Ivy and Bean Bound to Be Bad (5 page)

Ivy pictured the shimmering creature on her shoulder like a little jewel and held her breath. Careful. Don’t move. Think like a hummingbird.
“Vvvvvvvum,”
she murmured.

“What?” said Bean.

Ivy shook her head. Shhh, Bean. The hummingbird darted from flower to flower. Come on, look at me, thought Ivy. See how good I am. The hummingbird came to a stop on a stem and turned to look at her thoughtfully. For a second, Ivy was a hummingbird inside. Then—whoosh. The bird zoomed past her head again and disappeared into the blue sky.

Ivy was discouraged. The hummingbird hadn’t even noticed her pure heart. Her headband was still in the street and was probably going to get run over. Bean had told the other kids about the birds and the
wolf, and now Sophie W., Sophie S., Liana, and Dino were lined up on the curb across Pancake Court, staring at Ivy. Katy was there, too, sitting on her paper bag, staring. It was distracting.

Bean was distracting, too. She was standing beside Ivy on the lawn. She was supposed to be holding up her arms for the birds, but she kept bending down to scratch her legs. No bird in its right mind was going to land on Ivy’s fingers if Bean kept on scratching like that.

“Stop scratching,” whispered Ivy.

“I’ve got mosquito bites,” explained Bean. “Want to see?”

“No,” said Ivy. She dropped her arms and turned to Bean. “Look, Bean, I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’re concentrating hard enough to get a bird.”

“Hey!” Bean felt herself turning red. “I’m concentrating. I’m just itchy.”

“I don’t think you’re thinking loving thoughts. I think you’re thinking about how itchy you are.”

“Hey! I can’t help it if I’m itchy. And if you’re so good, you should be feeling sorry for me because I’m itchy,” said Bean.

“I
do
feel sorry for you,” said Ivy. “But you’re not supposed to feel sorry for yourself. You’re not supposed to be thinking about yourself at all! You’re going to ruin my chance to have birds and wolves because you’re weakening my goodness.”

“I am not!” yelled Bean. “I’m just as good as you are! I’m not thinking about myself! I’m thinking loving thoughts!” She glanced around Ivy’s front yard and spotted a ladybug on a leaf. “See? Look at that ladybug! She wasn’t there a minute ago! She’s following me!” Bean kneeled down beside the leaf. She was eye

to eye with the ladybug. The ladybug froze. Bean tipped her head like she was listening. She nodded. “This ladybug says she can feel how pure of heart I am.”

“She does not,” Ivy said.

“How do you know?” Bean yelped. “Your heart isn’t so pure. That’s what this ladybug here—” Bean jabbed her finger toward the leaf. “Oops.” Bean had jabbed too hard and the ladybug had fallen off the leaf and dropped to the ground. “Sorry, little ladybug,” whispered Bean, hurrying to turn the ladybug right side up. The ladybug scuttled away as fast as it could.

Bean thumped down on the grass. “I saved her life. That was good!”

“But you knocked her over first,” Ivy said.

“Dumb bug,” Bean scowled.

Ivy looked at her. “Wait a minute,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m getting an idea.”

“Jeez. I hope it’s more fun than being good,” said Bean grumpily.

“Way more fun,” Ivy said.

“Well? What is it?” asked Bean.

“Being bad.”

“Let me get this straight,” Bean said. “I do something bad, and then you talk me into being good?”

“Yeah,” said Ivy. “I reform you. Just like that guy reformed the wolf.”

“I’m not licking your feet,” said Bean. “No way, no how.”

“I don’t want you to lick my feet,” Ivy said. “I just want to make you good.”

“And I’ll still get to share the wolf and the birds when they come along?”

“Sure. They’ll love you extra because you turned from bad to good.”

Bean thought about that. “But I won’t be bad in the end, right? The wolf is going to know I’m like him inside, right?”

“Right,” Ivy said. “You’ll only be bad for a few minutes. Then I’ll reform you, and you’ll be good again. It’s like a play we’re putting on for the birds.”

“What’s going on over there?” yelled Liana from the curb. “I thought you said birds were going to flutter around your head!” She pointed to the three crows who lived on the telephone pole. “I don’t see them fluttering!”

“Hang on!” Ivy called.

“We’re pausing for station identification,” Bean yelled. She turned back to Ivy. “Am I just bad once?”

“Well, that depends,” said Ivy, “on how long it takes for the birds to show up.”

Wow. Being bad was actually good. Bean jumped to her feet. “Okay, guys!” she yelled at the kids on the curb. “I’m going to be really bad, and then Ivy’s going to make me good. Then we’ll have birds galore. Not just those crow losers.”

“How bad are you going to be?” yelled Dino.

“You wait and see,” called Bean. “You won’t believe it.”

She’d better think of something quick.

She looked around Ivy’s front yard.

She scratched her mosquito bites.

She searched through her brain for badness. The problem was that she usually didn’t decide to be bad. For example, she knew that she wasn’t supposed to call Nancy a doody
head, but when she got really mad, she forgot. She didn’t mean to be bad; she was just too mad to remember to be good.

Maybe she should call Ivy a doody head. But she didn’t truly think Ivy was a doody head, so that probably wouldn’t count.

Bean pulled a leaf off a bush and looked at Ivy. “Bad?” she asked.

Ivy shrugged. “Not really. My mom cuts them with clippers.”

Okay. She would have to do something worse.

She just couldn’t think of anything. “What’s bad?” she asked.

“Bad words,” Ivy said instantly.

Of course! Bean should have thought of that herself! Just a few days ago she had heard a lot of bad words at the hardware store. Some of them were so bad that she didn’t know what they meant, so she picked the one that had
sounded the worst. She turned to face the kids on the curb. “I’m about to say a bad word!” she yelled. “A super-duper bad word!”

Dino, Liana, and the Sophies nodded. Katy clapped.

Bean stood very close to Ivy and whispered the bad word in her ear.

Ivy tried not to giggle, but it came out her nose. She sniffed hard and then put her hands over her heart and cried, “NO! I beg you, Bean, not to say that terrible word! Promise you won’t!”

Bean looked at Ivy for a moment. What was she supposed to do? “Um, okay.”

“She’s good again! She’s changed!” Ivy said loudly.

Bean checked the crows. They were still sitting on the telephone pole. They hadn’t even noticed Bean’s bad word.

“Stupid birds,” said Bean.

“We didn’t hear anything!” Dino yelled. “Say it louder!”

Whoa, Nellie. Bean was not going to say
that
word out loud. Um, um . . . “BRA!” she screamed.

Liana and the Sophies giggled, but Dino hollered, “That’s not a bad word! That’s boring!”

What?! Boring? Bean was insulted. She wasn’t boring! She was bad! She was the worst kid in town!

She stormed out of Ivy’s front yard, charged up the sidewalk, and came to a stop in front of Mrs. Trantz’s house.

Bean turned her head to glare at Dino. “You want to see bad?” she yelled. “Watch this!”