Ivy and Bean Take the Case (6 page)

“I don't know what you're talking about!” yelled Mrs. Trantz. “I don't have rope! Go home!”

Bean knew how to drive Mrs. Trantz around the bend. She stepped right up beside her and smiled with all her teeth. “Great! Thanks, Mrs. Trantz!” Mrs. Trantz took a step back, and Bean followed, still smiling. She put up her arms like she was about to give her a big hug. Mrs. Trantz squeaked and scuttled back inside her house.

“Go!” she shouted. “Go along!” She waved her hands to dust them away.

+ + + + + +

Back in the P. I. office, they agreed that no one had lied. No one looked to one side, covered their mouths, or pulled their ears. Eleanor-who-lived-in-the-blue-house hadn't really answered, but she hadn't acted like she owned the rope, either. They decided that the rope didn't belong to anyone on Pancake Court. There were no suspects.

Bean rubbed her face.

Dino and Ruby and Trevor and Prairie and Sophie S. watched her in a worried way. “So what are you going to do next?” asked Sophie S.

Bean leaned back in her chair. Whoops! That was the broken part. She sat up. “I'm going to do some hard thinking,” she said. Al Seven had said the same thing when he was sitting in his car.

“Thinking about
what
?” asked Prairie.

“Secret,” said Bean. She straightened her papers. “Tomorrow morning, I will reveal my plan.”

They all nodded in a worried way, and then they went home, very quietly, except Ivy.

Bean spun in her chair. She slammed her phone down a few times.

“Do you have a plan?” asked Ivy.

“Sure!” said Bean. She spun around a few more times. They believed her. She was the P. I. of Pancake Court, just like she had wanted to be. Dino and Sophie S. and Ruby and Trevor and Prairie were all expecting her to catch Mr. Whoever-tied-the-yellow-rope. They were going to be mad if she didn't. “I sort of have a plan,” she said. “A little bit.”

Ivy twiddled her hair. “What would Al Seven do?”

“He'd sit in his car.”

“You think your dad would let you sit in his car?” Ivy asked.

Bean sighed. “Probably not.” When Bean was a little kid, she had locked herself in her dad's car and honked the horn. For a long time. Ever since then, she wasn't allowed to
sit in the car by herself. “I don't think it would do any good anyway,” she said. “It isn't sitting in the car that solves Al's cases. It's thinking.”

Ivy nodded. “Okay.” She watched Bean think.

Bean thought. The more she thought, the more she didn't know who had tied the yellow rope. How did Al Seven do it?

“Maybe it'll come to you in a dream,” said Ivy. “Sometimes that happens in books.”

“Maybe,” said Bean.

“You'd better go to bed early,” said Ivy.

The next morning, Bean began to do the regular things—yawn, splash, stumble—and then she remembered the rope. Quickly she zipped out onto her front porch to take a look.

The mysterious rope-tyer had come again! The yellow rope stretched like a bright snake beyond Ivy's stairs and up Mr. Columbi's driveway, wrapped once around his garbage can, trailed across his weed collection, and moved on to Ruby and Trevor's house, where it wound in and out of their experimental bean plants and finally came to an end at the far edge of their grass.

When she saw it, Bean's heart started to thump. It grew! It was still happening! Pancake Court was a place of mystery!

Then she remembered Dino's worried face, and Sophie S.'s and Prairie's and Trevor's and Ruby's. She thought, I'm supposed to solve this mystery.

And then: How the heck am I going to do that?

She went back inside. The rest of the regular things—cereal, banana, where's my backpack, someone took it, oh here it is—didn't seem regular.

“You look tired, sweetie,” said her mom. “Did you get enough sleep?”

“Hardly any,” said Bean. This wasn't exactly true, but it was nice when her mom worried about her.

“She slept, Mom. She was snoring her head off when I went to bed last night,” said Nancy.

“I was up half the night,” said Bean. She drooped tiredly. She was about to say that she was so tired she should stay home from school, when suddenly she got the idea she'd been waiting for: the perfect plan, like something Al Seven himself might have thought up. She smiled at Nancy.

“Stop smiling at me,” said Nancy grumpily.

“Sure thing, pal.”

+ + + + + +

“It's in
our
yard now,” said Ruby. She was chewing on her hair.

“In our
beans
,” added Trevor.

“It's wrapped around Mr. Columbi's garbage can,” said Dino. He looked over his shoulder and whispered, “You think it could be a zombie?”

“Or a werewolf?” said Sophie S.

They all looked at Bean with worried faces. She smiled toughly. “Don't be stooges,” she said. “Zombies don't carry ropes. And werewolves can't tie knots. They have paws.” She tried to talk without moving her lips. “And you should stop worrying about it, because I've got a plan. A good plan. Maybe even a great plan.”

“What?” said Dino.

“She said she has a plan,” Ivy explained. “A good plan, maybe even a great plan.”

“Tell it,” said Ruby. Trevor and Prairie and Sophie S. nodded.

Bean looked around at their scared faces. It was her job to make them feel better. “Okay. Here's my plan. Mr. Whoever-tied-the-rope comes in the night, right?” They nodded. “So tonight, I'm going to get up in the middle of the night and wait for him. When he comes out to tie the rope, I'll nab him!”

“What does that mean,
nab
?” asked Trevor.

“Um, get him,” Bean said. “Grab him.”

“What if he's big and mean?” asked Sophie worriedly.

Yikes, Bean thought. What if he
is
big and mean?

“I know,” said Ivy. “Just take a picture of him. That way you don't have to get close to him. You can take a picture and then run back inside and lock the door.”

“Good idea,” said Bean. “I'll take a picture of him.”