Free Friends for Never by Nancy Krulik Page B

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