“Okay, but we’d better sneak,” said Bean.
Bean’s house was good for sneaking. At the back, there was a porch. If you crawled like a bug across the porch, you could look through a big window into the kitchen.
The girls ran toward the bushes that grew next to Bean’s porch and ducked down, hiding. Quietly, they began to creep up the stairs that led to the porch. Very quietly, they crawled across the floor. And then—Bean heard a sound.
She froze.
There it was again.
A sob.
It was someone crying. Bean listened.
It sounded like Nancy.
Bean put her hand on Ivy’s arm and pointed to the window. They crawled to it and peered in like spies.
There was Nancy. She was sitting at the kitchen table. She was alone. She was crying.
Bean got a funny feeling. Nancy was usually so bossy, so nosy, so sure she was right. It was weird to see her cry, all alone.
“Maybe she’s crying because she thinks you’re lost,” whispered Ivy. “That’s kind of nice.”
Bean didn’t answer. She had never thought she could make Nancy cry. Bean felt a lump in her throat. She remembered that Nancy let her snuggle into her bed when she had bad dreams about the spooky man. She remembered that Nancy let her play with her glass animals sometimes, even after she had broken the starfish. She remembered that Nancy had once bought her a fairy coloring book with her own money. Bean looked at the tears rolling down Nancy’s cheeks. Poor Nancy. Bean sniffed. Maybe she didn’t want to put the dancing spell on her sister, after all.
Nancy said something. Bean couldn’t hear it, but she was sure it was something about missing her.
“What?” said Bean’s mother’s voice from another room.
“Everybody has them!” Nancy shouted. “Everybody but me! I’m the only one who has to wait!” She began to cry harder.
What? Bean pressed her face against the window.
Her mother’s voice said, “We’ve talked about this a million times. You can have them when you’re twelve.”
“Even some of stupid Bean’s friends have them!” yelled Nancy.
Suddenly Bean knew what Nancy was crying about. “She’s not sad about me at all! She’s crying about pierced ears!” hissed Bean to Ivy. Bean got mad. Really mad. She was even madder than she had been when Nancy tried to drag her into the house. Bean was so mad she forgot all about being sneaky. She stood up and banged on the window with her fist. “You’re a big turkey!” she yelled.
Nancy stared and then jumped up. “Hey! Hey! Mom! Bean’s back! Get in here, Bean breath!” She flashed out the back door before Bean could even begin to run. In two seconds flat, she had Bean by the arm and was pulling her in the door. “Just wait till Mom gets hold of you,” she was saying. “You’re going to be in so, so, so much trouble—”
“STOP!” yelled Ivy. She stood in front of Nancy, waving the wand at her face. “I command you to free Bean!”
THE SPELL
Nancy stopped dragging Bean across the porch and looked at Ivy. “Who are you?” she asked.
Ivy smiled and slitted her eyes. With her white face and red blood drops, she looked very witchy. “It matters not. Free my friend,” she hissed.
Wow, thought Bean. She’s really going for it.
Nancy dropped Bean’s arm and lifted one eyebrow, which was something she had just learned how to do and did all the time. “What’s that supposed to be?” she asked in a snippy, grown-up way, looking at Ivy’s wand.
Ivy shook the wand in Nancy’s face. “This is your doom,” she said in a deep voice.
“It’s a wand,” said Bean, looking back and forth between Ivy and Nancy. She was beginning to worry. Maybe Ivy was going for it too much. With older sisters, you had to be able to say that you never meant what you said, that you were kidding the whole time. Ivy didn’t seem to know that.
Nancy snorted. “It’s a stick,” she said. She looked at Ivy’s robe and giggled. “Nice bathrobe, too. You guys are complete and total dweebs.”
Uh-oh. Bean looked at Ivy. Her cheeks were red under the white paint, and her eyes glittered. She looked like she might cry.
Suddenly, Bean was furious. Before, she had been really mad. But now Nancy was making fun of Ivy, and that made Bean furious.
Without even stopping to think about it, Bean reached down into the bucket she was still carrying. She got a big handful of pink worms. For a second, they squiggled in her hand. And then she threw them at Nancy’s face.
Some of them fell onto Nancy’s shirt. Some of them got stuck in her hair. But one landed on her eyebrow and wiggled there, trying to find some dirt.
Nancy was so surprised she froze. She just stood with her mouth hanging open, staring at Bean.
Calmly, Bean reached into the bucket again and got another handful of worms. She aimed better this time. She got one in Nancy’s mouth.
“Phoo!” The pink worm went flying as Nancy spit it out. There was a tiny moment of quiet, and then she opened her mouth wide and let out a giant scream.
Bean and Ivy looked at each other and smiled. “Whatever happens next,” their eyes said, “that was worth it.” And then they began to run.
Nancy tore after them, still screaming. Bean zigzagged across the lawn because she knew it was harder to catch someone who was zigzagging. Ivy zigzagged, too, right behind Bean.
“Worms! Worms!” Nancy was screaming. She had lost her mind. “Ahhhhhh!”
Bean could hear her mother calling, “What on earth?! Girls! Girls!” Bean and Ivy ran around the trampoline, with Nancy close behind. They jumped over the hula hoops and the stilt and headed for the trees. Nancy followed, still screaming. She was right behind them. She was so close she could almost grab the soft folds of Ivy’s robe—she was just about to get it.
“Help!” squealed Ivy. Bean gave a yank and pulled the robe away in the nick of time.
Ivy and Bean swerved for the playhouse. Maybe they could get inside it before Nancy tackled them.
“Come on!” Bean yelled. Together they jumped over the worm pit, squeezed into the playhouse, and slammed the door. “Whew!” they said together.
Then it happened.
Nancy was still chasing them. She was running toward the playhouse.
And toward the worm pit.
The big, muddy worm pit.
Bean and Ivy knew it was there.
But Nancy didn’t. And she didn’t see it. She charged toward the playhouse, and—whoops!—her foot landed on the side of the muddy pit. Ivy and Bean looked out the playhouse window, and they saw Nancy skidding on the slimy edge of the hole. Back and forth she wobbled, trying to keep her balance. She kicked out one foot. She waved her arms wildly. She kicked out her other foot. She waved. She kicked.
It was perfect.
“She’s dancing!” yelled Bean.
“The spell worked!” yelled Ivy.
And just at that moment, with a sloppy, gloopy thud, Nancy slipped off the edge and landed in the muddy goo at the bottom of the worm pit.
NO DESSERT
“No dessert,” said Bean. “No videos for a week. But at least they didn’t make me stay in my room.”
Ivy was sitting next to Bean on her front porch. It was almost dark. They watched the bugs flying around the streetlight.
“I don’t think they’re really mad,” said Ivy.
“You don’t?” They had seemed pretty mad to Bean.
“They have to act mad so they’ll seem fair to your sister,” Ivy said. “But your mom had this little, teeny smile on her face when she pulled Nancy out of the pit. She thought it was funny.”
Bean smiled, too, remembering. “It was funny.”
“It was great.”
“Nancy says she’s never going to speak to either of us ever again. And she took back the coloring book she gave me.”
“Well, she never spoke to me before today, so that won’t be any different for me.”
“It’ll be better for me
. But I bet she doesn’t stick to it.” Bean yawned. It had been a big day. She turned to Ivy. “Do you think the spell is what made her dance?”
“Of course.” Ivy sounded very sure. But after a minute she said, “I didn’t have time to say the spell, really. I just sort of thought it at the last second.”
Bean stared into the shadowy yard. “Maybe that’s why she didn’t dance for very long—because you only thought the spell instead of saying it.”
“Next time I’ll say it.”
“You’re going to do it again? On who?” Bean asked.
“I was thinking about that Mrs. Trantz,” said Ivy.
Bean pictured Mrs. Trantz kicking up her feet on the edge of a muddy pit. It would be a beautiful sight. “Can you teach me to burp like that?” asked Bean.
“Sure,” Ivy said. “Maybe I’ll try something new on Mrs. Trantz. Like a storm of grasshoppers.”
“Is that a hard one?”
“No, but we have to start with a lot of grasshoppers,” said Ivy.
“It seems like all the spells have bugs in them,” said Bean.
“Not all of them,” said Ivy. “Potions don’t.”
Potions. That sounded fun. “Let’s make a potion,” Bean said.
“Okay,” Ivy said. “Tomorrow we’ll make potions.”
“I know what,” said Bean. “Tomorrow let’s fix up a lab in your room. Then we can make potions.” She pictured a lab with shelves full of little bottles. She and Ivy would wear goggles.
Ivy sat up straighter. “Yeah! That’ll be good. We’ll dump the dressing room and get some shelves. Shelves with little bottles. And maybe a counter.”
“Bean?” Bean’s mother came out onto the front porch. “There you are. It’s almost bath time. Ivy, do you want me to walk you home?”
“Okay,” said Ivy.
But Bean’s mom sat down beside Bean and looked at the nighttime sky. “You girls have certainly had a big day, haven’t you?”
Bean leaned against her mother’s arm. “Tomorrow we’re going to make a lab in Ivy’s room.”
“You are, are you?” said Bean’s mom. “What for?”
“Potions,” said Ivy.
“What kind of potions?” asked Bean’s mom.
“Secret potions,” said Ivy.
There was a silence. Then Bean’s mom said, “No matches. No poison. No explosions. No deadly fumes. No bugging Nancy. Is that clear?”
Ivy and Bean looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Weren’t you the one who was always telling me to play with her?” said Bean. “Wasn’t this all your idea in the first place?”
Bean’s mother smiled at them in the dark.
The light on Ivy’s porch came on, and Ivy’s mom stepped out the door. She waved across the street. “Time to come in, honey.” Down the stairs and across the circle she came in the moonlight.
Ivy stood up.
So did Bean.
“See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
And the day after that, Bean added in her mind.
Ivy, holding her mother’s hand in the middle of street, turned around to look at Bean. “And the day after that,” she said.
IVY + BEAN
AND THE GHOST THAT HAD TO GO
BOOK 2
SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE NEXT IVY & BEAN ADVENTURE
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—wham! Bean crashed into the grass.
“Ouch,” said Ivy, peeking through a hole in her sandwich. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“No. I’m just dizzy,” said Bean. She sat up, and the playground began to tilt. Ugh. She lay down again.
Now Emma stood up. She lifted her hands above her head, took a big breath, and began. She did nine good cartwheels before she fell on her head.
“Are you all right?” Ivy asked Emma with her mouth full of peanut butter.
“Sort of,” said Emma.
Now it was Zuzu’s turn. Zuzu was the best cartwheeler in the Gymnastics Club. She was also the best backbender. She could do seven roundoffs in a row. Nobody else could do even one.
Zuzu pulled down her ruffled pink shirt and raised her hands. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve cartwheels, and still Zuzu landed on her feet. Then she arched over backward. She flung her arms over her head and made a perfect backbend. She looked like a turned-over pink teacup. Then she rose back up—boing—like a doll with elastic in its legs.
“Wow,” said Ivy.
Bean jumped up. She just had to do twelve cartwheels. “Stand back!” she yelled.
“Wait,” said Zuzu. “What about Ivy? Aren’t you going to do a cartwheel, Ivy?”
“I’m guarding the jackets,” said Ivy.
“But Ivy, this is the Gymnastics Club,” said Zuzu. “You can’t just guard jackets.”
Why not? Ivy wondered
“We’ll teach you how if you don’t know,” said Emma.
“She knows,” said Bean. “She can do a cartwheel. I’ve seen her.”
Ivy looked at Bean in surprise. Why was she saying that? Ivy had never done a cartwheel in her life. Slowly, Ivy put her sandwich down next to Emma’s jacket. “There’s just one little problem—” she began.
“Hey, Leo!” yelled Bean suddenly. “You better watch out. If I get hit with that ball, there’s going to be trouble!”
Leo was the head of the soccer kids at Emerson School. Before there was a Gymnastics Club, the soccer kids had the whole field to themselves during lunch recess. When Bean and Emma and Zuzu and Ivy started the Gymnastics Club, they kept getting hit with soccer balls. One day, Bean got clobbered in the stomach, and she declared war on the soccer kids. She came to school with a bag of ripe plums and chased Leo down. When she caught him, she sat on him and rubbed plums into his hair. Rose the Yard Duty had been really mad. She told Leo and Bean that they had to work it out, or she would kick them all off the field.
So Bean and Leo worked it out. The Gymnastics Club was supposed to have all the grass near the play structure. The soccer kids were supposed to keep their balls from hitting the Gymnastics Club. Bean promised not to bring plums to school anymore. After that, the war was mostly over.
But now Leo looked mad. “It’s not even near you!” he yelled. He was right. The ball was on the other side of the field, near MacAdam, a weird kid who sat under the trees and ate dirt when he thought no one was looking.
“Okay!” yelled Bean, feeling like a dork. She had only been trying to help Ivy.
“Like I was saying, I can’t do a cartwheel at the moment,” said Ivy.
“Why?” asked Zuzu with her hands on her hips.
“Because,” Ivy said again. “We’ve got an emergency situation going on. Right over there.” She pointed.
Emma, Zuzu, and Bean followed Ivy’s pointing finger across the playground. She was pointing directly to the girls’ bathroom. The one right outside their classroom.
Annie Barrows, Ivy and Bean
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