Free Three Cheers for...Who? by Nancy Krulik

Chapter 1
    â€œI wonder if Mom got peanut butter crackers,” Emma Weber said as she, her brother Matthew, and her friend Katie Carew walked home after school on Wednesday afternoon.
    â€œI love peanut butter crackers,” Matthew said. “They would definitely make me feel better. Recess was bad today. I struck out in kickball.”
    Katie understood. Striking out in kickball was a big deal when you were in first grade.
    â€œPeanut butter makes all your troubles disappear,” she told him.
    Suddenly, the kids heard some loud yelling from Emma W.’s backyard.
    â€œLet’s get rough! Let’s get mean! Let’s roll over the other team!”
    â€œThat’s Lacey and her friend Rachel,” Emma W. explained. “They’re practicing for a cheerleading competition.”
    â€œThey’re always practicing,” Matthew said. “And they practice really loud.”
    â€œYou’re so lucky to have a sister who is a high school cheerleader,” Katie told Emma W.
    â€œYes,” Emma W. agreed. “And Lacey is really good at it. It’s just that ...”
    â€œLacey never stops cheering,” Matthew said, finishing his sister’s sentence.
    As the kids headed into the Webers’ backyard, Lacey and her friend started a new cheer.
    â€œYou might be good at baseball or running ’round a track. But when it comes to basketball, you’d better jump back!” the girls shouted. Then they leaped up in the air with their arms and legs spread apart. “Go Cherrydale!”
    â€œWow!” Katie exclaimed. “That was awesome.”

    Lacey shook her head. “No, it wasn’t,” she said. “We didn’t land at the same time, and Rachel’s right leg was crooked.”
    â€œIt was not,” Rachel told Lacey. “It was a perfect X jump.” Rachel looked over at Emma W., Katie, and Matthew. “Wasn’t it?”
    Katie had no idea what an X jump was. So she just said, “I thought it looked good.”
    â€œHere it comes,” Matthew said quietly.
    â€œ Good isn’t good enough,” Lacey said angrily. “This cheer has to be absolutely perfect. We’re going to be in a statewide competition. We can’t win if we’re just good .”
    Oops. Katie frowned. Maybe good was the wrong word to use.
    â€œI meant exciting,” Katie said. But Rachel and Lacey weren’t listening to Katie anymore.
    â€œLet’s do it again,” Lacey told Rachel. She pulled her red and white pom-poms to her chest.
    As Lacey and Rachel started the cheer again, Katie followed Emma W. and her little brother into the house.
    â€œI am so sick of hearing cheers,” Matthew groaned as he threw his backpack onto the kitchen counter.
    Katie understood. A few months ago, her mom had started taking tap-dancing classes, and she went nuts practicing.
    â€œI wish Lacey would stop cheering forever!” Matthew exclaimed.
    Uh-oh. Matthew had just made a wish. That was sooo not good. Wishes could be trouble. No one knew that better than Katie.

Chapter 2
    It had all started back in third grade on one really, really rotten day. First, Katie had missed the football and lost the game for her team. Then she’d fallen in the mud and ruined her favorite pair of jeans. And then, just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, she’d let out a burp in front of the whole class. And not just any burp. A huge burp . A real record breaker.
    That night, Katie had wished she could be anyone but herself. There must have been a shooting star flying overhead when Katie made her wish, because the next day the magic wind came. The magic wind was a wild, powerful tornado that blew just around Katie. It was so strong that it could blow her right out of her own body and into someone else’s.
    The first time the magic wind came it turned her into Speedy, the class hamster. Katie had spent the whole morning stuck in