Wake Up!

Crash! Bang! The sound of thunder came booming from Kate Farber's radio.

That got Kate up fast.

"Just kidding about the thunder," said Amos-on-the- Airwaves. "There's not a cloud in our beautiful Tuckertown sky."

Amos liked to keep his listeners laughing.

Kate grabbed her glasses from the night table and put them on. Her tan frames looked great with her dark brown hair and her freckles.

Then she grabbed her phone. It was right next to where her glasses had been. Kate was neat. She liked to know where her things were and lined them up in straight rows.

Kate was also a sensible girl. On school days, she made sure to call her best friend, Lucie Lopez. Without Kate's wake-up call, Lucie would be late every day.

Kate speed-dialed Lucie's number. She knew the special dog-bark ring that would be waking her friend. They both had the same ring. Arfa-arf!

Lucie and Kate loved dogs, and each wished she could have one. But they lived right next door to each other in garden apartments where the rule was NO DOGS ALLOWED.

So instead of real dogs, Kate and Lucie had sheets and pajamas with dogs on them. They had socks and underwear with dogs on them.

Kate had knickknack shelves with little glass dogs. Of course, they were lined up in neat rows.

Lucie had a collection of stuffed dogs scattered all over her room. Lucie was as messy as Kate was neat. She also had piles of dog books. She had read every single one, so she knew a lot about dogs.

Arfa-arf! Lucie's phone was ringing for the third time. Finally she picked up.

"Hullo," Lucie said, sounding half asleep. "What's up?"

"Obviously, not you," said Kate. "Hurry or we'll be late for school."

There was silence at the other end.

"Are you asleep again?" said Kate.

More silence.

"Wake up! Wake up!" said Kate.

"I'm up! I'm up!" said Lucie, almost falling out of her bed.

"See you outside."

Lucie and Kate had been friends since they were little, and they were in the same class at Tucker Elementary School.

They each got dressed.

Lucie put on her favorite pink poodle T-shirt. She loved pink. She also loved ribbons. She picked out a barrette that had curly pink ribbons hanging down. She pushed her ginger-colored bangs out of her eyes to admire the ribbons.

Kate didn't care much about ribbons. She put on her bulldog T-shirt. Then she quickly tied her hair in two perfect pigtails.

They didn't know it, but at the exact same time, both girls were putting on their pink dog-bone necklaces. They were the most amazing necklaces in the universe. Kate and Lucie wore them every day.

After breakfast, they met outside and started on their way to school.

"Ms. Lu said we're going to do something fun today," said Lucie.

The girls couldn't wait to see what their teacher had planned. They walked a little faster. They came to the Lucky Find Thrift Shop just as Mrs. Bingly, the owner, was opening up.

"Hi, girls!" she called to Kate and Lucie.

"Woofa-woof!" they called back, touching their special necklaces.

They had bought them at Mrs. Bingly's store. Mrs. Bingly would never believe what those necklaces could do.

They had just passed the Lucky Find when Lucie started sniffing the air.

"Uh-oh," she said. "Do you smell what I smell?"

"You mean Banana-Fandana gum?" said Kate.

"Exactly," said Lucie. "And do you hear what I hear?"

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

"You mean that bouncing basketball?" said Kate.

"That would be it," said Lucie.

They turned and saw Danny DeMarco and DJ Jackson.

Danny had the basketball, but he had stopped bouncing it. Now he was holding it up in the air and spinning it on his finger. He was always doing something with that basketball.

And DJ was always chomping his Banana-Fandana gum. He usually chewed three pieces, but the girls had once seen him put four pieces in his mouth at the same time.

Sometimes Kate and Lucie had a good time with Danny and DJ, but most of the time, the girls thought they were the two most annoying boys on the planet.

"Hey, DJ," said Danny. "Do you see who I see?"

"You mean the two goofiest girls on the planet?" said DJ.

"Did he say girls?" whispered Kate, with a gleam in her eye.

"I believe he did," whispered Lucie.

"Woof?" said Kate.

"Woof!" said Lucie.

It was time to put their amazing dog-bone necklaces into action.

Chompy Chips

Kate and Lucie let Danny and DJ get ahead of them. Then they ducked behind a hedge where no one could see them.

The girls had discovered the magic of the necklaces by accident the day they found them at the Lucky Find Thrift Shop. Now they knew just what to do.

Kate and Lucie faced each other. At the exact same time, they said "Woofa-woof!" and gave each other high fives.

Woofa-wow! That did it! Their dog-bone necklaces lit up. With a pop and a whoosh, Kate and Lucie weren't girls anymore. They were dogs!

No matter how many times it happened, they still couldn't believe it.

One dog was shaggy with ginger-colored fur that hung down almost to her eyes. The fur looked just like Lucie's bangs.

The other dog was white with tan spots, dark brown ears, and a brown patch around the eyes. The spots looked a lot like Kate's freckles. The dark brown ears were like her pigtails. And the patch around the eyes was like her glasses.

Instead of their necklaces, both dogs had silver collars with pink dog bones hanging down.

"We did it! We're dogs!" said Kate.

"It's showtime!" said Lucie.

They trotted out from behind the hedge, wagging their tails. They ran to catch up with Danny and DJ, then danced back and forth ahead of them.

The boys had seen them around the neighborhood before.

"Hey, there are those cool dogs again," said Danny.

"Maybe we can get them to follow us to school," said DJ.

"Good idea," said Danny.

He turned to Kate and Lucie and said, "Dogs, follow!"

Instead of following, the dogs walked backward away from the boys.

"Wait! I know what to do!" said DJ.

He dug into his backpack and pulled out an open bag of Chompy Chips.

Boing! Kate's tail went up in the air. She loved Chompy Chips!

"Yoo-hoo, doggies!" DJ called, holding one out.

Shimmy-shimmy-shimmy! Lucie didn't wag just her tail. She wagged her whole behind. She loved Chompy Chips, too.

"Come and get it!" called Danny.

"Chompy Chips are so delicious," whispered Lucie.

Kate came to her senses fast.

"They are not delicious enough to make us...