Ivy and Bean_ Books 4,5,6 - Annie Barrows [2]
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