Out to Lunch Read Free

Speedy anymore. All they cared about was winning.
    The whole class was caught up in the war between Suzanne and Jeremy. All the boys were siding with Jeremy. The girls were all on Suzanne’s side—except Katie. She didn’t know whose side to be on. Jeremy and Suzanne were both her best friends.
    Unfortunately, Jeremy and Suzanne weren’t friends with each other anymore.
    “You’re going to sit with me, aren’t you, Katie?” Suzanne asked as class 3A walked into the cafeteria.
    “Who says she’s gonna sit with you?” Jeremy interrupted. “She was my friend before she ever met you.”
    Suzanne rolled her eyes. “That’s just because your moms knew each other when they were kids,” she explained. “You guys probably wouldn’t have become friends if it weren’t for that.”
    George pulled a bag of potato chips from his lunch bag. “Do you know why best friends are like potatoes?” he asked jokingly.
    “No, why?” Katie said.
    “Because they’re always there when the chips are down!” George started to laugh. “Get it?”
    Katie smiled. She was glad George was trying to make everyone laugh. “That was funny,” she told him.
    Suzanne put her arm around Katie. “Katie’s like that,” she told the others. “She’s always on my side.”
    Jeremy moved closer toward Katie. “No, she’s always on my side,” he argued.

    Katie could feel the tears starting to build up in her eyes. This just wasn’t fair. “Look, you guys, I like both of you. I don’t want to have to choose. I wish I could just cut myself in half,” she said.
    George started to laugh.
    “What’s so funny about that?” Katie demanded.
    “Nothing.” George shrugged. “It’s just that I was thinking, if you cut your left side off, you’d be all right .” He laughed again.
    But for once Katie didn’t laugh with him. She felt like nothing was going to be alright ever again. Quickly she turned and ran back into the hall. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she mumbled as she darted away.
    Katie walked into the girls’ room and looked around. There was no one else there. It was nice to be alone. Maybe she could just stay in the bathroom until lunch was over. That way she could keep away from Suzanne, Jeremy, and everyone else in her class.
    Katie looked at her watch. It was 12:05. Lunch was over at 1:00. That meant she would have to stay in the girls’ room for fifty-five minutes. That was a very long time. What could she do in the bathroom for fifty-five minutes? Katie looked at her watch again. Make that fifty-four minutes. The hands on her watch had just moved to 12:06.
    Well, for starters, she could wash her face and hands. Katie turned on the water and held her hands under the faucet.
    Suddenly Katie felt a light wind blowing on her back. She looked up toward the bathroom window. It was closed. So was the door. The wind wasn’t coming from outside. It was only blowing in the girls room. Katie gulped as she looked around her. The wind didn’t even seem to be blowing anywhere else in the room—just around Katie.
    The wind grew stronger and stronger, swirling around her like a tornado. For a minute Katie was sure it was going to lift her right off the ground—like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz . She closed her eyes and grabbed on to the sink, trying to keep herself from flying away.
    Katie was really scared. She knew what trouble this kind of wind could cause. This wasn’t the first time Katie had been trapped in a strange, magical windstorm. It had happened to her twice before, once when she’d turned into Speedy, and once when she’d turned back into herself. This wind could only mean one thing.

    Katie Carew was becoming somebody else!
    But who?
    Or what ?
    After a few seconds, the wind stopped. Everything was quiet—and different. There was a really bad stink in the air. Not a bathroom stink, though. It smelled more like spoiled milk.
    “Ow!” Katie yanked her hand from the sink. The cool plaster had suddenly turned