Free Out to Lunch by Nancy Krulik Page A

that.”
    “Yuck!” Katie exclaimed.
    “That’s what you get for being a vegetarian.” Kevin told Katie.
    “Did you hear the one about the guy with carrot sticks stuck in his ears?” George interrupted.
    Katie shook her head. “No.”
    “That’s okay,” George shrugged. “He didn’t hear it either!”
    As George laughed at his own joke, Suzanne frowned. “That one was really bad, George,” she said. She turned back to Katie. “The fried chicken nuggets aren’t too bad, and they serve those a lot. I don’t know why you won’t even eat a piece of chicken once in a while.”
    “I told you, I won’t eat anything that had a face,” Katie explained.
    “But chickens have ugly faces,” Kevin pointed out.
    “I won’t eat any animals,” Katie insisted. “Of course, that doesn’t leave me with many choices in the cafeteria.”
    “Why don’t you ask your mom to pack your lunches?” Miriam Chan suggested as she took a bite of a turkey sandwich her mother had packed.
    “She doesn’t have time,” Katie explained. “On the days she opens the store, she leaves for work at the same time I leave for school. Our house is crazy in the mornings.” Katie’s mom worked part time at The Book Nook, a small bookstore in the Cherrydale Mall.
    “Well, I’m glad my mom packs my lunch,” Kevin said. “That way, I don’t ever have to face the Lunch Lady !” He made a scary face.
    “You know what happened to me today?” Suzanne said. “I asked the lunch lady if I could have a banana that wasn’t totally brown and mushy. You know what she told me? She said, ‘If you want fresh fruit, get it from home. Brown mushy bananas are what’s on the cafeteria menu today.’ ”
    “She’s such a grump!” Kevin said.
    “You’d be grumpy too if you had to dish out smelly, disgusting food all day,” Katie told him.
    “That’s true,” Suzanne agreed.
    “Speaking of disgusting, look at George!” Zoe Canter exclaimed. “I think I’m gonna throw up!”
    Katie looked over at George’s tray. It was totally gross. George had mixed his mashed potatoes and vegetable soup together. Then he’d poured his chocolate milk into the mix. Now he was busy stirring in some orange Jell-O.
    “Hey, Katie Kazoo, do you dare me to eat this?” he asked her.
    Katie made a face. “Yuck!” she exclaimed.
    Suzanne stood and picked up her tray. “Come on, Katie,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before George really does eat that mess.”
    As Katie and Suzanne headed toward the playground for recess, Suzanne looked back at George and sighed. “Boys can be so dumb,” she remarked.
    Katie shrugged. Some boys could be pretty dumb. But other boys were really cool. Like Jeremy. Katie was about to say that, but she stopped herself. Suzanne got mad whenever Katie talked about Jeremy. Suzanne didn’t like to think that Katie had two best friends.

    “Come on, hurry up!” Suzanne urged Katie. “Let’s see if we can get to the hopscotch game before the fourth-graders do!”
    Katie followed her friend out the door.
     
     
    Katie tossed her stone toward the hopscotch board. It landed in the middle of the three. Quickly Katie began jumping up and down the board. As she bent down to pick up her stone on the way back, she heard Jeremy’s voice over her head.
    “You guys want to throw the ball around a little bit?” he asked.
    Katie hopped off the board and smiled at Jeremy. “Maybe later,” she said. “We’re kind of in the middle of a game.”
    Suzanne gave a deep sigh. “He can see that, Katie.” She turned to Jeremy. “Can’t you?”
    Jeremy nodded. “I just thought maybe you two would want to play catch, that’s all. You said you wanted to work on your aim,” he reminded Katie.
    “I do,” Katie said kindly. “How about after we finish with hopscotch?”
    Jeremy shrugged and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. “Sure. See ya later.”
    As Jeremy walked off, Katie looked at Suzanne. “You sounded kind of