“Portal,” said Ivy, pointing to a whitish stain on the cement.
“What?”
“It’s a portal. A door. To the underworld. This is where the ghost is coming in.” Ivy kneeled down to touch the stain.
Bean felt a little shiver on the back of her head. A haunted bathroom was cool, but a door to the underworld was creepy. The stain did kind of look like a ghost. She didn’t feel so excited about the ghost anymore. “Why would a ghost come to our bathroom, anyway?” she asked, kneeling beside Ivy.
“The school was probably built on top of graves,” said Ivy. “When they do that, it disturbs the spirits, so they wander around, all sad and miserable, haunting whatever was built on top of them.”
“But it’s not our fault. We didn’t decide to build the school here.”
Ivy shook her head. “Ghosts don’t care.” Her voice got mysterious. “And now they will seek revenge on the intruders who ruined their graves.”
“Revenge,” said Bean, staring at the spot. She imagined cloudy shapes whirling down the breezeway toward Ms. Aruba-Tate’s classroom.
“They’ll be pouring in,” said Ivy. “An army of ghosts.”
“But there’s just one now, right?” asked Bean quickly.
Ivy jumped up. “Let’s find out,” she said, reaching for the door.
An army of ghosts! No way Bean was going in that bathroom now. “Ms. Aruba-Tate said we had to come back ASAP,” she said.
Ivy saw Bean’s face. “Oh, okay,” she said. “Let’s go back.”
“Put up your chairs, boys and girls,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate. She said it every afternoon when the bell rang, and every afternoon, half the class forgot. “Drew, please keep your hands to yourself. MacAdam, you may not put the turtle in your backpack. Thank you.”
Emma and Zuzu were already on the field when Ivy and Bean got there. They weren’t doing cartwheels. They were just waiting.
“So?” said Emma. “Tell us.”
Ivy explained about the milky cloud, about the girl coming out of the bathroom shivering, about the moaning noise, and about the yellow eyes that shone like flashlights. When she was done, Emma and Zuzu turned to look at the blue bathroom door.
“No way,” said Zuzu.
“I don’t see anything,” said Emma.
“That’s okay. Some people just can’t see them,” said Ivy. “Bean can.”
Bean nodded. Some people couldn’t see them, but she could.
“But wait,” said Emma. “If there’s a ghost, I want to see it.” She leaned forward, staring at the bathroom.
“Keep your eyes open for a long time without blinking,” Ivy suggested.
Emma popped her eyes at the door.
A girl ran down the breezeway and into the bathroom. As the door swung shut, Emma said, “I see a cloud! It’s a milky cloud, like you said!”
“Yeah. That’s it,” Ivy said, nodding.
Zuzu popped her eyes, too. “Is it glowing? I thought I saw something glowing.”
“That’s the eyes,” Bean said. “You must be seeing its eyes.” She felt important, helping Zuzu to see the ghost.
“What are you guys doing?” It was Leo, with a soccer ball under his arm.
“Look!” said Ivy, pointing. The girl was coming out of the bathroom. “See how she’s rubbing her hands? That’s because she just walked through the cold mist. She’s probably shivering, too!”
Leo looked at Ivy. “What?”
“There’s a ghost in our bathroom,” Bean explained.
“It’s like walking through a cold mist,” said Emma.
“And it has glowing eyes,” added Zuzu.
“You guys are wacko,” said Leo, dropping his ball on the ground and pretending to kick it.
“There’s a portal to the ghost world right outside the door, in the cement,” said Ivy to Emma and Zuzu. “Bean and I found it when we went to the bathroom. Come on. I’ll show it to you.”
“A portal?” said Emma. “What’s a portal?”
“It’s a doorway to the underworld,” Bean explained.
“Oh.” Emma stood still.
Bean understood how she felt. “We’re not going in,” she explained. “We’re just looking at the portal.”
“It will be totally safe,” said Ivy.
Bean knew that Ivy thought almost anything was safe.
“Okay,” said Emma. Zuzu nodded.
They started across the playground. Leo followed along, kicking the ball as he went.
ZUZU SPILLS THE BEANS
The next day at lunch recess, there were no gymnastics on the grass. No soccer, either. Every second-grader in the school gathered around the play structure, watching the bathroom. Whenever someone went in, they could see the ghost inside. It had definitely become clearer during the night.
Pretty soon, nobody went in. Everyone knew about the ghost, even the kindergartners, and nobody wanted to use a haunted bathroom. Still, the second-graders kept watching the door, just in case an army of ghosts floated out.
“What are you kids doing?” yelled Rose the Yard Duty.
“We’re just standing here,” Bean yelled back. “It’s a free country.”
“You watch it, Miss Bean,” warned Rose, but she went away.
The ghost didn’t start causing problems until that afternoon.
It was right in the middle of Drop Everything and Read when Ms. Aruba-Tate’s classroom door burst open. Mrs. Noble marched in, holding Zuzu by the shoulder. Mrs. Noble was a fifth-grade teacher. She had a thousand tiny wrinkles on her face, and she wore high heels and stockings every day. Bean’s mother said that Mrs. Noble was an “old-fashioned teacher.” Bean’s sister Nancy said that Mrs. Noble locked kids in her art cupboard when they were bad. Bean’s mother said that Nancy was exaggerating. That was a nice way to say lying.
Bean put her book down. She didn’t like Drop Everything and Read anyway, except for the beginning, when she got to drop things. Mrs. Noble’s high heels were red with stiff black bows at the front, and her shiny red fingernails were pressed into Zuzu’s shoulder. Zuzu was about to cry. This was going to be much more interesting than a book.
Mrs. Noble didn’t bother to lower her voice. “Becky,” she boomed, “you’ve got to keep an eye on them! I found this one all the way over in the upper-school bathroom.”
Ms. Aruba-Tate looked worried. “What were you doing in the upper-school bathroom, honey?”
Zuzu opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Big tears dripped down her cheeks and fell on the floor. “Our bathroom’s h-h-haunted!” she wailed suddenly.
Oh brother. Bean looked sideways at Ivy. Trouble.
Ivy was staring at Zuzu.
Then Zuzu pointed right at Ivy and Bean. “They—they—they saw a ghost in the bathroom, and it’s mad because the school’s on top of its grave, and there’s a portal, and more ghosts are coming!” she gasped.
Ivy slid down in her chair until she could hardly see over the desktop.
Ms. Aruba-Tate put her arms around Zuzu. “Honey, the bathroom’s not haunted—”
“Oh yes it is!” hollered Eric.
“I saw him!” yelled Dusit.
“He’s got yellow, glowing eyes, Ms. Aruba-Tate,” said Vanessa. “Ivy says.”
Ivy looked at the classroom door. If she ran for it, would Ms. Aruba-Tate catch her before she got out?
Ms. Aruba-Tate turned to Ivy. “Is all this coming from you, Ivy?” She sounded like she couldn’t believe it.
Ivy swallowed. She wished she had never seen the ghost. She wished she had never said the word ghost. “All what?” she said finally, in a high voice.
Ms. Aruba-Tate looked over the class. “Boys and girls, who has heard this silly story?”
One by one, the hands went up, until only Ivy’s were in her lap.
“Ivy,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate, “are you going to tell me that you have no idea what Zuzu is talking about?”
“No,” said Ivy softly, her eyes on her desk. “It’s not a sil
ly story. The bathroom is haunted.” Her face was burning hot.
Oh boy, thought Bean. Trouble with cheese on top.
Mrs. Noble shook her head. “Smart-aleck,” she boomed. “I’d send her to the Principal if she were mine, Becky.”
“Ooooooh,” murmured the second grade.
But, as it turned out, Ms. Aruba-Tate didn’t send Ivy to the Principal’s Office. Instead, the whole class sat in a circle on the rug while Ms. Aruba-Tate talked about how important imagination was. Then Ms. Aruba-Tate told them a story about yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Bean had no idea what any of it had to do with a haunted bathroom. Ivy just wanted to run away. She didn’t hear anything. At least, not until Ms. Aruba-Tate said, “Some stories can be harmful to others, class, and that means we have to use our imaginations responsibly and respectfully.”
Ivy tried to scrunch down behind Bean, who was sitting next to her.
Ms. Aruba-Tate said, “Do you understand, Ivy?”
“Yes,” whispered Ivy, not looking at Ms. Aruba-Tate.
The bell rang and everybody started squirming around, but Ms. Aruba-Tate held up her hand. “So I expect that I won’t hear any more nonsense about a ghost in the bathroom. Right?”
Everyone looked at Ivy. Ivy picked some dirt out of the rug. “Right,” she whispered after a moment.
“Put up your chairs, boys and girls,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate.
NO MORE NONSENSE
Ivy wasn’t exactly crying, but her eyes were glittery.
“She still likes you,” Bean said. “Really, she does.”
Ivy shook her head. They were supposed to be walking home, but Ivy kept stopping. She felt too awful to walk.
“Why didn’t you just say that the bathroom wasn’t haunted?” asked Bean. “Grown-ups never like that kind of stuff.”
“But it is haunted,” Ivy said. “And I’m the one who said it was.”
“Okay,” Bean said. “But you don’t have to tell them everything.”
“I didn’t think Ms. Aruba-Tate would get mad at me.”
“She’s not mad at you,” said Bean.
“She is mad at me,” said Ivy in a choked voice. “She hates me.”
“No. She likes you because you know all the answers,” Bean said.
Ivy didn’t say anything, but she started walking again.
“Ivy’s in trouble!” sang a voice behind them.
Bean whirled around. “Why don’t you just shut up, Leo?!”
“Hey!” said Leo, surprised. “That’s mean.”
“Go away,” Bean said. She wished she had some plums.
“I live on this street, you doof.” Leo picked up a rock and threw it at a tree. “I heard you got sent to the Principal’s,” he said to Ivy.
“I did not!” yelled Ivy. She stuck her tongue out at Leo.
“Jeez,” said Leo. “If there is a ghost, your ugly face will scare him back to his grave.”
Ivy stopped sticking out her tongue. “Oh!” she said. “Bean! That’s what we have to do!”
“What?” said Bean.
“We’ve got to send it back to its grave,” said Ivy. “We need to expel it.”
“Expel? Like Cody?” Cody had lit two garbage cans on fire and wasn’t allowed to come back to school anymore. He was expelled.
“Yeah. Like Cody,” said Ivy. “That’ll fix everything.”
“How are you going to expel a ghost?” Leo asked.
They had forgotten he was there.
“Secret,” said Ivy and Bean at the same moment.
They looked at each other and smiled.
“Aw, come on,” said Leo. “I won’t tell.”
“Can’t,” said Ivy as she started to walk away.
Leo looked glum. Bean felt sorry for him. “We’ll tell you afterward.”
“Oh, thanks,” he said.
Bean turned and raced to catch up with Ivy, who was halfway up the street.
THE POTION SOLUTION
“This is going to be great!” said Bean happily. She just loved potions.
The two girls were in Ivy’s magic lab. The magic lab was one of the five little rooms that Ivy had made inside her bedroom. Chalk lines on the floor showed where one room ended and another began. There was an art studio, a living room, a doll room, a sleeping area, and the lab.
Bean’s favorite was the art studio, with its little white table and the stack of bins filled with markers, glitter glue, pipe cleaners, beads, colored paper, feathers, and paint. The magic lab was Ivy’s favorite. In it was a bookshelf that held a shiny black rock, four fossils, a real snake skin, lots of bottles in all shapes and sizes, and jars of herbs and ingredients. Ivy loved to say “ingredients.” There was another table, which Ivy had covered in tinfoil. On top was a plastic tub of water. Ivy had wanted a sink, but her mother had said no way, so Ivy filled the plastic tub in the bathroom and carried it back to her lab. It spilled a lot.
Ivy took her magic book from its special hiding place and began flipping through the pages. “There’s got to be a potion in here somewhere,” she said, frowning. Then she giggled. “Here’s one for making someone fall in love with you.”
Bean made a throwing-up sound.
“Here’s one for getting your money back after it’s stolen.”
“That’s not it,” said Bean, sticking her hand in the water tub. Some water spilled onto the floor.
“I know,” said Ivy, still flipping pages, “but I don’t see—here’s another one for making someone fall in love with you. That’s dumb. How come there’s nothing for returning a ghost to its grave?”
“There should be,” said Bean. “Most people don’t want ghosts hanging around the house.”
Ivy looked up from her book. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“What if it creaked open your closet door in the middle of the night,” asked Bean, “and you could hear it breathing?”
Ivy thought. “I’d talk to it. My grandma’s cousin lived in a house with a ghost that whistled. My grandma said that when she was a girl, she always heard the ghost whistling upstairs when she went to play at her cousin’s.”
“I’d freak. Was she scared?” asked Bean.
“Grandma says the only thing she’s scared of is chickens, but I think she’s joking. I wish I’d been there,” said Ivy. “I would have asked it why it was haunting the house.”
Bean stared at her hand in the water tub. It looked ghostly. “I bet ghosts are scared of themselves. It must be weird to look down and see through yourself.”
Ivy looked at her. “Maybe. Maybe Grandma’s ghost whistled because it was trying to cheer itself up.” She went back to looking at her book, and the magic lab was quiet for a minute or two. “Hey!” she said suddenly. “Here’s something that could work. It’s a potion that you pour in front of your house to keep evil spirits away.”
Bean was feeling sorry for the ghost now. “But it’s not an evil spirit,” she argued. “It just wants the school to get off its grave. The ghost was there first. First come, first served.”
“Yeah. You’re right,” Ivy agreed. “But the ghost has got to go. Ms. Aruba-Tate said. And besides, we’ll be doing a good deed for the ghost, in a way. Don’t you think it would rather be in its grave?”
Bean thought. “I guess so. That bathroom is nasty.”
“Right. So here’s what we’ll do,” Ivy leaned over the tinfoil, “we’ll make a ceremony. We’ll tell it that we know it’s not evil. We’ll tell it that we just want it to rest peacefully. We’ll tell it—”
“That we come as friends,” Bean said, bouncing in her chair.
“We could chant,” said Ivy. “We come as friends,” she chanted.
“We come in peace,” chanted Bean. “A dance might be good, too,” she added.
“Once it goes back to its grave, we’ll pour the potion around the edges of the bathroom so it can’t come back,” Ivy said.
“Sounds good,” said Bean. She thought for a minute. “Hey, I have an idea. You know the
Egyptians?”
Ivy nodded. “Yeah?”
“They used to put presents in the grave with the dead person. Stuff to play with. And money. We should do that.” Presents would make the ceremony even better.
“Presents,” Ivy repeated. “That’s a great idea. It’ll be like an ancient burial.” Suddenly, she stood up. “But first we need to make the potion.”
SNEAKY BEAN
“BEAN!”
“She sounds like one of those screaming monkeys,” said Ivy, stirring.
“She looks like one, too,” said Bean. “Do we need more rosemary?”
“Sure,” Ivy said. “Put some more in.”
“BEAN! YOU’VE GOT TO COME HOME NOW! MOM SAYS.”
“She’s too lazy to walk across the street,” said Bean. “My mom tells her to go get me, and she just stands on the porch and screams.”
“She’s lazy,” Ivy agreed. She looked at the jars on her shelf. She had a little bit of nutmeg, and a lot of seeds she had found in the backyard. She had some dead bugs. She had plenty of baking soda. The problem with making potions from her magic book was that she never had exactly the right ingredients. Sometimes she didn’t even know what they were. The keeping-away-evil-spirits potion had an ingredient called “ponie.” Ivy didn’t think they meant a real pony. She didn’t have a pony, anyway. “I think we should put in some more baking soda,” she said.
“BEAN! YOU HAD BETTER NOT MAKE ME COME GET YOU!”
Bean opened Ivy’s window and leaned out. Nancy was standing on the porch, her face red from screaming. “I’ll be there in a minute!” Bean said in her regular voice.
“WHAT?” screeched Nancy.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Bean called a little louder.
“There’s one more thing we need,” said Ivy, looking at the book again. She giggled.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, BUT YOU’D BETTER GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW OR YOU’LL BE SORRY.”