No Bones About It
Authors: Nancy Krulik
Table of Contents
For Mandy and Ian,
great kids, no bones about it!—N.K.
great kids, no bones about it!—N.K.
To Ron and Kellie,
light box builders extraordinaire!—J&W
light box builders extraordinaire!—J&W
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via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and
punishable by law. Please purchase only electronic editions and do not
participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
John and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a
division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York,
New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group
(USA) Inc. S.A.
division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York,
New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group
(USA) Inc. S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
eISBN : 978-1-101-09917-9
ABCDEFGHIJ
Chapter 1
“Ouch!” Katie Carew shouted. She turned around and stared at Kevin Camilleri. “Stop kicking the seat!”
Kevin grinned at Katie. “I didn’t do it. George did.”
George Brennan was sitting next to Kevin on the school bus. The kids in class 3A were on their way to the Cherrydale Museum of Natural History for a field trip.
“It wasn’t me,” George assured Katie.
“It must have been a ghost,” Kevin joked.
Katie sighed. “I don’t care who it was. Just stop kicking.”
As Katie turned back around in her seat, one of her best friends, Suzanne Lock, let out a yelp.
“George, keep your disgusting hands off my ponytail!” she shouted. “It took me hours to get it right. You’re going to ruin it.”
“You mean you
meant
for it to look like that?” George asked.
meant
for it to look like that?” George asked.
Suzanne looked at Katie. “Boys!” she huffed. “They’re all pains in the neck.”
“Jeremy’s not a pain,” Katie pointed out.
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “He’s
your
friend, Katie. Not mine.”
your
friend, Katie. Not mine.”
It was true. Jeremy Fox was Katie’s other best friend. But he and Suzanne did not get along at all.
Katie looked across the aisle. Jeremy was sitting next to Manny Gonzalez. They were making bunny ears over Becky Stern’s head. Katie was glad Suzanne didn’t see them. It would only prove her point.
“Hey, Jeremy! Manny! Watch this,” George called out. He stuck his tongue out at a car that was passing by.
“How about this?” Manny said. He squashed his nose and mouth up against the bus window.
“You guys better stop that,” Katie warned them. “If Mrs. Derkman catches you, you’ll be in big trouble!”
“She’s all the way in the front of the bus,” George said. He looked out the window and stuck his tongue out again as another car drove by.
Jeremy held up a camera. “Hey, George, say cheese.”
George made a funny face as Jeremy snapped a photo.
“What was that for?” George asked him.
“I’m taking pictures of our field trip for the
Class 3A Times
,” Jeremy explained. He was editor of the class newspaper.
Class 3A Times
,” Jeremy explained. He was editor of the class newspaper.
“Cool, how about this one?” George asked. He stood up and held his ears straight out as a car passed by.
“Mrs. Derkman will be really mad,” Katie reminded them.
George sighed. “Katie Kazoo, you’re a goodie-goodie!” he exclaimed.
“I am not!” she insisted.
“You are, too,” George told her. “You never get in trouble. You never do anything wrong. You’re a goodie-goodie.”
“Goodie-goodie,” Kevin repeated. “Katie is a goodie-goodie.”
“Katie is a goodie-goodie,” Manny joined in. “Katie is a goodie-goodie.”
The boys’ chanting grew louder and louder. Katie’s face got redder and redder. She was mad. And she was hurt, too. After all, Katie and George were friends. She’d been the first one to be nice to him when he was the new kid at school. And George was the one who had given Katie her way-cool nickname, Katie Kazoo.
But George sure wasn’t treating Katie like a friend right now. He kept on singing, “Katie is a goodie-goodie, Katie is a goodie-goodie.”
“That’s enough!” Mrs. Derkman shouted from the front of the bus.
The boys quieted down right away.
“It’s almost the end of the school year. By now, I would expect you to know how to act on a field trip. If you children cannot behave, I will ask Mr. Bloom to turn this bus around right now. We can go back to school and have a math test instead of a field trip,” Mrs. Derkman warned.
Suzanne looked at Katie. “See, I told you boys were rotten!”
“George was mean. And he was wrong. I’m not a goodie-goodie,” assured Katie.
“Well . . .” Suzanne said slowly. “Not all the time, anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Katie asked her.
“Nothing,” Suzanne said. “It’s just that you hardly ever get in trouble.”
“I do, too,” Katie insisted.
“When?”
“There was that time Mrs. Derkman read our note out loud,” Katie said. “We got in trouble then.”
“That was months ago,” Suzanne reminded her. “And I was the one who sent the note in the first place. You were just answering me.”
“How about the time Mr. Kane caught me with a cell phone?”
Suzanne laughed. “Me again. It was
my
cell phone, remember? I brought it to school. You were just holding it when Mr. Kane walked into the cafeteria.”
my
cell phone, remember? I brought it to school. You were just holding it when Mr. Kane walked into the cafeteria.”
Katie looked across the aisle at Jeremy. “You don’t think I’m a goodie-goodie, do you?”
Jeremy didn’t answer.
“Jeremy,”
Katie insisted.
Katie insisted.
“It’s okay to be a goodie-goodie,” Jeremy said finally. “Everybody has to be something. George is funny. Kevin is the Tomato Man. I’m good at sports . . .”
“I’m fashionable,” Suzanne added. “Mandy’s really smart. Zoe’s an artist . . .”
“And you’re a goodie-goodie,” Jeremy finished. “It’s just who you are.”
“We like you anyway,” Suzanne said.
Katie frowned. Somehow, that didn’t make her feel any better.
Chapter 2
As the bus rolled along, Katie stared out the window. She tried not to think about what her friends had said. But she couldn’t help it. Especially since George and Kevin kept whispering, “Goodie-goodie, goodie-goodie,” into her ear.
Katie wanted to ask Mrs. Derkman to make them stop. But telling on the boys would only make her seem like more of a goodie-goodie.
The truth was, George couldn’t be more wrong. Katie had actually gotten into trouble lately. Lots of trouble.
In the past few months, Katie had wound up in the boys’ locker room, started a food fight in the cafeteria, and completely ruined Becky’s report on Cleopatra. She’d also wrecked part of Mrs. Derkman’s prized garden. George would have loved to have seen that!
But none of Katie’s friends knew about the trouble she had gotten into.
How could they?
All those things had happened when Katie had magically turned into someone else. But Katie couldn’t tell her friends that. They never would believe her. Katie wouldn’t believe it either, if it hadn’t happened to her.
But it really did happen. Katie Carew turned into other people . . . a lot!
It all started one day at the beginning of the school year. 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.
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