Girls Don't Have Cooties Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Jeremy’s Soccer Center

  For Bonnie and Emily

  Text copyright © 2002 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2002

  by John & Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 345 Hudson

  Street, New York, NY 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of

  Penguin Putnam Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada.

  S.A.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2002106663

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15372-7

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  “Here comes Jeremy,” Suzanne Lock said. She looked out across the school playground. She quickly handed her best friend Katie Carew an envelope. “Put this in your backpack, fast!”

  Katie looked at the envelope curiously. “What’s the big secret?” she asked.

  “It’s an invitation to a party, this Saturday, at my house,” Suzanne quickly explained.

  “Oh,” Katie answered. “So why do I have to hide it from Jeremy? Just give him his invitation too.”

  Suzanne shook her head. “Jeremy’s not invited. No boys are. It’s just for the girls in our class.”

  Katie was shocked. “You mean you’re only asking half of our friends to your party? You can’t do that. We’ve been friends with Jeremy forever.”

  Suzanne shook her head. “Jeremy’s your best friend, Katie, not mine,” she insisted. “I only hang out with him when you’re around.”

  Katie couldn’t argue with that. It was true. Jeremy Fox and Suzanne were both Katie’s best friends. The two of them got along okay when they were with Katie. But Jeremy and Suzanne didn’t always like each other.

  “What kind of party is it?” Katie asked.

  “A sleepover!” Suzanne told her excitedly. “I’m going to rent some movies. We’ll do each other’s hair and play games. My mom even said we can put on makeup—if we wash it off before we go to sleep.” Suzanne flashed Katie a secret smile. “Of course, we’re not going to sleep at all. Who sleeps at a sleepover?”

  Katie shrugged. She didn’t know how to answer that. She’d never been to a sleepover party before.

  “So, will you come?” Suzanne asked her.

  Katie nodded. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

  “Hey you guys! What’s up?” Jeremy asked as he walked over to where Suzanne and Katie were standing.

  Katie quickly stuffed her invitation into her backpack. “Um, nothing,” Katie murmured.

  She suddenly felt a little guilty about Suzanne’s all-girl party—even though she wasn’t the one who was throwing it.

  “I gotta go,” Suzanne said quickly. “I need to talk to Mandy and Miriam about something important.” She winked at Katie. Katie looked away.

  Jeremy laughed as Suzanne walked off. “Suzanne’s so funny,” he said.

  “Why?” Katie asked.

  “She’s always got something important to tell someone,” he said. “Doesn’t she ever have nothing to say?”

  Katie giggled. “Not Suzanne. Even if she did, she’d make a big deal about how she had nothing to say.”

  Jeremy nodded. Then he changed the subject. “My parents are taking me to the Magic Lamp Amusement Park on Saturday night. We’re going to check out that new Lightning Bolt roller coaster. They said I could bring a friend. Wanna come?”

  Katie’s eyes flashed. The Lightning Bolt was supposed to be an amazing roller coaster. The TV commercials said it has three loops and goes really fast!

  “Wow! The Lightning Bolt would be a great one to add to my list!” she exclaimed. Katie was trying to go on at least fifty roller coasters before she became a grown-up. So far she’d been on seven different ones.

  “That’s what I thought,” Jeremy told her.

  “I would love to go ...” Katie began. Then she remembered Suzanne’s party. “Except I can’t go Saturday night,” she finished sadly.

  “How come?” Jeremy asked her.

  “Well ... um ... I ...er ...” Katie stammered nervously. “I kind of promised to hang out with Suzanne on Saturday night,” she said finally.

  That was the truth. Jeremy didn’t have to know about the all-girl party.

  Jeremy thought about that for a minute. “I guess I can bring two friends.”

  Katie gulped. She really didn’t want to have to tell Jeremy about Suzanne’s party. It would only hurt his feelings.

  “Suzanne doesn’t like roller coasters much,” Katie said quickly.

  “That’s okay. Neither does my mom. They could go on the bumper cars while we’re on the Lightning Bolt.”

  Katie sighed. “Well ... see ... Suzanne and I sort of have plans with some of the other girls in the class on Saturday night and ...”

  “What kind of plans?” Jeremy interrupted her.

  “It’s nothing you’d want to do,” Katie insisted.

  “What are you doing?” Jeremy asked again.

  “Well, Suzanne’s having this all-girl party,” Katie blurted out finally.

  Jeremy pushed his glasses up on his nose and stared at Katie. He looked angry. “How come she’s only inviting girls?” he asked. “That’s not nice.”

  “It’s a sleepover party,” Katie explained. “We’re going to put on makeup and do our hair and stuff. You wouldn’t want to do that.”

  “It’s still not fair!”

  “But Jeremy, it’s a sleepover!” Katie insisted again. “Boys can’t come.”

  Jeremy didn’t want to hear it. “Suzanne is being a total snob. She should have a party everyone can come to.” He stormed away angrily.

  “Where are you going?” Katie called after him.

  “I’m going to talk to George and Manny,” Jeremy told her. “Wait until they hear about this. They’re going to be mad!”

  Katie played nervously with a lock of her red hair as she watched Jeremy walk away. She had a feeling this was not going to be a good day in class 3A.

  Chapter 2

  By lunchtime, Jeremy had told all the boys in class 3A about Suzanne’s sleepover party. Katie could tell they were mad because they were all sitting together at half of the lunch table. They were also giving the girls really dirty looks.

  The girls were sitting at the other end of the table. They were giving the boys dirty looks right back.

  By the time Katie reached the lunch table, the only seat left was next to George Brennan and Zoe Canter—right between the girls and the boys. She put her tray down and slid onto her chair.

  George jumped up and moved his chair away from Katie. He picked up his hand and made believe he was holding some sort of spray can.

  “We want all girls to go away. Blast them hard with cootie spray!” He pretended to spritz Katie all over with invisible spray. “Pffft,” he said, imitating a spray can.

  Katie jumped up with surprise. “George? What are you doing?”

  George shrugged. “I’m sorry, Katie Kazoo. But you’re a girl. All girls have cooties. I’m just making sure I don’t get them from you.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked George.

  George moved his chair even farther from Katie. “Oooh! Get this girl away from me!” he shouted. All the boys laughed.

  T
hat made Katie upset. George was her friend. He was the one who had given her the nickname Katie Kazoo. They told jokes together and played after school. Katie was the very first kid to become George’s friend when he was the new kid at school. Now he wouldn’t even sit next to her.

  “Come on, George, cut it out!” Katie insisted.

  George didn’t answer. Instead he took a huge bite of his bologna sandwich and turned toward his buddy, Kevin Camilleri.

  “Aachoo!” George let out a really fake sneeze. Pieces of chewed-up bologna, cheese, and bread, sprayed out of his mouth and all over the table.

  Kevin chuckled. “Good one, George!”

  “Eeeeew! Yuck!” Miriam Chan shouted. She was sitting across from Katie. That gave her a clear view of George’s flying food.

  “Boys are really gross,” Miriam’s best friend Mandy Banks said.

  “I don’t know how you can be friends with any of them, Katie.”

  Katie sighed. She hated it when there were fights between the boys and the girls.

  Just a few weeks ago, Suzanne and Jeremy had had a fight about who would get to take Speedy, the class hamster, home for the weekend. The whole class had gotten involved in that war. The boys had sided with Jeremy, and the girls had sided with Suzanne. Katie had been stuck in the middle—right between her two best friends.

  Katie sighed. “I wish this didn’t always ...” Katie was about to wish that this didn’t always have to happen to her, but she stopped herself. She’d learned the hard way to be really careful about what she wished for.

  It had all started one rotten day. Katie had ruined her favorite jeans, lost the football game for her team, and belched really loudly in front of the whole class. That day, Katie had wished that she could be anyone but herself.

  Right after that, the magic wind came.

  The magic wind was big and horrible, like a tornado. But it only stormed around Katie. Nobody else could see it or feel it. Whenever the magic wind came, it turned Katie into someone else.

  The first time the wind had come, it changed Katie into Speedy, the class hamster! She’d spent a whole morning nibbling on chew sticks and running on a hamster wheel.

  Luckily, Katie changed back into herself pretty fast. Unluckily, the magic wind had come back again. It turned Katie into Lucille, the cafeteria lunch lady.

  But serving mystery meat to her friends wasn’t nearly as bad as the next time the wind came. That time it turned Katie into Suzanne’s baby sister, Heather. Katie had come this close to having her best friend change her diaper. How embarrassing would that have been?

  So Katie didn’t make wishes anymore. She never knew what would happen if they came true.

  Just then, George and Kevin snuck up behind Miriam and Mandy.

  “Pffft!” the boys shouted. “We want all girls to go away. Blast them hard with cootie spray.”

  “Get away!” Mandy cried out. “You’re the ones with cooties.”

  “No way,” George argued. “Girls have cooties.”

  Katie looked across the table at Jeremy. He was sitting next to Manny Gonzalez. When he saw Katie staring at him, Jeremy looked down at the floor. But Manny didn’t look away. He smiled and held up an imaginary spray can. Pffft. He pretended to spritz Katie with cootie spray.

  Katie was getting mad. Really mad.

  “Girls don’t have cooties!” she shouted. Then she jumped up and ran out of the cafeteria.

  Chapter 3

  “Hey Katie, where are you going?” Suzanne asked as she ran after her best friend.

  “I can’t stand this fighting anymore!” Katie told her.

  “Then stop hanging around with the boys,” Suzanne suggested. “They started it all.”

  Katie wanted to tell Suzanne that that wasn’t true. Suzanne had actually started it all by having an all-girl party. But Katie already had one best friend refusing to talk to her. She couldn’t take it if Suzanne ignored her, too.

  “Katie, come on outside,” Suzanne said.

  “We’re going to play double Dutch jump rope. Mandy and Zoe have already said that they’ll be steady enders.”

  That was good. Mandy and Zoe were the only ones who knew how to turn both double Dutch jump ropes at the same time without getting them tangled.

  “Okay,” Katie agreed. “Just let me run back to the classroom and get my jean jacket.”

  “Great! I’ll see ya out on the playground!” Suzanne said with a grin.

  The classroom was empty. Katie ran in, grabbed her jacket, and headed straight for the door.

  But before she could leave the room, she felt a strange breeze tingle against the back of her neck. Katie put on her jacket, and raised the collar around her neck. But she could still feel the breeze blowing.

  She looked around the room. The windows were all shut. The breeze was obviously not coming from outside.

  “Oh no!” Katie cried out. “Not again.”

  The magic wind was back. And she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  The wind began to circle strongly around Katie. Her red hair whipped wildly around her head. The tornado swirled faster and faster. Katie held on to a desk so she wouldn’t blow away. She closed her eyes tightly, and tried not to cry.

  It seemed like the wind was blowing for a very long time. But it was probably just a few seconds before it stopped, just as suddenly as it had begun.

  Katie knew what that meant. She wasn’t Katie Carew anymore. She was someone else.

  The question was, who was she?

  Chapter 4

  Before Katie opened her eyes, she sniffed at the air around her. The smells had changed. Room 3A smelled like a mix of chalk dust, crayons, and Speedy’s hamster litter. This room smelled like food—tuna sandwiches, ketchup, french fries, and milk.

  Oh, no! This had to be the cafeteria. Had Katie become Lucille the Lunch Lady ... again?

  Slowly, Katie opened her eyes. At first everything looked blurry. Then Katie reached up to her nose and slid her glasses back up toward her eyes.

  Glasses? Wait a minute. Katie didn’t wear glasses. Who was she?

  Katie looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a pair of jeans, black sneakers, and a denim jacket. Typical third-grade clothes.

  Okay, so she was a kid. But which kid?

  Before Katie could figure that out, Kevin poured his chocolate milk onto what was left of his tuna hero. “Hey check this out,” he said. “Pretty gross, huh?”

  George shook his head. “That’s nothing,” he said. “Watch this!” He mixed tuna salad into his chocolate pudding and stirred it with ketchup-covered french fries. “Now that’s what I call gross!”

  Katie looked down at the mess George had just made. It was brown and red, with bits of gray tuna and mayonnaise floating in it. It was possibly the most disgusting thing she’d ever seen.

  “See, I told you this was super-colossal-gross,” George bragged. “Jeremy looks like he’s about to puke just from looking at it.”

  “I dare you to eat that,” Kevin said to George.

  That was too much for Katie. If George swallowed a spoonful of that mess she was going to be sick. “No, don‘t!” she cried out.

  George looked over toward Katie. “Relax, Jeremy,” he said. “Even I wouldn’t eat that mess!”

  Jeremy?

  Oh, no! Was it possible the magic wind had turned her into her own best friend? Her boy best friend?

  Of course it was possible. The magic wind could do anything.

  “You ready, Captain?” George asked Katie suddenly.

  Katie looked back at him. “Ready for what?” she asked, confused.

  “The soccer game, remember? You’re one of the captains.”

  “Huh?” Katie asked. “I am?”

  “Sure you are,” George said. “You’re always captain. You’re our best player.”

  “I’m the other captain,” bragged Andrew Epstein from class 3B.

  “You are?” Katie asked him.

  Andrew looked
a little annoyed. “We decided this morning, remember?”

  “You ready, Jeremy?” Kevin asked Katie. “I want to get out to the field before recess is over.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Katie mumbled nervously. “I think we should go to the bathroom before the game,” George suggested. “No time-outs for pee breaks.”

  “Good idea,” Kevin agreed. “Besides, I like the boys’ room. No cootie-carrying girls are allowed in there.”

  Katie gulped. Kevin was right. Not about the cooties, of course. He was only right about girls not being allowed in the boys’ room. Boys weren’t allowed in the girls’ room, either.

  Katie wasn’t quite sure which bathroom she belonged in anymore. After all, she was only Jeremy on the outside. She was still Katie on the inside. The thought of going into the boys bathroom was absolutely, positively gross!

  Good thing Katie didn’t actually have to go.

  “Not me,” Katie said quickly. “You know me, I can hold it forever. I’m like a camel!”

  George shrugged. “So you go get the soccer ball. We’ll meet you on the field.”

  Phew! That was close!

  Katie had gotten out of that one. But she was pretty sure things weren’t going to be that easy once they were out on the field. Katie wasn’t a very good soccer player. Her only hope was that Jeremy’s body would know what to do once she started playing.

  Or, better yet, maybe the magic wind would change her back before the soccer game began.

  Chapter 5

  “Hey, that took you long enough,” Kevin said as he and George caught up to Katie on her way to the soccer field.

  Katie was walking very slowly. She was in no hurry to get onto that field.

  “Pick me first, Jeremy,” George pleaded. “I want to be on your team. Andrew’s team never wins.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “Andrew and his friends play like girls.”