Free No Biz Like Show Biz by Nancy Krulik

Chapter 1
    “Ma may mi mo moo!” Suzanne sang out as she stood in the middle of Katie Carew’s kitchen.
    It was Thursday afternoon. Suzanne and some of the other fourth-grade kids had come over after school. They were going to bake cookies with Katie’s mom. Everyone knew Mrs. Carew baked the most delicious cookies in Cherrydale.
    “Ma may mi mo moo!” Suzanne sang again, louder this time.
    “What weird language is that?” Jeremy asked Suzanne.
    “Jeremy, you don’t know anything,” Suzanne said, tossing her long brown hair behind her shoulder.
    “I know one thing. You sound terrible!” Jeremy clapped his hands over his ears.

    “Come on you guys, stop it,” Katie said with a sigh. She really hated it when her two best friends fought. “We’re here to bake sugar cookies with my mom.”
    “Exactly,” Miriam Chan agreed.
    “We should get started. We have to bake enough for all the kids at the shelter,” Emma Weber added.
    “I know,” Katie said. “My mom wants to drive the cookies over tonight.”
    “Don’t worry, Katie Kazoo,” George Brennan assured Katie, using the way-cool nickname he had given her in third grade. He held up an apron. “We’re ready for action. At least, most of us are. Suzanne is apparently here to moo like a cow.”
    “I am not mooing like a cow,” Suzanne insisted. “I’m doing my singing exercises.”
    “You mean your croaking exercises,” Kevin Camilleri added.
    “Come on,” Katie said. “That’s not nice.”
    “I don’t care what you boys think,” Suzanne told George, Kevin, and Jeremy. “I’ll have the last laugh when I get the lead in the fourth-grade musical.”
    The tryouts for A Wacky Winter Wonderland were tomorrow. Katie knew Suzanne had her heart set on the part of the Snow Fairy.
    “The Snow Fairy has to sing some big solos in the show,” Suzanne went on.
    “Oh, I definitely think you should sing solo,” George told Suzanne.
    “You do?” Suzanne sounded surprised.
    “Sure,” George said. “ So low we can’t hear you!”
    Kevin and Jeremy started to laugh.
    Suzanne turned to Katie. “I’m a really good singer . . . Aren’t I?” she asked.
    “You, um . . . you have a special singing voice. No one sounds quite like you,” Katie replied. She quickly headed toward the refrigerator for the cookie dough.
    Suzanne scowled at Jeremy, George, and Kevin.
    “I’m going to get that part. You’ll see!” she told them.
    “Yeah, you wish!” Kevin replied.
    Katie stopped in her tracks. “She does not wish!” she exclaimed.
    Everyone stopped and stared at her.
    “What are you so upset about?” George asked.
    Katie blushed. She didn’t know what to say. Katie hated wishes. And she had good reason to.
    Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell her friends what that reason was. They wouldn’t believe her, anyway.

Chapter 2
    It had all started one really bad day last year when Katie was in third grade. At recess Katie had dropped the football in the middle of a big play and lost the game for her team. Then she’d stepped in a puddle and splattered mud all over her favorite pants. Things got even worse when she burped really loudly in front of the whole class.
    That night Katie wished she could be anyone other than herself.
    There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made that wish, because the very next day her wish came true. The magic wind arrived and turned Katie into Speedy, the hamster in her third-grade class! Katie spent the whole morning going round and round on a hamster wheel and gnawing on chew sticks!
    The magic wind came back again and again after that. Sometimes it changed Katie into other kids, like Jeremy, Suzanne, and even Suzanne’s baby sister, Heather.
    The magic wind didn’t just turn Katie into kids and animals. It turned her into grown-ups, too. Like the time Katie had been switcherooed into her favorite author, Nellie Farrow. It happened right before Nellie was supposed to talk to the fourth grade about her new