“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
TOUGH COOKIES
BIRD BRAINS
A CRUMMY PLAN
A GOOD BAD IDEA
THE WORST WORD IN THE WORLD
BEAN, QUEEN OF BAD
FROM BAD TO WORSE
BEAN OVERBOARD!
THE REVENGE OF DINO
GOOD AND SOGGY
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.”