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 myst
eriously. “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.