Free Gotcha! Gotcha Back! by Nancy Krulik Page A

interesting—with a little help from us.”
    Katie looked at him curiously. What was George talking about?
    “Why don’t you ride your bike over to my house?” George suggested. “I’ll show you!”
    “Sure,” Katie agreed. “Let me just tell my mom where I’m going.” Katie couldn’t wait to find out what George had in mind.

Chapter 2
    “Okay, check this out!” George exclaimed proudly as he and Katie sat on his back porch. He held up a big cardboard box. “My cousin Charlie sent this to me for my birthday.”
    Katie watched as George reached into the box and pulled out a big, gray, hairy spider! “How did this get in here?” George shouted out. Quickly, he threw the spider across the porch.
    It landed right on Katie’s lap! “AAAAHH!” Katie screamed.
    George began to laugh. “Relax, Katie Kazoo. It’s just a fake spider.” He laughed even harder.
    “You scared me, George,” Katie said angrily.
    “Oh, come on. It’s just a joke,” George told her. “Look what else my cousin got me.”
    Katie peered inside the box. There was a clear plastic cube with a fly inside it, a pencil, a camera, and two packs of gum. What a weird group of gifts, she thought.
    “Can I have a piece of the gum?” Katie asked George.
    “Sure.” George smiled slightly as he handed Katie a stick of gum.
    Katie unwrapped the gum and popped it in her mouth. A minute later she spit it right out. “Blech!” Katie exclaimed. “That tastes like dirt.”
    “You should see your face!” George exclaimed, laughing. “I’ve got to get a picture of you.” He pulled his camera out of the box, pointed it toward Katie and...
    “Oh!” Katie shouted angrily. She looked down at her shirt. It was all wet.
    “Gotcha!” George exclaimed. “It’s a water-gun camera!”
    Katie shook her head. “That’s not funny,” she said.
    “Sure it is,” George said, laughing. “But not as funny as this gum that stains your teeth black.” He picked up the other pack of gum. “Imagine how freaked out Miriam Chan would be if you gave her a piece of this!”
    Katie frowned. “That would be mean, George,” she told him.

    “Nah,” George disagreed. “It would be funny. And we need a few laughs at our school.”
    Katie shook her head. She wasn’t so sure that practical jokes were a good way to make things un- boring .
    “I don’t want to play jokes on people, George,” Katie told him.
    “You don’t have to,” George said. “ I will.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “Hey, didn’t you get a whoopee cushion and fake throw-up from your Secret Santa last Christmas?”
    Katie sighed, remembering how disappointed she had been when she had opened those gifts. They weren’t the kinds of things she liked at all.
    But they sure were the kinds of things George liked. Fake throw-up and a whoopee cushion would have been the perfect presents for him.
    “Tell you what, Katie Kazoo,” George continued. “I’ll trade you a rubber pencil for them.” He held up the wiggly yellow pencil. “Next time Kadeem asks to borrow a pencil from you, you can give him this one. It doesn’t write!”
    Katie thought about that. It was kind of annoying the way Kadeem Carter always seemed to have to borrow her pencils. Especially because he chewed them up before giving them back.
    “I guess that would serve him right,” she said slowly.
    “Sure it would,” George agreed. “So what do you say? We could start tomorrow. We’ll call it Funny Friday!”
    “Okay,” Katie said, taking the pencil from George. “I’ll bring the whoopee cushion and the plastic throw-up to school tomorrow. Just promise not to be too mean, okay?”
    “I promise,” George assured her.

Chapter 3
    “Do you want to write an article for this week’s 4A Express?” Mandy Banks asked Katie on Friday morning as they walked into their classroom.
    Katie shook her head. “Not this week. I don’t have any ideas for an article.”
    Mandy frowned. “That’s the problem.