Friends for Never (2 page)

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Authors: Nancy Krulik

BOOK: Friends for Never
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“Hi, you guys,” Katie said as she approached Suzanne and Jessica. “Wanna jump rope with Emma W., Mandy, and me?”
Suzanne sighed. “Jump rope?” she asked. “Are you kidding?”
Katie seemed surprised. “Kidding?”
“We don’t do that kind of stuff,” Suzanne declared. Jessica nodded in agreement.
“But you jumped rope all the time last year,” Katie reminded Suzanne.
“Exactly,” Suzanne replied. “In third grade. But we’re in fourth grade now. Jumping rope is for babies.”
“Oh,” Katie said. She felt embarrassed. She hadn’t thought of it that way. “So what are you guys going to do?”
“Just hang out here and talk,” Suzanne replied.
Katie frowned. She had to get back to where Emma and Mandy were waiting for her. They needed at least three people to play jump rope. “I don’t really have time to talk,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Suzanne replied. “Our conversation is private anyway.”
Katie couldn’t believe it! Suzanne,
her best friend,
was telling her to go away. She glared at Suzanne.
“Don’t look so angry,” Suzanne told her. “It’s not about you. It’s about my modeling class.”
“What’s so private about that?” Katie asked her. “Everyone knows you’re taking a modeling class.”
“Yes, but she’s my new assistant.” Suzanne pointed to Jessica.
“Your
what?”
“I’m going to need an assistant when I’m a famous model,” Suzanne explained to Katie. “So I have to teach her all about modeling stuff. That’s what we’re talking about. We’ve started a modeling club.”
“What kind of stuff do you do in a modeling club?” Katie asked.
“Oh, you know, talk about new hairstyles and lip glosses.” Suzanne stuck out her bottom lip. “I’m wearing grape gloss with glitter.”
“Oh, I thought you ate a purple Popsicle at lunch,” Katie said.
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “That’s why you’re not my assistant,” she said.
“That was really mean, Suzanne,” Katie replied.
Suzanne paused for a moment. “Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you . . .” she began.
“Tell me what?”
“My name’s not Suzanne anymore.”
Katie stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“Suzanne is too plain a name for someone like me. So I gave myself a new one. Now my name is Ocean. That’s
much
more sophisticated.”
Katie started to laugh. Suzanne had done some pretty weird things, but this was one of the weirdest! She looked over at Jessica. “What’s your name? Sand?”
“Her name is
River,”
Suzanne said. “I came up with it.”
Jessica nodded. “Now we’re Ocean and River.”
“Water names, get it?” Suzanne added.
Katie looked at Ocean and River. They were in the same class. They’d given themselves new names. And they were in a club together—a club they had not asked Katie to join! They were acting like . . .
best friends!
Katie knew she should get back to Mandy and Emma, but she didn’t want to be left out by Suzanne and Jessica either. “Do you think I should get a new name, too?” she asked. “I could be Sea or Waterfall or something.”
Suzanne shook her head. “Plain old Katie fits you just fine.
You
don’t need a sophisticated name.”
Katie wasn’t jealous anymore. Now she was just mad. “I’m not plain!” she exclaimed. “I’m as sophisticated as you are!”
Suzanne looked at Katie’s red high-top sneakers and jeans. Then she studied her own black-and-white cowboy boots and short denim skirt. “Oh, Katie,” she said. “Don’t be silly. You’re not sophisticated. You’re just Katie.”
Katie scowled.
“All the people in class 4A are pretty much like you,” Suzanne continued. “You fit in just fine there. So it’s okay.”
Katie turned on her heels and stormed off. She wasn’t going to talk to Suzanne about this anymore.
It wasn’t okay.
Not at all!
Chapter 3
That afternoon, Katie walked home from school all by herself. Emma W. had to help her mother take her little brothers for hair-cuts. Jeremy had a drum lesson. And
Ocean
was hanging out with River.
Katie felt really alone. She started to think about how things were in third grade—
back when she and Suzanne did things together.
“I wish . . .” she began. Then she stopped herself, quick. Katie knew better than to wish for things. Wishes sometimes came true. And that could cause big problems.
It had all started one day at the beginning of third grade. Katie had lost the football game for her team, ruined her favorite pair of pants, and let out a big burp in front of the whole class. It was the worst day of Katie’s life. That night, Katie had wished she could be anyone but herself.
There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made that wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.
The magic wind felt like a wild tornado. But this wind blew just around Katie. It was so powerful that every time it came, it turned her into somebody else! Katie never knew when the wind would arrive. But whenever it did, her whole world was turned upside down ... switcheroo!
The first time the magic wind came, it had turned Katie into Speedy, class 3A’s hamster! That morning, Katie had escaped from the hamster cage and wound up in the boys’ locker room! Luckily, Katie switched back into herself before any of the boys could tell she was running around wearing nothing but Speedy’s fur coat.
The magic wind came back again and again after that. It had turned her into Lucille the lunch lady, Principal Kane, and even Katie’s third-grade teacher, mean old Mrs. Derkman! One time, the wind switcherooed Katie into her science camp counselor, Genie the Meanie. That time, she’d gotten all her friends lost in the woods!
The wind had also changed Katie into other kids—like Emma W. and Suzanne’s baby sister, Heather. One time, the wind had switcherooed her into Jeremy, and Katie had started a huge fight between all the girls and boys in her grade.
Another time, the magic wind had turned Katie into her very own dog, Pepper. She’d gotten into an argument with a squirrel and destroyed her next-door neighbor’s garden. Considering the fact that Katie’s next-door neighbor was Mrs. Derkman, it had been really awful.
Katie never knew who the magic wind was going to change her into next. But she did know one thing. She wasn’t ever going to make another wish, ever again. Wishes didn’t always turn out the way you expected them to.
Chapter 4
The next morning, when Katie got to school, she spotted Suzanne walking back and forth in front of a tree. Her back was really straight and her neck was stretched up long, like a swan’s. She looked kind of weird.
At first, Katie didn’t want to go over and talk to Suzanne. She was still kind of mad at her about the day before.
Then she thought about it for a moment. She and Suzanne had been in fights before. But they always made up. Katie was pretty sure that Suzanne would be sorry about how she’d treated her yesterday. She would surely ask her to join the modeling club today.
Katie decided to give Suzanne another chance. That was the kind of thing best friends did for each other.
“Hi, Suzanne,” Katie greeted her.
“Ocean,”
Suzanne reminded Katie.
“Oh, yeah. Ocean. Hi.”
“Hi.” Suzanne kept on walking back and forth.
“What are you doing?”
“Practicing walking.”
Katie looked at her strangely. “You’ve been walking since you were two.”
Suzanne rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’m practicing walking on a runway, Katie,” she explained. “I have a big modeling show coming up, remember?”
Katie nodded. “I think you walk really nicely,” she assured Suzanne.
Suzanne frowned.
“Nicely
isn’t good enough. I have to be perfect. I want to be the model everyone remembers!”
At just that moment, Emma Stavros came running over to the girls. She was wearing a huge silver medal around her neck.
“Wow! Where’d you get that?” Katie asked. She was really impressed.
“At the ice-skating competitions yesterday. I took second place in figure skating!” Emma sounded really proud of herself.
Suzanne stopped walking and looked at Emma. “Only
second
place,” Suzanne sniffed.
“Well, the first-place winner was a
sixth-
grader,” Emma said with a shrug.
“Second place is awesome,” Katie assured her. “And your medal is so cool! I’ve never seen one that big!”
“Thanks,” Emma said with a smile. “Oh, look, there’s Mandy. I’ve got to show it to her!”
“What a show-off,” Suzanne said as Emma raced off toward Mandy.
Katie tried really hard not to laugh. Imagine Suzanne calling someone
else
a show-off. “She’s just proud. She should be. That’s an amazing medal.”
“It’s tacky and ugly,” Suzanne argued.
“That’s what you say,” Katie told her.
“I
think it’s really cool.”

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