Witch Switch by Nancy Krulik Page A

here.”
    Katie smiled kindly at him. George had moved to Cherrydale last year, at the beginning of third grade. Before that, his family had moved around a lot. She knew he was happy to be in one place for a while.
    â€œWell, I know where I won’t be trick-or-treating this year,” Kevin said. “That old house on Elm Lane.”
    Suzanne shuddered. “That place gives me the creeps. The wooden shingles are all rotting, and the chimney looks like it’s going to fall off any minute.”
    â€œHow about those spiderwebs in the windows?” George reminded her. “And I think there are rats in the yard.”
    â€œThat house is awful,” Katie agreed.
    â€œI hear it’s haunted!” Kevin exclaimed.
    Suzanne shook her head. “There’s no such thing as a real haunted house, Kevin! It’s just an old abandoned house.”
    â€œIt’s not abandoned. Someone lives there,” Kevin argued.
    â€œNo, they don’t,” Katie insisted, agreeing with Suzanne. “There hasn’t been anybody in that old house for a long, long time. Not since the olden days, like when our parents were kids.”
    â€œYou’re right, no- body lives there,” Kevin told her. “But ghosts do. I know it for sure.”
    â€œHow?” Suzanne wanted to know.
    â€œMy big brother Ian was walking on Elm Lane last night, and he saw a light switch on and off,” Kevin told the others. “If no one lives in the house, then how do you explain that?”
    â€œWow,” George murmured. “That place really must be haunted.”
    Katie couldn’t take it anymore. She hated thinking about ghosts and spiderwebs and rats. She walked toward the school building, leaving Suzanne, Kevin, and George behind. As she headed off, she could hear her friends talking.
    â€œWhat did you have to do that for?” she heard Suzanne asking Kevin. “You know how Katie gets when you talk about scary stuff.”
    â€œYeah, she can be kind of a scaredy-cat,” Kevin agreed. “I guess I forgot.”
    Katie frowned. Her friends might have thought she was too far ahead of them to hear what they were saying, but she could hear every word. And it made her very upset. She hated when they talked about her that way.
    But how could Katie argue with them? When it came to ghosts, she was a scaredy-cat!

Chapter 3
    â€œWelcome to the class 4A haunted mansion,” Katie’s teacher, Mr. Guthrie, greeted the class as they entered their classroom. “Home of Cherrydale’s largest collection of ghosts and goblins.”
    Katie frowned. Even her teacher was getting into all this ghost stuff.
    But as soon as she entered the room, Katie realized there was nothing to be afraid of in class 4A. Mr. Guthrie’s ghosts weren’t creepy or spooky. They were silly, happy cardboard ghosts with big smiles on their faces. They were hanging from the ceiling, taped to the walls, and pasted to the windows. A rubber skeleton was hanging from one of the light fixtures. There were goofy witches, too, with paper legs that had been folded back and forth like long black accordions. Even Slinky, the class snake, had gotten into the Halloween spirit. Mr. G. had placed a few fake spiderwebs around Slinky’s glass cage. Katie bet no other classroom in all of Cherrydale Elementary School looked this cool.
    â€œAs soon as you come in, you can start decorating your beanbags,” Mr. G. told the kids. He pointed to the far corner of the room. “I’ve got plenty of construction paper, fake spiders, cobwebs, and other materials for you to use.”
    Katie smiled. Decorating her beanbag was one of her favorite things to do in school. All of the kids in class 4A sat in beanbag chairs instead of at desks, because Mr. G. believed kids learned better when they were comfortable. Every few weeks the kids got to decorate their beanbag chairs in a new way.

    Katie took a piece of black