Free Friends for Never by Nancy Krulik

Chapter 1
    “Yodel-ay-hee-hoo!” Katie Carew shouted. “Yodel-ay-hee-hoo!”
    “That was perfect!” her teacher, Mr. Guthrie, congratulated her. “You sounded like a real native of Switzerland.”
    Katie blushed. She wasn’t usually the type of kid to yodel in front of her whole class. But that was the kind of thing you did when you were in Mr. Guthrie’s fourth-grade class.
    Mr. Guthrie wasn’t a typical teacher. He did things his own way.
    Like now. The kids were studying world geography. But rather than just reading about Switzerland, the kids in class 4A were standing on a hill in the field behind the school, practicing yodeling. The hill was the closest thing the elementary school had to the mountains of Switzerland. Mr. Guthrie called it the Cherrydale Alps.
    “Who’s next?” Mr. Guthrie asked.
    “Oh, oh, oh!” Kadeem Carter raised his hand really high. “My turn! Please, Mr. G.!”
    Mr. Guthrie laughed. “Okay, Kadeem, let’s hear your best yodel.”
    “YODEL-AY-HE-HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
    Katie covered her ears. So did a lot of the other kids. Kadeem was really loud.
    Mr. Guthrie smiled. “That was definitely the yodel to beat all yodels.”
    Kadeem bowed to the class. “Thank you, thank you!” he said.
    Katie rolled her eyes. Kadeem was always joking around.
    “Okay, since nothing’s going to top that, let’s head back into the building,” Mr. Guthrie said. “We have just enough time before lunch to take a surprise math quiz.”

    “Ugh,” the kids groaned. They hated surprise quizzes.
    Katie sighed. Sometimes Mr. Guthrie could be just like any other teacher.

    Katie walked into her classroom, plopped down into her beanbag, and got ready to take the quiz. The kids in 4A all sat in beanbag chairs. Mr. Guthrie thought kids learned better when they were comfortable.
    The kids were very proud of their beanbags. They spent a lot of time decorating them. The decorations reflected what the class was learning about.
    When the class had been studying birds, the kids had all turned the beanbags into giant nests. When they had been learning about American history, the kids had used construction paper, glue, and cardboard to create historical scenes on their beanbags.
    Right now, class 4A’s world geography unit was Europe. Katie had used black pipe cleaners to build the Eiffel Tower from France on her beanbag. Her pal Emma Weber had constructed the London Bridge out of cardboard.
    Emma Stavros had decorated her beanbag with pictures of funny-looking trolls from Norway.
    Andrew Epstein’s beanbag was the scariest one. He’d used cardboard and black construction paper to build a dark castle. His beanbag was supposed to be Dracula’s home in Romania. There was even a picture of a vampire on the top of the castle.
    George Brennan’s beanbag was really goofy. He’d used lots of Styrofoam cups to build Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa. In real life, that tower tilted a little to one side. On George’s beanbag, the tower leaned so far over, it hit the floor. He was constantly gluing the cups back together.
    Kadeem had a funny beanbag, too. He’d used brown cloth pillowcases stuffed with cotton to make a giant hot-dog bun around his red beanbag. He said it was a German frankfurter.
    “Hey, Kadeem and Andrew,” George called out. “You guys know what Dracula’s favorite snack is?”
    Kadeem shook his head.
    “A fang-furter!” George said. He laughed at his own joke.
    Kadeem couldn’t let George be the only funny one. “What do you call a slice of dessert in Italy?” he asked.
    “What?” George wondered.
    “A pizza pie!”
    Katie giggled. She really liked when George and Kadeem tried to out-joke each other. Mr. Guthrie called it having a joke-off.
    “Wow,” Mr. Guthrie exclaimed. “It’s an international joke-off! Those were good ones, guys.”
    “Good enough to get us out of that math quiz?” George asked hopefully.
    “Not a chance.”
    As Mr. Guthrie went to his filing cabinet to get the