Ivy and Bean_ Books 4,5,6 - Annie Barrows [6]
Now Nancy was in the bathroom putting on makeup.
Some babysitter. She was supposed to be keeping Bean safe and good, and instead she was in the bathroom being bad herself. Bean was just about to point this out when she heard a squeaky meow on the back porch.
Ivy had arrived. Since Nancy was locked in the bathroom, she probably couldn’t hear Ivy come in. But they sneaked anyway. Ivy took off her shoes, and they slid silently across the kitchen and through the hall. Without a word, they tiptoed upstairs and into Bean’s room, closing the door behind them.
“Well?” said Bean. “Did you get the rope?”
“Sort of,” said Ivy. She looked worried. “It’s not exactly rope.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bundle of string. It was thick string, but it was definitely string.
They both stared at it.
“It was all I could find,” Ivy said.
“I guess I could try it,” said Bean. But she knew she wouldn’t. It was string. If she made a ladder out of it, it would snap in two, and she would plunge to the ground and break both her legs. Dang. A perfectly good idea down the drain.
“We could throw your mattress out the window and then try to land on it,” Ivy suggested.
“We’d miss,” said Bean gloomily.
They were quiet for a minute.
“Where is Nancy, anyway?” asked Ivy.
“She’s in the bathroom,”said Bean.
“She’s putting on my mom’s makeup.” Bean flopped down on her bed and looked at the ceiling. “She told me to go away.”
“My babysitters aren’t allowed to do that,” said Ivy. “They’re supposed to play with me, even though I usually don’t want them to.”
“Oh, she’s only doing it because my mom’s not here,” said Bean. “My mom doesn’t let her wear makeup.”
“Gee. Nancy’s pretty sneaky,” said Ivy.
“Yeah. I bet she’s been planning it for a million years. The second my mom leaves— boom! She’s in the bathroom rubbing eye shadow all over her face.”
“That’s stupid. Eye shadow’s goony,” said Ivy.
“Yeah. If I could do anything I wanted, it wouldn’t be dumb old eye shadow,” said Bean.
“What would you do?” asked Ivy.
“Easy. I’d go in the attic.”
“You have an attic?” asked Ivy.
“Yeah, but I’ve never been in it. My parents won’t let me up there,” said Bean. “They say it’s not really an attic and there’s nothing up there and it’s too dangerous.”
There was a pause.
“Bean?”
“What?”
“Your parents aren’t here.”
Bean sat up. She pictured the attic, dark, unknown, secret. “If they aren’t here, they can’t say no!”
“And Nancy did tell you to go away,” added Ivy.
“The attic is definitely away.” said Bean.
Ivy smiled. “She practically ordered us to go there. Come on!”
THE DOOR IN THE CEILING
There was no reason, Bean told herself, why Nancy should have a good day while she had a bad one. She had been waiting her whole entire life to see the attic. “And besides,” she whispered to Ivy as they tiptoed down the hall, “if there’s nothing up there, how can it be dangerous?”
“Exactly,” whispered Ivy. “Where are the stairs?”
“There aren’t any stairs,” said Bean. She opened the hall closet. “We go this way.” She closed the door behind them and pointed at the ceiling. “See?”
Ivy looked up, up the shelves of sheets and towels to a square wooden door set in the closet ceiling.
“My mom says it’s not an attic,” Bean said. “She calls it a crawl space.”
“Crawl space,” said Ivy. “Sounds like something’s crawling around up there. Like a monster with slimy arms that drip down to the floor.”
Bean didn’t like the sound of that. “My mom says there’s nothing up there.”
“Well of course she’d say that,” Ivy said. “Parents never want you to know anything.”
“It’s my house,” Bean said. “I should know what’s in it.” She looked up to the door in the ceiling. “Maybe there’s another kid up there.”
“Or some old dolls,” said Ivy.
Bean wiggled with excitement. “There could be anything! Let’s get going!” She put her foot on the first shelf. It wasn’t as sturdy as she expected. It bent in the middle. She gripped the shelf above—the one that held a lot of washcloths