Ivy and Bean No News Is Good News

by Sophie Blackall

  “Well, you think of something.”

  “I am thinking,” Ivy said. She put her feet up on Bean’s wall so that all her blood would go into her head and help her brain.

  Suddenly Bean slid out of her basket chair and collapsed onto the rug. “The Flipping Pancake! Get it? Because it’s Pancake Court! Isn’t that great?” Sometimes her ideas were so good she amazed herself.

  “The Flipping Pancake,” said Ivy slowly. “The Flipping Pancake.” She took her feet down off the wall. “It’s perfect. Everyone who lives here will buy it.”

  “We’ll be rich, rich, rich!” cackled Bean.

  “We’ll be rolling in wax!” cackled Ivy.

  WHAT A DEAL!

  The first stop was Kalia’s house. Kalia was only two, so she couldn’t read The Flipping Pancake, but Kalia had parents. Both Kalia’s parents were named Jean, which Bean thought was hilarious. Jean the girl answered the door.

  “Hi, Bean,” she said. “What can I do for you?” A terrible scream came from upstairs.

  “Is that Kalia?” asked Ivy.

  “Is she okay?” asked Bean.

  “She’s fine,” said Jean. “She’s napping.”

  Bean cleared her throat. It was time for her speech. “Hello, I’m Bean,” she said. Another terrible scream rang through the house. Bean talked louder. “Would you like to know the latest exciting news about Pancake Court? For only one dollar, you can get one thrilling issue of The Flipping Pancake. And you’ll be helping to keep two neighborhood children off the streets.” She smiled at Jean with all her teeth, just like the people on television.

  “All for the bargain price of one dollar,” said Ivy. That was her part.

  Upstairs, something heavy crashed to the floor.

  Together, Ivy and Bean began to sing, “Get the news of Pancake Court! Pancake Court! Pancake Court! All the news of Pancake Court! For! Only! A dollar!” Ads on television usually had songs.

  “Sure.” Jean was looking at the ceiling. “Sure. A dollar. Hang on a sec!” She zipped down the hall. Ivy and Bean waited on the doorstep, listening to something hit a wall and break into lots of pieces. Jean zipped back. “Great! Here!” She handed Ivy a dollar just as the next scream blazed through the house. “Bye!” she said, shutting the door. They heard her running up the stairs.

  “Wow. Aren’t you glad we decided not to babysit?” said Bean.

  Ivy nodded and stuck the dollar in her pocket. “One dollar down, nine to go.”

  The next house was Mrs. Trantz’s. Mrs. Trantz’s yard had sparkly white stones and big silver bubbles and teeny fences around every rosebush. It looked like someone nice lived there, but that was a big lie. If Bean even so much as put one foot on Mrs. Trantz’s pink front path, Mrs. Trantz whipped out the front door and started yelling.

  “Forget it. Not worth it,” said Ivy.

  Bean nodded. Whew.

  They moved on to Jake the Teenager’s house. Jake the Teenager was in the garage beside his house. They knew he was in there because loud music with bad words in it was leaking out of the garage windows. Jake the Teenager didn’t seem like the type to be interested in The Flipping Pancake, so Ivy and Bean didn’t go to the garage. They went to the front door of the house. Bean was surprised that Jake the Teenager’s dad heard the doorbell over the music, but he did. Bean hollered her speech as loud as she could, and Jake the Teenager’s dad nodded and smiled. But just when Ivy was about to say “All for the bargain price of one dollar!” a really amazingly bad word came flying out of the garage, and she lost her mind. “Give us some money!” she screeched.

  Jake the Teenager’s dad nodded very fast and pulled three dollars out of his pocket. “Go, go!” he bellowed. “Run away!” He waved his hands, shooing them away before they could hear any more bad words. They didn’t even get to do their song.

  When they got down to the sidewalk, Bean looked at the three dollars. “Do we have to give him three copies of The Flipping Pancake?”

  “No,” said Ivy. She thought. “I think he gave us extra to forget that bad word.”

  “It’s working!” said Bean. “I can’t even remember it.”

  Ivy and Bean looked at each other and giggled.

  After Jake the Teenager’s house came Fester the dog’s house. No one was home but Fester. He howled when they rang the doorbell, but he couldn’t answer.

  Next, Ruby and Trevor’s mother gave them a dollar before Bean had even finished her speech. Of course Ivy’s mother subscribed. She paid for two copies. Katy and Liana’s father said he’d always wanted to know what was going on in Pancake Court.

  At Dino and Crummy Matt’s house, their mother said she wished that her children were so hard working. She said it really loud, so Dino and Crummy Matt could hear her over their video game. Ivy and Bean smiled modestly as she handed them a dollar.

  It was easy, giving speeches, singing songs, taking money. It was easy and fun. “I don’t know why my mom and dad complain about going to work,” said Bean as they left Mr. Columbi’s house. “It doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me.”

  “Careful of the car!” yelled Mr. Columbi from his front porch. He was always worried about his car.

  Bean waved and smiled and stuffed Mr. Columbi’s dollar in her pocket.

  “I bet we could make even more money,” said Ivy, looking at Sophie W.’s house.

  “Why? We have ten dollars. That’s enough for two bags of Belldeloon cheese,” Bean pointed out.

  “I guess you’re right,” said Ivy. “We don’t want to get worn out.”

  BAD NEWS

  “I can’t believe that’s what you wanted to buy with your hard-earned money,” said Bean’s dad. “Cheese!”

  Bean and Ivy didn’t answer. They were happy. Each of them had a little red bag of Belldeloon cheese hooked over her wrist. The bags bounced against their legs as they walked across the parking lot. It felt nice.

  “Why do you want cheese?” he asked.

  “We like cheese,” said Bean. There was no reason to tell him about the wax. He wouldn’t understand.

  “Especially lowfat Belldeloon cheese in a special just-for-you serving size,” murmured Ivy, getting into the car.

  They sat quietly in the backseat as Bean’s dad drove them home. They had planned everything out. They were going to wait until they got home to open their bags. They would each eat just one cheese ball that afternoon. Then they would switch off cheese days. Ivy was going to go first. Tomorrow, she would bring a Belldeloon ball to school. The next day, Bean would bring a Belldeloon ball. The cheese-bringer would split her wax with the non-cheese-bringer. Ivy was going to use her half circle of wax to make a tiny voodoo doll. Bean wanted to squish hers in front of Vanessa. For ten days, they were going to drive everyone in Emerson School crazy. It was going to be great.

  “So!” called Bean’s dad from the front seat. “When are you going to start your writing?”

  Ivy and Bean didn’t answer. They were thinking about wax.

  “Girls!”

  “What?” said Bean dreamily.

  “You’re going to start writing when we get home, right?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Stop saying what! Your magazine! You’re going to start writing it today, right?”

  “Magazine?”

  “The magazine! The newspaper!” he yelled. “The one you sold! The Flopping Pancake!”

  “Oh yeah. That,” Bean said. “You don’t have to yell.”

  “Well? Are you going to start today?” He was still yelling a little.

  “After we have some cheese,” said Bean. “Maybe.”

  Bean’s dad pulled into the driveway. He stopped the car and then he turned around to look at Bean and Ivy with narrow eyes. “Before you have some cheese,” he said. “For sure.”

  Dang.

  + + + + + +

  “Okay. We did it. Can we have our cheese?” Bean said, coming into the kitchen with Ivy. “Where’d you hide the bags?”

  Her d
ad looked up from his computer. “Let’s see this newspaper first.”

  Bean handed him a piece of paper. At the top, it said The Flipping Pancake in enormous pink letters. Below that were some other words. Bean’s dad read them out loud. “Everyone on Pancake Court will be happy to know that Ivy and Bean just got Lowfat Belldeloon cheese in a special just-for-you serving size. It costs five dollars a bag. But it’s worth it! Weather today: Cloudy.” He looked up at Bean.

  “See, we did the weather, too. Can we have our cheese?” she asked.

  “Bernice Blue, do you really think this is your best work?” he asked.

  Oooh! Trick question! Grown-ups were sly. If you said No, they got mad. If you said Yes, they got mad. But you had to say something.

  “Yes!” Bean said firmly.

  “I don’t think so,” said her dad. He gave her a serious look.

  Bean tried another way. She made her eyes big. “We did the best we could,” she said in a little voice. Ivy made her eyes big, too, and nodded sadly.

  Her father frowned at her. “I don’t think so,” he said again sternly. “Listen, girls, you promised people news about Pancake Court. You took their money. You have to deliver what you promised. Once you’ve made a real newspaper, with real news, you can have your cheese. Not before.”

  “That’s not fair!” cried Bean.

  “It’s perfectly fair,” he said, frowning some more.

  “How are we supposed to find news about Pancake Court?” Bean squawked. “Nothing ever happens around here.”

  “Nonsense,” her father said. “Hundreds of things are happening all the time on Pancake Court. Your job is to go out there and get the story!” He waved his hands. “Go! Discover! Write!”

  “It’s almost night,” said Bean, stalling.

  “Nice try. It’s afternoon. Get out there!” he said. He sounded very enthusiastic. “Find out what makes Pancake Court tick!”

  “And then we get our cheese?” Ivy asked.

  “Give us news, give us truth, and you will get cheese!” he said, thumping his fist on the kitchen table.

  Bean rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said to Ivy. “Let’s go get the stupid story.”

  RATS! SALAMI! WOW!

  “I thought this was supposed to keep us off the streets,” Bean yelled at the door.

  Her father didn’t answer. He didn’t open the door, either.

  “Sheesh.” Bean and Ivy walked down the front path to the sidewalk. They looked in one direction. Trees and houses. They looked in the other direction. Trees and houses and a cat.

  Ivy sighed and sat down on the sidewalk. “This could take days.”

  “Months,” said Bean. “Years.”

  The cat walked to the middle of Pancake Court and sat down.

  “Cat in Danger?” suggested Ivy. “Is that a story?” She took out her notebook.

  The cat licked its leg.

  “Clean Cat in Danger,” said Bean. She took out her notebook, too.

  The cat stood up, gave them an annoyed look, and crossed the street.

  “Cat Saved?” said Ivy.

  Bean shook her head. “Boring. This is going to be the worst newspaper in the world.”

  “What if they ask for their money back?” Ivy said gloomily.

  “I guess we could give them cheese,” said Bean, even more gloomily.

  “But it’s ours!” said Ivy.

  “Not until we write the ding-dang newspaper,” said Bean.

  They sat some more. Mr. Columbi came out of his house, waved at Ivy and Bean, took a leaf off his car, and went back inside his house.

  “Cleanest Car on the Court?” asked Ivy.

  “That’s not news,” said Bean. “His car is always the cleanest.”

  “Have you ever been in his house?” Ivy asked.

  Bean shook her head.

  “I wonder if it’s as clean as his car,” Ivy said.

  “Bet it’s not,” said Bean. She imagined Mr. Columbi’s house. “I bet it’s really dirty and disgusting. With moldy sandwiches lying on the floor.”

  “And rats in the sofa,” added Ivy.

  “Eeeww!” Bean giggled. “He prob-ably eats food out of his shoes because all his plates are dirty.”

  “There’s never a speck of dirt on his car,” said Ivy, “because he wants everyone to think he’s clean.”

  “His dirty house is his secret,” Bean said.

  “Mr. Columbi’s Dirty Secret,” said Ivy.

  Bean looked at Ivy. “Now that’s news.”

  Ivy smiled. “We’ll have to sneak.”

  “Easy-peasy,” said Bean. “If we get caught, we’ll say my dad made us do it.”

  + + + + + +

  Looking into Mr. Columbi’s house really was easy-peasy. It was Ivy who found the wheelbarrow in the backyard, and it was Bean who found the wooden box next to the garage. Put the box in the wheelbarrow, and ta-da! A perfect view into Mr. Columbi’s living room. Oh look, there was his kitchen, too.

  “No rats in the sofa,” whispered Ivy, holding tight to the windowsill.

  “Maybe they’re inside the pillows,” hissed Bean below.

  “Well, he’s sleeping on the sofa,” Ivy hissed back. “He wouldn’t do that if there were rats, would he?”

  “You never know,” said Bean. “What about moldy sandwiches?”

  “There’s a sandwich,” said Ivy. “It could be moldy.”

  “Is it on the floor or in a shoe?”

  “It’s on a plate,” Ivy said. “But there are crumbs everywhere. And, yuck, there’s a lot of salami on the floor.”

  “Salami?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “What about the kitchen?” asked Bean.

  “I see some plates in the sink,” Ivy reported. “And a jar without a lid. He left his oven door open. That’s kind of dirty, I think.”

  “It’s dirty enough for me,” said Bean. “And he’s probably sleeping on the sofa because his bed is full of rats.” She wrote “Mr. Columbi’s Dirty Secret” in her notebook.

  Ivy climbed down from the box and the wheelbarrow. Her eyes were shining. “So that’s how you get the story,” she said. “This is going to be fun!”

  GUESS THE NAKED BABY

  They figured that Mr. Columbi wouldn’t mind if they borrowed his box. After all, he was fast asleep. Why would he need a box? They carried it over to Dino and Crummy Matt’s house and set it against the wall where they thought the kitchen was. They wanted to see how much food Crummy Matt ate.

  “Think how big he is,” Ivy said. “I bet he eats twenty pounds of food a day.”

  “I bet their shelves are breaking,” said Bean.

  “I bet they have two refrigerators.”

  “Two refrigerators is news for sure,” said Bean, climbing onto the box. Luckily, the kitchen window wasn’t very far off the ground. Unluckily, the box fell over when she stood on it.

  “Ow, ow, OW!” Bean yelled, rolling around in the dirt.

  “Shh!” whispered Ivy. “They’ll hear us!” She sat on top of Bean and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “MMMMMMM!” Bean yelled inside Ivy’s hand.

  Suddenly Dino’s head poked out the kitchen window. “Whatcha doing?” he asked.

  “Bean fell off the box,” Ivy explained.

  “Look at my elbow!” yelled Bean. There was blood. Not much. But some.

  Dino looked at the box. “Were you looking in our window?” he asked.

  “Yes!” said Bean. She kicked the box.

  Ivy nudged her warningly, but it was too late.

  “Why were you looking in our window?” asked Dino.

  Bean and Ivy glanced at each other. Should they lie? No, and Bean couldn’t think of one anyway. She sighed. “We’re making a newspaper.”

  “We thought your kitchen would make a great story,” said Ivy.

  Dino looked at her slitty-eyed. “Why?”

  Ivy cleared her throat. How could she say this politely? “Because of M
att.”

  “What about him?” said Dino suspiciously.

  “Um. You know. How big he is.” Ivy made a circle with her arms.

  “What?” Dino looked confused.

  “We were going to write a story about how much food he eats,” said Bean. “We thought it might be interesting. That’s why we wanted to look in your kitchen.”

  “It’s not interesting,” said Dino. “Matt’s big because he’s a mutant.”

  “Bummer,” Ivy said.

  “We thought he must eat a lot,” said Bean.

  “Well, he doesn’t. He’s boring. He’s a boring mutant doofus.”

  Ivy and Bean looked at each other and shook their heads. “No story.” They stood. “I guess we should try Sophie’s house,” said Bean. She was discouraged.

  “Wait!” called Dino. They looked up at him. He was smiling. “I’ve got a great story for you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a picture, really. Does your newspaper have pictures?”

  Bean shrugged. “Sure. Pictures are good.” Anything that filled up paper was good.

  Dino laughed. “I’ll go upstairs and get it. It’s on my mom’s dresser.”

  + + + + + +

  “We can call it Guess the Naked Baby,” said Bean, looking at the picture.

  Ivy started laughing. Again. “But everyone will already know it’s Crummy Matt. It looks just like him.”

  “Except he’s naked!” Bean yelped. A laugh came out her nose. Again.

  They were both laughing so hard they had to sit down on the curb to recover. They had already had to sit down on the curb three times. One time, Bean had laughed so hard she fell into the gutter.