The next morning I woke up with a jolt.

Toot! Toot! Daniel stood at the foot of my bed, blowing away on a party horn. "Time to get up, Kat!" he squealed.

I reached out to grab the noisy horn away. "Quit it, you loser!" I grumbled. Then I remembered.

My birthday! Finally! Something to celebrate.

I jumped out of bed. Time to get ready to go to WonderPark!

I planned to be on the Seattle Log Flume and the Wild Wave Slide all day long! Running to the window, I peeked out through the glass. "No!" I cried in

disappointment. "No! It can't be!"

Rain poured down. Lightning crackled through the sky. Thunder boomed so loud, I felt the house shake.

How could we go to WonderPark in this mess? "Kat," Mom called from downstairs. "Breakfast."

I threw on my purple-and-pink-striped leggings and a purple T-shirt and ran to the kitchen. On my birthday Mom always makes my favorite—waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar.

"Here's the birthday girl. Happy birthday, honey." Mom beamed, giving me a big hug.

"I'm dressed for my party," I said hopefully as I sat down at the table.

"Oh, honey, I'm afraid we'll have to cancel your party," Mom said sadly. "We certainly can't go to WonderPark in this storm."

Cancel? I poked unhappily at my waffles.

"Can't we have the party here—indoors?" I pleaded. "We'll order pizza and play computer games in the den."

"You know that we can't do that," Mom said. "The painters will be here all day in the living room and dining room. With all those ladders and buckets of paint, I can't have your friends running around."

What rotten luck.

"But, Mom, it's my birthday!" I protested, throwing down my fork. "And you promised I could have a party. You promised!"

Mom sighed. "I know how disappointed you are, Kat. We'll have your party another day. Maybe next weekend."

Another day wouldn't be my birthday. "Everything's going wrong!" I cried. "Ever since we moved!"

I hated this new house. I even hated my birthday. Most of all, I hated the Grool.

Leaving my waffles on the plate, I ran up to my room. I snatched the Grool out of its cage and shook it as hard as I could.

"I warned you!" I threatened. "You ruined my birthday! Now you'll pay!"

The Grool throbbed happily in my hand, and I hurled it back into the gerbil cage. "I hate you!" I shrieked. "I really hate you! You and your bad luck!"

Plopping down at my desk, I decided I had to take action. Strong action. No birthday party. No more Grool.

"I'm keeping my promise," I told the creature.

I pulled a notebook out of my desk drawer and began to make some plans to get rid of it.

"Daniel, it's not raining anymore," I whispered to my brother. "Come on, it's time." The Grool vibrated in its plastic container.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

Daniel glanced up from his computer screen. "Now?" he asked. "Give me a break, Kat. I'm on level ten, and I need to slay only one more troll before I can open the treasure chest."

"This is important. Really important," I insisted.

Daniel sighed. "Do you think you should do it? You know what the book said." "I've got to!" I cried. "Remember, it's the Grool's fault that Killer ran away." Daniel was definitely nervous. And scared.

But he obediently hit the save button on Troll Terror and followed me outside to the backyard. It had rained all day. But now a few stars shone high above us in the charcoal night sky.

"Here. You hold the Grool," I whispered. I shoved the creature into his trembling hands.

I skipped over to the garage—feeling happy for the first time in days. "I'm getting rid of the Grool," I sang to myself.

Grabbing the biggest shovel I could find, I made my way back to Daniel. Then I started to dig.

This had to be a serious hole, a deep hole. Something the Grool could never, ever climb out of.

A cool breeze blew around me. But digging in the damp ground was hard work. Sweat rolled down my back and forehead.

I didn't feel scared at all. I had to do something to make life normal again. I had to stop all the bad luck.

And if it meant burying a living sponge, fine. As long as I never had to see that stupid, snickering creature again.

I peered down into the hole. It seemed pretty deep, about as long as my arm. "I'm finished," I told my brother. "Pass me the Grool."

Daniel silently handed the sponge to me.

As I held it over the deep hole, the sponge didn't throb. It didn't breathe. It didn't even feel warm.

It felt dry and dead, like an ordinary kitchen sponge.

But I knew better.

I dropped the Grool into the hole and watched happily as it tumbled down the steep dirt sides to the bottom.

Picking up the shovel again, I began throwing dirt onto the creature—heap after heap.

Dig. Throw. Dig. Throw.

Finally, the hole was filled up. I used the back of the shovel to smooth the dirt flat. "There," I said. "No one but us will know the Grool is buried here."

I lowered my eyes to the soft, wet dirt. "Bye, bye Grool," I called out happily. "Daniel, I think our luck is going to change now."

Daniel didn't reply.

I spun around. "Daniel? Daniel? Where are you?" My brother had disappeared.