Flower Power Read Online Free Page A

her.
    I sure hope so
, Katie thought to herself as she started walking home alone.
    The road to Katie’s house was very quiet. No one seemed to be around this afternoon. Suddenly she felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her neck. Katie shivered. If only she had worn a jacket.
    But now Katie noticed that the wind didn’t seem to be blowing anywhere else. Not in the trees. Not in the grass. Just on her.
    “Oh, no!” Katie shouted. “Go away, magic wind!” She started to run.
    It was no use! The magic wind didn’t stop blowing. In fact, it blew faster and faster, spinning wildly like a tornado around Katie. She closed her eyes tight to keep from crying.
    And then it stopped. Just like that.
    Katie Kazoo had turned into someone else. One, two, switcheroo.
    But who?

Chapter 9
    Katie didn’t know where the magic wind had blown her, but wherever she was, it sure smelled clean. Kind of like her house when her mom and dad scrubbed it really, really well before company came.
    Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked around. The first thing she saw was a long hallway with lots of doors. There was a big, cheerful painting of jungle animals on the wall.
    There were other people in the long hallway. Most of them were in green or blue loose-fitting outfits. They had stethoscopes swung around their necks. Katie figured theywere doctors and nurses. Was she in some sort of hospital? It sure looked that way.
    Okay, so now she knew
where
she was. But she still didn’t know
who
she was. Had the magic wind switcherooed her into a doctor? Or a nurse? Katie hoped it hadn’t turned her into a patient who was getting a shot. Katie hated needles!
    She looked down at her feet. Instead of the light brown cowboy boots she’d worn to school, Katie was now wearing red shoes. Gigantic, rubbery, red shoes.
Clown
shoes! And she had on a polka-dot clown suit with a frilly white collar.
    That didn’t make any sense at all. What was a clown doing in a hospital?
    Just then, a woman walked over toward Katie. “The kids are ready for you, Mr. Guthrie,” she said.
    Mr. Guthrie? Her teacher? Katie looked around to see if he was standing behind her. But he wasn’t. In fact, the only two peoplewho were standing here were the woman and Katie.
    Katie gulped. The woman was definitely talking to her. Did that mean that she’d turned into her teacher…in a clown suit? What was Mr. G. doing dressed as a clown? It was so weird.
    Or maybe not. Mr. G. loved dressing up. So putting on a clown suit was a really Mr. G. thing to do.

    “The new clown suit is great,” the woman continued saying to Katie. “I am so glad it was ready for you in time for this party.”
    Was
this
the suit Mr. G. had been talking about? Not a businessman suit. A
clown
suit. Was Mr. G. leaving Cherrydale Elementary School to become a clown?
    “It was so nice of you to come here on a weekday,” the woman continued. “I know you usually do these shows for the kids on Saturdays, but I’m glad you made an exception this one time. Darnell would have been so sad if he left the hospital without saying good-bye to G-Man the Clown.”
    Okay, now it all was starting to make sense. Mr. G. performed for sick kids. Katie smiled broadly. But coming today was an
exception!
That meant everything would be back to normal by tomorrow. What a relief! Wait until the kids in 4A learned that Mr. G. wasn’t leaving school at all. He was just putting on a clown show for some sick kids in the hospital…
    Gulp!
Except Mr. G. wasn’t the one putting on the show at all. Katie was. Today Katie was G-Man the Clown! But she didn’t know anything about clowning around. That was George’s department.
    Today, though,
Katie
was going to have to be funny—fast! There was a whole lot of sick kids waiting for her to cheer them up.
    “Hello, boys and girls,” the woman in the blue outfit said as she and Katie walked into a sunroom. “Look who’s here! It’s G-Man the Clown!”
    “Yeah!” the kids