Book 4
For Liz and Morgan, babysitter and babysat —A. B.
For Callum and Harrison —S. B.
Book 5
To Sally, who is nothing like Nancy. —A. B.
For Sarah, Angus, and Anna, who are never, ever bad. —S. B.
Book 6
For Esme and Megan, friends from the beginning —A. B.
For the other Ivy and her brother Moss —S. B.
Text © 2008 by Annie Barrows.
Illustrations © 2008 by Sophie Blackall.
All rights reserved.
Band-Aid is a registered trademark of Johnson & Johnson.
Butterfinger is a registered trademark of Societe des Produits Nestle S.A.
M&M’s is a registered trademark of Mars, Inc.
Milk Duds is a registered trademark of The Hershey Company
Tootsie Roll is a registered trademark of Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc.
The illustrations in this book were rendered in Chinese ink.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
eISBN: 978-1-4521-1342-5
Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94107
CONTENTS
Book 4: Take Care of the Babysitter
WHERE ARE YOU, MISS PEPPY-PANTS?
ONE IS SILVER AND THE OTHER’S GOLD
Contents
Ivy + Bean Book 4: Take Care of the Babysitter
WHERE ARE YOU, MISS PEPPY-PANTS?
ONE IS SILVER AND THE OTHER’S GOLD
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
Thwack!
Bean was grinding corn. She put a few pieces of Indian corn on the sidewalk and then smacked a rock down on top of them. Thwack! It hardly dented them, but that was okay. That was part of the fun. You had to pound for a long time. Thwack!
“What are you doing?” It was her sister, Nancy, standing on the porch.
“Grinding corn.” Thwack! Bean looked at her corn. It was dented now. “You can do some, too, if you want. I’ve got lots of corn.”
Nancy watched her pound. “What’s it for?”
“Food,” said Bean. “I’m making cornbread.” Thwack! “Hey, look! Corn dust!”
Nancy almost came to look. She even took a step down the stairs. But then she got a prissy look on her face and said, “Like Mom’s going to let you eat stuff that’s been on the sidewalk. Dream on.”
Bean could have thrown the rock at her, but she knew better than that. Bean was seven. Nancy was eleven. Bean knew how to drive Nancy nutso without getting into trouble herself. She began to moan loudly, “Grind or starve! Winter’s coming! If we don’t grind corn, we’ll have to eat rocks!”
“Cut it out, Bean!” hissed Nancy. “Everyone will see you!”
Nancy was always worried that everyone would see her. Bean wanted everyone to see her. She lay down on the sidewalk and rolled from side to side, moaning, “Just a little corn dust, that’s all I ask!”
The front door slammed. Nancy had gone inside. That was easy.
Bean lay on the sidewalk, resting. The sun was warm. She loved Saturdays.
“We’ve got dirt at my house,” said a voice above her.
It was Sophie W. from down the street.
“What kind of dirt?” asked Bean.
Sophie smiled. Both her front teeth were out, and she had filled the hole with gum. “A lot of dirt.”
That sounded interesting. Bean jumped up and grabbed her bag of corn. Together, she and Sophie hurried around Pancake Court.
Usually Sophie W.’s house looked a lot like all the other houses on Pancake Court, but today it looked different. Today, there was an enormous mound of dirt in the front yard. A monster mound. It was as high as the front porch. Maybe even higher. It spread across most of the lawn, all the way to the path. The dirt was dark brown, the kind of dirt that smells good and is already halfway to mud.
“Wow. Your parents actually gave you dirt?” asked Bean.
“Sort of,” Sophie said. “They’re going to use it in the backyard, but not until next week.”
“We can play on it?” asked Bean. It was too good to be true. “It’s okay with your mom?”
Sophie W. looked at her front door and giggled. “My mom’s not home! There’s a babysitter in there!”
Bean stared at the mound. They wouldn’t put it out in the front yard if they didn’t want people to use it, she thought. “Shouldn’t we ask the babysitter?” she said.
Just at that moment, a teenage girl stuck her head out the front door. She was the babysitter. “Oh,” she said to Sophie. “There you are.”
“Is it okay if we play with this dirt?” asked Bean politely.
The teenager looked at the mound like she had never seen it before. “I guess. Um. Don’t track it into the house.”
“No problem,” said Bean. “We don’t even want to go in the house.”
The babysitter nodded and turned to Sophie. “I guess I’ll be watching TV, okay?”
“Sure,” said Sophie. She and Bean waited until the teenager was inside. Then Sophie turned to Bean. “What should we play?”
“Play?” said Bean. “We haven’t got time to play! This volcano’s about to blow!”
DISASTER TWINS
Ivy wouldn’t want to miss out on a volcano, that was for sure. Bean zipped up the street to Ivy’s house and rang the doorbell. But that was too slow. “Hey!” she yelled through the mail slot. “There’s a volcano at Sophie W.’s!”
“A what?” said Ivy, opening the door. Ivy was reading. She was reading a really big book with long words even on the cover, which was something Bean couldn’t stand. It was bad enough when there were big words inside the book.
“A volcano!” Bean yelled. “Come on!”
Ivy looked at her book.
Bean rolled her eyes. “Ivy! It’s a natural disaster! You have to be there!”
“Okay,” said Ivy. She put down her book. “It’s a good book, though.”
“You are so weird sometimes,” said Bean. “Come on!”
The two girls ran back to Sophie’s house. Leo was there now, and Sophie S. and Prairie and Prairie’s little brother, Isaiah.
When she got to the front yard, Bean fell onto the grass. “Earthquake!” she hollered. Volcanoes made the earth shake, too. Volcanoes and earthquakes were like disaster twins.
Ivy grabbed a bush and shook it back and forth to show that the earth was quaking. Sophie W. and Prairie pretended they were being crushed by falling buildings. Leo pretended his car blew up, which was a little strange, but he said it happened all the time during earthquakes.
“Smoke!” screeched Bean, pretending to be terrified. She pointed to the dirt mountain. “She’s going to blow!”
They all stopped what they were doing and looked at the mound of dirt.
“It would be better if we had real smoke,” said Sophie S.
“It would be better if we had real lava,” said Bean.
Ivy glanced around the yard, looking for lava. There wasn’t any, but she did see a hose lying on the lawn. Hmmm. She picked it up.
“That’s good,” said Bean. “Lava flows, just like water.”
“Yup,” said Ivy. “But how are we going to get it to come out the top of the dirt?”
They all thought about that for a minute.
“I know,” said Prairie, her eyes shining. “Let’s stick him inside.” She pointed to Isaiah. “We dig a hole at the top, and then we bury him with the hose.”
Isaiah looked worried.
“If we bury him,” said Bean, “he won’t be able to breathe.”
Isaiah nodded.
“We’ll just dig a hole,” said Leo. “We won’t bury him.”
“It’ll be like a sacrifice to the gods,” said Ivy in a dreamy voice.
“I’m going home,” said Isaiah. He ran.
Prairie caught him. She promised to give him her stuffed seal plus three glow-in-the-dark stickers. Also a lollipop the next time she got two. That was a lot, just for being the lava. Isaiah said okay.
It took quite a while to build the volcano. At first, they tried climbing to the top of the mound to dig the crater. A lot of dirt slid off the mound, and so did Ivy and Sophie S.
In the end, they decided to smash down the dirt in the back of the mound to make steps and then dig an Isaiah-sized crater near the top. It would only look like a volcano from the front, but who cared?
Finally, everything was perfect. Isaiah climbed the steps slowly, holding the hose and Bean’s bag of corn. Bean, Ivy, Leo, Prairie, and Sophie S. gathered around the foot of the volcano. Sophie W. got to turn on the hose, since it was her house.
“You ready?” called Prairie.
“Yes,” said Isaiah. They could hardly hear him inside the crater.
“On your mark!” yelled Bean. “Get set! Go!” She threw herself onto the ground. “Earthquake!” she bellowed.
“Help!” howled Sophie S. “The volcano is spewing!”
Isaiah threw the corn out the top.
“Ask the gods for forgiveness!” yelled Ivy.
“It’s too late!” shouted Leo, flapping bushes back and forth.
“Ohhh nooooo! Here it comes!” hollered Prairie.
Sophie W. laughed and turned the hose on full blast.
“AAAHH!” screamed the volcano, and water blew out the top of the crater in a gigantic spray.
Bean was sopping wet. There was corn in her hair. There was mud on her clothes. She was crawling through the burning lava to bring life-giving corn to the hungry townspeople. The hungry townspeople were some rocks over by the edge of the lawn. Ivy and Leo and Prairie and both Sophies were crawling through the burning lava, too. Isaiah refused to come out of the crater.
“BEEE-EEN! TIME TO COME HO-OME!” It was Bean’s mom, calling from her porch.
Weird. Bean had already had lunch. She decided her mother didn’t really mean it.
“BEAN! I MEAN NOW!”
Oops. Maybe she did really mean it.
Bean stood up. “Five more minutes?” she yelled.
“NOW, BEAN!” Bean’s mother sounded cranky.
“I’ve got to go,” Bean said to the other kids.
“Okay,” said Ivy. “See you.”
“Bye,” said Sophie W., pulling a corn kernel out of the mud. “Look! Food!”
Bean looked at them. “You know,” she said, “that’s my corn. And it was my idea. You guys should stop till I come back.”
Leo sat back on his heels. “No way.”
“It’s my dirt,” Sophie W. pointed out.
Bean looked at Ivy. Ivy shrugged. “I want to keep on playing,” she said.
Bean scowled. It wasn’t fair. “You wouldn’t even know about it if it wasn’t for me.” Some friend she was.
“BEEE-EEN!”
Bean stomped home.
THE SPECIAL EXPERIMENT
“What do you want?” Bean said to her mother.
“Excuse me?” said her mother. That meant that Bean had been rude and she’d better shape up quick.
“Sorry. What?”
“Well!” Her mother smiled brightly. “Today we’re going to try a special experiment, and I want you to be on your best behavior.”
Best behavior? It was Saturday! Bean looked carefully at her mother. She was wearing lipstick. “Where are you going?” Bean asked.
“Daddy and I are going to a play—”
“Can I come?” Bean always asked that, even if she didn’t really want to go.
“No. It’s for grown-ups,” said her mom.
“Is Leona babysitting?” Bean liked Leona. She had long black hair, and she could draw perfect horses.
“No.” Bean’s mom sighed. “Leona has poison oak. That’s the reason for the special experiment.”
Bean wasn’t liking the sound of this. Grownups used the word special when they really meant weird.
“Did you know that I was eleven years old when I started babysitting?” her mom asked.
“No.” Uh-oh. Was she about to get a new babysitter?
“Well, I was,” her mother went on. “And now that Nancy’s eleven, we’ve decided to let her take care of you for the afternoon.”
“What?!” yelped Bean. Nancy was her new babysitter?
“And you’ll behave just like you’d behave for any other babysitter,” said her father, popping into the room. His hair was wet.
“Which means nicely,” said her mother. “Calmly.”
“You’re going to let Nancy babysit me?” yelled Bean. “She’ll kill me!”
“She won’t kill you.”
“She’ll tie me up and stuff me in the attic!” hollered Bean.
“She’s not going to tie you up and stuff you in the attic,” said her father.
“We don’t have an attic,” said her mother. “We have a crawl space.”
“She won’t give me anything to eat! I’ll starve!” Bean couldn’t stop yelling.
“We’re only going to be gone a few hours. We’ll be home for dinner. You won’t starve,” said her father.
Bean looked from her mom to her dad. They looked back at her. They had already decided, and they weren’t going to change their minds. They were really going to leave her with Nancy. Bean had no choice. “Can I go back to Sophie’s, at least?” she asked.
“No,” said her mom. “That’s the other thing, honey. We want you to stay at home this afternoon. Inside the house, where Nancy can keep an eye on you. Just to be on the safe side.”
This was getting worse and worse. Bean pressed her hands against her cheeks and rolled her eyes back in her head. She opened her mouth as wide as it would go.
“Bean! Stop that!” said her mother.
Bean stopped it. “Mom,” she said, trying to sound calm and nice. “Do you realize that we built a volcano in Sophie W.’s yard? Do you realize that everybody in the whole entire world is down there except me? And it’s erupting? And it was my idea?”
“You can call Ivy and ask her to come over if you want,” said her mother.
“No, I can’t, because she’s playing at Sophie’s,” said Bean grumpily. “Along with everybody else in the whole entire world.”
“I’m sorry, honey. It’s just for one afternoon.” Her mother felt bad; Bean could tell.
Her dad didn’t. “You’ll live,” he said.
Bean collapsed onto the rug. “I’m doomed,” she moaned. “I’m double-doomed!”
“Hey, Beanie!” said Nancy, bouncing into the living room. “Did you hear the news? We’re going to have a great time! I’ll even play crazy eights if you want.”
Bean looked up at Nancy with narrow eyes. She was faking. The minute their parents left, Nancy was going to start being the meanest babysitter in the world.
“Okay!” said her dad, slapping his hands together. “Great! Crazy eights! Let’s get going, Char! Can’t be late!”
Her mom bent down and patted Bean’s cheek. “We’ll be back in no time, sweetie.”
Bean closed her eyes. She hoped she looked like a poor little thing.
“Take good care of your little sister, Nancy,” said her mom.
“No worries,” Nancy sang. “Have a great time!”
There was the sound of her mother putting on a sweater.
There was the sound of the door closing.
They were gone.
Triple-doomed, thought Bean.
Bean opened her eyes. Nancy was standing in the doorway. She had her hair up in a bouncy ponytail. She was smiling with lots of teeth, like a camp counselor. “Do you want to play cards?” she said in a peppy voice.
“No,” said Bean. “Why are you so happy?”
Nancy’s smile got even bigger. “Because I’m getting twenty dollars for this.”
WHO’S IN CHARGE?
“I’m the one who should get twenty dollars,” Bean said. It was about the fifth time she had said it. “Putting up with you. Teaching you how to be a babysitter. God!”
“Don’t say God,” Nancy said. She was reading a magazine.
“You’re not in charge of me!” Bean huffed.
“Actually, I am,” Nancy said. But she didn’t say it in a mean way. Bean had been trying to make Nancy mad ever since their parents left, but she hadn’t been able to. Nancy was being mature. It was driving Bean bonkers.
Bean rolled over and breathed into the rug. She might smother. If she smothered, her parents would feel really bad. Bean picked some rug fuzz out of her mouth. She knew she wasn’t going to smother. She also knew that Nancy wasn’t going to tie her up and stuff her in the attic. Neither of those things was the problem. The problem was Nancy being her babysitter. That meant that Nancy was the grown-up, the one who got to decide everything. And it meant that Bean was the little, boring, poopy baby who didn’t get to decide anything.
Bean couldn’t stand it anymore. She got up.
“Where are you going?” asked Nancy, looking over her magazine. “You’re not supposed to go out.”
“What is this—jail?!” huffed Bean. “I’m not a criminal, you know. I can go in the front yard!”
“If you do, I’ll tell, and you’ll get grounded for a week,” said Nancy calmly.
Bean pressed her hands against her cheeks, rolled her eyes back in her head, and opened her mouth as wide as it would go. But Nancy wasn’t even looking.
Bean stomped up the stairs as loudly as she could. Nancy didn’t say anything. Bean slammed the door to her room. She waited. Nothing. Stupid Nancy.
She flung herself down on her bed. She was a prisoner in her own home. Treated like a criminal by her own flesh and blood. “By my own flesh and blood,” muttered Bean. It sounded good.
After a few minutes, she stopped being mad and started being bored. She looked around her room for something to do. She could knit. Except that she liked the idea of knitting more than she liked knitting in real life. Besides, her yarn was in a big knot. She thought about painting, but her watercolors were all the way downstairs. She could make a potholder, but she had already made about thirty of them, and the only colors left were brown and gray. Bean’s grandmother loved everything she made, but Bean didn’t think even her grandmother would want a brown and gray potholder.
Bean flopped into her basket chair. Ouch. She got up and looked out her window. She had never been so bored in her life. She squeezed all the way to the edge of the window and found out that she could see Sophie W.’s yard.
The mound of dirt was smaller than it had been in the beginning. There was muddy water running down the driveway and into the street. Bean pressed her eyebrow against the glass. Sophie S. had the hose. She was shooting water straight into the sky. Ivy was off to one side, hunched over a pile of rocks.
Bean frowned. Some friend. She should sense that Bean was in trouble. She should feel it in her bones. Ivy picked up a rock and splatted it down in the mud. Bean squinted and saw that Ivy’s lips were moving. She was talking to herself. For some reason, that made Bean feel better. Ivy wasn’t really having a great time with the other kids. Ivy was just playing by herself. In fact, Ivy was probably missing her right this minute.
Bean tapped her fingers against the window, thinking. Ivy would come to her rescue if she knew that Bean was imprisoned. Bean was sure of it. Somehow, Bean had to let Ivy know what was going on. Then Ivy could help her escape. Hey! Wait a minute! Bean felt an idea landing in her brain like an airplane. An escape! She was in jail, but maybe she could escape. She had heard of prisoners digging tunnels under their jail cells. Too bad her room was upstairs. If she dug a tunnel, she’d fall right into the kitchen.
Then she looked at the window—that would work! Bean pictured herself climbing out the window on a rope ladder. She pictured Ivy hiding in the bushes below, waiting to help Bean to freedom. A rope ladder. A daring escape. Cool!
THE UNDERSHIRT OF FREEDOM
Bean needed some rope, and she needed something to tie it to. But the first thing she needed was Ivy. Bean looked out the window again. Ivy was dropping another rock into mud. Splat. Her lips were still moving. How was Bean going to get her attention? If she screamed out the window, Nancy would hear. Smoke signals would be perfect, but Bean’s mother always said that if Bean used matches, she would live to regret it.
Then Bean remembered a movie she’d seen when she was little. In it, a bunch of raggedy people on an island had waved a flag printed with the letters SOS. Then an airplane had come to rescue them. Bean’s mother explained that SOS stood for “Save Our Souls.” People write it on flags when they want to be saved— after a shipwreck, for example. Bean didn’t see why they didn’t write SM, for “Save Me,” but she wrote SOS anyway. She wrote it on an old undershirt. Then she taped the undershirt to her flagpole. Okay, it wasn’t really a flagpole. It was a long silver pole with a hooked end that opened the window in the bathroom ceiling. It was much taller than Bean, and she wasn’t supposed to play with it.
“But this is an emergency,” Bean said to herself.
Bean rattled the screen on her window until it fell off. Unfortunately, it fell out the window into the front yard, but there was nothing Bean could do about that. Being extra careful not to smack the pole against the glass, Bean edged her flag over the windowsill. Her SOS undershirt fluttered in the breeze. You’d have to be blind not to notice it.
Hey! There was Ivy, walking along the sidewalk! She was going home! She was about to walk right in front of Bean’s house! Bean could have called out, but she had gone to all that trouble, making an SOS flag. She didn’t want to waste it. She waved the flag gently back and forth.
Ivy didn’t notice.
Bean waved the flag up and down.
Ivy just walked along.
Bean jerked the flag in and out.
Ivy didn’t look up.
So Bean threw the pole at her.
It landed with a terrible crash at Ivy’s feet. Ivy squeaked and jumped backward. Then she looked up at the sky. “Wow,” she said. She bent down to touch the pole. “An alien.”
“It’s not an alien! It’s an SOS!” Bean said.
Now Ivy saw her. “Oh. Hi. Did you throw that at me? Are you mad at me?”
“No, I’m not mad. Don’t you see the flag part? It’s an SOS. See the letters?”
Ivy looked at the pole again. “Cool.” She came to stand under Bean’s window. “How come you need to be saved?”
“Because of Nancy,” Bean said. “My mom and dad let her babysit me.”
Ivy looked shocked. “She’s not a babysitter. She’s your sister.”
“And she’s getting twenty dollars for it!”
Ivy looked even more shocked. “That’s totally not fair.”
“That’s what I said. But nobody ever listens to me.”
Talking to Ivy, Bean began to see just how unfair it really was. Super-duper unfair.
“Did she lock you in your room?” Ivy asked.
“Well, no,” admitted Bean. “But she won’t let me go outside. I’m a prisoner in my own home.”
“Do you want some food?” asked Ivy. “You could pull it up in a basket.”
“No. I don’t want food. I want freedom,” said Bean dramatically. “I’m going to escape down a rope ladder.”
“Neat-o,” said Ivy. “Can I help?”
“Do you have any rope?” asked Bean.
“For sure! I’ll go get some!” Ivy whirled around, ready to run.
“Wait!” Bean said. “Listen. I’m going to have to sneak you in.” Of course, her mother had said that Ivy could come over, but it was much more fun to sneak. It seemed more like a real jail that way. “So come around to the back door when you’ve got the rope.”
“Okay! I’ll meow like a cat. That’s how you’ll know it’s me.” Ivy gave a little hop.
Bean nodded. “Okay. And then we’ll have to find a way to get past Nancy.”
Ivy was already running toward her house.
WHERE ARE YOU, MISS PEPPY-PANTS?
Bean was a spy. Pressing her back against the wall, she moved down the hall without making a sound. It was harder to be a spy on the stairs because the handrail poked her in the back. Still, she was pretty quiet.
When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she edged silently toward the living room and peeked around the door. But Nancy wasn’t there. Hmm. Maybe the kitchen. She slithered toward the door. Empty. Where was Nancy? Bean got a little bit of a funny feeling. What if Nancy was gone? “Nancy?” she said softly.
There was no answer.
“Nancy?” she said in a regular voice. Nothing. “Nancy?”
“I’m in here.” Nancy was in the bathroom. “Don’t come in.”
Bean went down the hall and stood outside the bathroom door. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing. None of your business. Don’t come in.” Nancy’s voice was tight. She didn’t sound like a camp counselor anymore.
“Are you going to throw up?” Bean asked sympathetically. She knew what that was like.
“No! Go away!” Nancy clicked the lock on the door.
What happened to Miss Peppy-Pants? wondered Bean. What was Nancy doing in there? Quietly Bean pressed her ear to the door. She could hear water running, but she could also hear other sounds. Click. Click. Rattle.
“Bean? Is that you?” said Nancy from inside the bathroom.
Bean didn’t say anything. She was perfectly quiet.
Click. Swish. Spray. The sound of a glass bottle being put down.
All of a sudden, Bean knew. This bathroom was where Bean’s mom kept her makeup. Nancy was not supposed to mess around with her mother’s makeup. Bean’s mother had told Nancy about a thousand times that she was too young to wear makeup. Nancy always said that everyone wore it. Then Bean’s mom said that if everyone put their head in the fire, that still wouldn’t make it a good idea. Then Nancy usually cried. They had this conversation a lot.
Now Nancy was in the bathroom putting on makeup.
Some babysitter. She was supposed to be keeping Bean safe and good, and instead she was in the bathroom being bad herself. Bean was just about to point this out when she heard a squeaky meow on the back porch.
Ivy had arrived. Since Nancy was locked in the bathroom, she probably couldn’t hear Ivy come in. But they sneaked anyway. Ivy took off her shoes, and they slid silently across the kitchen and through the hall. Without a word, they tiptoed upstairs and into Bean’s room, closing the door behind them.
“Well?” said Bean. “Did you get the rope?”
“Sort of,” said Ivy. She looked worried. “It’s not exactly rope.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bundle of string. It was thick string, but it was definitely string.
They both stared at it.
“It was all I could find,” Ivy said.
“I guess I could try it,” said Bean. But she knew she wouldn’t. It was string. If she made a ladder out of it, it would snap in two, and she would plunge to the ground and break both her legs. Dang. A perfectly good idea down the drain.
“We could throw your mattress out the window and then try to land on it,” Ivy suggested.
“We’d miss,” said Bean gloomily.
They were quiet for a minute.
“Where is Nancy, anyway?” asked Ivy.
“She’s in the bathroom,”said Bean.
“She’s putting on my mom’s makeup.” Bean flopped down on her bed and looked at the ceiling. “She told me to go away.”
“My babysitters aren’t allowed to do that,” said Ivy. “They’re supposed to play with me, even though I usually don’t want them to.”
“Oh, she’s only doing it because my mom’s not here,” said Bean. “My mom doesn’t let her wear makeup.”
“Gee. Nancy’s pretty sneaky,” said Ivy.
“Yeah. I bet she’s been planning it for a million years. The second my mom leaves— boom! She’s in the bathroom rubbing eye shadow all over her face.”
“That’s stupid. Eye shadow’s goony,” said Ivy.
“Yeah. If I could do anything I wanted, it wouldn’t be dumb old eye shadow,” said Bean.
“What would you do?” asked Ivy.
“Easy. I’d go in the attic.”
“You have an attic?” asked Ivy.
“Yeah, but I’ve never been in it. My parents won’t let me up there,” said Bean. “They say it’s not really an attic and there’s nothing up there and it’s too dangerous.”
There was a pause.
“Bean?”
“What?”
“Your parents aren’t here.”
Bean sat up. She pictured the attic, dark, unknown, secret. “If they aren’t here, they can’t say no!”
“And Nancy did tell you to go away,” added Ivy.
“The attic is definitely away.” said Bean.
Ivy smiled. “She practically ordered us to go there. Come on!”
THE DOOR IN THE CEILING
There was no reason, Bean told herself, why Nancy should have a good day while she had a bad one. She had been waiting her whole entire life to see the attic. “And besides,” she whispered to Ivy as they tiptoed down the hall, “if there’s nothing up there, how can it be dangerous?”
“Exactly,” whispered Ivy. “Where are the stairs?”
“There aren’t any stairs,” said Bean. She opened the hall closet. “We go this way.” She closed the door behind them and pointed at the ceiling. “See?”
Ivy looked up, up the shelves of sheets and towels to a square wooden door set in the closet ceiling.
“My mom says it’s not an attic,” Bean said. “She calls it a crawl space.”
“Crawl space,” said Ivy. “Sounds like something’s crawling around up there. Like a monster with slimy arms that drip down to the floor.”
Bean didn’t like the sound of that. “My mom says there’s nothing up there.”
“Well of course she’d say that,” Ivy said. “Parents never want you to know anything.”
“It’s my house,” Bean said. “I should know what’s in it.” She looked up to the door in the ceiling. “Maybe there’s another kid up there.”
“Or some old dolls,” said Ivy.
Bean wiggled with excitement. “There could be anything! Let’s get going!” She put her foot on the first shelf. It wasn’t as sturdy as she expected. It bent in the middle. She gripped the shelf above—the one that held a lot of washcloths—and pulled herself up. It was harder to hang on to a shelf than a tree branch. Shelves were too smooth. She climbed one shelf higher. Hello, wrapping paper. She tried not to step on the fancy white tablecloth, but she did, just a little. Another shelf. Ugly green towels she had never seen before.
Bean looked up. The wooden square was getting closer. She looked down. The floor was far away. Ivy waved. “You’re doing great.”
“Aren’t you coming?” asked Bean.
“Oh. Sure.” Ivy stepped onto the bottom shelf. “Gosh. It bends.” She took a deep breath, caught hold of the washcloth shelf, and pulled herself up. “You guys have a lot of towels.”
“Uh,” Bean grunted. She was concentrating. She climbed past a bowl of fake fruit and bonked her head on the ceiling. “Ow.” Holding on to the shelf as tight as she could, she looked up. The door to the attic wasn’t really a door. It was a square of wood in a frame. It didn’t have a handle or hinges or anything.
Bean leaned out, trying not to look down, and pushed against the wood square with her hand. Nothing happened.
“What’s going on up there?” said Ivy.
“Can’t get it open,” Bean puffed.
“Scooch over.” Now Ivy was leaning out, too. “We’ll push at the same time. One.”
“Two,” they said together.
“Three!” They bashed the wooden square as hard as they could.
The door leaped upward and thumped down somewhere in the darkness above them. From the open hole, black, lumpy dirt rained down on Bean and Ivy and all the towels and sheets in the closet.
Bean began to cough. “What is this stuff?”
Ivy was trying to blink the dirt out of her eyes. “Your parents probably put it there to stop us. Like they use poisonous snakes to guard treasure.”
“Dirt won’t stop us,” Bean said. “We like dirt!”
“Nothing will stop us!” said Ivy.
Bean reached out and grabbed the edge of the opening. A pile of dirt fell on her face. She ignored it. With her feet, she pushed herself up until her top half was inside the attic.
There was a silence.
“Well?” said Ivy.
“I think we’re the first people who have ever been in here,” said Bean.
“Really? What does it look like?”
Bean’s voice echoed from above. “Well, it’s empty, and there are lots of boards poking up sideways from the floor. It’s not very tall. There are little window things on each side. It’s kind of mysterious. It’s …”
“It’s what?” asked Ivy
There was a pause. “It’s our own private little house.”
“Hang on!” Ivy called. “Here I come.”
UH-OH
“They’ll never figure it out. Not in a million years,” Bean was saying. “We’ll just disappear and then—ta-da!—we’ll come back a few hours later, and they’ll have no idea where we’ve been.” She put the door back into its hole and turned to Ivy. “It’ll be our secret fort.”
Ivy was moving into the shadows. “We’ll fix it up so it’s all comfy and cozy. With silk curtains and rugs and poofy pillows.”
Bean walked carefully across the boards. “Right over here we could put a little stove, so we could make hot chocolate,” Bean said. “We could have a cat, too. And maybe one of those tiny monkeys.”
“We could get beds and have secret sleepovers,” Ivy went on. Her mother didn’t let her have sleepovers yet. “I could sneak out of my house and come over here—”
“And I’ll tie a string to my toe and dangle the string out the window. You pull on the string to wake me up, and I’ll let you in, and we’ll come up here. Oh, I know! Instead of beds, we could put up hammocks, like a ship.” Bean hugged herself. It was such a great idea. “And they’ll never know. They’ll say, ‘Where have you been?’ and we’ll say, ‘Us? We were right here.’ And it won’t be a lie!”
“And when we grow up and they think we’re in college, we’ll live here,” said Ivy. “We’ll go out at night to gather food.”
“We’ll cut a hole in the wall and go out on the roof,” said Bean. “After the attic, the thing I want most is to go on the roof.”
Ivy got up and knocked on the wall. She could hear outside sounds through the wood. “We could make a balcony,” she said. “Our own secret balcony on our own secret house.”
“It’s going to make Nancy wacko,” Bean giggled. “She’s going to explode from jealousy when she finds out.”
“But you aren’t going to tell her, right?”
“Oh. Right. Maybe when we’re really old.”
Ivy put her hands on her hips. “The first thing we need is silk curtains,” she said.
“I don’t think we have any silk curtains,” Bean said. “But how about some sheets? We’ve got plenty of extra sheets.”
“Sure. For now, we’ll use sheets,” Ivy agreed.
“Okay. They’re in the closet. I’ll get them.” Bean jumped up and moved away through the shadows.
Ivy thought about rugs and poofy pillows. A lamp would be nice, too.
“Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” asked Ivy.
“There’s no handle on this door.”
“I know,” said Ivy. “You just push it.”
“Not from this side,” said Bean. “Only from the outside.”
Uh-oh. Bean had put the door back into the hole. “Can you pull it?” Ivy asked.
“There’s nothing to pull.”
Ivy stepped carefully across the floorboards and squatted next to Bean. Bean was trying to dig her fingernails around the edge of the door so she could lift it up. But that didn’t work because she always chewed her fingernails right down to the skin. Even though Ivy didn’t chew her nails, they were still too short to lift the door.
Bean kicked it, but that didn’t do anything.
Ivy looked for a stick to pry it up with. But there weren’t any sticks.
There was no way to open the door.
Bean looked up at the little window things. It was late. Pretty soon, the attic would be completely dark. Nobody knew where they were. They would never figure it out. Not in a million years. She looked around at the empty space with its bare floorboards. It didn’t look like a fort anymore. It looked like an attic. Or maybe a jail.
She poked Ivy’s arm. “At least you’re here, too.”
Ivy and Bean sat down side by side and began to wait.
A WORLD OF TROUBLE
“We’re going to starve,” said Bean.
“I guess we could eat spiders,” said Ivy. “Birds do it.”
Bean shivered. She didn’t want to eat spiders. All those hairy legs.
They were quiet.
Now that she had started, Bean couldn’t stop thinking about spiders. “Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever worry that there’s a giant spider who’s the grandma of all the spiders you’ve ever squashed and that she’s going to come and get you in the middle of the night?”
“I worry that there’s a big potato bug inside my bed,” said Ivy. “Not spiders so much.”
Bean squinted into the shadows. There were probably spiders crawling all over the attic. Spiders she couldn’t see. Something brushed against her leg, and Bean jumped to her feet.
“This is an emergency,” said Bean. “This calls for action.”
“Okay,” agreed Ivy. “What action?”
Bean gulped. “I think we need to scream for help.”
“Help from who?” asked Ivy.
“Well,” said Bean. “Nancy.”
“She is the babysitter,” said Ivy. “She’s supposed to take care of you.”
“Right!” said Bean. “She’s getting paid to take care of me.”
“Okay,” said Ivy. “Let’s yell for her. One.”
“Two,” said Bean.
“Three!” they said together. And then they screamed, They had to scream for a million years. That’s what it felt like anyway. Finally, they heard Nancy. Nancy was yelling, too.
“BEAN? WHERE ARE YOU? WHAT’S HAPPENED? ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” They could hear doors slamming and Nancy’s feet running. “ARE YOU OKAY? ARE YOU IN THE BATHROOM?”
Once Bean knew that she was going to be rescued, she stopped feeling spiders on her legs. After a minute, it was even kind of fun to hear Nancy freaking out. Bean felt cheerful again.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said, “Let’s scream, but no words this time, just a scream.”
#8220;She’s going to have a heart attack,” Ivy said.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHH,” they screeched.
“OH NO!” Nancy shrieked.
Bean took a deep breath and screeched, “WE’RE STUCK IN THE ATTIC! HELP!”
“Bean! Where are you?” Nancy opened the closet door.
“WE’RE UP HERE! HELP!”
“You’re up there?” said Nancy in a surprised voice. “How’d you get up there?” Suddenly she didn’t sound very worried.
“HELP US! WE’RE STARVING! BUGS ARE EATING US!” hollered Bean.
“Is that Ivy, too?” Nancy asked. “What’s she doing here?” Nancy was beginning to sound more grumpy than scared.
Ivy and Bean looked at each other. “HELLLLLP!” they howled.
“Okay, okay. I’m getting the ladder,” grumbled Nancy. “Hang on.” She padded away and came back a minute later. “Sheesh. This thing is heavy.”
“Quiiiick,” moaned Bean. “We’re dying.” She wanted Nancy to be leaping up the ladder.
Something crashed into something else below them. “Ouch!” said Nancy. Then she said a bad word.
Ivy and Bean giggled.
Clump, clump. Nancy climbed up the ladder. Whack! The door in front of them popped open—and then Nancy poked her head into the crawl space. “Wow,” said Nancy, looking around. “I’ve never been up here. Is there anything good in here?”
Bean nudged Ivy. “Nothing,” she said. “Not a ding-dang thing.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” said Ivy.
Nancy’s eyes scanned the darkness and then zipped back to Bean and Ivy. “You’re not allowed to go in the crawl space, Bean, and you know it.”
Uh-oh, thought Bean. She had hoped Nancy would be so glad to see them that she would forget about that. She tried to look sad. “I was scared,” she said in a quavery voice.
“That’s your own fault, bozo,” said Nancy firmly. “Get down from there.”
Nancy climbed down the ladder into the closet. Ivy edged out of the hole and followed her. Bean rolled over onto her stomach, pulled the door toward her, and set it in its frame as she backed down the rungs of the ladder.
Then Nancy noticed the sheets and towels. “What’s all this black stuff on the towels? Bean, did all this stuff fall out of the crawl space?”
“I don’t see any black stuff,” said Bean, stalling.
“Bean, look! It’s everywhere,”snapped Nancy.
Yikes, thought Bean. There was an awful lot of dirt. More than she remembered.
“Maybe it was like that before,” suggested Ivy.
“It was not like this before!” Nancy said. She turned to Ivy. “I don’t even know what you’re doing here, Ivy!” She whirled around to glare at Bean. “You are going to be in a world of trouble when Mom gets home.”
A world of trouble. Bean opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Then Ivy said in a quiet voice, “My babysitters play with me.”
That’s it! thought Bean. Maybe she hadn’t been exactly good, but that was because Nancy had been a bad babysitter. “Leona always knows where I am,” she remarked, “because she’s always with me.”
Nancy stopped glaring and started looking guilty.
“Leona doesn’t sit in the bathroom putting on makeup all afternoon,” Bean pointed out. “She earns her money, drawing horses for me.”
Nancy made a throat-clearing sound. She brushed some dirt from a towel, and then she gave Bean her big, peppy smile. “You know what?” she said. “I bet I could just vacuum all this dirt off the sheets and towels. I bet it would come right off.”
Bean smiled back at her. “I’ll go get the vacuum if you want.”
“Okay. You go get the vacuum while I put the ladder away.”
ONE IS SILVER AND THE OTHER’S GOLD
Ivy and Bean were playing in the living room when Nancy finally finished vacuuming. They were playing doll babysitters. Bean’s doll was the kid. She had crawled out on the roof and was dancing on the chimney. Ivy’s doll was the babysitter. She was having a fit.
“Come down before you fall,” wailed Ivy’s doll.
“Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t,” said Bean’s doll. Suddenly there was an earthquake. The house was a tall stack of books. Bean’s doll fell quite a ways.
“Oh no! My legs are broken!” shouted Bean’s doll.
“Luckily, I’m a doctor!” Ivy’s doll jumped up.
“Let’s put Band-Aids on them.”
“Too late! The volcano next door is erupting!”
“Here comes the lava! It lifts the house up, and carries it for miles!” Ivy picked up the attic book and threw it across the room. “The babysitter is buried in rubble!”
Nancy walked into the living room looking crabby. “What a mess! You two can just pick up all those books yourselves. I’m tired of cleaning up after you!”
“But we’re playing!” said Bean.
“Well, stop playing and pick up those books,” snapped Nancy. “I want this place looking perfect when Mom and Dad come home.” She glanced at the clock. “Which is going to be soon.”
“That’s not fair!” Bean started yelling. “We’re having fun—” Suddenly she stopped. Nancy looked weird. Her eyelids were silver, and her eyelashes were blue. She had forgotten to wash the makeup off.
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” asked Bean.
“You’re colorful,” said Ivy.
Nancy ran down the hall to the bathroom. She banged the door shut. Bean heard the water running.
“I guess we don’t have to pick up now,” said Ivy.
“She’ll still make us do it in a few minutes,” sighed Bean.
“My babysitters clean up for me,” said Ivy.
“So does Leona, but Nancy’s not a real babysitter,” said Bean. She tossed her doll onto the floor. Playing was no fun once you knew you had to clean it up. She missed Leona. What if Nancy was going to be her babysitter forever? Her parents would like it, and Nancy would like it, too, because of the money. Ugh. Bean couldn’t let that happen.
“I have an idea,” said Bean. “Come on.” She got up and walked down the hall, and Ivy followed. Bean leaned close to the bathroom door and said loudly, “If it weren’t for me, you’d be in big trouble.”
Nancy opened the door. Her face was wet and blotchy. “What?”
“It’s pretty lucky for you that Mom didn’t come in and see that silver stuff,” Bean said.
Nancy stared at her for a moment. “Okay. Thanks,” she said.
Bean leaned against the doorway. “It’s almost like I’m the babysitter,” she said.
“You are not!” said Nancy. “I’m the babysitter!”
“But I’m keeping you out of trouble like a babysitter,” explained Bean.
Nancy opened her mouth, but she didn’t say anything.
“That’s pretty nice of me, I think. And when we were in the attic, you didn’t even know it because you were down here,” said Bean.
“Anything could have happened to us.” Ivy nodded.
“But you’re fine,” argued Nancy.
“But I had to take care of myself,” Bean said.
“What do you want, Bean?” asked Nancy with narrow eyes.
“Money,” said Bean. “Since I was a babysitter, I should get some of your money.”
“What?!” yelled Nancy. “Why should I give you money? I had to do all that vacuuming!”
“But if you had been paying attention, we wouldn’t have been in the attic and you wouldn’t have had to vacuum,” Bean said. “I think you should give me five dollars.”
“No way!”
Bean shook her head. “Mom’s going to be mad about the makeup.”
Nancy looked like she wanted to slam the door, but she didn’t. “I’ll give you a dollar,” she said finally.
“Five,” said Bean.
“Two,” said Nancy.
“Four,” said Bean.
“Deal,” said Nancy. “You promise not to tell? And you, too, Ivy?”
“We promise,” said Bean. “Right, Ivy?”
“Right,” agreed Ivy.
Nancy looked at the two girls for a moment. “From now on, I’m only babysitting kids who can’t talk,” she said and slammed the bathroom door shut.
Ivy and Bean walked back down the hall. “That’s two dollars for each of us,” said Bean. “I think I’ll buy a doll baby.”
“Me, too,” said Ivy. “We can have twins.”
JUST DESSERTS
A tornado had just hit doll land when Bean’s mom opened the front door.
“Hi, sweetie!” said her mother. “How did it go? Where’s Nancy? Hi, Ivy.”
“Hi,” said Bean. “It was fine. I don’t know where Nancy is.”
“Hi,” said Ivy. She made a sound like a siren. “Here come the firefighters!”
“There you are!” said Bean’s mom as Nancy came into the living room. “How was it, honey?”
Nancy took a deep breath.
Bean looked up at her.
“I think I’m too young to babysit, Mom,” Nancy said.
Bean’s mom looked worried. “Why, sweetie?” She turned to Bean. “Bean? Did you misbehave?”
“Me?” Bean said with wide eyes. “I was perfect!”
“Why don’t you want to babysit again, honey?” said Bean’s mom. She turned to Nancy and brushed her hair out of her face.
“I just don’t like it,” Nancy said. “I was nervous the whole time.”
“Nervous? What were you nervous about?” asked Bean’s mom.
Bean wrapped her fingers around her own neck and dangled her tongue out of her mouth.
Nancy saw her. “I was just nervous. I think I’ll wait until I’m older before I babysit again.”
“Too bad,” said Ivy. “I thought you were a great babysitter. I was hoping you could babysit for me one day.”
“NO!” said Nancy.
“Nancy!” said Bean’s mom. “I think Ivy’s being very nice. You don’t have to babysit if you don’t want to, but you may not be rude.”
Nancy clenched her fists into balls and looked at the ceiling. “I am being driven out of my mind!”
“Maybe you need to take some time in your room then,” said Bean’s mom sternly.
“Fine!” Nancy stomped off down the hall.
Bean’s mom looked after her for a moment and then turned to Ivy and Bean. “Did something happen while we were gone?”
“Happen?” said Bean. “Nothing happened.”
“Not a thing,” said Ivy.
The two girls finished playing. They lay on the floor, relaxing among the books and dolls.
“You know,” said Ivy, “I wish Nancy would babysit me.”
“Yuck,” said Bean. “Why?”
“I could use two more dollars,” said Ivy. “I want to buy some dirt so I can make my own volcano, like Sophie W.’s.”
“Oooh, that’s better than a doll baby!” said Bean. “Let’s use our money for dirt!”
“We should be able to buy a lot of dirt for four dollars,” said Ivy. “I want it to go all the way up to my porch so I can jump into the crater.”
“Cool!” said Bean. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. We have a whole day to make a volcano!”
Ivy looked at the ceiling. “I wish we could make a tornado, too.”
“Yeah, that would be fun.” Bean thought for a moment. “You know,” she said, “my dad has a leaf blower.”
“Oh boy,” Ivy wiggled happily. “We can blow your playhouse over.”
Bean’s mom came into the living room. “I just called your mom, Ivy. She says you can stay for dinner if you want.”
“Yes!” yelled Ivy and Bean at the same time.
Bean’s mom smiled. “Smart move. We’re having cream puffs for dessert.”
“We are?” asked Bean. She loved how the cream came shooting out onto both sides of her face when she took a bite. “How come?”
“Oh, to celebrate Nancy’s first time as a babysitter,” said her mother.
“And to celebrate how good Ivy and I were,” added Bean. “Right?”
“Right. That too,” said Bean’s mom. She left the room.
Bean leaned close to Ivy and whispered, “Can you believe how great this day turned out?”
“And there are still lots of hours left,” said Ivy.
THE END
Contents
Ivy + Bean Book 5: Bound to be Bad
A PAIN IN THE KAZOO
Check. Bean’s mom was reading the paper.
Check. Bean’s dad was reading the paper.
Check. Nancy was reading the funnies.
Bean picked up her plate and licked the streaks of leftover syrup.
“Bean’s licking her plate,” said Nancy.
“Stop it, Bean,” said Bean’s mom without even looking up from the paper.
Bean sat on her hands and stared at her plate with her lips shut tight. Then, suddenly, her tongue shot out of her mouth and her head swooped down to her plate. “I can’t help it,” she said, licking. “There’s a magnetic force pulling my tongue out of my mouth.”
Bean’s family looked at her like she was a bug. An ugly bug.
“That’s disgusting,” said Nancy.
“Bean, please . . .” said her mother.
“Cut it out,” said her father.
“I can’t!” slurped Bean. “The force is too strong!”
Her father took her plate away. Bean slumped against the back of her chair. “Thanks, dude. I owe you one.”
“Don’t call me dude,” said her dad. “Go do the dishes.”
“What?! It’s Nancy’s turn!” yelped Bean.
“It was Nancy’s turn until you licked your plate. Now it’s your turn,” said her dad.
“That’s totally unfair!” huffed Bean. “I couldn’t help it! Haven’t you ever heard of forces beyond your control?”
“Yes, I have,” said her father. “Forces beyond your control are going to make you do the dishes.”
“What am I, Cinderbean?” Bean said. “What about my rights?”
Slowly her dad lowered his newspaper and looked at her. “Think about whether you’re making a good choice or a bad choice, Bean.”
There was a pause.
“I guess I’ll go do the dishes.” Bean clomped into the kitchen.
“Bean, you didn’t see my pink yarn, did you?”
Oops. Bean tried to roll behind the couch, but Nancy saw her.
“Bean! Do you have my pink yarn?”
“No,” said Bean. That was true. She didn’t have it. She would never have it again.
Nancy looked at her, slitty-eyed. “Do you know where it is?”
“No.” Who knew where it was by now?
Nancy’s eyes got even slittier. “Have you seen it recently?”
“Recently?”
“Mom! Bean took my yarn!”
Before she knew it, Bean was having to look around her room for her money. (She changed hiding places so often that it was hard to remember where she kept it, exactly.) She had to give Nancy seven dollars to buy new yarn. Seven dollars! Now she only had two dollars and some coins left.
And the yarn hadn’t even worked. Bean had fallen out of the tree anyway.
Bean’s mom was under her desk. She was doing something with wires, and Bean could tell she wasn’t having much fun because she kept saying, “Oh, for crying out loud!” and “Gee-Zoo Pete!”
“Hi, Mom,” said Bean into the crack between the desk and the wall.
“Oh. Hi,” said her mom. “Hold on to this cord a sec, will you?” She shoved a black wire up through the crack.
Bean didn’t take it. “Only if you pay me.”
“What?”
“Only if you pay me.”
There was a silence. Then Bean’s mom began to back out from under her desk.
Bean started to have a bad feeling. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’ll hold the cord for free.”
But now her mom was all the way out. Now she was standing. Now she was glaring. “Did I hear you say that you would help me only if I paid you?” she asked.
“It was a joke,” said Bean. “Just kidding. Ha.”
Her mom was still glaring. “What do you think I’m thinking, Bean?”
Bean sighed. “I think you’re thinking I’m a pain in the kazoo.”
“Right. So what might be a good thing for you to do?”
Bean thought. “Eat only bread and water for a week?”
“Try again,” said her mom.
“Give you and Daddy and Nancy each a big wet kiss?”
Her mother coughed. “Maybe later. Try again.”
“Go outside and play?”
“Bingo.”
TOUGH COOKIES
Bean flopped down on her front steps. Yikes. Even though it was still morning, the wood was already hot from the sun. Bean’s head was sweating under her hair. She wished she hadn’t popped her blow-up pool. Her mom had said that jumping around a blow-up swimming pool on a pogo stick would pop it. Bean had said it wouldn’t. Her mom had been right. Bean had been wrong.
Bean rested her chin in her hands and thought about that. She had popped her blowup pool. She had been a disgusting bug at breakfast. She had used up Nancy’s yarn. And she had made her mom mad. What if I am a pain in the kazoo, she thought. What if that’s just how I am? What if I’m worse than all the other people in the world?
Bean jumped up. She wanted to play with someone. Right this minute. She looked around Pancake Court. Mostly everyone was still inside, but there was one kid out. It was Katy, who was six years old and lived at the other end of Pancake Court. She was walking along, pushing a little pink doll stroller in front of her.
“Hiya, Katy,” called Bean. “You want to play?”
Katy stopped in front of Bean’s house. She looked at Bean. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” asked Bean.
“I have to stay clean.” Katy was very clean. Her pink dress was clean, and even her white sandals were clean.
“How come?” Bean asked.
“We’re going out for dinner tonight,” said Katy.
“Your mom’s making you wear your fancy stuff all day?” Bean’s mom would never try that.
“She’s not making me,” said Katy. “I like this dress because then we’re twins.” She pointed to her doll.
It was true. The doll and Katy were wearing the same pink dress.
Bean felt big and dirty. “We could play a clean game.”
Katy thought for a minute. “House?”
Bean hated House. “What about Starving Orphans?”
Katy folded her arms. “House.”
Boy, Katy was a tough cookie. “Fine. House.”
Katy was the mother. Her doll was the older sister. Bean was the baby. Katy was making cookies. The doll was doing her homework. “Now you eat the cookie dough, and I give you a time-out,” said Katy to Bean.
Fine. Bean lunged toward Katy and snatched her imaginary bowl of dough. “Gimme that!” she hollered and threw herself under the camellia bush to gobble it up.
“Oh, you’re a bad girl!” scolded Katy. “You get a time-out!”
“Now I’m barfing on your shoes because I ate all that cookie dough,” said Bean, crawling toward Katy.
“Eew, no!” squealed Katy, jumping away.
“Okay,” said Bean. “I’m barfing on my sister’s homework.”
Katy grabbed the doll. “That’s gross, Bean. I don’t want to play that.”
“Okay, let’s say I have to go to the hospital and get my stomach pumped.” Bean made a sound like a siren.
Katy looked down at Bean. “No,” she said firmly. “You’re not doing any of that. You’re in a time-out.”
Bean looked up at Katy. This game was too much like life. When she and Ivy played House, the house burned down. Bean wished she were playing with Ivy. “All right. I’m in a time-out. See you later.” She got up and started toward the sidewalk.
“Where are you going?” asked Katy.
“Ivy’s. My time-out is at Ivy’s,” said Bean. “Bye.”
BIRD BRAINS
“IIIII-VEEE!” Bean shouted into Ivy’s mail slot. “Yoooooo-hooo!”
“Hello, Bean,” said Ivy’s mom, opening the front door. “Care for a slice of cucumber?” She was holding a plate of them.
Bean wanted to say, Are you nuts? But she knew that wasn’t polite. “No thank you,” she said. “Is Ivy home?”
“She’s out in the yard,” said Ivy’s mom. “Go on back.”
Bean walked down the path beside Ivy’s house and opened the gate that led to the backyard. Ivy’s yard didn’t have a trampoline like Bean’s, but it did have big rocks and a perfectly round puddle that Ivy called a pond even though she had to fill it with the hose. Ivy was standing still in the middle of the long, weedy grass. Her arms were raised to the sky, and she had a big smile on her face.
“Are you trying to fly?” called Bean.
Ivy turned to Bean and smiled even bigger, but she didn’t move. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Wave your arms,” advised Bean.
Ivy smiled so hard her eyeballs bulged out.
“What the heck are you doing?” Bean asked.
“I’m trying to be good,” whispered Ivy.
“What?” yelled Bean. She waded through the weedy grass.
“I’m trying to be good,” Ivy whispered again.
“Why do you have to be so quiet about it?” Now Bean was whispering, too.
“Because I don’t want to scare the birds away. I’m trying to be so good that birds land on my fingers and wolves come out of the woods and follow me down the street,” Ivy explained.
Bean stared. “Why would being good make birds land on your fingers and wolves do whatever you just said?”
“I found out about it yesterday. If you’re super-good and pure of heart, animals think you’re one of them and they love you and follow you around.”
Ivy’s arms were trembling. She must have been holding them up for a while. “Are you sure about this?” asked Bean.
“Positive. I saw it in a picture. There was this guy with birds flying all around him and a wolf licking his foot. My mom said this guy was so good that wild beasts talked to him and birds swarmed after him.”
“I don’t get it. Why did the birds swarm after him?”
“Because his heart was so pure and kind that they saw that he was the same as an animal on the inside. They loved him,” Ivy said.
Bean thought about that. “Like Snow White, you mean?” Hadn’t the birds helped Snow White make a pie?
Ivy made a face. “Snow White wasn’t good. She was a goonball. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to eat stuff you get from strangers.”
“But the birds liked her,” said Bean.
“Maybe the birds felt sorry for her, but they didn’t think she was one of them,” said Ivy. “Anyway, I don’t want to be like Snow White. I want to be like the guy in the picture. I want a wolf to follow me because I’m pure of heart.”
A wolf. Bean pictured a shaggy wolf walking beside her while a bird rested on her shoulder. Her mom and dad would be scared half to death, but Bean would say, “The wolf won’t hurt you. He’s my friend.” Then the wolf and Bean would give each other long, understanding looks. And then Bean’s mom and dad would feel rotten because they hadn’t realized that Bean was so pure of heart. They had thought she was a pain. Bean smiled at Ivy. “A wolf would be pretty cool.”
“Yeah.” Ivy smiled dreamily.
“We could share him,” said Bean.
“Sure we could,” said Ivy. “That’s what good people do. They share.”
“He doesn’t even have to lick my foot,” said Bean. “It’s fine if he just follows me around.”
“I know,” said Ivy. “Me, too.” She raised her arms again. “But I’m starting with birds. I think they’ll be easier to get than a wolf. You know,” she whispered, “they’re not so smart.” She looked up and smiled at the sky. “La-la-la,” she sang sweetly.
“I don’t see any birds,” said Bean, glancing up.
“Me neither,” said Ivy. “Maybe they’re hiding in the trees.”
Bean watched her for another moment. “I like birds, too,” she said in a loud voice. “Almost as much as wolves.” She held her hands upward. “How do you do it?”
“What?”
“Be so good that a bird lands on you?”
“You can’t think about yourself. You have to think nice thoughts about other people,” said Ivy.
Bean concentrated. She thought, I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad. Even though you’re totally unfair. She thought of Nancy. Oh, I guess I love you, too, Nancy. Then she thought of Nancy saying, “Seven-year-olds aren’t allowed to go to horse camp, so HA!” and “Isn’t it past Bean’s bedtime, Mom?” Stupid Nancy, I hope you fall off a horse. Oops.
“Boy, this is harder than it looks,” she said to Ivy. “I can think nice thoughts about my mom and dad, but that’s it.”
“Oh, your mom and dad are too easy. You aren’t good enough if you just think nice thoughts about your mom and dad. You have to think nice thoughts about mean people.”
“Holy moly, I can’t even think nice thoughts about Nancy, and she’s my sister.”
“I’m thinking nice thoughts about Crummy Matt,” Ivy announced.
“No way!” said Bean.
Crummy Matt was the meanest kid Bean knew. He was so mean he told little kids that chocolate milk was brown because it had poop in it. He was so mean that he kicked kickballs onto the school roof on purpose, so no one else could play with them. He was so mean he threw rocks at cats.
“Uh-huh,” said Ivy proudly. “I am.”
“There’s nothing nice to think about Crummy Matt,” said Bean.
“I’m thinking that I hope he stops being so crummy,” said Ivy. “Hey—it’s working!”
A little brown bird was hopping near Ivy’s pond. Boing, boing, boing.
Ivy held her breath.
“Here, birdie!” squeaked Bean.
The bird flew away.
Ivy sighed. “Now I have to start all over again.”
“Sorry,” said Bean.
Ivy smiled in a pure-of-heart way at Bean. “Now I’m thinking nice thoughts about you,” she said.
Bean didn’t like the sound of that.
A CRUMMY PLAN
Bean could not think one more nice thought. She had thought something nice about every single kid in her class. She had wished that there were peace on earth and no more litter—that should make the animals happy—and that everyone had plenty to eat and only things they liked.
Not one bird had come anywhere near her.
There was sweat dripping out from under her hair.
Plus, her arms ached.
“Shoot,” said Bean, dropping her arms. “How long was it before the wolf licked that guy’s feet and followed him home?”
Ivy dropped her arms, too. “I think it only took him a few minutes, but we’re just beginners. He was an expert. The mayor called him out especially to talk to the wolf because the wolf had been eating up the townspeople. In the picture, there were all these arms and legs lying around. But the good guy and the wolf had a talk, and next thing you know the wolf licks his foot and only eats vegetables.”
“Arms and legs lying around?” asked Bean. Gross. But interesting.
“Yeah,” said Ivy. “He was a really bad wolf until he met that good guy.”
Bean pictured herself patting the wolf’s shaggy head. He was trotting alongside her with his wolf claws clicking on the sidewalk. Grateful townspeople waved. “I bet the people were pretty glad not to be eaten, too,” she said.
“Hey,” said Ivy. She was smiling—a real smile, not a thinking-nice-thoughts smile. “What if we did something like that?”
“What? Put fake arms and legs around?” Bean asked.
“Not that,” said Ivy. “I mean turning evil to good. If we turned a bad person into a good person, it would be almost like getting a wolf to stop eating people.”
“Yeah,” said Bean. “That would mean we were so good that we could infect other people with our goodness.” She could almost feel the goodness oozing out of her. “That’s a great idea. Who should we gooden up? Nancy?”
“No,” said Ivy firmly. “Crummy Matt.”
Bean stared at Ivy. “Are you bonkers? He’s going to squash us like bugs.” Crummy Matt was ten years old. He bragged that when he was three, his mother had taken him to the doctor because she was worried he was a giant. The doctor said that Crummy Matt wasn’t a giant. He was just big. Crummy Matt said he was the biggest ten-year-old in the country. He said there was a bigger ten-year-old in China, and that was the only reason why he wasn’t the biggest ten-year-old in the world.
“No, he won’t,” Ivy said,“because we’re going to change him into a good person.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Ivy looked around as if she would find the answer in the grass. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “Maybe just looking at us will make him nice. That’s what happened with the wolf.”
Neither of them moved.
“We probably need a snack first,” said Ivy.
They each had some banana chips. Then Bean needed some milk. She spilled quite a lot of it. They wiped it up. Then Ivy had to go to the bathroom. Then Bean had to.
When Bean came out of the bathroom, Ivy was smiling her pure-thoughts smile. “Come on,” she said through her smiling teeth. “Let’s get going.”
Bean nodded. They walked toward the living room. Ivy’s mom was lying on the couch with cucumbers all over her face. By now Bean was so good she didn’t even laugh.
“Bye, Mom,” said Ivy. “I love you.”
Ivy’s mom lifted her head a little. A cucumber fell on the floor. “What?”
“I love you.”
“Where are you going? It sounds like you’re leaving forever,” said Ivy’s mom. More cucumbers fell off her face.
“We’re going over to Matt’s,” said Ivy.
“You are? I thought you didn’t like him,” said Ivy’s mom.
“Sure I like him,” said Ivy. “I love everybody.”
“You do?” Ivy’s mom sounded surprised.
“Yes I do,” said Ivy.
“It’s no good saying it inside,” Bean pointed out. “The birds can’t hear you.”
“Birds?” said Ivy’s mom. “What birds?”
“We might have a bunch of birds coming to visit,” explained Ivy.
“And something else, too,” said Bean. “Something with lots of teeth. But don’t worry.”
Ivy’s mom looked from Bean to Ivy. “Worry? Me? Never.” She picked up her cucumbers and put them back on her face.
A GOOD BAD IDEA
As it turned out, Ivy and Bean didn’t have to go to Crummy Matt’s house because Crummy Matt was already out on the sidewalk, surrounded by kids. There was his little brother, Dino, who was eight. There were Sophie W. and Sophie S. and Liana, who was Katy’s older sister. Katy was sitting on a paper bag on Sophie S.’s lawn. And there was Crummy Matt’s rat, Blister. Poor Blister. He wasn’t very old, but he was tired anyway. He was tired because Crummy Matt was always making him do tricks.
Ivy and Bean walked toward the group. When they got closer, they heard Liana say, “Matt, that’s really mean! Put him down.”
“He likes it,” Crummy Matt said.
“No, he doesn’t,” said Dino. “He hates it.”
“Shut up,” said Crummy Matt. “You don’t know.” He held Blister by the tail, dangling him over the sidewalk. Blister twisted and squeaked. He hated it.
“Boy, is he crummy,” said Bean softly.
But Ivy was already speeding down the sidewalk. “Matt!” she cried, “Matt! Don’t be cruel! Put the poor thing down!”
Crummy Matt looked up, surprised. Ivy had never talked to him before. “What?” He swung Blister a little.
Ivy clasped her hands together. “Matt, I beg you! Put him down! You’re harming an innocent creature!”
The Sophies, Liana, and Katy looked hopeful. Even Blister looked hopeful. Dino didn’t.
“Nobody asked for your stupid opinion,” said Crummy Matt, “so shut up.”
Ivy and Bean glanced at each other. It didn’t seem like Ivy’s goodness was doing much to Crummy Matt. In fact, it seemed like Ivy’s goodness was making him mad. Bean thought maybe it was time to leave.
But Ivy took a breath. “Matt, you’re a really horrible person, but you could change. If you put Blister down, I’ll be your friend forever.”
Bean got ready to run.
Crummy Matt carefully put Blister in his shirt pocket.
Ivy smiled purely.
Crummy Matt reached out and pulled Ivy’s sparkly headband off her hair. “Who says I want to be your friend?” he said and threw the headband into the street. Then he turned around and went into his house.
Ivy was thinking loving things about all living creatures, even disgusting creatures like eyeless sea worms. Then a hummingbird whizzed past her head. It was beautiful.
Ivy pictured the shimmering creature on her shoulder like a little jewel and held her breath. Careful. Don’t move. Think like a hummingbird. “Vvvvvvvum,” she murmured.
“What?” said Bean.
Ivy shook her head. Shhh, Bean. The hummingbird darted from flower to flower. Come on, look at me, thought Ivy. See how good I am. The hummingbird came to a stop on a stem and turned to look at her thoughtfully. For a second, Ivy was a hummingbird inside. Then—whoosh. The bird zoomed past her head again and disappeared into the blue sky.
Ivy was discouraged. The hummingbird hadn’t even noticed her pure heart. Her headband was still in the street and was probably going to get run over. Bean had told the other kids about the birds and the wolf, and now Sophie W., Sophie S., Liana, and Dino were lined up on the curb across Pancake Court, staring at Ivy. Katy was there, too, sitting on her paper bag, staring. It was distracting.
Bean was distracting, too. She was standing beside Ivy on the lawn. She was supposed to be holding up her arms for the birds, but she kept bending down to scratch her legs. No bird in its right mind was going to land on Ivy’s fingers if Bean kept on scratching like that.
“Stop scratching,” whispered Ivy.
“I’ve got mosquito bites,” explained Bean. “Want to see?”
“No,” said Ivy. She dropped her arms and turned to Bean. “Look, Bean, I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’re concentrating hard enough to get a bird.”
“Hey!” Bean felt herself turning red. “I’m concentrating. I’m just itchy.”
“I don’t think you’re thinking loving thoughts. I think you’re thinking about how itchy you are.”
“Hey! I can’t help it if I’m itchy. And if you’re so good, you should be feeling sorry for me because I’m itchy,” said Bean.
“I do feel sorry for you,” said Ivy. “But you’re not supposed to feel sorry for yourself. You’re not supposed to be thinking about yourself at all! You’re going to ruin my chance to have birds and wolves because you’re weakening my goodness.”
“I am not!” yelled Bean. “I’m just as good as you are! I’m not thinking about myself! I’m thinking loving thoughts!” She glanced around Ivy’s front yard and spotted a ladybug on a leaf. “See? Look at that ladybug! She wasn’t there a minute ago! She’s following me!” Bean kneeled down beside the leaf. She was eye
to eye with the ladybug. The ladybug froze. Bean tipped her head like she was listening. She nodded. “This ladybug says she can feel how pure of heart I am.”
“She does not,” Ivy said.
“How do you know?” Bean yelped. “Your heart isn’t so pure. That’s what this ladybug here—” Bean jabbed her finger toward the leaf. “Oops.” Bean had jabbed too hard and the ladybug had fallen off the leaf and dropped to the ground. “Sorry, little ladybug,” whispered Bean, hurrying to turn the ladybug right side up. The ladybug scuttled away as fast as it could.
Bean thumped down on the grass. “I saved her life. That was good!”
“But you knocked her over first,” Ivy said.
“Dumb bug,” Bean scowled.
Ivy looked at her. “Wait a minute,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m getting an idea.”
“Jeez. I hope it’s more fun than being good,” said Bean grumpily.
“Way more fun,” Ivy said.
“Well? What is it?” asked Bean.
“Being bad.”
THE WORST WORD IN THE WORLD
“Let me get this straight,” Bean said. “I do something bad, and then you talk me into being good?”
“Yeah,” said Ivy. “I reform you. Just like that guy reformed the wolf.”
“I’m not licking your feet,” said Bean. “No way, no how.”
“I don’t want you to lick my feet,” Ivy said. “I just want to make you good.”
“And I’ll still get to share the wolf and the birds when they come along?”
“Sure. They’ll love you extra because you turned from bad to good.”
Bean thought about that. “But I won’t be bad in the end, right? The wolf is going to know I’m like him inside, right?”
“Right,” Ivy said. “You’ll only be bad for a few minutes. Then I’ll reform you, and you’ll be good again. It’s like a play we’re putting on for the birds.”
“What’s going on over there?” yelled Liana from the curb. “I thought you said birds were going to flutter around your head!” She pointed to the three crows who lived on the telephone pole. “I don’t see them fluttering!”
“Hang on!” Ivy called.
“We’re pausing for station identification,” Bean yelled. She turned back to Ivy. “Am I just bad once?”
“Well, that depends,” said Ivy, “on how long it takes for the birds to show up.”
Wow. Being bad was actually good. Bean jumped to her feet. “Okay, guys!” she yelled at the kids on the curb. “I’m going to be really bad, and then Ivy’s going to make me good. Then we’ll have birds galore. Not just those crow losers.”
“How bad are you going to be?” yelled Dino.
“You wait and see,” called Bean. “You won’t believe it.”
She’d better think of something quick.
She looked around Ivy’s front yard.
She scratched her mosquito bites.
She searched through her brain for badness. The problem was that she usually didn’t decide to be bad. For example, she knew that she wasn’t supposed to call Nancy a doody head, but when she got really mad, she forgot. She didn’t mean to be bad; she was just too mad to remember to be good.
Maybe she should call Ivy a doody head. But she didn’t truly think Ivy was a doody head, so that probably wouldn’t count.
Bean pulled a leaf off a bush and looked at Ivy. “Bad?” she asked.
Ivy shrugged. “Not really. My mom cuts them with clippers.”
Okay. She would have to do something worse.
She just couldn’t think of anything. “What’s bad?” she asked.
“Bad words,” Ivy said instantly.
Of course! Bean should have thought of that herself! Just a few days ago she had heard a lot of bad words at the hardware store. Some of them were so bad that she didn’t know what they meant, so she picked the one that had sounded the worst. She turned to face the kids on the curb. “I’m about to say a bad word!” she yelled. “A super-duper bad word!”
Dino, Liana, and the Sophies nodded. Katy clapped.
Bean stood very close to Ivy and whispered the bad word in her ear.
Ivy tried not to giggle, but it came out her nose. She sniffed hard and then put her hands over her heart and cried, “NO! I beg you, Bean, not to say that terrible word! Promise you won’t!”
Bean looked at Ivy for a moment. What was she supposed to do? “Um, okay.”
“She’s good again! She’s changed!” Ivy said loudly.
Bean checked the crows. They were still sitting on the telephone pole. They hadn’t even noticed Bean’s bad word.
“Stupid birds,” said Bean.
“We didn’t hear anything!” Dino yelled. “Say it louder!”
Whoa, Nellie. Bean was not going to say that word out loud. Um, um . . . “BRA!” she screamed.
Liana and the Sophies giggled, but Dino hollered, “That’s not a bad word! That’s boring!”
What?! Boring? Bean was insulted. She wasn’t boring! She was bad! She was the worst kid in town!
She stormed out of Ivy’s front yard, charged up the sidewalk, and came to a stop in front of Mrs. Trantz’s house.
Bean turned her head to glare at Dino. “You want to see bad?” she yelled. “Watch this!”
BEAN, QUEEN OF BAD
In Mrs. Trantz’s yard, there were two rows of rosebushes, one on either side of the front path. Each rosebush had a little circle of dirt to live in. Each circle of dirt had a tiny white fence around it and then a sea of sparkly white rocks stretching out around that. Sometimes Mrs. Trantz came outside and washed her front path. Sometimes she even washed her rocks. Mrs. Trantz liked things to be very clean. When she saw dirt, her face shriveled into a frown. When she saw children, her eyes narrowed into tiny slivers. When she saw dirty children, her frown sucked her lips all the way inside her mouth and her eyes slivered into nothing. She frowned so hard her face went away.
Bean drove Mrs. Trantz crazy. She didn’t try to; she just did. Every time Bean walked by Mrs. Trantz’s house, one of the tiny white fences circling around the rosebushes fell over. Bean didn’t know how it happened. Then Mrs. Trantz would call Bean’s mother and say that Bean was destructive. That meant she wrecked things.
Bean didn’t know quite what she was going to do to Mrs. Trantz’s yard, but it wouldn’t be boring, that was for sure. She stood in front of the stiff rosebushes and looked carefully to see if Mrs. Trantz was peeking from behind her curtains. The coast was clear.
“Do something!” yelled Dino. “This is boring!”
Boring! Bean would show him!
She leaned over the tiny white fence and brought her face close to a rose. And then she spit on it as hard as she could.
She turned around to face Dino. “How was that, huh? You’d never do that!”
Ivy grabbed her by the shoulders. “Bean!” she cried. “Promise you’ll never do that again! You’re hurting the flowers, and they have feelings, too!”
Oh. Right. Just for a second, Bean had forgotten about turning good. “Yeah, sure. I’ll never do it again,” she told Ivy.
“She’s reformed!” yelled Ivy.
But Bean whirled around to make sure Dino was watching. “Oh no!” she hollered. “It didn’t stick! I’m turning bad again!”
This time the Sophies clapped along with Katy.
Ha! Bean was the Queen of Bad! “Keep your eyes peeled!” she screeched and started to run toward her house.
Bean knew a lot of things that Nancy didn’t know she knew. One of the things she knew was where Nancy hid candy. Nancy thought she was pretty smart. She didn’t hide candy in her own room. She hid it in the bathroom, behind the stacks of toilet paper, in a brown paper bag. What Nancy didn’t know was that Bean spent a lot of time prowling around the house, looking for treasure. One day when she was prowling in the bathroom, Bean found Nancy’s paper bag full of candy.
Bean was always careful not to eat so much candy that Nancy would notice. Just a Tootsie Roll or a mini–candy bar—that’s all she ever took. Until today.
Bean whisked into her house and rushed to the bathroom. Bean often rushed to the bathroom, so her mom and dad and Nancy didn’t even notice. When she came out, there was a bulge inside her shirt, but nobody was watching.
Bean marched back up the street toward Ivy’s house, but she didn’t stop there. She walked around Pancake Court until she was standing next to Dino, Liana, the Sophies, and Katy. Ivy came running. “What are you doing, Bean?” Her eyes were shining.
“Look,” said Bean. She pulled the brown paper bag from her shirt. “I’ve got candy. Except it isn’t mine. I stole it.”
“Great!” said Ivy. “Who’d you steal it from?”
“Nancy,” said Bean.
Ivy giggled.
“Hey, you’re supposed to be good,” said Bean, and Ivy stopped giggling. “I’m going to eat stolen candy,” Bean said to Dino and the other kids, “before lunch and in front of you guys, without sharing.” She reached into the bag and looked at Ivy. “How’s that for bad?”
Everyone watched while she ate a Butter-finger.
“Aw, come on,” said Katy. “Give us some. Please?”
“No,” said Bean with her mouth full. “I’m so bad I don’t share with anyone. Right, Ivy?”
Ivy nodded, her eyes on the candy.
Bean opened a pack of peanut-butter cups and ate one.
“Isn’t your sister going to be mad?” asked Liana.
“Yg,” said Bean, jamming the other peanut-butter cup into her mouth. She was starting to feel a little sick. She looked at Ivy. “Aren’t you going to stop me?” she whispered.
“Oh! Right!” Ivy said. She clasped her hands together and said, “Bean, I beg you! Stop stealing and eating dessert before lunch and not sharing! You’ve got to get good.”
Bean was glad to stop eating candy. “Well, okay, since you put it that way.”
“You should give us some to show that you’re reformed,” said Ivy.
Bean thought about that. “No. Because it’s stolen, you’d be doing something bad if you ate it. All of you.”
“I don’t care if I’m bad or not,” said Liana. “I want some Milk Duds.”
“Halt!” said Ivy, stepping between Bean and the other kids. “I can’t let you go down the path of badness by eating this candy.” She smiled her pure-of-heart smile.
“Yeah,” said Bean. “And right now I’m reformed so I can’t lead you down the path of badness either.”
“This is dumb,” said Dino. “It’s just a little piece of candy.”
“Stolen candy,” Bean reminded him. “And it’s before lunch, too.”
“I didn’t steal it,” said Dino. “And what if I want to be bad, anyway?” He reached around Ivy to grab the bag.
But someone was already there.
It was Katy.
She ripped the bag out of Bean’s hands and tore down the street, her white sandals flashing in the sun.
Bean looked at the shred of paper bag in her hands. “Wow,” she said. “Badness is catching.”
FROM BAD TO WORSE
They all stood there watching Katy run away. Suddenly, Dino slapped his hand against his forehead. “Oh no!” he groaned. “Now I’ve got it, too!” He looked sideways at Bean. “I think I’ve got it bad!”
Sophie W. smiled. “Me, too,” she said. “I’ve got it worse.”
“Now wait a second,” began Ivy.
“I’m the bad one around here!” said Bean.
“You wish,” said Liana. She glanced at the row of front yards that lined the street. “First dibs on all the mailboxes,” she said.
Kids were swarming around Pancake Court.
Dino stole one of Mrs. Trantz’s white rocks. Ivy begged him to stop, but he just stuck the rock in the exhaust pipe of Jake the Teenager’s car.
Sophie W. ripped a bunch of grass out of her lawn.
“Stop it,” Ivy pleaded, and Sophie obeyed. But a minute later she hid her baby sister’s shovel and pail in a bush.
“Look at me!” Bean hollered. She took off her sneakers and tried to throw them onto Mrs. Trantz’s roof. One bounced off the living room window and the other landed in the camellia bush. Bean was glad she hadn’t broken the window, but she turned to Ivy and said, “Dang! I was trying to break the window.”
“Bean! Breaking windows is really bad!” cried Ivy. “You can’t do that! Reform!”
But Bean wasn’t listening. She whirled around, looking for another bad thing to do.
Ivy dropped down on her front lawn. She had been running back and forth between badnesses, but nobody was getting any better. Dino was stepping on ants. Sophie S. was rubbing dirt into her shirt. Liana was tying her mother’s hose in a knot. Bean was hanging upside down from the handrail on her front stairs. Sophie W. had swallowed her gum.
Ivy glanced up into the trees. Still no birds. Even the crows had flown away.
Bean sat down beside her. “I can’t think of anything else. Can you?”
“No.” Ivy looked around the yard for ideas. “Hey! A squirrel!” Ivy whispered, pointing at her hedge. “He’s looking at me!”
Inside the hedge, a little brown squirrel was sitting among the leaves. He was holding a strawberry in his tiny claws. Every few moments he lifted the berry to his mouth and tore it to bits with his chattering teeth. Little pieces of strawberry flew through the air, but he paid no attention. His bulging brown eyes were fixed on Ivy.
“He’s trying to tell me something with his eyes,” whispered Ivy, staring at the squirrel.
Bean nodded. “Cool.”
“He’s saying, ‘O pure one, I will follow you till the end of time because your heart is like a squirrel’s.’” Ivy stood and stepped toward the squirrel. “Greetings,” she whispered.
The squirrel leaped to its feet as though it had been stuck with a pin. Stuffing the rest of the berry in its mouth, it scampered away.
Ivy frowned. She turned to Bean. “I’ve got it. Let’s pick a bunch of strawberries and squash them. That would be pretty bad.”
“Great idea!” said Bean.
Dino ran by, dragging a big branch behind him. “I’m worse than you!” he hollered over his shoulder at Bean.
“We’re going to touch Mr. Columbi’s car!” shrieked Sophie S. and Sophie W. Mr. Columbi was always telling them not to touch his car. He washed it two times a week with special soap. The two Sophies bounded toward Mr. Columbi’s driveway.
Liana was stuffing her mother’s welcome mat into her mailbox.
Bean looked up and down Pancake Court. What more could she do? The strawberries were squished, her sneakers were gone, she was sick to her stomach from candy, she had spit on Mrs. Trantz’s rose, and she had said the worst word in the world. She was pooped.
“These guys are ruining everything,” said Ivy, watching Dino scamper by with another branch.
“Ha-ha!” he shouted. “You’re just a good little girl.”
“Who asked you?” yelled Bean.
“You’re not even close to bad!” he yelled. “You don’t even know how to be bad! You’re GOOD!” Off he ran.
“You’re a stinky face!” Ivy hollered after him.
Then she turned to Bean. “Come on, Bean,” she urged. “Show him how bad you are.”
“I have an idea,” Bean said slowly.
Ivy smiled. “What is it?”
“It’s not enough to be bad myself,” Bean explained. “I think I have to do something bad to someone else.” She looked at Dino tearing around with his branch, and then she looked back at Ivy. “Where do you keep your hose?”
BEAN OVERBOARD!
Ivy’s mom had one of those long hoses on a wheel. It was attached to the side of Ivy’s house. The two girls carefully unwound it from the wheel.
Ivy went around and stood in front of Dino’s house. “Hey, you guys!” she called. “Bean’s about to be really bad!” Dino, the Sophies, and Liana looked up from their own badness. “You’d better come here and sit down,” Ivy said. “You’re going to want to see this one up close.”
The kids walked toward Ivy. “What’s she going to do?” asked Dino.
“I can’t even say it.” Ivy made her eyes big. “I’ve begged her not to do it, but she just can’t help herself,” she said, shaking her head. “You should sit down on the curb and watch.”
Dino and the girls exchanged glances. Then they slowly sat down on the curb in front of Dino’s house.
“Is she going to drive her dad’s car?” asked Liana.
“You have to wait and see,” said Ivy, smiling mysteriously.
“Aw, come on,” said Dino. “Is she going to blow something up?”
“Sort of,” said Ivy, smiling even more mysteriously. “You guys just close your eyes for a few minutes, and then you’ll see.”
“Why do we have to close our eyes?” Sophie W. asked.
“It’s like before the movie begins. It has to be dark for the surprise to work,” Ivy said.
They looked at Ivy suspiciously.
“Come on. Just for a few minutes,” said Ivy. “If Bean’s going to get in all this trouble, you can at least close your eyes. I’ll tell you when to open them.”
Dino looked at the girls and shrugged.
“Okay,” said Sophie S.
They closed their eyes. Ivy tiptoed away.
“They’ve got their eyes closed, but we’d better be quick,” Ivy said.
Running across lawns to keep their steps silent, Ivy and Bean carried the hose from Ivy’s driveway to Dino’s. Luckily, Dino’s faucet was in the same place as Ivy’s. They screwed the hose into it, and Bean ran tiptoe down the driveway toward the row of kids on the curb. Ivy stood at the faucet, waiting.
With the hose in her hand, Bean walked quietly toward the curb until she was standing right behind Dino. “Hey Dino!” she said softly, holding her hand over the end of the hose, “You can open your eyes now.”
Ivy twisted the faucet on.
Dino opened his eyes and turned around. And Bean blasted him right in the kisser. “AAAAAH!” he screeched, jumping up. “Not so boring now, is it?” laughed Bean. The hose waggled in her hand.
“Hey!” roared Liana. “Bean!” squawked Sophie W. and Sophie S.
Uh-oh. Bean hadn’t meant to get them wet.
“Your turn!” yelled Liana, yanking the slippery hose from Bean’s hand.
“Yeah!” screamed Sophie S.
“Get her!” hollered Dino.
Bean could hear Ivy yelling in the distance. “I beg you, Bean, stop spraying those poor, innocent children.”
“I’m not spraying them,” Bean hollered. “They’re spraying me!” She whirled around and tried to make a break for it, but before she had taken two steps, she slammed into a giant wall.
Oops. It wasn’t a wall.
It was Crummy Matt.
THE REVENGE OF DINO
“What the heck are you doing to my little brother?” Crummy Matt shouted, grabbing Bean by the shirt.
Up at the top of the driveway, Ivy turned off the water. Suddenly everything was very quiet.
“Um, nothing?” Bean asked.
Crummy Matt didn’t let go of her shirt. He turned to Dino. “What did she do?”
“She made me shut my eyes, and then she sprayed me!” Dino said. He shook his head and water flew in a circle. “I’m all wet!” he yelled.
“We all got wet!” said Sophie W. “She sprayed all of us, just to be mean!”
“I wasn’t being mean,” Bean tried to explain. “I was being bad.”
“But now she’s going to be good—forever,” said Ivy. She had come up behind Crummy Matt, and now she stood next to Bean. “She’ll never do it again.”
Crummy Matt sneered at them, first at Bean and then at Ivy. “Nobody messes with my little brother,” he growled.
“Yeah,” nodded Dino. “Get ’em, Matt.”
Crummy Matt nodded seriously. “Okay, bro.” He bent and whispered into Dino’s ear.
Dino smiled and ran up the driveway.
Crummy Matt held on to Bean’s shirt.
“She’ll never do it again,” Ivy said softly. “She’s going to reform. She’s sorry.”
Really, Bean was only a little sorry. It had been fun seeing Dino’s face right before she blasted him. But she nodded her head up and down.
Crummy Matt didn’t say anything. He just held on to Bean’s shirt, and soon Dino came rushing back down the driveway. In his arms, he carried a rope.
I could run away, thought Bean. I probably wouldn’t even have to rip my shirt very much.
“Bean!” Ivy whispered.
“Zip it,” snapped Crummy Matt. “Grab her, too,” he said to Sophie W.
Sophie W. grabbed one of Ivy’s arms, and Liana grabbed the other.
“Traitors,” said Ivy, but she didn’t say it very loud.
“Hup!” said Crummy Matt. He yanked on Bean’s shirt. “March!”
They stopped in front of a big tree at the side of Crummy Matt’s yard. Crummy Matt pushed Bean against the tree trunk, and Sophie W. did the same to Ivy. “Start with their feet,” Crummy Matt told Dino. Dino kneeled and began wrapping the rope around Ivy’s and Bean’s ankles.
All at once, Ivy started singing, “Join us in the paths of goodness, and the birds and beasts will love you!”
Bean shook her head. She didn’t think this was going to work.
“Reform!” sang Ivy, “and hummingbirds will flutter around your head!”
Crummy Matt didn’t care about birds. “Can it!” he barked.
“I’m thinking good thoughts about you anyway, Matt!” sang Ivy.
“Well, stop it,” said Matt.
“Time to be good,” sang Bean half-heartedly, “La-la-la.”
“Tie them tighter,” ordered Crummy Matt. Dino squeezed the rope around Ivy’s and Bean’s waists and arms. Round and round he went, with the Sophies and Liana helping. Crummy Matt watched.
“I know this great knot,” Dino said. “They’ll never get out.” He worked busily on the other side of Bean. “Done,” he said, standing up.
To heck with wolves and birds, Bean thought. She was tired of being bad. At least before, she had only been bad by mistake. I’ll just be normal, she decided, and she stuck out her tongue at Dino. “This is boring.”
“Oh yeah?” said Dino. He smiled wickedly. And then he picked up the hose.
GOOD AND SOGGY
Bean was drenched. Her hair was sticking to the sides of her face, and water was dribbling out of her shorts pocket and down her legs. She wiggled her legs against the rope. It didn’t move.
The only part of Ivy that wasn’t wet was the top of her head. “My shoes are squishy,” she said.
“It feels kind of good,” said Bean. “I got sweaty being bad.”
She watched Crummy Matt holding the hose, spraying it high into the air so that water came down like rain. Dino, Sophie S., Sophie W., and Liana were stamping in the mud puddle at the end of the driveway.
It looked like a lot of fun.
“Come on,” called Bean. “Let us out!”
“Never,” said Crummy Matt. “You got to stay there forever!”
“Maybe the birds will rescue us,” said Ivy, but not like she believed it.
Bean heard a little voice. “Hi, Bean.”
It was Katy. She was peeking around the side of the tree. “I’m sorry I ate all your candy.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Bean said. “It wasn’t my candy anyway.”
Katy stepped around in front of Bean. The front of her pink dress was smeared with chocolate. “I got all messed up,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Bean. “Are you in trouble?”
“Not yet,” said Katy. “I don’t care anyway.” There was a pause. “Are you going to be bad some more? That was better than House.”
“I’m sort of stuck here,” said Bean. “Unless—hey, Katy, will you push that rope up a little? The one on my knee.”
Katy pushed the rope up, and Bean felt the knot under her fingers. “This is not such a great knot,” she said.
Katy was looking at the kids in the mud. “I’m already dirty,” she said thoughtfully. “A little more won’t make any difference.” She ran down the lawn toward the puddle.
The knot was getting looser.
Suddenly Crummy Matt came running up to the tree. “Here,” he said to Ivy, pulling Blister out of his pocket. “You got a rat on your head.” He put Blister on the top of Ivy’s head. “If you move, he’ll chew your hair off.” Then he ran away, back to his hose.
“Yuck,” said Bean. Rats gave her the creeps.
Ivy felt Blister’s little feet scrabbling against her scalp. His stomach rested, fat and warm, on her hair. She could hear the squeaky sound of his breath inside her head. “Is he eating my hair?” she asked Bean.
Bean strained to see the top of Ivy’s head. “Hang on a sec,” she said. She pulled the rope until the free end slid out of the knot. All at once, the rope sagged. She had done it! “Ta-da!”
Now she could see. She stood on tiptoe and looked. Blister, dry and comfortable at last, stretched across Ivy’s head. “No. He’s sleeping,” said Bean. “I’ll get him off.” She reached up.
“No!” whispered Ivy. “Leave him there!”
“Really? You don’t mind?” asked Bean.
“No! Don’t you get it?” whispered Ivy. “He’s an animal, and he’s following me! Because I’m pure of heart!”
Bean stood on tiptoe again. Blister did look happy. So did Ivy. “How long are you going to let him stay there?” she asked.
“He can stay forever if he wants to,” said Ivy firmly. She stood very straight so Blister wouldn’t fall off.
Bean glanced at the mud puddle. Now Katy was stamping in it, too. “I’m going to stop being bad. I’m just going to be regular.”
“That’s okay,” said Ivy. “I’ve got Blister. You can be regular now.”
“Okay,” said Bean. She turned around and ran down the driveway toward the mud puddle. “YAH!” she screamed, jumping into the center.
Big drops of mud flew through the air, spattering over Dino, the Sophies, Liana, and Katy.
“Get her!” yelled Liana, but Bean darted away and grabbed the hose from Crummy Matt. Before he could blink, she had sprayed him in the face. Then she whirled around and around, water spurting in a circle. Nobody could get near her.
“You’ll never take me alive!” she yelled.
Crummy Matt jumped at her and slipped sideways down the grass. Liana was chasing Katy. Dino and Sophie S. were laughing so hard they were choking. Sophie W. was scooping big handfuls of mud and throwing them at Bean.
But up by the tree, Ivy and Blister rested peacefully, both pure of heart.
The First and Best
IVY AND BEAN QUIZ!
Come one, come all! Test your Ivy and Bean knowledge! Earn a star for every correct answer! And don’t worry—peeking at the answer key is fine!
1. What fruit does Bean smash into Leo’s hair?
(Hint: Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go, BOOK 2)
a. bananas
b. spiders
c. plums
d. kumquats
2. What is the name of the dog that lives on Pancake Court?
(Hint: Ivy and Bean, BOOK 1)
a. Hester
b. Hippolyte
c. Bob
d. Fester
3. The world’s record for Number of Spoons on the Face is . . .
(Hint: Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record, BOOK 3)
a. 4
b. 15
c. 42
d. 12
4. Ivy and Bean study a marine reptile with a super-long neck. It’s called . . .
(Hint: Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go, BOOK 2)
a. Elasmosaur
b. Giraffopod
c. Pteranodon
d. Crocoface
5. Bean’s favorite babysitter, Leona, can draw perfect . . .
(Hint: Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter, BOOK 4)
a. goldfish
b. horses
c. wands
d. herds of sheep
6. What is Bean’s middle name?
(Hint: Ivy and Bean, BOOK 1)
a. Blue
b. Lima
c. Solon
d. Alice
7. One of the three things that Ivy flushes down the toilet belonged to Zuzu. It is a . . .
(Hint: Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go, BOOK 2)
a. pickle
b. sock
c. hairclip
d. worm
Beep-Beep! Math question ahead!
8. How much money does Nancy earn by babysitting Bean?
(Hint: Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter, BOOK 4)
a. $20
b. $12
c. $24
d. $16
9. What’s Ivy’s last name?
a. McIntosh
b. Pippin
c. Braeburn
d. Smith
10. Eric tried to break the world’s record for . . .
(Hint: Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record, BOOK 3)
a. eating M&Ms
b. cartwheels
c. longest fingernails
d. eating scorpions
You finished—give yourself a pat on the back. Now, let’s check the answer key:
1. c 2. d 3. b 4. a 5. b 6. a 7. c 8. d (She started with $20, but she had to give Bean and Ivy $4, so she ended up with $16. Get it?)
9. Ahahaha! There’s no answer! Ivy’s last name isn’t in any of the books!
10. a
Oh boy, you’re an Ivy and Bean expert now!
Contents
Ivy + Bean Book 6: Doomed to Dance
BALLET OR BUST
It was a book that started all the trouble. “Read, read, read! That’s all grown-ups ever say to me,” said Bean, “but when I finally do read, I get in trouble.” She slumped in her chair. “And then the grown-ups take the book away.”
Ivy nodded. “It’s totally not fair,” she agreed. “And they shouldn’t blame us anyway. It’s all Grandma’s fault.”
Ivy’s grandma had sent her the book. It was called The Royal Book of the Ballet. Each chapter told the story of a different ballet, with pictures of fancy girls in feathery tutus and satin toe shoes.
Bean was at Ivy’s house on the day it arrived. They were supposed to be subtracting, but they were tired of that so they ripped open the package and sat down side by side on Ivy’s couch to look at The Royal Book of the Ballet.
“I heard that sometimes their toes bleed when they’re dancing,” said Bean. “The blood leaks right through the satin part.”
“That’s gross,” said Ivy, turning the pages. Suddenly she stopped.
“Whoa, Nellie,” murmured Bean, staring.
“Is she kicking his head off?” asked Ivy in a whisper.
“That’s what it looks like,” said Bean. “What’s this one called, anyway?”
Ivy flipped back a few pages. “Giselle,” she said, reading quickly. “It’s about a girl named Giselle who, um, dances with this duke guy, but he’s going to marry a princess, not Giselle, so she takes his sword and stabs herself.” Ivy and Bean found the picture of that.
“Ew,” said Bean. “But interesting.”
“Yeah, and then she turns into a ghost with all these other girls. They’re called the Wilis.”
The picture showed a troop of beautiful women dressed in white. They had very long fingernails.
“And then,” Ivy read on, “the duke goes to see Giselle’s grave, and she comes out with the Wilis, and they decide to dance him to death.” Ivy stared at the picture. “To death.”
Bean leaned over for a closer look. It was pretty amazing. Giselle’s pointed toe had snapped the duke’s head up so that his chin pointed straight up to the sky. It would fall off in a moment. The Wilis stood in a circle, waving their long fingernails admiringly.
Bean lifted the page, wishing that she could see more of the picture, but there was no more. There never was. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “She showed him.”
For a few minutes, Ivy and Bean sat in silence, thinking.
“Okay,” Ivy said finally. “I’m Giselle, and you’re the duke.”
“All right,” said Bean. “But next time, I get to be Giselle.”
It was fun playing Giselle, even though Ivy’s mom wouldn’t let them dance with a knife and they had to use a Wiffle bat instead. After they had each been Giselle a couple of times, they were Wilis, waving long Scotch-tape fingernails as they danced various people to death.
“Mrs. Noble!” shrieked Bean. “I’m dancing Mrs. Noble to death.” Ivy ran to get a pair of her mother’s high heels and pretended to be Mrs. Noble, a fifth-grade teacher who had once given Ivy and Bean a lot of trouble.
Bean the Wili chased Mrs. Noble around the house, waggling her fingernails and screaming. Finally, when they were both laughing so hard they couldn’t dance any more, they rushed into the kitchen and fell over on the floor.
“Well, look who’s here,” said Ivy’s mom. She was making dinner.
“Mom,” Ivy said when she got her breath back, “I have to take ballet class.”
Ivy’s mom stirred something into something else. “You had to take ice-skating, too.”
Ivy wiggled her toes. “Yeah, but that was a mistake.”
“How do you know ballet isn’t a mistake, too? Those skates were expensive.”
“Ballet is different,” Ivy explained. “Ballet isn’t freezing and dumb. Ballet is pretty. And it’s good for you.”
“I’m going to take it, too,” Bean said. “That way, we can help each other during the hard parts.”
Ivy’s mom looked at Bean in a surprised sort of way. “You’re going to take ballet?”
“Sure.” Bean’s mom would be happy to let her take ballet. Bean was certain of it. After all, Bean thought, her mother liked nice stuff. And ballet was nice. Except for the part where you danced people to death.
The funny thing was, Bean’s mother wasn’t happy to let her take ballet. Not at all.
“You’ll start it, and then you’ll decide you hate it and want to quit.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll love it,” Bean said.
“I’ll bet you a dollar you’ll hate it,” said Nancy. Nancy had taken ballet when she was Bean’s age. Bean remembered the time Nancy had cried because she was a chocolate bar in a ballet about candy.
“But I’m not going to be a dorky old piece of candy,” Bean said. “I’m going to be a Wili.” She knew better than to tell Nancy that she was going to be Giselle. Nancy would just make fun of her.
“Ha,” said Nancy. “You have to be whatever they tell you to be.”
“Nancy,” said her mom. “I’ll discuss this with Bean in private, please.”
“I’ll bet you, Mom,” said Nancy, getting up. “I’ll bet you two dollars she quits after a week.”
“I’ll bet you a hundred I don’t,” said Bean.
“Good-bye, Nancy,” said their mother. Nancy left, and Mom turned to Bean. “Now, honey, I didn’t want to go into this in front of Nancy, but if I do let you take ballet, there will be no quitting.”
“Quitting? Why would I quit?”
“You quit softball.”
“But that was softball. All you do in softball is stand around waiting for five hundred years until it’s time to hit the stupid ball. And then you miss anyway. Ballet isn’t like that.”
Her mother looked at her.
Bean made her eyes big. “I thought you wanted me to learn new things,” she said.
Her mother looked at her some more.
“Nancy got to take ballet.” Bean wiggled her lower lip. She knew that a trembling lower lip is very sad looking.
Her mother laughed. “You’re drooling. Okay. I will let you take ballet on one condition, and here it is: You will go for the whole session. Four months. Sixteen lessons One performance. No quitting. And no complaining.”
“No problem!” said Bean. She jumped up and hugged her mother. “When can I start? I already know how to kick—you want to see?”
DIP, DIP, CRASH!
It was not long before Ivy and Bean realized that they had made a terrible mistake.
Bean began to realize it while Madame Joy was talking about first position. You stuck your heels together and your toes apart. Big deal. Where was the leaping? Where was the kicking? Where was the dancing?
Then Madame Joy chattered for a long time about nice round arms. Who cared about arms? When Madame Joy started in on second position, which turned out to be just regular standing, Bean stopped listening.
Ivy paid careful attention to first position. Heels, toes. Great! Then she paid careful attention to second position. Arms out, legs out. Great! Then came third position.
“Now,” said Madame Joy, “third position. For third position, we slide our right foot, like so, to the middle of our left foot. Then we lift one nice round arm up, up in the air, leaving our other nice round arm—”
Ivy fell over with a thump.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Madame Joy. “Let’s try that again.”
Let’s not, thought Ivy.
But they did. In fact, they did nothing but one, two, three, four, and five for half an hour. After that, Madame Joy showed them something called a plié. She acted like it was the most important thing in the world, but really it was just bending your knees and dipping a little. Dip, dip, dip. Row, row, row your boat, thought Bean.
“Hey, guys,” she called, “Get this!” She sang, “Dip, dip, dip your knees—”
Nobody joined in. Instead, Madame Joy said, “We save our singing for after class, Bean.”
Sheesh, Bean said to herself. You’d think she’d be happy to get a little more pep in here.
But it was even worse when Madame Joy was peppy. “All right, girls! Time to leap like little kitties!” Madame Joy said, springing into the air with her ballet slippers fluttering.
“She doesn’t leap like a kitty. She leaps like a frog,” Bean whispered to Ivy.
“Bean!” called Madame Joy. “You may lead the kitties.” She twirled briskly around and hauled Bean to the front of the line. “Now,” she said, smiling, “you are a kitty! Leap!” Madame Joy bounded across the wide, empty floor.
Bean closed her eyes and imagined she was a cat. She was a skinny black cat that wanted to catch a bird. And then eat it. Bean crouched. She twitched her tail. She narrowed her eyes. “RRRRRrrrowll!” she screeched and then lunged forward, landing on her hands and knees in the middle of the floor. “Got him!” she yelled.
Madame Joy stared at Bean for a second, and then she said, “Dulcie, will you show us how to leap like a kitty?”
“Yes, Madame Joy,” said Dulcie, only she said, “Madame Jwah.” For some reason, Madame Joy liked that. Dulcie came to the front of the line and stood with her arms out and her toes pointed.
Bean rose to her feet. “So I already did it, right?” she asked. “I get to be done, right?”
“No,” said Madame Joy. “You need more practice. Go to the end of the line.”
Bean clomped to the end of the line and stood behind Ivy.
Dulcie lifted her arms higher and smiled proudly. Then she hopped across the empty floor, ker-plop, ker-plop. When she reached the other side of the ballet studio, Dulcie stood before Madame Joy and held out her tiny pink dance skirt. Then she swirled one leg behind the other and curtseyed.
“Show-off,” whispered Bean.
“I can’t believe that we asked for this,” said Ivy, her eyes on Dulcie.
“We didn’t just ask. We begged,” Bean said glumly.
It was true. They had begged.
After everyone had leaped, Madame Joy clapped her hands and told them they had to be butterflies.
Bean raised her hand. “Can I be a Wili instead?”
Madame Joy stared at her. “Not today,” she said in a way that really meant never. Then she turned on some music, and all the other girls ran around the room flapping their arms and pointing their toes.
That’s when Ivy and Bean turned to look at each other, and their eyes said We have made a terrible mistake.
BAD NEWS BENEATH THE SEA
Every week Bean and Ivy put on tights and leotards and went to Madame Joy’s School of the Ballet, where they fell down and hurt themselves (Ivy) and were bored out of their minds (Bean). Every week they were told to watch Dulcie plié and kitty-jump across the floor even though she was only five. Every week they waited and waited for Madame Joy to clap her hands and say it was time to be butterflies. They hated being butterflies, but at least that meant ballet class was almost over.
It seemed like it couldn’t get worse. And then one day, instead of telling them to be butterflies, Madame Joy told them to sit in a circle on the floor.
“We’re going to be mushrooms,” whispered Ivy to Bean.
Bean didn’t think so. When grown-ups asked you to sit in a circle, they were usually about to tell you something you didn’t want to hear. Ms. Aruba-Tate, Ivy and Bean’s second-grade teacher, was forever gathering them in a circle for bad news. Like, the class fish died over the weekend. Or, everyone has to start using real punctuation. Or, the pencil sharpener is off-limits. Circles meant trouble.
Bean watched Madame Joy walk pointy-toed to a chair and sit. No floor for her. “Girls,” she began, “I have something very special to tell you.”
“Oh, tell us, Madame Jwah!” cried Dulcie. She even clapped her hands.
Madame Joy smiled. “As many of you know, we end each session with a lovely recital. A recital, girls, is a chance for you to dance before your friends and family so that they can see what you’ve learned.”
Ivy coughed.
Madame Joy leaned forward eagerly. “Most of our recitals are held here at the school, but this time we have been invited to participate in The World of Dance! Isn’t that wonderful?”
Several girls said, “Oooooooh!”
Bean was getting a not-so-good feeling. “What’s The World of Dance?” she asked.
Madame Joy’s smile grew. “The World of Dance is a gathering of many different dance schools from all over town—tap dancers, jazz dancers, hip-hop dancers. We will be representing the ballet. Each group gets a chance to perform, just as in a regular recital, but we’ll be performing on a real stage in a real theater!”
“Oooooooh!” repeated the same girls.
Bean was sick of hearing that.
Ivy’s hand shot into the air. “Can we do Giselle?”
“Giselle?” Madame Joy looked surprised. “No. Goodness, no. We will be doing a lovely piece called ‘Wedding Beneath the Sea.’”
“Wedding Beneath the Sea”? Bean didn’t care if she was rude. She yelled, “What are Ivy and me?”
Madame Joy raised her eyebrows. “I was planning to discuss parts next, but if you must know, you and Ivy will be the two friendly squids.”
Nobody said, “Oooooooh.” Squids? Ivy and Bean looked at each other. We have made a really terrible mistake.
On the drive home, Bean and Ivy were quiet. That was because of the no-complaining rule.
Quietly, they got out of the car and went into Bean’s backyard. Quietly, they stuffed themselves into Bean’s tiny playhouse and slumped against the walls.
“Squids. Who ever heard of squids?” said Bean. “I don’t even know what squids are.”
“I’m not totally sure,” said Ivy, “but I think they’re ugly, and I think people eat them.”
“Oh, great,” moaned Bean. “I can’t believe that stupid Dulcie gets to be the mermaid, and we’re squids.”
“I believe it,” said Ivy. “We’re awful.”
“We’re not awful—” began Bean.
“Oh yes we are,” said Ivy. “I’m worse than you, but you’re pretty bad, too.”
“That’s because we hate it. If we liked it, we’d be better at it.”
“I thought I’d like it,” said Ivy sadly.
“So did I,” said Bean. “I thought we’d be kicking some heads off. I didn’t know about the positions and pliés and all that.”
“You know, they can’t make us do it,” said Ivy.
Bean thought about that. “Yes, they can,” she said.
Ivy sighed. “It was mean of them to make us promise not to complain,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Bean. “They knew all along how horrible it would be.”
“We’re going to have to be squids in front of everybody,” said Ivy. “That’s the most horrible thing of all.”
“They’ll probably laugh at us,” said Bean, imagining it.
“They can’t. They’re parents,” Ivy said.
“Remember? It’s friends, too. There might even be someone from school there,” Bean said gloomily.
“If only we could quit,” Ivy moaned.
“But we can’t,” said Bean.
Ivy frowned. That meant she was getting determined. “There has to be a way,” she said, determinedly. “Nothing is impossible.”
Bean stared at her. “It’s impossible for us to be good at ballet.”
“Well, that, sure,” said Ivy. “But it’s not impossible for us to break our arms.”
SQUIDS IN A FIX
“What?” said Bean.
“We can’t be squids if we break our arms,” said Ivy. “Remember what Madame Joy said? We’re supposed to wave our tentacles gently on the passing tide. No way can we do that if we’ve got broken arms. Right?”
That was true. But. Broken arms. That could be going too far. Bean pictured her arm cracked in half.
“I saw a picture of a guy who broke his arm, and his bone poked out of his skin,” she said.
Ivy made an ouch face.
“Yeah, I know,” said Bean. “Maybe we don’t have to break them. Maybe we can just sprain them instead.” She didn’t really know what a sprain was, but she knew that it didn’t involve bones poking out of your skin.
“Okay. Sure. We can’t be squids with sprained arms either,” said Ivy. “No way.”
“No how,” agreed Bean. They looked at each other. “So, how do you sprain an arm?” Bean asked.
“I bet it’s like breaking, only smaller,” Ivy reasoned. “When she was a kid, my mom broke her arm falling off her garage roof. If we want to just sprain our arms, maybe we should find something shorter than a garage and fall off it.”
This made sense. Bean looked around her backyard. There was the porch, but they’d crack their heads open on the stairs. There was the playhouse. There was the trampoline— “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Bean said. “We’ll jump off the playhouse onto the trampoline and then boing from the trampoline onto the ground. That should do it.”
First they had to drag the playhouse across the lawn and set it down next to the trampoline. Bean noticed that the playhouse was not much taller than the trampoline. They were going to have to jump hard.
Next, Bean climbed up the plastic playhouse shutters until she was perched on the roof like a giant bird.
Ivy took a running jump at the playhouse and flung herself over the roof. “Oof,” she said.
“You have to stand up,” said Bean. “Or your jump will be too short.”
“You go first,” said Ivy in a muffled voice.
Bean rose slowly to her feet. The playhouse made a funny sound.
Ivy began to push herself up on her hands. There was another funny sound. It was a bending sort of sound. A cracking sort of sound.
The roof was caving in.
“Abandon ship!” Bean hollered and bounced onto the trampoline. But the two sides of the playhouse were folding around Ivy like a taco. She couldn’t abandon ship. She couldn’t do anything. Bean watched as Ivy sank closer and closer to the ground.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” said Ivy.
After a few minutes, the playhouse stopped sinking, and Bean tried to pull Ivy out by yanking on her head. But Ivy said that hurt worse than being tacoed, so Bean yanked on the playhouse instead. Soon the roof de-caved enough for Ivy to squeeze out, and then Bean crawled inside and kicked the ceiling until the playhouse was almost the shape it had been before.
“Whew,” said Bean, sitting down. “We’re going to have to get some tape to fix that crack.” She wiped her sweaty face with her sweaty hand. “Duct tape. I love fixing things.”
“But Bean,” said Ivy. “We didn’t fix anything. We’re still squids.”
Dang. Bean had almost forgotten about that. Her duct-tape happiness faded. She was a squid. A friendly squid. “Maybe we’ll get so sick we can’t be in The World of Dance,” she suggested.
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Ivy thoughtfully. “In fact, that’s a great idea. We can’t dance if we’re sick. Let’s get sick.”
Sick. Well, it would hurt less than spraining her arm. “Okay, but how?” asked Bean.
“Germs,” said Ivy. “We’ll catch some germs and get sick.”
“Germs,” said Bean, thinking. “I know where germs are. At school. Ms. Aruba-Tate says the school is full of germs. That’s why she’s always making us wash our hands.”
“But we don’t want regular dirt germs. We want sick germs,” said Ivy. “We’ll have to find someone sick.”
“Easy-peasy.” Bean was definitely cheerful now. “Tomorrow we’ll find the sickest person at school and touch him!”
GERMS OF HOPE
Ivy and Bean stood on the playground of Emerson School. Around them children were running and shouting. There were kids dangling from the monkey bars and dropping off the play structure. There were kids playing wall ball. There were kids arguing about four square. Some fifth-grade girls walked around the field, talking, which looked so incredibly boring that Bean hoped she would never get to fifth grade. Ivy and Bean leaned against the fence and watched. They were hunting for germs.
“I bet MacAdam is full of germs,” whispered Bean.
MacAdam was eating dirt. He liked to do that. But other than eating dirt, he looked perfectly healthy.
“We need someone sicker,” said Ivy. “Look for someone sitting down. If you sit down during recess, it’s because you’re sick.”
They peered around the playground. “Drew is sitting down,” said Bean, “but that’s probably because the Yard Duty got him.”
“What about that kid over there?” Ivy pointed to a first-grade-looking kid that Bean didn’t know. He was sitting by himself on a bench.
“Hey! He coughed!” said Bean. “Let’s get him!”
In a flash, they were at his side.
He looked up.
Ivy nudged Bean and pointed at his nose. It was runny.
“Are you sick?” asked Bean.
“Yes,” said the kid. He coughed with his mouth wide open and then looked back up at them again. “What?”
“What have you got?” asked Ivy.
“What does it matter?” said Bean. “He’s sick.”
“I don’t want to throw up,” whispered Ivy.
“Oh,” said Bean. She didn’t want to throw up either. “You’re not going to throw up, are you?” she asked the boy.
He looked a little worried. “I don’t think so. Maybe.”
Ivy took a step away. Bean stared at him, thinking about friendly squids. “Can I touch your face?” she asked finally. “Me and her, we need to get sick.”
He wiped his nose. “Okay.”
Bean stuck her hand on his face. It was kind of gross. “Breathe on me,” she told him.
He puffed a big breath at her. She could feel the germs hitting her skin.
Ivy was standing far away in the bushes by now. “I’ll just catch it from you,” she called.
Bean rubbed her hands all over her face. “Thanks,” she said to the kid. He sneezed.
Bean and Ivy knew about germs. They didn’t make you sick right away. You had to wait at least a couple of hours. That was okay. Ivy and Bean didn’t want to get sick during science. They liked science.
This month, science was Ocean Life. And today Ocean Life was fish prints. It was art and science mixed together, Ms. Aruba-Tate said. The second-graders nodded. They liked art, too.
Ms. Aruba-Tate explained about fish prints. You took a dead fish and painted it. Then you dropped it pretty hard on a piece of paper. When you picked it up again, there was a paint fish on your paper. Then you used your crayons to draw an undersea environment around the fish.
“Does everyone understand the instructions?” asked Ms. Aruba-Tate, looking around the classroom.
“Are the fish dead?” asked Zuzu.
“Yes, the fish are dead,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate.
“Are you sure?”
“Completely sure,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Any other questions?”
The second-graders shook their heads. Fish prints sounded like fun.
“Now who is our supply person today?” asked Ms. Aruba-Tate.
“Eric!” shouted the second grade.
Eric leaped to his feet, waving his hands in the air. “Thank you, thank you!”
“Eric, please put one fish at each table,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate, handing him a big plastic box.
Eric went around the room, carefully choosing the right dead fish for each table.
“Hurry up!” shouted everyone. Paint and dead fish. This was the best science yet.
Bean was itching to begin. When Eric reached her table, there were just two dead fish left in the box, but he couldn’t decide between them. He looked at one and then the other. “Which one should I give you? The little one or the big one?”
“Just give us one!” shouted Bean.
“Maybe I should ask Ms. Aruba-Tate which one I should give you,” Eric said.
Bean reached into his box and grabbed a dead fish.
“Ms. Aruba-Tate! Bean took a fish!”
Dang. Bean looked at her teacher. Was she going to be sent to the rug? Was she going to miss out on dead fish and paint?
But Ms. Aruba-Tate smiled at Bean. “Next time, don’t grab, Bean.”
Bean loved Ms. Aruba-Tate with all her heart.
Carefully Bean smeared her fish with green paint. She looked down and saw the fish’s eye looking up. Poor fish. She decided to make the most beautiful fish print in the world, to make it up to the fish for being dead. Slowly she laid the fish on her paper and pressed. Then she pressed harder. It had to be good.
“Bean! Watch out!” squawked Vanessa.
Oops. She had pressed a little too hard.
The fish was kind of bent. She lifted it up and peeked at her print. That was kind of bent, too.
“You wrecked it!” said Vanessa. “And your fish print is all lumpy.”
“It’s not lumpy,” said Bean.
“It’s about to have babies,” said Ivy.
“Yeah!” said Bean. She handed the fish to Ivy. “I did it on purpose,” she said to Vanessa.
While Ivy made her fish print, Bean drew an undersea environment for her fish. Kelp. An octopus. A sea anemone. A wrecked ship with ghosts. Science was her favorite subject, for sure.
TIGHT TENTACLES
Ivy and Bean worked so hard on their fish prints that they forgot about getting sick. It was only on the way home that they remembered. Ivy looked down Bean’s throat.
“It’s pink,” she said.
“It’s always pink,” said Bean. She felt her forehead. “I have a headache,” she said.
“That’s good,” said Ivy encouragingly.
But when they got to Bean’s house, Bean’s mother said that a person with a headache was too sick to eat an ice-cream bar, and that’s when Bean realized that she didn’t have a headache after all. She felt fine.
She still felt fine the next day.
And the day after that.
Ivy touched a kid with a rash. Nothing. Eric sneezed on Bean eight times. Nothing. Half the kids in the first grade had lice, but Ivy and Bean decided that lice wouldn’t help. Their mothers would make them be squids with lice.
By the end of the week, Ivy and Bean were completely unsick. They needed a new plan. But what? Usually Bean didn’t worry much. In fact, grown-ups sometimes said she didn’t worry enough. But that weekend, even while she was doing fun things like going to a fair that included a giant slide, Bean worried. Mostly it didn’t feel like worry. What it felt like was fun with a little bit missing. When Bean came whooshing to the bottom of the giant slide, she thought, Why don’t I feel totally great? And then she remembered. Because I have to be a squid in front of everyone.
Ivy worried, too. Ivy usually didn’t worry about real life. Ivy usually worried about things like the Permian extinction, when a whole lot of animals died. The Permian extinction was very upsetting, but it had happened 250 million years ago, so it wasn’t real life anymore.
This weekend Ivy didn’t think about the Permian extinction. She thought about how she would feel being a squid on a stage in front of a whole lot of people. She knew how she would feel. Stupid. She would probably trip, because she usually did. And even if she didn’t trip, she would be a squid. Everyone would know that Madame Joy had made her a squid because she was the worst dancer in the class. Too bad the Permian extinction didn’t wipe out squids, Ivy thought.
On Sunday afternoon, Ivy went over to Bean’s house to be measured for her squid costume. Bean’s mother had said she would make both squid costumes because Ivy’s mom didn’t like to sew. But it wasn’t even a real costume. Madame Joy’s picture showed a white leotard with a circle of droopy white tentacles hanging from the waist.
Madame Joy said that tentacles were a breeze to make. Bean’s mom didn’t think so.
“Who ever heard of squid costumes, anyway?” she muttered.
“No complaining,” said Bean.
“None of your lip there, missy,” her mother said.
That was grown-ups for you. They never followed their own rules.
“I suppose I could stuff a bunch of tights and sew them on,” Bean’s mother mumbled. Bean and Ivy exchanged looks.
“Tights?” Bean said. “Like the kind you wear on your legs?”
Her mother looked up. “Yes, tights. Stuffed tights. For the tentacles. Do you have a better idea?”
Bean thought of the Wilis in their long feathery dresses. She thought of herself with stuffed tights bouncing around her waist.
“Tights it is!” said her mother.
“We’re going to look like idiots,” said Bean.
“No complaining,” said her mother.
Monday started out badly. Ms. Aruba-Tate was at choking class. The Principal had told her to take choking class so she would know what to do if a student choked. Bean said if someone choked, you dangled them upside down by their ankles until whatever it was fell out. Ms. Aruba-Tate said she didn’t think so, but she would find out.
Ms. Aruba-Tate’s substitute was Teacher Star. Teacher Star wasn’t mean, but she never stopped singing. She sat on Ms. Aruba-Tate’s stool and strummed her guitar and sang. She told the second-graders to sing along, but they didn’t want to, so she sang alone. She sang and sang and sang some more.
Ivy read her book under her desk. Bean thought about choking. Then she thought about ballet class. She thought about Dulcie and her pink chiffon dance skirt. She thought about white tentacles made out of stuffed tights.
“There’s a little blue planet in the sky,” sang Teacher Star.
It was nice to see Ms. Aruba-Tate again after lunch recess, but by then Bean was too busy thinking about ballet class to pay attention to what Ms. Aruba-Tate was saying. Something about permission slips. She was waving a piece of paper. Who knew what it was about?
“Does anyone have any questions about our trip?” asked Ms. Aruba-Tate.
“What trip?” asked Bean.
“Will someone tell Bean about our field trip to the aquarium?” said Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Emma?”
“We’re going on a field trip to the aquarium,” said Emma.
“To see some ocean life,” said Dusit.
“We’re going to see them feed the sharks,” said Eric. “Raw meat.”
“And baby penguins,” said Zuzu.
“They’re going to feed the baby penguins to the sharks,” said Eric. He clashed his teeth together, being a shark.
“Eric,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate.
“Just kidding, Ms. Aruba-Tate,” said Eric.
“Oh!” said Ivy in a very loud voice. Everyone looked at her. Ivy hardly ever said anything in a very loud voice.
“Ivy?” asked Ms. Aruba-Tate.
Ivy gave Bean an enormous smile. Then she turned to Ms. Aruba-Tate and said, “I was just thinking about how much I love ocean life.”
BYE-BYE, BALLET
“We’re saved!” hissed Ivy, pulling Bean toward the door.
“Saved from what?” Bean hissed back.
“Being squids!” squealed Ivy. She raced out into the breezeway. Bean’s sleeve was in her hand, so Bean raced with her. Together they left the school behind and hurried toward Pancake Court.
“Okay,” puffed Bean, “how are we saved?”
Ivy stopped. “The field trip! We’re going to run away! We’ll run away to the aquarium, and we’ll stay there until after The World of Dance is over!”
Running away! What a great idea! Bean had been waiting for years to run away. What she had been waiting for was a reason. She didn’t want to hurt her parents’ feelings by running away for no reason. The World of Dance was a great reason. This was the chance of a lifetime.
Oh yeah. Bean suddenly remembered the other reason she had never run away. “What about food?” she asked.
“Easy-peasy-Parcheesi,” said Ivy. “I read about it in a book. You know how people throw money in fountains? We scrape it off the bottom of the fountain after the aquarium is closed at night, and then we buy food with it.”
That was pretty smart. Bean was impressed. Also, it would be fun to walk in a fountain without grown-ups freaking out about it. “Cool,” she said. “Where will we sleep?”
“We’ll find a good spot once we get there. Aquariums are good for sleeping because they’re dark.”
“And quiet. Fish are very quiet.” Bean pictured herself drifting off to sleep with fish swirling around her. It would be nice. “It’ll be like sleeping on a boat.”
Ivy rubbed her hands together. “In this book I read, the kids filled their clarinet cases with extra underwear, but we’ll use our backpacks.”
“My backpack is pretty big.”
“We should bring jackets, too. And money. In the book, they brought all their money.”
“Why do we need money if we’re going to scrape it out of the fountain?” asked Bean. “Besides, I only have four dollars and some coins.”
“I’ve got twenty-six and some coins,” said Ivy. “But I don’t want to spend it. I’m saving for a glass doll.”
“There will be plenty of money in the fountain,” Bean decided.
“And we’ll get clean at the same time,” said Ivy.
“Boy,” Bean said, shaking her head. “It’s too bad I wasted all that time worrying.”
Somehow, knowing that they were going to run away made ballet class better. “Still not good,” said Bean. “But better.”
“I don’t know,” said Ivy. She was watching Dulcie do an arabesque. An arabesque was when you stretched out one arm and one leg at the same time. Arabesques made Ivy fall over. Dulcie could arabesque all day long. “Bet she puts glue on her shoes,” muttered Ivy.
“Very nice, Dulcie,” said Madame Joy.
“Thank you, Madame Jwah!” said Dulcie.
Now instead of being butterflies at the end of ballet class, they practiced “Wedding Beneath the Sea.” Dulcie swayed and kitty-jumped and fluttered her fingers. Two starfish girls twirled with their arms out. Two seahorse girls galloped in and out of the starfish. Two tuna girls glided together across the floor. Ivy and Bean, the friendly squids, stayed in one place and waved their arms.
“Call this dancing?” Bean whispered. “This is standing.”
“Enter the prince!” cried Madame Joy.
The prince was a girl wearing a black leotard and a red hat that looked like a tiny pillowcase. The prince was the second-crummiest part in “Wedding Beneath the Sea,” but it was way better than being a friendly squid. The prince at least got to leap. The prince-girl leaped toward Dulcie while Dulcie fluttered away. Then the prince got down on one knee and waved her arms at Dulcie. Then Dulcie nodded, and all the other fishy things got in a circle and danced around them. Except the two friendly squids. Madame Joy said they were like doormen. They guarded the entrance to the mermaid palace.
Finally Madame Joy clapped her hands. Class was over. For Ivy and Bean, it was especially over. Next week they’d be living at the aquarium.
Ivy grinned at Bean. “Bye-bye, ballet,” she whispered.
“Down with squids!” Bean whispered back. The night before the field trip Bean filled her backpack with useful items. Band-Aids? Check. Pencil? Check. String? Check. Underwear? Check. Bag of salt? Check. Nancy had told her once that all you needed to stay alive was salt and water. Bean figured there would be plenty of water at the aquarium.
Bean zipped her backpack closed. She looked around her room. It seemed like she should be discussing important things with Ivy. She couldn’t think of any important things, but she called Ivy anyway.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Who’s this?” said Ivy.
“Bean!”
“Oh. Hi, Bean,” said Ivy. She didn’t like talking on the phone. “What do you want?”
“Are you ready? Say ten-four if you are.”
“Say what?” asked Ivy.
“Ten-four,” said Bean.
“Fourteen,” said Ivy.
“No! It means yes,” said Bean.
“Yes what?”
“Ivy! Yes, I’m ready!” yelled Bean.
“Oh. I’m ready, too. Good-bye.” Ivy hung up.
Forget it. Bean went back to her room. It was almost bedtime, which meant it was almost morning, which meant it was almost running-away time. Bean could hardly wait.
VERY FISHY
Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class swarmed off the bus. They were proud. Their bus behavior had been excellent, if you didn’t count Marga-Lee and Dusit.
They stampeded up the stairs toward the aquarium’s front door. Who would get there first? Who would be the best?
“Boys and girls! Stop!” hollered Ms. Aruba-Tate. They stopped. Ms. Aruba-Tate didn’t holler very often. “Boys and girls! Stay where you are! Don’t move! Stay with your buddy! Try to stay together!”
The white marble patio outside the aquarium was full of hollering teachers and wandering kids. There were kids sliding down the handrail on the stairs. There were boys throwing their backpacks at each other. There were girls walking along the rim of the fountain. All the teachers were trying to get all the kids to stand still. What a nuthouse, thought Bean.
“Boys and girls! Follow me!” shouted Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Stay with your buddy!”
Linking arms, Ivy and Bean climbed the stairs toward the big golden doors.
“Our new home,” Bean whispered.
They went inside. The aquarium was big and dim, with dark hallways like arms leading off in many directions. It was sort of greenish all over, and even with hundreds of kids wandering around, it was quiet.
“Okay,” said Ivy, pulling out a list. “The first thing we do is find a good hiding place.”
But they couldn’t find a good hiding place because Ms. Aruba-Tate was calling them over to the alligator pit. The second-graders clustered around the pit and stared down at the alligators.
“Look!” Bean nudged Ivy. “There’s money in there!” Bright coins sparkled in the slimy alligator water.
Ivy looked. “No way am I going in an alligator pit to get money,” she said.
“Oh. Right.” Bean stared at the money. What a waste. The alligators seemed dead anyway. They didn’t even move. Maybe she could just slip in and out.
One of the alligators spread its mouth wide in a yawn.
Maybe not.
“Stay together!” called Ms. Aruba-Tate, leading them from the alligator pit to a dark hallway. “Now we will see Coastal Zones.”
Ivy nodded at Bean. Coastal Zones sounded like a good place to make a getaway.
“When do we eat lunch?” yelled Paul. “I’m starving to death.”
“Now,” whispered Ivy. She and Bean started to walk backward.
“There will be no eating inside the aquarium,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Ivy! Bean! Stay with the group!”
“Boy, does she have sharp eyes,” Bean muttered.
Coastal Zones turned out to be tide pools. Tide pools were good because you got to stick your hands in them. Ivy and Bean decided to run away later. Ivy held an orange starfish, which was really called a sea star and had eyes at the ends of its arms. Pretty neat.
A sea anemone wrapped its soft tentacles around Bean’s finger. She hoped it didn’t hurt when she pulled her finger away.
After Coastal Zones, there were penguins. Bean and Ivy liked penguins, but Zuzu loved them. She cried when it was time to go. Eric said he was going to freak if they didn’t get to sharks soon, so Ms. Aruba-Tate let them skip shrimp and move straight to sharks.
“I want to see sharks,” said Bean. “Then we’ll go.”
Ivy nodded. She wanted to see sharks, too.
As it turned out, sharks were not that exciting. For one, they were small. And they swam around in circles, zip, zip. They didn’t care if the second grade wanted to see them or not. They just zipped around.
“Come along, boys and girls,” called Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Let’s investigate the Kelp Forest.”
The Kelp Forest. Boringsville. Bean nodded to Ivy. Ivy nodded to Bean. They waited beside the shark glass while the rest of the class surged forward. Ms. Aruba-Tate was listening to Emma tell about the time she was seasick. She didn’t notice Ivy and Bean.
No one noticed.
In a minute, they were all alone with the sharks.
Now that Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class was gone, Bean and Ivy could hear the sharks. They could hear them move through the water.
“Come on.” Ivy pulled on Bean’s sleeve.
“Wait a second.” Bean leaned close to the glass wall. Bean wondered if they could hear her. “Hi,” she said. The sharks swam around, their black eyes empty. They didn’t care. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to Ivy.
They turned and scurried down a hall lined with little tanks of fish.
When they got to the end of that hall, they turned down another.
And then another. They had done it.
They were runaways.
OCEAN LIFE GONE BAD
Ivy and Bean came to a gray room. It didn’t have any ocean life in it. What it did have in it were a lot of dishes.
“We must be near the cafeteria,” said Ivy.
A man walked into the room pushing a cart. He didn’t look surprised to see them, but he didn’t look happy either. “No kids in here,” he said. “Cafeteria’s that way.” He pointed to a door.
“Okay,” said Bean. She and Ivy went through a different door.
Now they were in a dark hallway. A dark, small hallway. They could just barely see the sign on the wall. It said, “Life without Light: Creatures of the Deep Sea.”
“Perfect!” said Ivy.
“Perfect? For what?” asked Bean. It didn’t look perfect to her. It looked dark.
“Life without Light.” said Ivy. “It’s great for sleeping. Plus, no one will be able to see us.”
Bean looked around the little hall. “We’re going to sleep in here?”
“No. This is just where they put the sign. The fish and stuff are in there.” She pointed to a doorway.
Together they walked into a long, narrow room. At least Bean thought it was a long, narrow room. She couldn’t really tell because it was so dark. It was even darker than the hall.
“Why don’t they turn on some lights?” whispered Bean. It seemed like a whispering place.
“It’s showing what it’s like in the deep sea. The sun doesn’t get all the way down there,” whispered Ivy.
“So that’s all? Just a dark room?” Bean shook her head.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. Do you see fish tanks anywhere?”
Bean looked hard into the darkness. She could see some glimmering on the wall. Maybe it was glass. Or something else. Bean started to get a worried feeling. “Why aren’t there any people in here?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Ivy said again. Bean could see the outline of Ivy’s head as she looked from side to side. “Maybe the sign was old. Maybe there’s nothing in here.”
For a moment, they stood there in the dark. It was so quiet that they heard the sound of the quiet. Bean began to think of all the things that might be slithering silently toward them.
“Ivy? I’m not liking this so much,” she said.
Ivy linked her arm into Bean’s. That was better. A little. “There’s got to be a light switch in here somewhere,” said Ivy. “If we walk around, I bet we’ll find one. And once we turn on the light, we’ll figure out where to hide our backpacks.”
Slowly, with their arms out, they walked toward the wall. Bean’s hands brushed against cool glass. No light switches there. She felt around its edges.
“Hey,” said Ivy. “Here’s a button thing. Should I push it?”
“Um,” said Bean. “What if it opens a trapdoor and water gushes out?”
Too late. Ivy had pushed the button. The wall in front of them began to glow with red light. For a second, they blinked at the brightness. And then they saw. Behind the glass was black water rising high above their heads. They pressed their faces to the window. Was it just empty water?
“I don’t see any fish,” Bean began to say—and then a massive mouth came hurtling toward them, shining with thousands of needle teeth. “YIKES!” Bean took an enormous leap backward, dragging Ivy behind her.
“Holy moly cannoli!” she squeaked. “What the heck is that?”
Ivy didn’t say anything, but her hand held tight to Bean’s. The giant mouth was attached to a long snaky creature that glared at them with tiny bright eyes.
“I guess this is what it’s like at the bottom of the sea,” whispered Ivy.
Bean shivered.
On the other side of the glass wall, a fish swam by, a thin arm sprouting from its head. At the end of the arm was a glowing lump. The fish swished its head from side to side, and the glowing lump swung like a lantern.
Slowly the two girls made their way around the room. Long white worms poked from tubes. See-through fish wiggled along, trailing other fish with glowing eyeballs. Shining blobs with no heads or tails rolled on the floor of the tank. Were they alive?
“Could we turn the lights off again?” Ivy asked in a small voice. “I can’t stop looking at those blobs.”
Bean reached over to the button under the glass and pressed it. The red light faded into darkness. Thick nighttime darkness. With worms and giant mouths in it.
“Ivy?” said Bean. “I don’t think I can live in here for two weeks.”
“Sure you can,” said Ivy, but her voice didn’t sound sure. “They’re inside tanks. Tank glass is super-strong.”
There was a pause.
“I keep thinking they’re watching us,” said Bean.
“I keep thinking the glass is going to break,” said Ivy.
Bean pictured the giant mouth whizzing toward her. She jumped up and pressed the button again.
But it was a different button. The red light did not begin to glow. Instead, a serious voice began to talk.
“The most famous creature of the deep sea can’t be seen in an aquarium because it has never been captured alive. The giant squid, which may reach a length of forty feet, is shown here in a rare video….”
The voice went on talking, but Bean and Ivy didn’t hear it.
They were watching the video. An enormous white blob flapped in empty black water, its long, blubbery white arms trailing behind. Around and around it spun and ruffled and circled, dancing in the water. It was like a horrible Wili, Bean thought. Its legs flailed and waved. Then, with a giant flap and whirl, the squid shot toward them. Its head, huge and soft, turned, and suddenly a single monster eye, an eye the size of a plate, stared right into theirs. It could see them.
For a second, Ivy and Bean stood frozen.
And then they began to run.
IN HOT WATER
Bean couldn’t stop running. She was gasping for air and her backpack was slamming into her shoulders, but she couldn’t stop running.
Ivy slammed into a kid. “Excuse me,” she gasped.
“Watch out!” yelled a teacher as they pounded by. “No running in the aquarium!”
They couldn’t stop. The squid was back there, waiting for them. They had to get out.
They tore up a dark hallway filled with sardines and down a dark hallway filled with jellyfish.
They flashed past the sharks, past the penguins, past the alligator pit, and exploded through the heavy golden doors into the outside world.
Air instead of water. Light instead of darkness. People instead of fish.
They were safe.
For a moment, they stood there, panting and gasping. I love light, thought Bean. I love air. I love this white marble patio—
“BEAN! IVY! WHERE ON EARTH HAVE YOU BEEN?” Ms. Aruba-Tate rushed toward them with her arms open. “Did you get lost? We were looking everywhere! Oh dear, I was so worried!” She gathered them up in a giant hug. “Oh dear,” she said, “oh, honeys!”
Ivy and Bean let themselves be hugged. It felt nice, after that squid, to be hugged.
“We’re okay,” said Bean.
“We got lost,” Ivy said quickly. That was kind of true.
“Oh, sweeties!” Ms. Aruba-Tate hugged them again. “Why didn’t you go to one of the guards? Didn’t I tell you to go to a guard if you got lost?”
“There weren’t any guards,” said Bean. That was completely true.
Now the rest of Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class was clustering around.
“There you are!” said Emma. “See, Ms. Aruba-Tate, I told you they weren’t dead.”
“We got to see the eels and you didn’t,” said Eric. “They’re hecka gross.”
“I can’t believe you got lost,” said Vanessa. “Where’d you go?”
“Into a part of the aquarium that no one has ever seen before,” said Ivy.
“There was this squid with eyes this big,” said Bean, holding her hands apart.
“You’re making that up,” said Vanessa.
“We’re not!” said Ivy. “There were white worms and this mouth with teeth—”
“Girls!” interrupted Ms. Aruba-Tate. She looked very serious. “Girls, are you telling me that you were wandering around the aquarium having a good time? That you didn’t even try to find us?”
Ivy and Bean looked at each other. “Um,” said Bean.
“We were trying to find you, Ms. Aruba-Tate,” said Ivy. “We just happened to see a few worms and things while we were trying.”
“Ivy and Bean, I am very disappointed in you,” Ms. Aruba-Tate began. “Our class has discussed safety rules many times, and I was counting on you being mature enough to understand that a field trip is an educational experience, not an excuse for bad behavior.”
All the way to the bus Ms. Aruba-Tate talked about disappointment and safety and bad behavior. Ivy and Bean nodded. They said she was right and they were wrong. They said they were sorry.
She was going to have to tell their parents, Ms. Aruba-Tate said.
Ivy and Bean nodded. They knew she had to.
They also knew that their parents were going to be mad. And that they were going to get in trouble.
But Ivy and Bean didn’t care as long as each of them could hold one of Ms. Aruba-Tate’s hands on the bus ride home. As long as they never had to go back to that aquarium and see that squid again in their whole lives.
SQUIDARINAS
They were right. Bean’s mother was mad. “This is not what I expect from you, Bernice Blue. When you go on a trip of any kind, I expect you to listen to the grown-up in charge. This is something we’ve discussed a thousand times.” Bean’s mother folded her arms and glared at Bean.
Bean could tell she was supposed to say something. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I should think so!” said her mother. She glared some more. “Well! We’ll talk about the consequences this evening when Daddy comes home. In the meantime, both of you go upstairs and try on your ballet costumes. And I don’t want to hear any complaining!”
Bean and Ivy walked quietly upstairs. Quietly they closed the door to Bean’s room. “Whew,” said Ivy. “That was a close one.”
“It’s not over yet,” said Bean. “Your mom still has to get mad.”
“I know,” said Ivy. “But at least none of them found out about the running-away part.”
“We’ve got to get rid of the evidence,” said Bean, busily pulling the bag of salt, the Band-Aids, the string, and the underwear out of her backpack. She stuffed it all under her bed.
Ivy did the same.
“Jeez!” Bean slumped against her bed. “What a day.”
Ivy lay down on the floor. “I’m pooped.”
“Are you trying on those costumes?” shouted Bean’s mother from downstairs.
“Sheesh,” said Bean, getting up. “Work, work, work. That’s all I do.” The white leotards lay across her bed, stuffed tights legs tangled around them. “Come on,” said Bean. “You have to try yours on, too.”
Ivy sighed and got up. Together they untangled the tights legs and got undressed and pulled on the white leotards. Bean looked at Ivy in her white leotard with ten white legs dangling from her waist.
Ivy looked at Bean. “I don’t think Madame Joy has ever seen a real squid,” she said.
Bean thought about the long, blubbery white legs. It made her head prickle. “Remember its legs?”
Ivy nodded. “And its eye? Remember how it looked at us?”
“Like it was excited. Like it could hardly wait to squeeze the life out of us,” said Bean.
“Like we were food,” agreed Ivy.
“Squids are not friendly,” Bean announced.
Ivy lifted up one of her white tights legs and shook it. “A real squid would wrap its legs around Dulcie and squish her.”
Bean giggled. “And then it would eat the starfish and the sea horses.” She bonked Ivy with one of her tights legs. “And the prince.”
Ivy bonked her back. “And then it would look at the audience with its humongo eye and say, ‘And you people are my dessert.’”
There was a pause.
“You know,” Bean said thoughtfully, “we could use your face paint to make big black eyes.”
There was another pause. Ivy and Bean looked at each other.
“Madame Joy will kill us,” said Ivy.
“We won’t do anything,” said Bean. “We’ll just look more like real squids. She won’t mind.”
“In a way, she should be glad,” said Ivy. “We’ll be teaching everyone what squids are really like.”
“Yeah, it’s educational,” said Bean. For the first time, she felt a little bit excited about being a squid. “And maybe, at the very end, after the rest of the dance is over, we can be two squid trying to squeeze the life out of each other.”
“Yeah!” said Ivy cheerfully. “Like this!” She jumped at Bean and wrapped three of her tentacles around Bean’s arm.
Bean hit Ivy over the head with a tights leg and growled. The two unfriendly squids bashed and squeezed each other until they had to lie down on the floor.
“You know what?” said Bean after a minute.
“What?” said Ivy.
“By the time we get through with it, ‘Wedding Beneath the Sea’ is going to be a lot like Giselle. Only more exciting.”
Ivy smiled. “Plus more scientific.”
“I just knew we’d end up liking ballet!” said Bean happily.
THE END
Table of Contents
Ivy + Bean Book 4: Take Care of the Babysitter
WHERE ARE YOU, MISS PEPPY-PANTS?
ONE IS SILVER AND THE OTHER’S GOLD
Ivy + Bean Book 5: Bound to be Bad
THE FIRST AND BEST IVY AND BEAN QUIZ!
Ivy + Bean Book 6: Doomed to Dance
This boxed set continues the adventures of the spunky second graders. It includes books 4, 5 and 6 in the Ivy and Bean series, and a set of paper dolls and lots of re-usable sticker clothes and accessories.
Note: Supplementary materials are not included.