with Carrie by her side. With every few steps they took, Carrie dropped a few bits of animal feed. Much to Katie’s amazement, soon Rocky appeared and followed behind them. He stayed far away—he was very scared of people. But he was following them just the same, eating the feed as he went.
Before long there were so many big, thick trees Katie could barely see the sky. The woods were scary at night. Katie was glad she was with a grown-up. It would be terrible to be alone out here. Katie sighed. Rocky probably felt pretty lonely right now.
It was as if Carrie realized what Katie was thinking, because she said, “If we can get him far enough out into the woods, maybe he can find some other raccoons.”
“What if we can’t?” Katie asked her.
Carrie stopped short and pointed her flashlight down to the ground. The light fell on some animal tracks. The front-paw tracks were short, with five fingerlike lines. The back-paw tracks were longer and thinner. But they had fingerlike lines, too.