I Hate Rules! (3 page)

“I don’t know.”

George smiled. “The end you don’t eat!”

Katie scowled.

“Come on! That one was funny,” George said.

Katie shook her head. There was no way she was going to laugh at any of George’s jokes today. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing math?” she asked before he could tell her another one.

“Oh yeah,” George replied. He looked around the table. “I guess I forgot my math book.”

Katie couldn’t believe it. “You’d better get that book. Mrs. Derkman will really be mad if you don’t do the homework,” Katie warned.

George couldn’t argue with that. “I’ll be right back!” Quickly he dashed out of the cafeteria and ran toward room 3A.

Now Katie was all alone. She looked up at the clock on the wall. There were still fifteen minutes of recess to go.

Just then, Katie felt a warm breeze nip at the back of her neck.
Uh-oh!
Mrs. Derkman must be coming back inside. She was going to be really mad that George had left.

Katie turned quickly toward the door. Mrs. Derkman wasn’t there. In fact, the door was closed. But the wind was still blowing on the back of Katie’s neck. And it wasn’t blowing anywhere else in the room.

Katie gulped. She knew what that meant. This was no ordinary wind. This was the magic wind!

The magic wind began spinning faster and faster all around Katie. Her red hair whipped wildly around her head. She shut her eyes tightly, and tried not to cry. As the fierce tornado swirled, she held on to the table and struggled to keep her feet on the floor.

And then it stopped. Just like that. No warning. But Katie wasn’t surprised. The magic wind
never
gave any warning. It didn’t follow any rules.

Katie was glad that the tornado was over. But she was also very afraid. After all, whenever the wind stopped blowing, Katie turned into someone else.

Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked around. Right across from her was the huge mural she and her friends had painted on the cafeteria wall. It was a picture of unicorns riding skateboards over a rainbow.

Okay, so now she knew where she was. But she still didn’t know
who
she was.

Katie looked at the tables and chairs in the cafeteria. They suddenly seemed small to her. She glanced down at her hands. They were really big . . . and kind of hairy! Yuck! the nails were all chewed down.

Before Katie could figure it out, George came racing back into the cafeteria. “Hey, Katie Kazoo . . . he began. Then he looked around, surprised. He didn’t see his friend anywhere.

“Hi, Mr. Kane,” he said. “Where did Katie go?”

Mr. Kane? Was it possible? Had the magic wind actually turned Katie into the school principal?

Katie looked down. Instead of her T-shirt with the heart on it, she was wearing a white shirt and a navy blue striped tie. Her skirt was gone, too. A pair of gray wool slacks was in its place.

Katie reached up and touched her head. There was a big bald spot where her hair used to be. And when she opened her mouth to speak, a man’s deep voice came out. “Katie? I . . . um . . . well . . . I don’t know where she is,” she told George.

“You mean she skipped out on her punishment?” George sounded impressed.

“I’d better go find her,” Katie said quickly. She ran out of the cafeteria and into the hall.

The hallway was very noisy. The kids were coming back inside from recess.

“Hey, Mr. Kane,” a fifth-grader named Sam greeted her.

“Hello,” Katie said in her deep voice.

“Excuse me, Mr. Kane.” Ms. Lobel, a kindergarten teacher, stopped Katie. “Do we still have that faculty meeting after school?”

Katie didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know anything about faculty meetings. “I . . . uh . . . I’ll have to check,” she said quickly.

Before she could take another step, Mr. Bloom, a second-grade teacher, came up to her. “Mr. Kane, were you able to look at my supply request form yet?”

“Supply request form?” Katie asked him. She’d never heard of one of those.

Mr. Bloom looked upset. “I really need those extra notebooks,” he said.

“I guess you should get them, then,” Katie told him nervously.

“You have to sign the form,” Mr. Bloom reminded her. “I’ll come by for it later.”

Katie knew she had to get out of the hallway before she bumped into anyone else. Everyone thought she was Mr. Kane. They expected her to act like a real principal. But Katie had absolutely no idea what a real principal did.

Katie needed a place to hide until the magic wind came and turned her back into herself. But where could she go?

Just then, Mrs. Davidson, the school secretary, poked her head out of the office. “Mr. Kane,” she said, “I left your messages on your desk.”

That was it! Katie could hide out in Mr. Kane’s office. After all, she
was
the principal.

“Um, thank you,” Katie said, trying to sound very principal-like. “I’ll get them now.” She dashed into Mr. Kane’s office and shut the door.

Katie sat down behind Mr. Kane’s big wooden desk and breathed a sigh of relief. At least no one could get to her in here.

She looked around the office. There were crowded bookshelves and stacks of paper everywhere. It looked kind of like Katie’s dad’s office, except Mr. Kane had wind-up toys on the windowsill, and there was a glass jar filled with chocolates on his desk.

Katie took one of the candies and popped it in her mouth. She leaned back in Mr. Kane’s big leather chair and let the chocolate melt on her tongue. This wasn’t so bad. She had plenty of snacks to eat, and toys to play with. As long as she stayed in Mr. Kane’s office, she couldn’t get into any trouble.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Katie was actually going to be in
a lot
of trouble—as soon as Mrs. Derkman noticed that she wasn’t in class. Katie didn’t know what the punishment was for that, but she bet it was pretty bad. She
was
breaking a really big rule.

Now Katie was really worried. What if Mrs. Derkman called her mother? What if she called the police? How would Katie ever be able to explain what had happened to her?

Just then, Katie heard Mrs. Davidson’s voice come over the loudspeaker. “All students should be in class now.”

That gave Katie a great idea. She knew how to make sure she wasn’t breaking any rules. Quickly, she leaped up from the chair and ran to the outer office.

“I need to say something,” Katie told Mrs. Davidson as she grabbed for the microphone.

“This is Mr. Kane,” Katie announced. “From now on, there is one rule in Cherrydale Elementary School. And that rule is . . .
there are no rules!
”

At first, the whole school was completely silent. It was as if no one could believe what they had just heard. Then, suddenly, the classroom doors burst open. Kids raced into the halls.

“We’re free!” a small girl with pigtails screamed out.

“Last one on the playground is a rotten egg!” yelled a tall, skinny second-grader.

“No rules, rules! No rules, rules! No rules, rules!” a group of fourth-graders chanted as they ran down the hall.

As Katie peeked out of the school office, a crowd of fifth-grade girls spotted her. “Wow. It’s Mr. Kane!” they squealed. “Thank you! Thank you!”

The students were treating Katie like some sort of rock star. As she strolled down the halls of the school, kids of all ages high-fived her. Some ran over to hug her. Katie smiled proudly. She was a hero.

Well, at least the
kids
thought she was a hero. The teachers had a different idea.

“Class 3A, come back here right now!” Mrs. Derkman shouted as her students streamed into the hallway. “It’s not recess!”

But the kids didn’t come back. Why should they? There was no rule that said they had to be in class.

“Mr. Kane!” Mrs. Derkman called out.

At first Katie jumped. Mrs. Derkman’s angry voice scared her. Then Katie remembered.
She
was the principal. That made her Mrs. Derkman’s boss.

Katie liked that idea a lot.

“Yes, Mrs. Derkman?” Katie answered. She tried to sound very official.

“What’s going on here?” Mrs. Derkman asked. “My class is going crazy.”

“Relax,” Katie told the teacher. “They’re just having fun.”

Before Mrs. Derkman could answer, a huge group of sixth-graders came running by at top speed. They were going so fast, they didn’t even see Mrs. Derkman standing in their path.
Whoosh
. The teacher was swept away with the crowd.

“We’ll talk about this later, Mr. Kane,” Mrs. Derkman shouted as the sixth-grade mob pushed her down the hall.

Katie chuckled as she walked into the cafeteria. She peeked her head into the room. George was still the only kid there. But he wasn’t struggling with math homework anymore. He was eating chocolate cake. Lots of chocolate cake.