Karate Katie (5 page)

“That
had
to hurt,” Manny said as the cement blocks crumbled in half.

But the man with the black belt didn’t seem to be hurting. In fact, he was smiling proudly.

Katie and her friends watched as another grown-up black belt stood in the center of the gym. Five other black belts stood in front of him. Each of them was holding a thick wooden board.

“KEEYAH!”
the man shouted. He leaped up into the air. His arms were spread out wide. So were his legs. In a single movement, he managed to break two boards with his feet, two with his hands, and one with his head.

“Wow!” Andrew exclaimed. “Do you think Kevin can do something like that?”

“No way,” George said.

“He’s only a yellow belt,” Katie reminded Andrew and George. “But maybe someday he will be able to.”

George frowned, but he didn’t say anything.

“Where is Kevin anyway?” Andrew asked.

Katie looked down at the group of kids in white uniforms. She spotted Kevin sitting with a group of boys and girls who, like him, had bright yellow belts tied around their waists.

“There he is,” Katie said, pointing toward the yellow belts.

“He’s such a big shot,” George groaned. “Look how he’s holding that piece of wood.”

“
All
the kids are holding pieces of wood,” Emma pointed out. “They need them for the tournament.”

“Do you really think he can break that wooden board with his foot?” Jeremy asked the others.

“Yes,” Katie answered.

“No,” George answered at the same time.

Katie sighed. George was being a real pain. She turned her eyes toward the gym floor, and watched as one black belt grabbed his opponent by the arm and flipped him upside down.

“That was so cool!” Katie exclaimed. She stood up and began to move toward the end of the row.

“Where are you going?” Emma asked her.

“To the phone,” Katie replied. “I have to call Suzanne. I promised to call her and fill her in on what’s going on. You know how she hates missing anything! I can’t wait to tell her about the guy who broke the cement blocks.”

“You’d better hurry up,” Emma told her. “The kids’ part of the tournament is going to begin any minute now.”

“I’ll be right back. I promise,” Katie answered.

Luckily, the phone booth was empty when Katie arrived. Katie opened the door to the phone booth and stepped inside.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a quarter. But before she could put the coin in the phone, she felt a cool breeze on the back of her neck.

Katie gulped. She’d felt that breeze before
. Lots of times.

Oh, no! That was no ordinary wind. It was the magic wind!

The phone booth was small and cramped. But that didn’t stop the magic wind. It still managed to circle wildly around Katie. She gulped and shut her eyes tight as the tornado swirled around her.

And then it stopped. Just like that. The magic wind was gone.

And so was Katie Carew.

Katie jumped and opened her eyes. Right in front of her was a big man in a white karate suit with a black belt.

“AAAAAHHHHHHH!”
Katie screamed back at him. She was really scared.

The man leaped back and kicked his leg hard. He flipped around, took a running jump, and . . .
bam
! He broke a thick cement block in two.

The crowd applauded.

A boy seated near Katie on the hardwood floor looked over at her strangely. “Kevin, why did you scream like that?” he asked. “You know Mr. Thomas would never hurt you.”

Kevin?
Katie gulped. She looked around. She was seated with a group of boys and girls. They were all wearing karate uniforms. But Kevin was nowhere to be seen.

Still, the boy sitting next to her had definitely said, “Kevin.”

Katie knew that could mean only one thing. She had become Kevin!
Right before the tournament was about to start.

Just then, a dark-haired woman with a blue belt around her waist walked over to the group of children on the floor.

“Okay, white belts, you’re up first,” she told the kids. “Line up, bow to the judges, and get ready to break your pieces of wood.”

Katie watched as eight kids in uniforms with white belts stood up and walked to the center of the floor. They stood before the judges in two perfectly straight rows.

Everyone’s attention was on the white belts. Katie smiled. Now was the perfect time to sneak out of the gym! She had to find a place where she could be alone. After all, the magic wind only came when there was nobody else around. And Katie had to get the wind to turn her back into herself before it was Kevin’s turn to compete in the tournament!

Quietly, Katie got on all fours and began to crawl toward the doorway at the back of the gym. But before she could get very far, the boy next to her grabbed onto her yellow belt and tugged her back.

“What are you doing?” he asked her. “You can’t leave now. No one’s allowed to leave the gym once the tournament has begun. That’s the rule.”

Katie frowned. Sometimes rules really stank.

She watched as the grown-up black belts held up pieces of wood. The white-belt kids took turns punching and kicking at them.

Some of the white belts managed to break the wood. Others couldn’t do it. One little boy hit the wood with his fist. Then he grabbed his hand and started crying.

Katie sighed. Kevin had said that breaking wood wasn’t hard,
if
you knew what you were doing.

Unfortunately, Katie didn’t know what she was doing at all.

This was
so
not good.

Katie hoped that something—anything—would happen to keep the yellow belts from having to break their boards.

But nothing did. And a few minutes later, when the white belts were finished with their part of the competition, the woman with the blue belt walked over to the part of the gym where Katie and the karate students were sitting.

“Okay, yellow belts. It’s your turn,” she said. “Take your boards and line up. Don’t forget to bow to the judges before you break your board.”

There was no getting out of this now. Katie was going to have to get up there and kick her foot through the big piece of wood she was carrying.

She really didn’t want to do this. She just wanted to run away. But Katie couldn’t do that to Kevin. He had really been looking forward to this tournament.

Katie was going to have to break that board. Somehow.

Katie watched as the first yellow belt stepped forward. She figured that if she studied what the other kids were doing, and just copied them, she’d be okay.

The first yellow belt, a girl with long brown braids, bowed to the judges. Then she handed her board to a grown-up with a black belt. The black belt held up the board so the girl could break it.

The yellow belt looked steadily at the board.
“KEEYAH!”
she shouted as she kicked hard with her left foot. The board snapped in two.

Everyone applauded.

The girl with the long brown braids bowed to the judges, and went back to sit with the other kids.

The next yellow belt stepped forward. Like the girl before him, he bowed and handed his board to a grown-up with a black belt.

He stared at the board for what seemed like a really long time. Then . . .
“KEEYAH!”
The boy with the yellow belt let out a yell. He kicked the board, hard. It broke instantly.

Everyone cheered.

Uh-oh.
It was Kevin’s turn now. Katie was going to have to get up there, in front of all those people, and the judges, and break the board. It didn’t matter that she’d never done anything like this before.

Slowly she stood up and walked toward the judges. She bowed clumsily. Then she handed the board to a black belt, just as she had seen the other kids do.