Karate Katie (3 page)

I just lost my voice
, she wrote.
No problem.

But Katie knew Suzanne was wrong. She had a big problem. Bigger than she knew.

“I like that pen,” Emma Stavros said. “I have a green one just like it.”

Suzanne rolled her eyes.
Purple is prettier
, she wrote.

“Your mom said you could come to school with a sore throat?” Katie asked, amazed. Mrs. Carew would never have let Katie come to school if she were sick.

Sure,
Suzanne wrote on her pad.
My mom called the doctor. He said it wasn’t catching. It is okay for me to be here, as long as I don’t talk.

Suddenly, Katie heard a loud scream. She quickly turned to see what had happened. Across the yard she saw Kevin. He was lifting his leg and kicking at the air.

“KEEYAH!”
Kevin shouted again as he kicked even harder.

“What’s he doing?” Miriam Chan asked.

“I think that’s karate,” Mandy Banks told her. “It’s all Kevin thinks about these days.”

Katie watched as a group of boys walked over to Kevin. George was one of them. He did not look happy. He still looked really angry with Kevin.

George was going to start an argument with Kevin. Katie just knew it. He might even make another mean wish.

Katie couldn’t let something horrible happen to someone else just because of George’s temper! She had to stop him!

“I’ll be right back,” Katie told Suzanne and the others.

Quickly, she hurried over to where the boys were. “Hi, George,” she greeted him. “Did you do the math homework? Can I see what answer you got for number three?”

Katie was trying to turn George’s attention from Kevin. But it wasn’t working.

“In a minute, Katie Kazoo,” George replied. “I’m watching the kung fu fool.”

“It’s karate, not kung fu,” Kevin told him. “And
you’re
the fool.”

“I’m not the one kicking the air,” George said. “Are you trying to break wind?”

The boys laughed.

“Break wind! Good one, George,” Manny Gonzalez said.

“I’m doing a flying side kick,” Kevin told him. “You have to know how to do one to be a yellow belt.”

George rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said.

“The flying side kick is a good way to break a wooden board,” Kevin continued. “In fact, that’s how I’m going to break the board in my karate competition this weekend.”

“You’re going to be in a competition?” Jeremy asked. He sounded really impressed.

Kevin nodded. “Uh-huh. It’s on Sunday. I’m competing against other yellow belts.”

“You’re going to beat them up?” Kadeem Carter asked excitedly.

“It’s called
sparring
,” Kevin corrected him. “And you wear a lot of padding and a helmet. So no one actually gets hurt.”

“Oh.” Kadeem didn’t sound so excited anymore.

“But I’m going to break a wooden board, too,” Kevin told him. “And I’m going to do a few karate forms.”

“That sounds really neat,” Katie said.

“It sounds really dumb,” George muttered.

“
You’re
dumb,” Kevin shouted back.

“No way!
You
are,” George argued loudly.

Katie pulled on the straps of George’s backpack. “Come on, George,” she said. “Show me how to do that math problem.”

“Fine,” George said with a huff. “I don’t feel like listening to Karate Kevin anymore, anyway. He’s such a bragger! I can’t stand him!”

Katie sighed. She didn’t know whether Kevin could use karate to break a piece of wood. But he’d sure used it to break up his friendship with George.

At lunchtime, Katie sat down at a table beside Suzanne. Emma W. and Jessica Haynes sat across from them.

“How’s your throat?” Emma W. asked Suzanne.

Suzanne picked up her purple pen.
It hurts a little
, she wrote.

“Ms. Sweet has been so nice to Suzanne,” Jessica told the girls. “She said that since Suzanne couldn’t talk, she is going to teach us how to spell in American Sign Language. It’s the language some deaf people use to talk to each other. Ms. Sweet has a chart that shows us how to make all the letters with our hands.”

“That’s cool,” Emma W. said. “Maybe you could teach Katie and me how to do sign language, too. We can all sign to one another. It will be like our secret code!”

Suzanne scribbled a new note on her pad.
It won’t be too secret. The kids in our class are all learning how to do it. Of course, no one else in your class will, so it could be your secret.

Katie laughed. Suzanne had figured out a way to brag, after all.

As Katie took a bite of her peanut butter sandwich, she looked over at the next table. Kevin was sitting there with Manny and Jeremy. He was throwing cherry tomatoes up in the air and catching them with his mouth.

Usually, George would be sitting next to Kevin. But today, George was at another table, with Kadeem and Andrew.

Of course, that didn’t mean George couldn’t hear what Kevin was saying at his table. Everybody could hear Kevin. He was talking really loudly.

“My karate teacher said I should break a thin board at the competition,” Kevin said between tomatoes. “But I told him, ‘No way!’ Why should I take the easy way out? I can break a thick board. I’m real ly strong.”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” Jeremy asked him. “You could hurt your foot or something.”

“Not if you know how to do it right,” Kevin boasted. “And
I
know how. But my teacher is still making me break a thin board.”

“Hey, Kevin,” Kadeem called out. “Why did the Karate Kid cross the road?”

“Why?” Kevin asked.

“To break the board on the other side,” Kadeem answered. He chuckled at his own joke.

George wasn’t about to let Kadeem have the last laugh. “What do you get when you mix a blue belt and a black belt?” he shouted out.

“What?” Jeremy asked.

“A bruise belt!” George laughed. “Get it? You get all black and blue!”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “That would never happen, George,” he said. “In a tournament, you spar with kids who are at the same level you are. I’ll be sparring with other yellow belts. Of course, I’m going to be better than they are.”

Uh-oh.
Katie knew George was going to be angry at Kevin for ruining his joke. George took his joking very seriously.

Just then, George leaped up from his seat. He began to wave his arms and legs around wildly.
“YAHHHHH!”
he shouted. He stuck his tongue out and made a goofy face. “Look at me! I’m Karate Kevin.”

All the kids started to laugh.

“You’re just jealous, George!” Kevin shouted. “I’m going to be the champion of this tournament.
You
never win at anything. I heard what happened at that track meet. Everybody did.”

Wow!
Katie couldn’t believe Kevin had just said that. It was really mean.

“That’s not true,” Katie said, defending George. “He wins at joke-offs all the time.”

“Hey!” Kadeem argued. “I win some of those, too.”

“I know,” Katie admitted. She knew that when it came to class 4A’s joke competitions, George and Kadeem were both really funny. “But George also wins sometimes,” Katie continued. “So Kevin was wrong.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Kevin told her. “But I’m also
strong
!” He jumped up and kicked his leg, karate-style.

“Stop bragging,” Katie warned him. “It’s not nice.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed. “Besides, we don’t have time to talk about karate anymore. We only have a half-hour recess after lunch today. And we’re going to play soccer, remember?”

“It’s 4A against 4B,” Kadeem added.

“I don’t have time for soccer,” Kevin said, sounding very stuck-up. “I have to practice my karate forms during recess.”

“But you have to play,” Mandy reminded him. “You’re our goalie.”

“Let someone else play goalie,” Kevin suggested.

“You’re
always
goalie,” Mandy reminded him. “No one else has had any practice at it.”

“We planned this game two days ago,” Kadeem said angrily. “How come you waited until today to tell us you didn’t want to play?”

“Yeah,” Andrew Epstein agreed. “If you had told us earlier, then someone else could have practiced being goalie.”

“Sorry,” Kevin said. “I guess I didn’t think about it.”

“All you think about these days is karate,” Emma S. told him.

“Karate is the most important thing in the world to me,” Kevin explained.

Now
all
of the kids in class 4A were angry with Kevin. He was letting them down.

“We’ll win anyway,” Andrew assured Kadeem. “We don’t need Karate Kevin.”

“That’s right,” George agreed. He raised his leg and made a wobbly kick in the air. “We’re kicking him off the team. Later for you, Karate Kevin.”