Ivy and Bean Bound to Be Bad (8 page)

“What the heck are you doing to my little brother?” Crummy Matt shouted, grabbing Bean by the shirt.

Up at the top of the driveway, Ivy turned off the water. Suddenly everything was very quiet.

“Um, nothing?” Bean asked.

Crummy Matt didn’t let go of her shirt. He turned to Dino. “What did she do?”

“She made me shut my eyes, and then she sprayed me!” Dino said. He shook his head and water flew in a circle. “I’m all wet!” he yelled.

“We all got wet!” said Sophie W. “She sprayed all of us, just to be mean!”

“I wasn’t being mean,” Bean tried to explain. “I was being bad.”

“But now she’s going to be good—forever,” said Ivy. She had come up behind Crummy Matt, and now she stood next to Bean. “She’ll never do it again.”

Crummy Matt sneered at them, first at Bean and then at Ivy. “Nobody messes with my little brother,” he growled.

“Yeah,” nodded Dino. “Get ’em, Matt.”

Crummy Matt nodded seriously. “Okay, bro.” He bent and whispered into Dino’s ear.

Dino smiled and ran up the driveway.

Crummy Matt held on to Bean’s shirt.

“She’ll never do it again,” Ivy said softly. “She’s going to reform. She’s sorry.”

Really, Bean was only a little sorry. It had been fun seeing Dino’s face right before she blasted him. But she nodded her head up and down.

Crummy Matt didn’t say anything. He just held on to Bean’s shirt, and soon Dino came rushing back down the driveway. In his arms, he carried a rope.

I could run away, thought Bean. I probably wouldn’t even have to rip my shirt very much.

“Bean!” Ivy whispered.

“Zip it,” snapped Crummy Matt. “Grab her, too,” he said to Sophie W.

Sophie W. grabbed one of Ivy’s arms, and Liana grabbed the other.

“Traitors,” said Ivy, but she didn’t say it very loud.

“Hup!” said Crummy Matt. He yanked on Bean’s shirt. “March!”

They stopped in front of a big tree at the side of Crummy Matt’s yard. Crummy Matt pushed Bean against the tree trunk, and Sophie W. did the same to Ivy. “Start with their feet,” Crummy Matt told Dino. Dino kneeled and began wrapping the rope around Ivy’s and Bean’s ankles.

All at once, Ivy started singing, “Join us in the paths of goodness, and the birds and beasts will love you!”

Bean shook her head. She didn’t think this was going to work.

“Reform!” sang Ivy, “and hummingbirds will flutter around your head!”

Crummy Matt didn’t care about birds. “Can it!” he barked.

“I’m thinking good thoughts about you anyway, Matt!” sang Ivy.

“Well, stop it,” said Matt.

“Time to be good,” sang Bean half-heartedly, “La-la-la.”

“Tie them tighter,” ordered Crummy Matt. Dino squeezed the rope around Ivy’s and Bean’s waists and arms. Round and round he went, with the Sophies and Liana helping. Crummy Matt watched.

“I know this great knot,” Dino said. “They’ll never get out.” He worked busily on the other side of Bean. “Done,” he said, standing up.

To heck with wolves and birds, Bean thought. She was tired of being bad. At least before, she had only been bad by mistake. I’ll just be normal, she decided, and she stuck out her tongue at Dino. “This is boring.”

“Oh yeah?” said Dino. He smiled wickedly. And then he picked up the hose.

Bean was drenched. Her hair was sticking to the sides of her face, and water was dribbling out of her shorts pocket and down her legs. She wiggled her legs against the rope. It didn’t move.

The only part of Ivy that wasn’t wet was the top of her head. “My shoes are squishy,” she said.

“It feels kind of good,” said Bean. “I got sweaty being bad.”

She watched Crummy Matt holding the hose, spraying it high into the air so that water came down like rain. Dino, Sophie S., Sophie W., and Liana were stamping in the mud puddle at the end of the driveway.

It looked like a lot of fun.

“Come on,” called Bean. “Let us out!”

“Never,” said Crummy Matt. “You got to stay there forever!”

“Maybe the birds will rescue us,” said Ivy, but not like she believed it.

Bean heard a little voice. “Hi, Bean.”

It was Katy. She was peeking around the side of the tree. “I’m sorry I ate all your candy.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Bean said. “It wasn’t my candy anyway.”

Katy stepped around in front of Bean. The front of her pink dress was smeared with chocolate. “I got all messed up,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Bean. “Are you in trouble?”

“Not yet,” said Katy. “I don’t care anyway.” There was a pause. “Are you going to be bad some more? That was better than House.”

“I’m sort of stuck here,” said Bean. “Unless—hey, Katy, will you push that rope up a little? The one on my knee.”

Katy pushed the rope up, and Bean felt the knot under her fingers. “This is not such a great knot,” she said.

Katy was looking at the kids in the mud. “I’m already dirty,” she said thoughtfully. “A little more won’t make any difference.” She ran down the lawn toward the puddle.

The knot was getting looser.

Suddenly Crummy Matt came running up to the tree. “Here,” he said to Ivy, pulling Blister out of his pocket. “You got a rat on your head.” He put Blister on the top of Ivy’s head. “If you move, he’ll chew your hair off.” Then he ran away, back to his hose.

“Yuck,” said Bean. Rats gave her the creeps.

Ivy felt Blister’s little feet scrabbling against her scalp. His stomach rested, fat and warm, on her hair. She could hear the squeaky sound of his breath inside her head. “Is he eating my hair?” she asked Bean.

Bean strained to see the top of Ivy’s head. “Hang on a sec,” she said. She pulled the rope until the free end slid out of the knot. All at once, the rope sagged. She had done it! “Ta-da!”

Now she could see. She stood on tiptoe and looked. Blister, dry and comfortable at last, stretched across Ivy’s head. “No. He’s sleeping,” said Bean. “I’ll get him off.” She reached up.

“No!” whispered Ivy. “Leave him there!”