Ivy and Bean One Big Happy Family

by Annie Barrows

  “Stop doing whatever you’re doing, Bean,” called their mom from another room.

  “Okay!” yelled Bean. What a good kid she was! She was so good, she decided to help Nancy. “You know, that doesn’t look anything like a dog,” Bean said helpfully. “I think you’re doing it wrong. Here’s a dog.” She got on her hands and knees and panted. “A-yerp! A-yerp, yerp, yerp!”

  Nancy fell over again. “STOP MESSING ME UP! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  Bean stopped barking. “I thought yoga was supposed to make you calm.”

  “MO-OMM!” bellowed Nancy. She rushed out of the room.

  Sheesh. Bean rolled onto Nancy’s yoga mat and lay there. At least someone around here was calm.

  “Bean!” There was Bean’s mom. She seemed to be frowning. “If you can’t leave Nancy alone, you’ll have to go outside until she’s done.” She glared some more. “Can you leave Nancy alone?”

  A trick question if Bean had ever heard one. “It’s my house, too,” she began.

  “Out you go!” said her mom, pointing to the backyard.

  “What?” yelped Bean. “I was helping Nancy. And I was here first!”

  “Outside, Bean,” said her mother, still pointing.

  “You guys are ganging up on me! Two against one! It’s not fair!” huffed Bean.

  “Who said life was fair?” asked Bean’s mom.

  “Blame it on Bean!” huffed Bean. “That’s the motto of this family!” She thumped down on the back steps. “There I am, lying on the floor, minding my own business, and all of a sudden, Nancy comes in, and bing bang bong, Bean’s a criminal!” Bean turned toward the house and yelled (but not very loud), “Just because she’s older doesn’t make her right!” Then she slapped the step with her hand—ow!—and wished for the millionth time that she wasn’t a little sister.

  “Bean! Are you there?” It was Ivy, on the other side of the fence.

  “Ivy! Come on in, old buddy, old pal!” yelled Bean. Just in the nick of time! A friend!

  Ivy came charging through the gate. “I’ve got it! The cure!”

  “For what?” asked Bean.

  “For being spoiled! What do you think?” Ivy said.

  “Oh, sorry. I forgot,” said Bean.

  “Jeez. If you were spoiled, I wouldn’t forget,” said Ivy. “I spent the whole morning working on it. At first, the only thing I could think of was giving you all my toys—”

  “Really?” interrupted Bean. “Even the jiggly man?” The jiggly man was Ivy’s best toy. He was a little gummy blue guy that you threw at the wall. He stuck there for a second and then he somersaulted—bloop, bloop, bloop—down the wall, leaving greasy marks where he had been. Bean loved him.

  “Sure, the jiggly man!” Ivy said. “Everything!”

  “Sounds good,” said Bean. “I’ll take ’em!”

  “But then I thought, No, I’d get in trouble if I did that, just like I got in trouble for giving away my clothes.”

  “Oh.” Bean was disappointed. “What if you only gave me the jiggly man?”

  “No, because then I got a better idea.” Ivy’s eyes were shining. “Remember how Vanessa said that being an only child makes you spoiled? Remember?”

  “Yeah,” said Bean slowly, “but I don’t think she’s right about that.”

  Ivy ignored her. “So the cure is simple! All I have to do to get unspoiled is stop being an only child! I have to get a sister!”

  THE ROAD TO DISASTERVILLE

  Bean tried to warn her. Sisters were no good. They tattled on you if you did the tiniest thing a little bit wrong, and then you had to go sit outside. They bossed you. They got mad if you took one measly glass animal out of their rooms. They laughed at you. They completely freaked out about small problems, even if you were just about to clean them up. They told you your drawings were weird looking, your hair smelled, and there was a big scary secret that no one would ever tell you, not in a million years. And then they smiled at you in a grown-uppy way, just to remind you that they knew it and you didn’t. All day long, sisters did that. And then, right before bed, they said, “I was just kidding.”

  Ivy said that was older sisters. Younger sisters weren’t like that. Younger sisters were perfectly okay. Especially very small ones. A baby sister, for instance, would be only half as annoying as Nancy, maybe even less. Just annoying enough to keep Ivy from getting spoiled. A baby sister was what she needed.

  “Trust me, you don’t,” said Bean.

  “I do!” said Ivy.

  Bean shook her head. “Next stop, Disasterville.”

  But Ivy was already zipping toward the gate. She stopped and looked back at Bean. “Come on!” she said. “Let’s go tell my mom.”

  “Tell her what?” said Bean, getting up.

  “Tell her to have a baby.”

  Wow. Bean didn’t know how that was going to work, but she was interested to find out. Once she was at Ivy’s house, though, she decided it would be more polite to wait in Ivy’s room during the telling part.

  It didn’t take very long. Three minutes, maybe.

  “What did she say?” asked Bean.

  “She said HA!” Ivy answered, flopping down on her bed. “And then she sang a song about the old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be. And then she said Absolutely not, no with a capital N.”

  “Sounds like she means it,” said Bean. “You’d better just give me the jiggly man.”

  “No,” said Ivy. “I’m going to brainstorm.” Ms. Aruba-Tate was nuts about brainstorming. She was always doing it. When she brainstormed, Ms. Aruba-Tate wrote down words and drew circles around them with her big purple pen. She called this an Idea Map. Bean didn’t really get why brainstorming was different than regular thinking, so she just watched while Ivy brainstormed. First, Ivy slid to the floor. Then, she put her hands over her eyes. After that, she rolled around and grunted.

  It wasn’t very interesting, watching Ivy brainstorm. Bean wandered over to Ivy’s doll tenement. Ivy’s room was divided into five little sections. There was an art studio, a sleeping area, a living room, a magic lab, and a doll tenement, where all of Ivy’s dolls lived. Ivy had scads of dolls. She had regular plastic dolls, china dolls dressed like old-fashioned girls, dolls in fancy costumes, wooden dolls, stuffed dolls, Barbies, and even a rock in a nightgown. Bean poked around, looking for the jiggly man.

  Ivy stopped rolling around the floor and put her feet up on the wall. That way the blood would slosh to her brain and make it storm.

  Bean lifted the rock. No jiggly man. She peeked inside a doll-bed. “Ew,” she said. “This one’s gross.” She held up a doll by its foot.

  Ivy glanced up from the floor. “That’s Zellaphine. She’s supposed to look like a real baby.”

  She did. Zellaphine had blobby arms and legs. She had droopy fat cheeks and shiny drooly lips. In between her drooly lips, there was a little hole where you were supposed to stick a bottle. On her bald head was a pink knitted cap and on her squishy bottom was a big diaper. She gave Bean the creeps. “Let’s bury her alive.”

  Ivy giggled. “Okay. When I’m done brainstorming.”

  “Well, hurry up,” said Bean.

  Ivy tried. How can I get a sister, she asked herself.

  How? How? She bugged her eyes out at the electrical outlet on her wall. Suddenly, her brain stormed. “Hey!” she said. “Electricity!”

  “What about it?” said Bean. She waved Zellaphine. “Come on, let’s bury her.”

  “No,” said Ivy. “Let’s put some electricity in her and make her come to life.”

  Ivy had seen it in a movie. “There was this guy who made a giant robot, and then he struck it with lightning, and it sat up,” Ivy explained. “That’s what we’re going to do with Zellaphine.”

  Bean looked at Zellaphine’s drooly lips and imagined her alive. Yuck. “Where are we going to get the lightning?”

  “The guy in the movie had to use lightning because it was a long time ago and that was the only electricity he c
ould get,” Ivy said. “But now we have plugs.” She pointed to the outlet. “We’ll plug her in and charge her up.”

  Bean had a feeling it wouldn’t work, but if it did, Ivy was going to be in big trouble. “You’re going to have to change her diapers, you know.”

  “No way,” said Ivy. “That’s a mom-thing.”

  “You should ask your mom first, then.”

  Ivy went downstairs to talk to her mom and came back a few minutes later, holding a plug. “My mom says that if I make Zellaphine come alive with electricity, she will be happy to change her diapers because she supports scientific progress. She even gave me her phone plug for the charging.”

  One end of Ivy’s mom’s plug was a regular plug, but the other end was shaped like a tiny straw. It was easy to jam it into the hole where Zellaphine’s bottle was supposed to go. Bean had wanted to stick it right into the top of Zellaphine’s head, but Ivy thought it would be mean to make Zellaphine come alive with a hole in the top of her head. “See? I’m getting less spoiled already!” she said.

  In the movie, the robot came to life on a special table, so Ivy and Bean laid Zellaphine out on the table in Ivy’s magic lab. The table was covered with tinfoil, so that it looked like a real lab table. Also so that it wouldn’t get ruined when glop spilled on it.

  Zellaphine’s eyes closed when they laid her down. With her closed eyes and her drooly lips and her droopy cheeks, she looked like a real sleeping baby. A real sleeping baby with a plug in her mouth.

  “We should put a blanket on her,” said Bean. “Babies always have blankets.”

  They covered her with a blanket. Okay. Now they were ready. They decided to plug the other end of the cord into the electrical outlet together, so if Zellaphine did come to life, they would both be famous. Together, they crouched by the outlet. Together, they held the plug. Together, they said, “One.”

  “Two.”

  “Three.”

  “Plug!”

  IN A PIGGLE

  “I think I saw her arm move!” said Bean. Really, she hadn’t seen anything, but pretending made life more interesting.

  “I think I saw her breathe!” said Ivy. She made binoculars with her fingers and peered at Zellaphine. “The blanket’s going up and down!”

  “Waah,” said Bean quietly out of the side of her mouth.

  “That was you,” Ivy giggled. Bean tiptoed closer. Zellaphine lay like a blob on the tinfoil table. Her lips were still drooly. Her cheeks were still droopy. She wasn’t moving.

  “Maybe she’s stunned,” said Bean.

  “Maybe,” said Ivy. She looked at Zellaphine a moment and then she bonked her on the head. “Wake up, sister!”

  “She’ll thank us in the end!” Bean said. She picked Zellaphine up and dropped her on the floor. “Wake up, baby!”

  They threw Zellaphine around the room a little, but she didn’t come to life. She was still a doll.

  Bean thought it had been fun trying, but Ivy was worried. “I can feel myself getting more spoiled,” she said.

  “All you have to do is give me the jiggly man,” said Bean. “Then you’ll be cured.”

  Ivy shook her head. “No. I won’t. That’s how spoiled I am. I won’t give you the only toy you want. I won’t even let you play with it.”

  “Aw, come on!” Suddenly, Bean wanted the jiggly man with all her heart. “Don’t be so spoiled.”

  “See what I mean?” said Ivy. She chewed her thumb knuckle, which was a thing she did when she was worried. “I’ve got to get a sister.”

  “Let’s try brain food,” Bean suggested. Brain food was one of Bean and Ivy’s greatest inventions. Everyone knows that food helps your brain think. But normal food just helps your brain think normal thoughts. When Ivy and Bean wanted to think un-normal thoughts, they ate un-normal food. That’s why they called it brain food.

  In the kitchen, Ivy got out carrot sticks and chocolate milk powder. One of the things that Bean liked best about Ivy’s house was chocolate milk powder. They each rolled a carrot in chocolate milk powder and chomped it down. “Dee-licious!” said Bean.

  The second one wasn’t quite as delicious. The third one was pretty bad.

  “I think we need to try something else, anyway,” said Ivy. “My thoughts are still normal.” She rooted around in the refrigerator and found some pickles.

  “That’s good,” Bean said. “Pickles are shaped like brains.”

  Slowly, Ivy peeled two bananas. She took a pickle in one hand and a banana in the other. So did Bean. “Go,” said Ivy. She stuffed some banana in her mouth and took a bite of pickle. “Mm,” she said, but she shivered when she said it.

  Bean did it the other way around. She chomped off a big piece of pickle and shoved some banana in after it. “Wg,” she said, swallowing.

  Ivy’s face shriveled as she took another bite of pickle.

  “I think I’m starting to have un-normal thoughts,” said Bean. She took a deep breath and ate half a banana.

  “Puppapiginnere,” said Ivy, which meant, Put a pickle in there. Her mouth was full.

  Bean took a little bite of pickle. “Buh,” she said.

  Ivy’s mom came into the kitchen. “What are you eating?” she asked.

  “Pigglenana,” said Ivy, shivering. She swallowed hard.

  “Pickles and bananas,” explained Bean. “It’s helping us think un-normal thoughts.”

  “You two have plenty of un-normal thoughts already,” said Ivy’s mom.

  “No,” said Ivy. “We haven’t even had one yet. I’m going to eat ten more and see what happens.”

  “I don’t want to see what happens,” said Ivy’s mom sternly. “You may have one more.”

  “That’s not going to be enough,” said Ivy. She reached into the jar and pulled out the biggest pickle she could find. It was some pickle. It really looked like a brain. Ivy opened her mouth. But she didn’t put the pickle in it.

  “Eat up,” said Bean, passing her a banana.

  “Wait. I’m reading this pickle jar,” said Ivy. And she was. She read it very slowly. On the front, it said “Barney’s Extra Sour Dills, Pickles of the Gods.” Then there was a picture of a lot of gods, sitting on a cloud, eating pickles. The most important god had a little balloon of words coming out of his mouth. “This is one fine pickle!”

  “Just yam it down,” said Bean. “Don’t think about it.”

  Ivy put the pickle and the banana down. “I don’t need to eat it. I just got a great idea.”

  “Good, because I feel gross,” said Bean. The only thing brain food was making her think about was bananas. “What is it?”

  Ivy couldn’t wink, but she could cross her eyes big-time. She crossed her eyes at Bean, which meant, I can’t tell you in front of my mom. “Let’s go outside,” she suggested. “With Zellaphine.”

  Ivy waited until they were in the front yard before she turned to Bean and whispered, “We need to beg the gods for a baby!”

  ASKING FOR TROUBLE

  Begging the gods for a baby turned out to be complicated. First, you had to find a spot with grass but without trees. If the gods dropped a baby out of the sky, you didn’t want the baby getting stuck in a tree.

  Ivy’s backyard had too many rocks. Her front yard had too many scratchy bushes. Bean’s front yard had trees. Her backyard? No way. A baby could get hurt on all the stuff in Bean’s backyard.

  In the end, they decided to go to Monkey Park, a block and a half from Pancake Court. Now that Ivy and Bean were seven and nine-twelfths, they could go to Monkey Park by themselves, as long as they followed five million rules when they did it.

  In Monkey Park were one big flat field and one not-so-flat field. Usually, the flat field was covered with soccer-playing kids, but now, in the middle of the afternoon, there were only a few kids there, kicking balls around. Which made it a perfect place to ask the gods for a baby. They could drop her anywhere and that baby would be fine.

  “Okay,” said Ivy, slapping her hands together. “The
first thing we need to do is make a big circle of flowers.”

  “How do you know?” asked Bean.

  “I’ve done this before,” Ivy said. “I begged the gods for a kitten.”

  “Did it work?”

  Ivy frowned. “Sort of. I got a stuffed kitten.”

  So it didn’t work, Bean thought. But she didn’t say that because she didn’t want to be a discouraging friend. Instead, she said, “We can’t pick any flowers. They belong to Monkey Park.”

  “I know. We have to go around and find flowers that have already fallen on the ground.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Bean looked at the grass. There weren’t any flowers. “I’ll go look near the fountain.”

  The fountain was the reason Monkey Park was called Monkey Park. In the middle of the fountain, there was a statue of a smiling monkey in a shiny blue suit, holding a plate of grapes and oranges. Water spurted out of his hat. As Bean walked around the fountain looking under bushes, she saw her neighbors, Jean the boy and Jean the girl, and their baby, Kalia. They were having a picnic.

  “Hi, Bean!” called Jean the girl. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Looking for dead flowers,” said Bean. She found a petal and picked it up.

  “You want some lunch?” asked Jean the boy. “We have pâté.”

  Pâté? Bean didn’t know what it was, but it sounded terrible. Even worse than bananas and pickles. Bean didn’t say that. She said, “Thanks, but I already had lunch a while ago.”

  Jean the boy looked grumpy. “We were supposed to have lunch a while ago, but somebody needed a nap.” He squinted at Kalia, who had brown goop smeared all over her face.