Who's Afraid of Fourth Grade? (10 page)

The coffeemaker was near the back of the room. Sure enough, Mr. Starkey's black-and-white conducting baton was sitting beside it. Katie reached for the baton.

But before she could lay a hand on it, a powerful wind began to blow all around Katie. This time, it hadn't started as a cool breeze, or a gentle draft, but she knew exactly what kind of wind it was.

The magic wind!

The powerful tornado swirled wildly around Katie, whipping her red hair in her eyes, and lifting her skirt high in the air. Katie was really glad she'd worn shorts under her skirt for gym class today.

The wind was so intense, Katie was sure it was going to blow her away. Far away. Like to another country or something. She shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry.

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

And so was Katie.

Slowly, Katie opened her eyes. She stood up and looked around. She was in the school hallway, just outside the band room. The magic wind hadn't blown her very far, after all.

But who was she? Her hands were large and hairy, with blisters on the insides of her palms. Yuck!

Her shoes were definitely men's brown loafers. She was also wearing a men's button-down shirt and slacks. Okay, so she was a man. But
which
man?

Nervously, Katie looked at her reflection in the window in the band room door. A familiar face peered back at her. The face had blue eyes, neatly cropped blond hair, and a small hole in the left ear. Katie had turned into Mr. Starkey! And Mr. Starkey had a pierced ear. How wild was that?

Ugh
. Earring or no earring, she'd still turned into her music teacher. Now she'd have to hear “Hot Cross Buns” for the rest of the school day.

Or would she?

Katie was Mr. Starkey now. She could ask the band to play any song she wanted. Katie smiled excitedly as she walked back into the band room.

“Okay, everyone, turn to page eight,” Katie told the beginning band. “We're going to play ‘Yankee Doodle.' ”

The kids all turned the pages in their books. Katie raised her hands in the air and got ready to conduct the band.

“Mr. Starkey,” Miriam interrupted. “What's this weird symbol doing next to this note?”

“That's a B-flat,” Katie told him. “My teacher taught me about flats and . . .”

“Your
what
?” Kadeem asked.

Oops. Katie
was
a teacher now. She'd almost forgotten. “I mean, didn't your saxophone teacher show you that?”

Miriam shook her head. “We're not up to page eight yet. I'm still working on ‘Go Tell Aunt Rhodie.' How do you play a B-flat on a sax?”

“Can you show me how to play it on my flute too?” Emma W. asked him. “I had to skip my lesson last week because of a doctor's appointment.”

Katie frowned. She had no idea how to play a B-flat on a saxophone, flute, or any of the other beginning band instruments, except for the clarinet.

Then she remembered that from time to time Mr. Starkey kept a lot of music books and papers in his desk. Maybe there was something in one of them.

Katie opened the top desk drawer. There was a pile of papers inside. She rustled through them, looking for a chart or a picture—anything that might show her how to make a B-flat on a sax or a flute. But there was nothing like that in the drawer.

Instead, Katie found herself looking through a pile of poems with names like “Fire in My Brain,” “Love Strikes Like Lightning,” and “I Can't Take No More.” They sounded like rock song titles or something.

Whatever they were, they weren't going to help Katie right now. She dug deeper into the drawer. “Oops,” she mumbled as a pile of photographs fell to the floor.

She bent over and picked up the pictures. “Whoa!” she exclaimed.

“What?” George asked, practically leaping out of his tuba.

“Yeah, what?” Kadeem echoed.

“It's Mr. Starkey . . . I mean
me
. . . playing drums in a rock band. Wow. How cool is that?” She studied the photo. There was Mr. Starkey in a tie-dyed shirt and a bandana sitting behind a huge drum set. The name of his band—the Downhill Slide—was written across the bass drum.

Becky looked at her curiously. “Didn't you know you played in a rock band?” she asked, confused.

“I . . . er . . . of course I did,” Katie stammered. “I just didn't know I had the pictures here. Anyway, let's get started with ‘Yankee Doodle.' If there's a note you don't know, just skip it, and go on to the next one.”

“Won't that sound weird?” Jeremy asked her.

Katie shrugged. “I don't think so.”

“But . . .” Kevin began.

Katie looked at the kids. “Come on, you guys. You don't want to be playing ‘Hot Cross Buns' for the rest of your lives, do you?”

Katie raised her arms and began to conduct just the same way Mr. Starkey always did. But it didn't seem to be working. The kids weren't following her rhythm at all.

To make it worse, her arms were starting to hurt. Conducting the beginning band was hard work!

OOOOOOMMMMMPAAAA!
George's tuba sounded like it was going to explode.

Squeeeeeeeeek!
Emma's flute sounded like chalk scratching against a blackboard.

Kevin blew so hard into his trumpet that spit flew everywhere.

“Ooh, gross!” Becky shouted.
Clang!
She dropped her horn as she reached to check the back of her head for spit.

Jeremy kept drumming, trying to keep up with the different rhythms Katie was conducting. He was throwing everyone else completely off.

“Stop!” Katie shouted finally. “Put down your instruments.”

The kids all looked at her strangely. Mr. Starkey had never made them stop before the end of the song before. And he'd never yelled at them. When Mr. Starkey wanted the kids to put their instruments down, he simply lowered his arms.

“That was awful,” Katie told the kids. “You sound like you've never played before.”

“We've never played
this
before,” Kevin reminded her. “I've never even seen some of these notes.”

“Me neither. I skipped all the ones I didn't know. I finished before everyone else did.” George sounded really proud, like he'd won a race or something.

Katie frowned. “You guys can play this correctly if you want to.
I
learned it.”

“Of course you did. You're a music teacher,” Kadeem reminded her.

Oh, yeah.
Katie had forgotten again.

“You're right,” she told Kadeem. “And it's my job to teach you this song. So let's try it again.”

Katie raised her arms. The kids picked up their instruments and started to play.

Yikes!
The song sounded even worse this time. It seemed like whenever someone didn't know how to play a note, they just played the wrong one louder.

In the middle of everything, Katie heard a loud bell ringing. It didn't sound like any instrument she knew.

“Mr. Starkey,” Jeremy shouted loudly over the noise. “The classroom phone is ringing.”

“What?” Katie screamed.

“The phone!” Jeremy yelled even louder.

“Okay, everyone, keep working on the song,” Katie shouted as she picked up the phone and took it out into the hall.

“Mr. Starkey!” the voice on the other end shouted.

“Who is this?”

“Mr. Kane!”

Katie gulped. It was the principal. He sounded really mad!

“What is going on in that classroom?” Mr. Kane demanded.

“We're practicing,” Katie told him.

“Well, stop it. I've been getting complaints from teachers all over the school! There are still classes going on, you know!”

“But it's a new song and . . .”

“That's not a song!” Mr. Kane insisted. “It's noise. Why can't you get those children to play correctly?”

“You're not being fair!” Katie told him. “I'm trying. It's really hard being a music teacher.”

“If you can't control your students, I will. I'm coming to the band room right now.”

Katie dropped the phone. Oh, no! The principal was coming. She was going to be in big trouble.

Right then, Katie didn't care that she was supposed to be a grown man. She was a fourth-grade girl who didn't want to get in trouble with the principal. So she did what any scared fourth-grade girl would do. She ran into the girls room to hide.

As she opened the door, two girls began to scream, “There's a man in the girls bathroom!”

Oops! Katie had forgotten she was Mr. Starkey. Quickly, she raced out into the hallway, and looked for a place where she could be alone.