Who's Afraid of Fourth Grade?

by Nancy Krulik

“Hey, Katie, wait up!” Jeremy called after her.

  She stopped and turned around. “What’s up?”

  “The most exciting thing ever!” Jeremy exclaimed. “The coach said I can start in Sunday’s game.”

  “That’s so cool,” Katie said sincerely. She knew how much he’d been looking forward to being a starting player.

  “My mom said I could bring one friend to the game. Do you want to come and watch?”

  Katie was so happy. It was nice to know that she and Jeremy were still best friends even though they were in different classes. “You bet!” she said excitedly. “I’ll even bring the snacks. We learned how to make the most delicious sandwiches in last week’s cooking class!”

  “Awesome!” Jeremy replied. “We’ll pick you up at around eight-thirty. Then after the game, my parents will probably take us for ice cream.”

  “Great!” Katie said excitedly. “It’ll be just like the old days.”

  Chapter 14

  “I jump high, I jump low. Touch my shoulder, touch my toe. Spin around, jump real high. I reach straight up and grab the sky!” Emma W. leaped up as she finished her jump-rope rhyme.

  “That was great, Em,” Jessica told her.

  “Thanks,” Emma said. “Now I’ll take your end so you can jump.”

  “Okay,” Jessica said. “Then, when I miss—and I always do—I’ll take Katie’s end.”

  It was recess time on Tuesday afternoon. Katie, Emma, and Jessica were all playing jump rope together. Emma and Jessica knew lots of rhymes Katie had never heard before.

  Katie and Suzanne had always jumped rope to the same three rhymes—“Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear;” “A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea;” and “Tell Me the Name of My Sweetheart.” It was fun to learn some new ones for once.

  Jessica leaped into the turning rope and began to jump. “I went to the store for something sweet, along the way, who did I meet . . .” she began. Within seconds, she tripped over the rope. “See, I told you. I stink at this,” she groaned as she went over and took Katie’s end of the rope.

  “But you’re a great ender,” Emma assured her.

  “That’s because I get lots of practice,” Jessica joked. “I’m always on the end.” She began to turn the rope.

  “Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around,” Katie sang as she jumped. “Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground. Teddy bear . . .”

  “Hey, there’s Suzanne,” Jessica called out. She waved to her. “Suzanne, you want to jump rope?”

  Suzanne shook her head. “I was going to kick around a soccer ball,” she called back. “Why don’t you come over here and play with me? Just the two of us.”

  Jessica looked at Emma. “Sorry, gotta go,” she said, dropping the rope before Katie was finished jumping.

  Katie and Emma stared as Jessica raced off.

  “I don’t believe Suzanne!” Katie shouted angrily. “That was really mean.”

  “Jessica’s changed so much now that we’re in fourth grade,” Emma sighed sadly. “She used to be a lot of fun. She had the best ideas for things to do. Now all she does is follow Suzanne.”

  “Yeah,” Katie agreed.

  Emma turned to Katie. “So I guess you and Suzanne aren’t best friends anymore, huh?”

  Katie shrugged. She was mad at Suzanne, but she wasn’t willing to give her up as a best friend. At least not yet. They’d been friends for a long time. Besides, Katie didn’t think this was all Suzanne’s fault. “Her mom wants her to play with the kids in her new class for a while, so she can get to know them. I guess that’s what she’s doing.”

  “But that’s silly,” Emma said. “You can have new friends and still play with your old ones. It’s like this song my mom sings to Matthew and the twins. ‘Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.’ ”

  “That’s a nice song,” Katie told Emma. “It’s kind of like you, Jeremy, and me. You’re a new friend. He’s an old friend.”

  “I don’t know Jeremy very well,” Emma said. “We haven’t been in the same class in a while.”

  “Maybe one day we could all hang out at my house together,” Katie suggested. “You could bring Matthew. I bet he’d love having a big boy to play with.”

  “Wouldn’t Jeremy mind playing with a first-grader?” asked Emma.

  Katie shook her head. Jeremy was an only child, just like her. He’d love having a little kid around . . . for a while, anyway. The best part about Matthew was that after you were done playing with him, he went home with Emma. “He’d like Matthew, I’m sure.”

  Emma smiled, a little. But she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes from where Jessica and Suzanne were.

  “Come on,” Katie urged her new friend. “Let’s go ask Mandy and Emma S. if they’ll jump rope with us.”

  “Okay,” Emma said slowly.

  “It’ll be fun,” Katie assured her. “Class 4A girls rule!”

  Chapter 15

  When Katie got to school the following Monday, there was a big surprise waiting for class 4A. There was a large glass cage on the table in the back of her classroom. They had a class pet!

  Or did they?

  The thing inside the cage wasn’t exactly a pet. At least not yet.

  “It’s an egg,” Kevin announced to everyone.

  “A weird-looking egg,” George added.

  George was right. Something about this egg looked different—but no one could quite explain why.

  “What type of egg is it?” Emma S. asked Mr. G.

  “You’ll have to wait and see,” Mr. Guthrie replied.

  “I wonder what kind of bird’s gonna hatch out of an egg like that,” Kadeem muttered. “Probably a cuckoo bird.”

  “The cuckoo bird has been extinct for thousands of years,” Mandy reminded him.

  “No, it hasn’t,” Kadeem replied. “George is still here.”

  George turned red in the face. He opened his mouth to speak, but Mr. Guthrie placed a calming hand on his shoulder.

  “Save it,” Mr. G. told him. “We’ll schedule a joke-off for this afternoon. You can get him then.”

  George nodded and smiled at Kadeem.

  Katie might have been disappointed about her class pet being an egg, but she was still excited that it was Monday. Monday was band day. At her private clarinet lesson on Saturday, Katie’s teacher had taught her two new songs! She couldn’t wait to play them for Mr. Starkey.

  But it turned out Mr. Starkey wasn’t interested in new songs. He was still working on “Hot Cross Buns.”

  “Okay, everyone, instruments up,” the band teacher said in his mild-mannered voice. “Begin.”

  Hot cross buns. Hot cross buns. One a penny. Two a penny. Hot cross buns.

  The band sounded a little better than the week before. Strange noises were still coming from George’s tuba, and it sometimes sounded like there was a mouse running around in Kevin’s trumpet. But you could tell that the song was “Hot Cross Buns.” At least Kadeem was able to keep the slide on his trombone this time.

  “Okay, that was much better,” Mr. Starkey assured them. “Let’s try it again.”

  Katie raised her hand.

  “Yes, Clarinet?” Mr. Starkey was calling the kids by their instruments until he could memorize everyone’s real name.

  “Aren’t we going to play any other songs today? I learned ‘Go Tell Aunt Rhodie’ and ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ at my private lesson this past Saturday.”

  “That’s very nice,” Mr. Starkey complimented her. “But we’re working on ‘Hot Cross Buns’ as a band.”

  “But I . . .”

  Mr. Starkey shook his head. “There’s no ‘I’ in band,” he replied calmly. “We work as a team. The team has to get this song right before it can move on.”

  Katie frowned. She was getting really sick of “Hot Cross Buns.”

  Suzanne was waiting for Katie on the playground after school. “You want to have a playdate?” she suggested. “Maybe we could go to your house and play jump rope
or something.”

  “Sure!” Katie looked around. “Where’s Jessica?”

  “Dentist’s appointment,” Suzanne told her.

  Katie frowned. “So I was your second choice?”

  Suzanne shook her head hard. “I didn’t want to play with her today. My mom said it was okay for me to play with my old friends now. I’ve missed you.”

  “Well, you haven’t been acting that way,” Katie told her.

  Suzanne looked down, embarrassed. “I guess I’ve been kind of mean to you lately.”

  “More than kind of,” Katie corrected her. “The only person you talk to is Jessica.”

  “Well, you and Emma W. are real close now, too, you know,” Suzanne replied. She sounded jealous.

  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to play with you too,” Katie replied.

  “I guess.” Suzanne shook her head sadly. “Things have just been so weird for me this year. You and I aren’t in the same class. There’s so much more homework. The classwork is a lot harder. I’ve been kind of scared.” She frowned. “But I guess it wasn’t right of me to let it all out on you.”

  “Everyone has been nervous,” Katie assured Suzanne.

  “Not you. You made a new friend. You got used to your class right away. You seem happy.”

  “I’m happy now. But it took a few weeks for me to get comfortable. It would have been easier for me if you and I had played together at recess sometimes. Maybe it would have been easier for you too.”

  “I guess so. I acted pretty dumb. Will you still be my friend?” Suzanne asked nervously.

  Katie smiled. “I never stopped,” she assured her.

  “Katie, you’re the best. I sure wish you were in my class.”

  Katie smiled. She was glad Suzanne had said that. Finally.

  “You’d like it in 4B. Ms. Sweet’s just like her name,” Suzanne told her. “She’s not at all strict like Mrs. Derkman. Today she gave us candy chicks for snack. They were yummy.”

  “I’ll bet,” Katie agreed. “We had cheese and crackers.”

  “Well, that’s nutritious, anyway,” Suzanne said.

  “The worms and mud were better,” Katie told her.

  Suzanne laughed. She’d heard all about that. “You guys do some weird things in there.”

  “I’ll say,” Katie agreed. “You should see the strange thing we got for a class pet.”

  “Ooh, we got our class pet today too,” Suzanne said excitedly, not waiting to hear what Katie’s class pet was. “She’s the sweetest guinea pig. She’s got fuzzy brown and white fur that sticks up all over the place. I wanted to call her Coco Chanel, but the class voted for Fluffy. It’s an okay name, I guess.”

  “We got an egg,” Katie replied. “We’re going to watch it hatch.”

  “What’s inside?”

  “Mr. G. says it’s a surprise.”

  “Oh.” Suzanne shrugged. “Anyway, at free time we built a playground for Fluffy with blocks and let her run around in it. She had a good time climbing up and down on the stairs, and crossing over this amazing bridge that Manny built.”

  Katie didn’t know what to say to that. Their class egg didn’t do anything but lay there.

  “So what are you going to wear to the all-school picnic this year?” Suzanne asked, changing the subject. “I think I’m going to wear my new dark green corduroy jeans and my white shirt with the sequin trim. Maybe we can go together. Like last year.”

  Katie had almost forgotten about the all-school picnic. It was the one afternoon when the elementary school kids and their families could get together with the teachers and not think about school.

  “Sure. We can go together. But I haven’t thought about what I’m going to wear yet,” Katie admitted. “I’ve been too busy with homework, cooking class, and band.”

  “How’s band?” Suzanne asked her.

  “It’s kind of dull. Mr. Starkey does the same song over and over again.”

  “I thought you really wanted to play the clarinet.”

  “Oh, I like the clarinet. I just don’t like band,” Katie explained. “Mr. Starkey is sooooo boring. He doesn’t let us try anything new. He just stands there in the front of the room waving his arms up and down. He’s not even like a real teacher. He’s got the easiest job in the whole school.”

  Suzanne glanced over Katie’s shoulder. A funny look came over her face. “Uh, Katie,” she whispered quietly.

  “What?”

  “Don’t turn around.”

  Of course, that made Katie turn around real fast.

  Oh, no! Mr. Starkey was standing behind her. Not close behind her, but probably near enough to hear what Katie had been saying. Katie had been talking pretty loud.

  The teacher had a frown on his face. But he didn’t yell at Katie. In fact, all he said was, “Have a good week, Clarinet. Don’t forget to practice.”

  As Mr. Starkey walked away, Katie scowled. “I HATE MONDAYS!” she moaned.

  Chapter 16

  Katie may have hated Mondays, but she couldn’t stop them from coming. Before she knew it, it was time for another boring beginning band rehearsal. YUCK!

  Katie walked into the band room and put her music book on the stand. Then she placed a fresh reed in her clarinet.

  Katie looked around to see who else was in class. She saw Becky and Jeremy walk into the room.

  “It was so cute the way you made that little soccer ball for Fluffy,” Becky said to Jeremy. “I loved watching her push it around her cage with her nose.”

  “She’d make a great offensive player,” Jeremy agreed. “On a guinea pig team, anyway.”

  Katie sighed. The kids in 4B were having such a good time with their class pet. The egg in Katie’s classroom didn’t look any closer to hatching than it had the week before.

  “Hey, Katie, you want to come over and hang out after school today? My drum lesson isn’t until six o’clock. That gives us plenty of time to play,” Jeremy asked.

  Katie opened her mouth to answer, but shut it just as Mr. Starkey entered the room. Katie figured her music teacher was probably upset enough with her because of what she’d said last week. Katie didn’t want to make him any madder by talking during class.

  Mr. Starkey opened his briefcase and frowned. He shook his head slightly, opened his desk drawer, and looked inside. “I think I left my conductor’s baton in the teachers’ lounge,” he told the class. “Clarinet, will you go get it? I believe it’s on the counter next to the coffee machine.”

  Katie nodded. She put down her clarinet and walked out of the class. As she left the room, she heard Mr. Starkey say, “Okay, everybody. Open your books to ‘Hot Cross Buns.’ ”

  Katie knocked gently on the door to the teachers’ lounge. There was no answer. All the teachers were in their classrooms, teaching. She opened the door and walked inside.

  Katie had never been in the teachers’ lounge before. It was nothing like she’d expected. It looked sort of like a living room. There was a big cloth couch, as well as a few comfortable chairs set around a big wooden table.

  The coffeemaker was near the back of the room. Sure enough, Mr. Starkey’s black-and-white conducting baton was sitting beside it. Katie reached for the baton.

  But before she could lay a hand on it, a powerful wind began to blow all around Katie. This time, it hadn’t started as a cool breeze, or a gentle draft, but she knew exactly what kind of wind it was.

  The magic wind!

  The powerful tornado swirled wildly around Katie, whipping her red hair in her eyes, and lifting her skirt high in the air. Katie was really glad she’d worn shorts under her skirt for gym class today.

  The wind was so intense, Katie was sure it was going to blow her away. Far away. Like to another country or something. 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.

  Chapter 17

  Slowly, Katie opened her eyes. She stood up
and looked around. She was in the school hallway, just outside the band room. The magic wind hadn’t blown her very far, after all.

  But who was she? Her hands were large and hairy, with blisters on the insides of her palms. Yuck!

  Her shoes were definitely men’s brown loafers. She was also wearing a men’s button-down shirt and slacks. Okay, so she was a man. But which man?

  Nervously, Katie looked at her reflection in the window in the band room door. A familiar face peered back at her. The face had blue eyes, neatly cropped blond hair, and a small hole in the left ear. Katie had turned into Mr. Starkey! And Mr. Starkey had a pierced ear. How wild was that?

  Ugh. Earring or no earring, she’d still turned into her music teacher. Now she’d have to hear “Hot Cross Buns” for the rest of the school day.

  Or would she?

  Katie was Mr. Starkey now. She could ask the band to play any song she wanted. Katie smiled excitedly as she walked back into the band room.

  “Okay, everyone, turn to page eight,” Katie told the beginning band. “We’re going to play ‘Yankee Doodle.’ ”

  The kids all turned the pages in their books. Katie raised her hands in the air and got ready to conduct the band.

  “Mr. Starkey,” Miriam interrupted. “What’s this weird symbol doing next to this note?”

  “That’s a B-flat,” Katie told him. “My teacher taught me about flats and . . .”

  “Your what?” Kadeem asked.

  Oops. Katie was a teacher now. She’d almost forgotten. “I mean, didn’t your saxophone teacher show you that?”

  Miriam shook her head. “We’re not up to page eight yet. I’m still working on ‘Go Tell Aunt Rhodie.’ How do you play a B-flat on a sax?”

  “Can you show me how to play it on my flute too?” Emma W. asked him. “I had to skip my lesson last week because of a doctor’s appointment.”

  Katie frowned. She had no idea how to play a B-flat on a saxophone, flute, or any of the other beginning band instruments, except for the clarinet.