Beatrice More Moves In (4 page)

“Mom, listen to me. I met some girls who might be in my grade-three class! I invited
them over to our
perfectly
organized
and
unpacked
house at three o’clock!
Three!
”

She pointed to the clock. It was almost noon.

“At three?” said her Mom. “
Today
?”

“Today,” wailed Beatrice.

Her mother swallowed.

“We have to unpack this whole house in three hours?” she whispered. “I thought we
could do it slowly. A few boxes each day for a couple of weeks…”

“Well, change of plans!” Beatrice said frantically. “We have to do a few boxes each
minute
for a couple of
hours
! Please, Mom!”

Her mother nodded bravely. “Okay, Bee. This seems really important to y—”

“Yes, yes,” Beatrice interrupted impatiently. “Thanks, Mom, but there’s
no time for
chitchat! Where’s Dad? Is he back from the hardware store?”

“He’s in the basement. Unpacking. I’m sure he’s unpacking.” Beatrice’s mother trotted
over to the basement stairs.

“Honey, you’re unpacking
lots and lots
of things, aren’t you?” she called. “Because
you-know-who is coming right down!”

Beatrice ran down the stairs. Her father was sitting in a chair with his feet up
on a pile of boxes. He had an old book in his hand.

“My high-school yearbook,” he explained to Beatrice with a smile. “Funny the things
you find when you move house.”

“Hilarious,” said Beatrice. “Look, Dad, we have to hurry and unpack.
By three o’clock!
We have company coming, and the house has to be
spotless
!”

“By three? But there’s a baseball game that I—”

Her father stopped talking when he saw Beatrice’s face.

He sighed, got to his feet and turned to the boxes.

“Unpacking. Right. I’m on it,” he said.

Beatrice’s whole family worked.

Sophie threw down her markers. One skidded a long streak of blue across the floor.
“I’ll help you make the house
purvect
for your friends, Bee!” she said.

“Thanks, Sophie,” Beatrice said. She gave her sister a quick hug, then gathered up
the markers. She licked her finger and scrubbed at the blue streak on the floor.
It wouldn’t come out.

“
Rrrrrrrr
,” growled Beatrice softly.

“Mrs. Cow says she hates messeduppedness too,” Sophie said. “It makes her even
more
crabbier.”

Beatrice looked over at the grumpy doll, surprised.

Well, thank you, Mrs. Cow
, she thought.

Beatrice shooed her mom and Sophie into the kitchen and took charge of the living
room.

Soon she had the whole room unpacked and put away. She checked things off her list
(which she had written quickly but neatly). It was titled
Unpacking the Whole House
in Three Hours
. She flipped to the page for the living room.

1. Books organized

Check.

2. Pictures hung perfectly

straight

Check.

3. Plants watered

Check.

4. Cushions plumped

Check.

Time check? According to Beatrice’s timetable (stapled to the list), the living
room
should be finished by 1:00 pm. It was 12:57. Check.

She was even three minutes early. Excellent.

Beatrice ran into the kitchen.

Her mother and sister were sitting at the kitchen table. They were eating cookies
and drinking milk. They both jumped up when they saw Beatrice.

“Just taking a tiny break, Bee,” her mother said quickly. “We’ve done that whole
shelf!” She pointed to a small shelf above the kitchen counter. Cookbooks of all
shapes and sizes were piled on the shelf. No order. No organization.

Beatrice put her hand up to her left eyelid to stop it from twitching.

“Okay, that
one shelf
looks fine,” she said. “Now quickly, quickly, let’s get everything
else put away. Everything!”

Sophie looked at the cookie in her hand, sighed and dropped it in her milk.

“I put’n my cookie away, Bee!” she said. “But I not sure it can swim.” She peered
down into the sludgy glass. “Nope.”

“Hurry, people, hurry!” pleaded Beatrice, neatly opening a box. “Check the time!
It’s 1:04 pm! The kitchen should have been done
four minutes
ago! Go, go, GO!”

Her mother hummed while she pulled pots and pans out of a box. She shoved them into
a cupboard in a tangled heap. Sophie dumped a box full of plastic containers, opened
a cabinet and chucked them inside. She slammed the door quickly on an avalanche of
plastic. Beatrice followed Sophie and her mother, fixing, stacking and organizing.

When she turned around, Sophie was eating another cookie and whispering to Super-Pig.

“Hey, Bee,” Sophie said through a mouthful of cookie, “I telled Super-Pig to clean
up his fishy home too.” Cookie crumbs flew through the air at this announcement.

“Great. The more—uh—fins, the better,” said Beatrice, grabbing the broom.

When the kitchen was finished (late, at 1:49 pm), Beatrice stacked the empty boxes
in the garage. She ran down to the basement.

Her father had the baseball game on. He was unpacking slowly as he watched.

“Hi, Bee. You’re jus—whoa!” he yelled, his eyes on the television. “It’s a hit! That
ball is going, going, GONE! Home run!”
He held up his hand for a high five. But it
hung in the air. He looked over. Beatrice had her hands on her hips.

“We are
way
behind schedule, Dad,” Beatrice said, her eye twitching. “Less home runs,
more hard
work
!”

“Got it. Right. Unpacking,” her dad said, one eye on the game.

When the basement was finished, her father flopped down on the couch.

“Whew, that was—”

“Time check?” said Beatrice.

Her father looked at his watch. “It’s two fifteen,” he said.

“WHAT? It’s two fifteen
already
?” She pulled her father to his feet. “Hurry—upstairs,
NOW!”

“Your friends aren’t going to be wandering through all the bedrooms,” grumbled her
father.

“I promised them a perfectly unpacked house,” said Beatrice. “How would I look if
they came and the house wasn’t perfect?
Unprofessional
. That’s how I’d look.”

They ran through the living room. Mom and Sophie were reading a picture book on the
couch. Her mom looked up.

“Bee, this room looks grea—”

“No time, no time! Everybody, upstairs to the bedrooms! Come on, people, MOVE!” The
whole family scrambled up the stairs.

“This is
fun
,” giggled Sophie.

“Yeah, it’s a real party,” muttered her mother.

“Okay,” panted Beatrice. “My room is perfect. Sophie’s room is”—she swallowed—“how
she likes it (and we’ll keep that door
closed
). So we only need to do one bedroom
and the bathrooms.”

“Aye aye, captain,” joked her mother, but Beatrice was already down the hall.

They worked quickly, unpacking, organizing and tidying. They threw the empty boxes
into the hallway.

Beatrice called out the time every five minutes.

“It’s 2:40 pm! Hurry up, hurry up!”

“We’re at 2:45 pm! Work, people, work!”

“Now it’s 2:50 pm! Ten minutes! Ten minutes left!”

At 2:54 pm the doorbell rang. Edison began barking.

Beatrice looked up wildly.

“What was that? Was that the doorbell?” she shrieked.

“Yep,” said her father. “Calm down. They’re just a little early. No big deal. We’re
almost done here.”

“They’re SIX MINUTES early!” Beatrice yelled. “And
almost
isn’t
perfect
!”

She looked at the hallway, which was covered in empty boxes. There was no time to
get them all down into the garage.

Beatrice didn’t feel like exploding. She was too tired to explode.

She felt like crying.

Sophie ran over and opened the door to her room. “Quick, everboddy!
We’ll
chuck all
’em boxes in here,” she said, “and
you
go get the door, Bee!”

“Thanks, Sophie!” said Beatrice.

She ran down the stairs, Edison at her heels.

She took a deep breath, smoothed her hair and opened the door.

“Hi, Bee!” said Jill. Sue was just behind her, eating a popsicle.

“Hi Jill! Hi Sue! Come on in.”

“Hiya, Bee!” said Sue. She came in and kicked off her sandals. They landed in a messy
heap. Beatrice itched to tidy them, but that would possibly not be polite.

“Actually,” said Beatrice, “my name is Beatrice. Just so you know.”

“That’s just so
long
,” sighed Sue. “I never go by Susannah. I can’t even
remember
how to
spell
it half the time. So I’m just Sue.”

“I think Bee is totally cute,” said Jill. “Like the letter. Or a fuzzy little bumblebee.”

Beatrice smiled.

Maybe Bee wasn’t so bad.

“Well,” she said, “come in. We finished unpacking a
long
time ago. Yep, we’re a pretty
organized family,” she said nervously. “Every last box put away.”