Amelia Bedelia Cleans Up

by Herman Parish

  “Never mind, sweetie,” her mother said, coming after her. “Let’s get to work!”

  They drove to the empty lot. Once they arrived and had unloaded all of their equipment, Amelia Bedelia took a look at her parents in their boots and flannel shirts. Her dad was wearing a hat. Her mom had a bandanna around her neck. Amelia Bedelia looked at herself. She had a flannel shirt and a hat.

  “We look like lumberjacks,” her father said.

  “Could Mom and I be lumberjills?” Amelia Bedelia asked.

  Her mom laughed. “We can be anything we want, since we’re working hard!” she said. “Here’s the plan. Dad and I will move big things to the side of the lot. Tomorrow Heather and Holly and their parents will come by with a pickup truck and haul stuff to the dump. Amelia Bedelia, you’re in charge of picking up litter. Let’s get to it!”

  The first thing Amelia Bedelia’s parents found was an old refrigerator.

  “Cool!” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “Not so cool,” said her father as he staggered past her with it. Sweat was dripping down his face.

  Amelia Bedelia picked up clumps of newspaper, sneakers without laces, and empty cans and bottles. She stuffed the trash into bags and dumped the paper in one recycling bin and the bottles and cans in another.

  “I’ll take that,” said her father, reaching out through the broken screen of an old TV and grabbing one of her cans. “I’m glad you brought this in today. How long has it been in your family?”

  Amelia Bedelia knew he was pretending to be on his favorite TV show, the one where people brought in junk from the attic and hoped to be told it was worth a million dollars. “About a minute,” she told him.

  “Well, it’s certainly in great condition,” her father continued. “It still has the label. Will you read it for our audience, please?”

  “‘Grape juice,’” read Amelia Bedelia.

  “Right you are,” her father said. “This is a spectacular squashed grape juice can. It’s priceless! Congratulations!”

  “Get the lead out, you two!” called Amelia Bedelia’s mother.

  “Oh, no, did you find some lead?” Amelia Bedelia asked.

  “She means keep working,” explained her father. “We’re not done.”

  Her parents cleared away a smelly mattress and a bookcase warped from the rain. Amelia Bedelia found tires. A lot of tires. At least twelve of them. “I’m tired of tires.” She sighed.

  “Ah,” said her father. “That’s because you haven’t yet been introduced to the fabulous new game of tire bowling.”

  He set one of the tires on its edge and gave it a big push. It rolled and wobbled toward the end of the lot, bumped into the old refrigerator, and fell over with a thump.

  “Strike!” he yelled.

  Amelia Bedelia hit another tire with her fist.

  “No, don’t hit. See if you can roll the tire and hit the refrigerator,” he said. She did. Pretty soon all the tires were over on the other end of the lot.

  “Wow, look at that pile of junk,” he said. “This lot has everything but the kitchen sink!”

  “Dad? What’s this?” called Amelia Bedelia. She was poking a stick at something behind a scrubby bush.

  “Never mind,” said her father, coming to look over her shoulder. “That’s a kitchen sink.”

  They carried the kitchen sink over to their junk pile. Amelia Bedelia’s mother was already there, leaning against the refrigerator. Amelia Bedelia and her father flopped down for a rest too, and her mom handed them big bottles of water, which they guzzled down.

  “I think that’s enough for one day,” Amelia Bedelia’s mom said.

  They loaded the bags of trash and the recycling bins into the car and got ready to go. Amelia Bedelia ran back to give the oak tree a hug and a pat. “We’ll be back soon,” she whispered to it.

  She was facing the spooky old house next to the lot, and she thought she saw movement in one of the windows. A curtain fluttered, as if somebody had lifted it and then dropped it again.

  Was somebody at home? And was that person watching them?

  The next day Amelia Bedelia’s family drove back to the lot. Heather and Holly were already there with their parents, and a pickup truck was parked at the curb.

  “We’ll take the refrigerator first,” Heather’s dad said.

  The three girls left the grown-ups talking and wandered away, looking at their lot. The grass was still high and the weeds were still everywhere, but it didn’t look quite as messy as it had before.

  “Look! There’s a cat!” Holly called out, pointing to a bush.

  Amelia Bedelia saw a flash of fluffy gray fur among the leaves.

  “We’re going to mow the grass around that bush,” she said. “I hope the cat doesn’t run out and get hurt.”

  Heather looked worried.

  “Maybe we should get it to go away.”

  “How?” Holly asked.

  “Here, kitty!” called Heather.

  Amelia Bedelia stuck a hand in the bush, trying to reach the cat’s collar. But the cat hissed a warning at her.

  Amelia Bedelia grabbed one of the branches. She shook the bush lightly. The cat didn’t move. Then Holly shook the bush, and Heather smacked the bush with a stick, rustling all the leaves. The cat rushed out, darted between Amelia Bedelia’s legs, and scampered away.

  “Let’s get started,” Amelia Bedelia’s mom called out. “Girls, that goes for you too. No more beating around the bush.”

  “We’re finished,” Amelia Bedelia said. “We were just beating the bush to get a cat to run out.”

  “What?” asked her mother. “Never mind. Grab gloves and let’s get to work!”

  Heather, Holly, and Amelia Bedelia finished picking up the trash. The three dads made trips to the dump while the three moms mowed the grass and the girls pulled weeds and trimmed bushes.

  When the dads returned in the pickup truck, they were very impressed. “This is great,” said Holly’s father. “I think we can call it a day.”

  “Why should we call it a day?” asked Amelia Bedelia. “It’s a lot.”

  “I know,” he said. “And it looks good.”

  “It sure does.” Holly nodded. “We got a lot done.”

  “That’s what we came here to do,” Amelia Bedelia agreed happily.

  The lot did look great. It would be a wonderful place to build an explorers’ clubhouse. The oak tree rose out of a square of smooth grass. There was no trash to be seen anywhere. There were only a few weeds left to be pulled.

  “Let’s come back next weekend and finish weeding,” said Holly. She and Heather and Amelia Bedelia flopped down under the oak tree to rest.

  “Girls!” called Holly’s mother. “We’re making one last trip to the dump. Do you want to ride with us or walk home?”

  “Walk!” all three girls called back. They relaxed for a while longer, looking up.

  Amelia Bedelia wished she could be in the tree right now, swaying back and forth as the wind rocked the strong, thick branches and rustled the dark green leaves. Being in a tree house would really be easy and breezy, she thought. It would be just like being a bird.

  “Pretty soon we’ll be able to break ground on our tree house!” said Heather.

  “Don’t you mean break branch?” asked Holly, and she giggled.

  “But if the branches break, our tree house will fall down!” Amelia Bedelia was worried. “We don’t want that to happen. Like that lullaby where the cradle falls out of the tree. I always think that’s a scary thing to sing to a little baby!”

  “Don’t worry, Amelia Bedelia,” Heather said. “I’m sure no cradles really fall out of trees, and I’m sure our tree house will be very safe too. Let’s go get a snack. I’m starving!”

  “We can go to Pete’s Diner on the way home,” Amelia Bedelia said.

  The girls got up and walked toward Pete’s, thinking of cool milk shakes, hot, crispy french fries, and chocolaty brownies. Amelia Bedelia’s stomach rumbled so loudly th
at a man walking past on the sidewalk turned to look at her.

  “Well, bless my bluebottles, if it isn’t little Miss Amelia Bedelia!” he exclaimed. Amelia Bedelia recognized him right away. It was easy because he was the only person she knew who wore a ten-gallon hat, like a cowboy, everywhere he went. His name was Wild Bill, and he owned a used car lot on the other side of town.

  “How are you, Mr. Bill?” she asked politely.

  “Mighty fine, little lady. You look like you’ve been hard at work. What have you been up to these days?”

  “A lot,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  Wild Bill looked alarmed. “Not Lots of Lemons again!” he exclaimed.

  Amelia Bedelia remembered the lemonade stand she had set up right outside Wild Bill’s Auto-Rama. Since she squeezed the juice of one whole lemon into every glass, she made a sign that read LOTS OF LEMONS! Wild Bill had not been happy about that. Amelia Bedelia didn’t know that some people used the word “lemon” to mean a used car that didn’t work well!

  “No, nothing to do with cars,” she promised Wild Bill. “My friends and I are cleaning up a vacant lot. We’re going to build a clubhouse in a tree.”

  Wild Bill shook his head. “If you can pull that off, just the three of you, I’ll eat my hat!”

  “I don’t think it would taste very good,” said Amelia Bedelia, but Wild Bill didn’t hear her. He waved good-bye and went on his way, chuckling to himself.

  The girls reached Pete’s and stepped into the diner. “Amelia Bedelia!” Pete called out. “Long time no see!”

  “That’s terrible!” said Amelia Bedelia. She waved her hand in front of Pete’s face. “What happened to your eyes?”

  “My eyes are fine,” said Pete. “Just come in and sit down here at the counter and chew the fat! I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  Amelia Bedelia and her friends hopped onto the tall stools at the counter. But Amelia Bedelia hoped that Pete would not actually serve her a plate of fat. Yuck! She’d rather eat french fries any day.

  “Milk shakes, please,” said Holly.

  “I’d like strawberry,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “Vanilla!” said Heather.

  “Chocolate!” said Holly.

  Doris, Amelia Bedelia’s favorite waitress, whipped up the milk shakes and brought over three tall glasses. “What have you been up to?” she asked Amelia Bedelia.

  “A lot,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “I can imagine,” said Doris. “You’re a good worker. I still remember when you were a waitress in training here. So what’s been keeping you so busy?”

  “A whole lot,” said Amelia Bedelia. “We cleaned up the empty lot on Pleasant Street.”

  “Good thing you’re cleaning up that place. It’s an eyesore!” Pete called over from the grill.

  “You’re right! My eyes got really sore from all the dirt and dust,” said Amelia Bedelia, rubbing them.

  Pete shook his head and flipped a hamburger, smiling.

  “We’re going to build a tree house,” Holly said.

  “And meet in it to talk about what other adventures we’d like to have!” Amelia Bedelia added.

  “Like skydiving over the Grand Canyon!” said Heather.

  “Or scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef,” said Holly.

  “What would be your best adventure, Amelia Bedelia?” Heather asked.

  Amelia Bedelia thought about it. What would she do? She would take an airplane anywhere she wanted. Flying on an airplane wasn’t really as easy and breezy as flying like a bird, but she wouldn’t mind. She could pat the nose of the Great Sphinx. She could climb up a zigzaggy pyramid in the jungles of Central America, and swing through the trees with monkeys and macaws. She could ride a scooter through the streets of Rome. Now that would feel easy and breezy.

  “Come on, Amelia Bedelia,” Heather urged. “Tell us!”

  “I want to go around the world,” Amelia Bedelia said. She sucked up the last of her milk shake, letting her straw make loud slurping noises. “That way I never have to stop exploring!”

  Heather and Holly finished up their milk shakes too. “We’d better get going,” Holly said, jumping down. “Our parents will be wondering where we are.”

  The girls paid their bill, said good-bye to Pete and Doris, and headed home.

  Amelia Bedelia slept late the next Saturday, with Finally snuggled up on her bed.

  After lunch she hurried to the empty lot. Heather and Holly were there, standing next to a big new sign. It hadn’t been there last weekend—Amelia Bedelia was sure of that.

  Amelia Bedelia waved from across the street. “Hi!” she hollered. But Heather and Holly did not wave back. When she reached them, Amelia Bedelia saw why.

  A big red sign said FOR SALE in bright white letters.

  “For sale?” gasped Amelia Bedelia. “Our lot is for sale?”

  “It isn’t ours, really,” said Holly miserably. “I guess whoever owns it decided it was time to sell it.”

  “But now we can’t build a tree house here.” Heather sighed. After all their hard work! It really didn’t seem fair.

  “I wish we could buy the lot ourselves,” said Holly. “How much do you think it would cost? It’s just dirt and grass and stuff.”

  “And our tree,” said Amelia Bedelia, patting the oak tree gently. “I get three dollars a week for my allowance.”

  Heather and Holly each got two dollars and fifty cents. “If we put it all together, could we buy the lot?” Holly asked.

  The three friends were not sure. But they didn’t feel like pulling up weeds anymore. What would be the point?

  “Let’s go to Pete’s,” said Amelia Bedelia. “It might make us feel better.”

  “Back for another round of milk shakes, girls?” asked Doris. Then she saw their sad faces. “Wow,” she said. “You look down in the mouth!”

  Amelia Bedelia knew this was true. She could feel the corners of her mouth dragging down in a frown.

  Doris whipped up a thick, frothy milk shake with extra chocolate and poured it into a glass. She’d made so much that a little spilled over the lip of the glass and onto the counter. “Whoops!” she said, sticking three straws into the icy drink and setting it down in front of Heather, Holly, and Amelia Bedelia. “This one’s on me,” she told them, wiping up the spill. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think the milk shake is really on the counter,” Amelia Bedelia said. “Don’t worry; you didn’t get any on you. But what’s wrong is that somebody’s selling our lot—the one we’ve been cleaning up for our tree house.”

  Pete came over and listened as Amelia Bedelia explained about finding the FOR SALE sign. He shook his head. “That’s a tough break,” he said. “You girls really got the rug pulled out from under you.”

  “Oh, we didn’t have any rugs yet,” said Amelia Bedelia. “We hadn’t even started on our tree house. But we were almost ready to start.”

  “Maybe we’ll be able to buy the lot ourselves!” Holly said hopefully. “We thought if we put all our allowances together, we might be able to.”

  “Hmm,” said Pete. “I don’t know about that. But if I had any questions about buying and selling some land, there’s the person I’d ask.”

  He pointed to a lady sitting in a booth. She was talking on a cell phone and had a laptop on the table in front of her.

  “That’s Jill,” Pete said. “She’s an old friend of mine, and she’s a real estate agent—she helps people buy and sell houses and land and things like that.”

  “Things like our lot?” Amelia Bedelia asked excitedly.

  “Just like your lot,” said Pete. “You can ask Jill anything you’d like. She’s a good person; she’d give you the shirt off her back.”

  “I don’t think it would fit me very well,” said Amelia Bedelia. She hopped off the stool and went over to Jill’s booth, followed by Holly and Heather, just as Jill finished her call.

  Pete introduced her to the three girls. “They’ve got some questions about
real estate,” he said, “and I told them you would be able to help.”

  “Is there such a thing as fake estate?” Amelia Bedelia asked, surprised.

  Jill was wearing a bright green shirt. It was a pretty color even if it wouldn’t fit a girl, thought Amelia Bedelia. But she still hoped that Jill would not give it to her. That would be embarrassing! Jill also had swinging earrings in her ears and lots of rings on her fingers.

  “Well, real estate is just what we call houses or other buildings or land,” Jill said cheerfully. “I suppose if somebody tried to sell a house or some land that they didn’t really own or that doesn’t actually exist, that could be fake estate. But nobody would try a stunt like that with me! I wasn’t born yesterday, you know!”

  “Oh, yes, I could tell that,” said Amelia Bedelia. “I can tell you were born years ago.”

  “Okay, that’s enough!” Jill laughed, which made her earrings swing. “What did you girls want to know?”

  They explained about the lot, and Heather asked how much it would cost to buy it. “I can’t say for sure,” Jill told them. “That’s a nice neighborhood. Lots probably sell at two-fifty, maybe three.”