Ivy flipped back a few pages. “Giselle,” she said, reading quickly. “It’s about a girl named Giselle who, um, dances with this duke guy, but he’s going to marry a princess, not Giselle, so she takes his sword and stabs herself.” Ivy and Bean found the picture of that.
“Ew,” said Bean. “But interesting.”
“Yeah, and then she turns into a ghost with all these other girls. They’re called the Wilis.”
The picture showed a troop of beautiful women dressed in white. They had very long fingernails.
“And then,” Ivy read on, “the duke goes to see Giselle’s grave, and she comes out with the Wilis, and they decide to dance him to death.” Ivy stared at the picture. “To death.”
Bean leaned over for a closer look. It was pretty amazing. Giselle’s pointed toe had snapped the duke’s head up so that his chin pointed straight up to the sky. It would fall off in a moment. The Wilis stood in a circle, waving their long fingernails admiringly.
Bean lifted the page, wishing that she could see more of the picture, but there was no more. There never was. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “She showed him.”
For a few minutes, Ivy and Bean sat in silence, thinking.
“Okay,” Ivy said finally. “I’m Giselle, and you’re the duke.”
“All right,” said Bean. “But next time, I get to be Giselle.”
It was fun playing Giselle, even though Ivy’s mom wouldn’t let them dance with a knife and they had to use a Wiffle bat instead. After they had each been Giselle a couple of times, they were Wilis, waving long Scotch-tape fingernails as they danced various people to death.
“Mrs. Noble!” shrieked Bean. “I’m dancing Mrs. Noble to death.” Ivy ran to get a pair of her mother’s high heels and pretended to be Mrs. Noble, a fifth-grade teacher who had once given Ivy and Bean a lot of trouble.
Bean the Wili chased Mrs. Noble around the house, waggling her fingernails and screaming. Finally, when they were both laughing so hard they couldn’t dance any more, they rushed into the kitchen and fell over on the floor.
“Well, look who’s here,” said Ivy’s mom. She was making dinner.
“Mom,” Ivy said when she got her breath back, “I have to take ballet class.”
Ivy’s mom stirred something into something else. “You had to take ice-skating, too.”
Ivy wiggled her toes. “Yeah, but that was a mistake.”
“How do you know ballet isn’t a mistake, too? Those skates were expensive.”
“Ballet is different,” Ivy explained. “Ballet isn’t freezing and dumb. Ballet is pretty. And it’s good for you.”
“I’m going to take it, too,” Bean said. “That way, we can help each other during the hard parts.”
Ivy’s mom looked at Bean in a surprised sort of way. “You’re going to take ballet?”
“Sure.” Bean’s mom would be happy to let her take ballet. Bean was certain of it. After all, Bean thought, her mother liked nice stuff. And ballet was nice. Except for the part where you danced people to death.
The funny thing was, Bean’s mother wasn’t happy to let her take ballet. Not at all.
“You’ll start it, and then you’ll decide you hate it and want to quit.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll love it,” Bean said.
“I’ll bet you a dollar you’ll hate it,” said Nancy. Nancy had taken ballet when she was Bean’s age. Bean remembered the time Nancy had cried because she was a chocolate bar in a ballet about candy.
“But I’m not going to be a dorky old piece of candy,” Bean said. “I’m going to be a Wili.” She knew better than to tell Nancy that she was going to be Giselle. Nancy would just make fun of her.
“Ha,” said Nancy. “You have to be whatever they tell you to be.”
“Nancy,” said her mom. “I’ll discuss this with Bean in private, please.”
“I’ll bet you, Mom,” said Nancy, getting up. “I’ll bet you two dollars she quits after a week.”
“I’ll bet you a hundred I don’t,” said Bean.
“Good-bye, Nancy,” said their mother. Nancy left, and Mom turned to Bean. “Now, honey, I didn’t want to go into this in front of Nancy, but if I do let you take ballet, there will be no quitting.”
“Quitting? Why would I quit?”
“You quit softball.”
“But that was softball. All you do in softball is stand around waiting for five hundred years until it’s time to hit the stupid ball. And then you miss anyway. Ballet isn’t like that.”
Her mother looked at her.
Bean made her eyes big. “I thought you wanted me to learn new things,” she said.
Her mother looked at her some more.
“Nancy got to take ballet.” Bean wiggled her lower lip. She knew that a trembling lower lip is very sad looking.
Her mother laughed. “You’re drooling. Okay. I will let you take ballet on one condition, and here it is: You will go for the whole session. Four months. Sixteen lessons One performance. No quitting. And no complaining.”
“No problem!” said Bean. She jumped up and hugged her mother. “When can I start? I already know how to kick—you want to see?”
DIP, DIP, CRASH!
It was not long before Ivy and Bean realized that they had made a terrible mistake.
Bean began to realize it while Madame Joy was talking about first position. You stuck your heels together and your toes apart. Big deal. Where was the leaping? Where was the kicking? Where was the dancing?
Then Madame Joy chattered for a long time about nice round arms. Who cared about arms? When Madame Joy started in on second position, which turned out to be just regular standing, Bean stopped listening.
Ivy paid careful attention to first position. Heels, toes. Great! Then she paid careful attention to second position. Arms out, legs out. Great! Then came third position.
“Now,” said Madame Joy, “third position. For third position, we slide our right foot, like so, to the middle of our left foot. Then we lift one nice round arm up, up in the air, leaving our other nice round arm—”
Ivy fell over with a thump.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Madame Joy. “Let’s try that again.”
Let’s not, thought Ivy.
But they did. In fact, they did nothing but one, two, three, four, and five for half an hour. After that, Madame Joy showed them something called a plié. She acted like it was the most important thing in the world, but really it was just bending your knees and dipping a little. Dip, dip, dip. Row, row, row your boat, thought Bean.
“Hey, guys,” she called, “Get this!” She sang, “Dip, dip, dip your knees—”
Nobody joined in. Instead, Madame Joy said, “We save our singing for after class, Bean.”
Sheesh, Bean said to herself. You’d think she’d be happy to get a little more pep in here.
But it was even worse when Madame Joy was peppy. “All right, girls! Time to leap like little kitties!” Madame Joy said, springing into the air with her ballet slippers fluttering.
“She doesn’t leap like a kitty. She leaps like a frog,” Bean whispered to Ivy.
“Bean!” called Madame Joy. “You may lead the kitties.” She twirled briskly around and hauled Bean to the front of the line. “Now,” she said, smiling, “you are a kitty! Leap!” Madame Joy bounded across the wide, empty floor.
Bean closed her eyes and imagined she was a cat. She was a skinny black cat that wanted to catch a bird. And then eat it. Bean crouched. She twitched her tail. She narrowed her eyes. “RRRRRrrrowll!” she screeched and then lunged forward, landing on her hands and knees in the middle of the floor. “Got him!” she yelled.
Madame Joy stared at Bean for a second, and then she said, “Dulcie, will you show us how to leap like a kitty?”
“Yes, Madame Joy,” said Dulcie, only she said, “Madame Jwah.” For some reason, Madame Joy liked that. Dulcie came to the front of the line and stood with her arms out and her toes pointed.
Bean r
ose to her feet. “So I already did it, right?” she asked. “I get to be done, right?”
“No,” said Madame Joy. “You need more practice. Go to the end of the line.”
Bean clomped to the end of the line and stood behind Ivy.
Dulcie lifted her arms higher and smiled proudly. Then she hopped across the empty floor, ker-plop, ker-plop. When she reached the other side of the ballet studio, Dulcie stood before Madame Joy and held out her tiny pink dance skirt. Then she swirled one leg behind the other and curtseyed.
“Show-off,” whispered Bean.
“I can’t believe that we asked for this,” said Ivy, her eyes on Dulcie.
“We didn’t just ask. We begged,” Bean said glumly.
It was true. They had begged.
After everyone had leaped, Madame Joy clapped her hands and told them they had to be butterflies.
Bean raised her hand. “Can I be a Wili instead?”
Madame Joy stared at her. “Not today,” she said in a way that really meant never. Then she turned on some music, and all the other girls ran around the room flapping their arms and pointing their toes.
That’s when Ivy and Bean turned to look at each other, and their eyes said We have made a terrible mistake.
BAD NEWS BENEATH THE SEA
Every week Bean and Ivy put on tights and leotards and went to Madame Joy’s School of the Ballet, where they fell down and hurt themselves (Ivy) and were bored out of their minds (Bean). Every week they were told to watch Dulcie plié and kitty-jump across the floor even though she was only five. Every week they waited and waited for Madame Joy to clap her hands and say it was time to be butterflies. They hated being butterflies, but at least that meant ballet class was almost over.
It seemed like it couldn’t get worse. And then one day, instead of telling them to be butterflies, Madame Joy told them to sit in a circle on the floor.
“We’re going to be mushrooms,” whispered Ivy to Bean.
Bean didn’t think so. When grown-ups asked you to sit in a circle, they were usually about to tell you something you didn’t want to hear. Ms. Aruba-Tate, Ivy and Bean’s second-grade teacher, was forever gathering them in a circle for bad news. Like, the class fish died over the weekend. Or, everyone has to start using real punctuation. Or, the pencil sharpener is off-limits. Circles meant trouble.
Bean watched Madame Joy walk pointy-toed to a chair and sit. No floor for her. “Girls,” she began, “I have something very special to tell you.”
“Oh, tell us, Madame Jwah!” cried Dulcie. She even clapped her hands.
Madame Joy smiled. “As many of you know, we end each session with a lovely recital. A recital, girls, is a chance for you to dance before your friends and family so that they can see what you’ve learned.”
Ivy coughed.
Madame Joy leaned forward eagerly. “Most of our recitals are held here at the school, but this time we have been invited to participate in The World of Dance! Isn’t that wonderful?”
Several girls said, “Oooooooh!”
Bean was getting a not-so-good feeling. “What’s The World of Dance?” she asked.
Madame Joy’s smile grew. “The World of Dance is a gathering of many different dance schools from all over town—tap dancers, jazz dancers, hip-hop dancers. We will be representing the ballet. Each group gets a chance to perform, just as in a regular recital, but we’ll be performing on a real stage in a real theater!”
“Oooooooh!” repeated the same girls.
Bean was sick of hearing that.
Ivy’s hand shot into the air. “Can we do Giselle?”
“Giselle?” Madame Joy looked surprised. “No. Goodness, no. We will be doing a lovely piece called ‘Wedding Beneath the Sea.’”
“Wedding Beneath the Sea”? Bean didn’t care if she was rude. She yelled, “What are Ivy and me?”
Madame Joy raised her eyebrows. “I was planning to discuss parts next, but if you must know, you and Ivy will be the two friendly squids.”
Nobody said, “Oooooooh.” Squids? Ivy and Bean looked at each other. We have made a really terrible mistake.
On the drive home, Bean and Ivy were quiet. That was because of the no-complaining rule.
Quietly, they got out of the car and went into Bean’s backyard. Quietly, they stuffed themselves into Bean’s tiny playhouse and slumped against the walls.
“Squids. Who ever heard of squids?” said Bean. “I don’t even know what squids are.”
“I’m not totally sure,” said Ivy, “but I think they’re ugly, and I think people eat them.”
“Oh, great,” moaned Bean. “I can’t believe that stupid Dulcie gets to be the mermaid, and we’re squids.”
“I believe it,” said Ivy. “We’re awful.”
“We’re not awful—” began Bean.
“Oh yes we are,” said Ivy. “I’m worse than you, but you’re pretty bad, too.”
“That’s because we hate it. If we liked it, we’d be better at it.”
“I thought I’d like it,” said Ivy sadly.
“So did I,” said Bean. “I thought we’d be kicking some heads off. I didn’t know about the positions and pliés and all that.”
“You know, they can’t make us do it,” said Ivy.
Bean thought about that. “Yes, they can,” she said.
Ivy sighed. “It was mean of them to make us promise not to complain,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Bean. “They knew all along how horrible it would be.”
“We’re going to have to be squids in front of everybody,” said Ivy. “That’s the most horrible thing of all.”
“They’ll probably laugh at us,” said Bean, imagining it.
“They can’t. They’re parents,” Ivy said.
“Remember? It’s friends, too. There might even be someone from school there,” Bean said gloomily.
“If only we could quit,” Ivy moaned.
“But we can’t,” said Bean.
Ivy frowned. That meant she was getting determined. “There has to be a way,” she said, determinedly. “Nothing is impossible.”
Bean stared at her. “It’s impossible for us to be good at ballet.”
“Well, that, sure,” said Ivy. “But it’s not impossible for us to break our arms.”
SQUIDS IN A FIX
“What?” said Bean.
“We can’t be squids if we break our arms,” said Ivy. “Remember what Madame Joy said? We’re supposed to wave our tentacles gently on the passing tide. No way can we do that if we’ve got broken arms. Right?”
That was true. But. Broken arms. That could be going too far. Bean pictured her arm cracked in half.
“I saw a picture of a guy who broke his arm, and his bone poked out of his skin,” she said.
Ivy made an ouch face.
“Yeah, I know,” said Bean. “Maybe we don’t have to break them. Maybe we can just sprain them instead.” She didn’t really know what a sprain was, but she knew that it didn’t involve bones poking out of your skin.
“Okay. Sure. We can’t be squids with sprained arms either,” said Ivy. “No way.”
“No how,” agreed Bean. They looked at each other. “So, how do you sprain an arm?” Bean asked.
“I bet it’s like breaking, only smaller,” Ivy reasoned. “When she was a kid, my mom broke her arm falling off her garage roof. If we want to just sprain our arms, maybe we should find something shorter than a garage and fall off it.”
This made sense. Bean looked around her backyard. There was the porch, but they’d crack their heads open on the stairs. There was the playhouse. There was the trampoline— “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Bean said. “We’ll jump off the playhouse onto the trampoline and then boing from the trampoline onto the ground. That should do it.”
First they had to drag the playhouse across the lawn and set it down next to the trampoline. Bean noticed that the playhouse was not much taller than the trampoline. They were going to have to jump hard.
&
nbsp; Next, Bean climbed up the plastic playhouse shutters until she was perched on the roof like a giant bird.
Ivy took a running jump at the playhouse and flung herself over the roof. “Oof,” she said.
“You have to stand up,” said Bean. “Or your jump will be too short.”
“You go first,” said Ivy in a muffled voice.
Bean rose slowly to her feet. The playhouse made a funny sound.
Ivy began to push herself up on her hands. There was another funny sound. It was a bending sort of sound. A cracking sort of sound.
The roof was caving in.
“Abandon ship!” Bean hollered and bounced onto the trampoline. But the two sides of the playhouse were folding around Ivy like a taco. She couldn’t abandon ship. She couldn’t do anything. Bean watched as Ivy sank closer and closer to the ground.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” said Ivy.
After a few minutes, the playhouse stopped sinking, and Bean tried to pull Ivy out by yanking on her head. But Ivy said that hurt worse than being tacoed, so Bean yanked on the playhouse instead. Soon the roof de-caved enough for Ivy to squeeze out, and then Bean crawled inside and kicked the ceiling until the playhouse was almost the shape it had been before.
“Whew,” said Bean, sitting down. “We’re going to have to get some tape to fix that crack.” She wiped her sweaty face with her sweaty hand. “Duct tape. I love fixing things.”
“But Bean,” said Ivy. “We didn’t fix anything. We’re still squids.”
Dang. Bean had almost forgotten about that. Her duct-tape happiness faded. She was a squid. A friendly squid. “Maybe we’ll get so sick we can’t be in The World of Dance,” she suggested.
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Ivy thoughtfully. “In fact, that’s a great idea. We can’t dance if we’re sick. Let’s get sick.”
Ivy & Bean Bundle, Books 4 - 6 Page 7
